Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success.
Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I am Sheila Slick,
your host, and today my special guest is Rachel Anderson. Rachel is a keynote speaker, a leadership
coach, and owner of Pivot Studios. She has worked with a variety of businesses globally, from
Fortune 500 companies to startups. As a fractional CMO, she helps organizations with their marketing
strategies while partnering with leaders to create human-centric teams that delivers big results.
Welcome to the show, Rachel.
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, Sheila.
So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to be the owner of Pivot Studios? What was
that moment that led you to do what you do today?
So I started Pivot Studios back in 2016, and I knew at that point that after working in technology
for a while, doing a lot of communication and PR, my heart was more towards the marketing world.
And I was lucky enough that in a lot of those roles, what I was doing was pretty much marketing,
but for an internal audience, so for the employees of the businesses and kind of the audiences I
served there. And so as I started Pivot Studios, I initially started thinking about how I can serve
basic marketing functions to other organizations that might benefit from things like change
management, communication strategies, marketing strategies, and higher campaign level kind of
organizations or sprints. And as things started to develop, two interesting things occurred.
One was that I had to try and start Pivot Studios as a full-time thing three times since 2016,
because every time a client would poach me away and I'd get really excited about someone else's
vision, and I would go work for another full-time company. But the other thing is that as I started
to really develop in marketing and rise through the proverbial ranks of marketing within large
organizations, I became a manager. And as a manager, I felt like this was just the place I was
meant to be. I've always deeply cared about the individual story and making sure that the
environment with which people work is a place that they can enjoy. This idea that we all have
value to bring to the table in a working organization sometimes gets lost. And from a
young, young age, I was part of a leadership group that taught you all kinds of leadership skills.
It was specifically aimed at women, which is kind of funny now looking back, because they even taught
you things like Robert's Rules of Order, which is just really not dogmatic, but specific step-by-step
guides for first you read the minutes, and then you do new business, and then you do old business.
So just a very different way that business functions now that this was completely different
20-ish years ago. So anyway, as I'm a manager, I'm really seeing this conflict arise between
businesses and the ideas and the goals that they have, and managers and the way that they're now
managing teams. And so a few years ago, I got the opportunity to really separate these two ideas and
start thinking about them holistically as things I can offer into the world. And that's really how
I started my human-centric leadership part of Pivot Studios, where I now coach leaders and help
organizations and teams to figure out how they can approach their big audacious goals, while still
holding on to the human-centric approach. And so now I have my, I am successfully full-time at
Pivot Studios and have been for several years, but I have my marketing consultation where I get to
be a fractional executive as a CMO for organizations, letting them figure out how to do great and
successful marketing strategies, organizational processes or organizational development and
process improvements. And I also get to help them redefine their cultures and give their managers
the tools they need to really build thriving teams.
I love that. And it's change management like Pivot Studios. You're practicing the very same
thing that you branded yourself originally. So I love that.
So you help organizations build human-centric teams to develop three key skills and behaviors
that can change the course of teams and keeps the talent inspired and productive. Can you tell me a
little bit more about that?
Yeah, absolutely. So the first key thing is a mindset shift for leaders. As we look back over
the course of time, as it has meant to be a leader within a business context, things have evolved
significantly. If you think back to the industrial revolution, so many of what we still do today was
weirdly founded then in the 1700s. And the idea of how you became a leader was that you were simply
smarter than everyone else, which now we know is an absurd thing to think. But that's what they
thought back then. And so even just that mentality over time has dramatically shifted, as well as the
way that we work. Even 50 years ago, if you were physically in a building, then you were seeing to
be productive at your job because you were physically present. And in fact, you couldn't do
your job if you were remote. You had to be physically present to be able to do your job.
And so even just the structure and environment with which we work has really changed. And so as
leaders, the first thing is to sort of think about how we still use the structures of old working
behaviors and assumptions in a modern working environment, and how much AI and AI is still
working. And so with that mindset, there's a parallel path of what it feels like as the employee
to be there in this contradictory structure. And so one of the things that I think is important is
data and statistics as you talk about these kinds of conversations, because it's one thing to have
ideas or gut feelings that these are true for you, or even you and your co-worker bestie as you talk
about what it's like to work with this particular company. But a recent study talked about how
highly engaged employees have 21% higher productivity than disengaged employees. And
that also means it's 21% higher profitability for the company. Along with that, they said that
managers are one of the top reasons that employees leave, which has been a long statistic. So that's
not necessarily new. But the number one reason employees will stay is if they believe that a
manager cares about their well-being. And so it's an interesting mind shift to kind of look at these
things and say, the way we work has changed, the way that we think about and consume the idea of
leadership has changed, what employees want out of a working environment has changed. And how do we
get all these things on the same page kind of reconciled them together to do what's best for
the business as well as the individual. And so that's really the first piece is having this
mindset shift. And then as part of deciding we want to achieve these big goals. And the second
thing I would say is that you need to look at the numbers for what it means in profit lost for you
to not prioritize human centric leadership. So I will condense down a really long version of
statistics and data. And we can talk about this if you're interested. But when you look at an
average size company in the US, which is about 100 people, and a national average salary, which
is going to be semi-controversial because there's so many different industries, which mean a lot of
different things. But the Black Store statistics has about 63k a year as the national average.
If you look at those two statistics and start applying percentages and data and numbers to
the people that are leaving, a business of that size will lose approximately $1.2 million every
year, replacing employees who left. So that's not even growth. That's not hiring new people that
they're bringing in. That's just simply the cost of someone not feeling valued, having burnout,
changing jobs because of a manager issue or an organizational function issue that you could
prevent. Even if you prevented half of all of those people from leaving, you would add half a
million dollars to your revenue every single year, which is extraordinary when businesses and
executives think about what are ways that we can increase our profit margin. So by not thinking
that leading your teams in a human centric approach matters can really have a negative monetary
effect on your overall business. And so the third thing I would say is that from there, there are
simple practical things that you can start doing today. It doesn't even have to be a long process
that helps your managers have the tools they need to be human centric leaders. And that's things like
teaching them actually what it means to be a manager since that function has changed so much
over time. It's teaching them conflict resolution skills so that anytime there's an interpersonal
conflict, they are equipped with how to help resolve that so that employees feel cared for
and can be developed. It's giving them the ability to mentor others. It's allowing managers and leaders
the space to really be as productive as they are restful, which I love to call creative margin,
giving them creative margins so that they can replenish and come back full. So there's a lot
of things kind of jammed all into those three big points, but it would really be about changing
mindset, understanding the cost of not doing it, and then looking at the practical ways you can
implement it every day. So now this is from the organization's perspective. So let's talk about
the managerial because those are the people who you would help through a course or a workshop,
if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that's right. What advice can you offer a young professional or a manager
so they can better understand how they can contribute to their specific organization?
So I think there'd be slightly different things for both. If you're currently a manager,
I would, well, first of all, you hit it on the head, Sheila, from my change management days.
It is very well known that middle management is actually the most powerful make or break person
in an entire organization. So I'm just going to talk to them for a second. So you have extraordinary
power and your macro culture, the culture of the society you reside in or the organization with
which you work will define certain things for you, but micro culture is yours to own and develop.
And so the micro culture that you develop, what you say is valuable, what you do,
the behaviors you bring to the table, the modeling that you do for your team, all of those things
will define what your team actually does and what they actually care about. And you have way more
power to control that than you think you do, even if the macro organization is not ideal to whatever
your preference is. And so you should look for the ways that you can really control that and what
things you can put into place in order to make it into what you want the team to feel like, function
like, perform as. And that's one thing that I do a lot with managers is help coach them through that,
help them figure out how to do that, where are the opportunities, even helping them define what do I
even want to do or be as a manager. For young professionals, I would tell them that it is
never too soon to start learning the tips and tricks of how to be a successful manager,
because it also helps you as an individual contributor, which is typically what we call
it in tech industry and kind of in private business. And so one, if you could take anything away
as a young person trying to figure out how to really excel in their career, if I can give them
advice of any one skill to perfect, it would be conflict resolution. Learn how to be comfortable
with the discomfort of resolving those interpersonal relationships. And we also have a lot of information
about that. I have an entire like one hour lesson on basically what is it, how do I manage it,
how do I get tools, do I not be scared of it, because it is not a popular thing in our society
to really learn how to broker that. But it's so important. And sometimes we'll say these are the
skills that they didn't teach me at school, right? Like, right, it's either through experience. So if
you are able to find a coach or find a workshop, it's very valuable because it'll save you that much
time and frustration. So what is your next milestone? My next milestone is all about
really being able to emphasize human centric teams as a primary part of who I am as an
individual and what I want my professional path to be. And so I have officially separated my two
offerings so that it's not just executives and organizations who can benefit from human centric
leadership, ideas and training as part of pivot studios. I now also have the human centric leader
dot com so that anybody, an individual contributor, a manager, an HR professional can see and
experience and learn how to really take that human centric approach, which I'm very excited
about. So as part of that, we have coaching courses, all kinds of free stuff that you can look at.
We're also trying the whole social media thing so that we can try and reach the right kinds of
people that would be interested and engaged with us. But it's really exciting. It's something that
I think could really change the lives of so many people at work. Who's your target audience and how
can they find you? My ideal person to work with is going to be kind of twofold. So I still love
working with organizations. There's nothing like seeing a trickle down effect really start to
change an entire group of people. And so I really recommend that they contact me for trainings or
lunch and learns or extra information on how it really best fits them. And I'm also looking for
individuals who think that it can make a huge difference to lead a team based on a human
centric approach and that believe that there is money to be made being able to do that. Because
let's be honest, this is business. We want to make money, right? And that's not a bad thing. So
there is a case to be made for this and there is a way to be successful doing this. So if you're
an individual, I would look for people that are open to learn and excited about this potential.
And all of them can find me either at pivot studios dot com or excuse me, make a pivot dot com,
which is my pivot studios brand. Or they can contact me through the human centric leader dot
com. And today I actually have a giveaway for anybody that's listening and they want to kind
of dip their toe in and just see, but they don't want to commit to anything. They can go to the
human centric leader dot com back slash giveaway and they can get a free guide for managers.
Can you see what that is as well as the twenty dollar offer the course that we're launching
about human centric leadership. I'll make sure to put that URL in the description. Well,
you're very passionate about it. It's contagious. It is. I mean, I, I am very passionate and I hope
people get some papers for it. So I'm glad to hear it. Yes. So before we wrap this up,
what one key piece of advice can you share to any senior leader on how to manage significant change?
The thing that I would impart primarily and most ardently is that they have a responsibility to
their entire organization to provide information and embrace change. And I know a lot of senior
leaders who get nervous about not having information in the time that people demand it or maybe it's not
flattering information, even from an organization perspective, like we didn't hit our goals or
there's some other thing that that makes them not want to be fully transparent. But it's my experience
that if you do not own the narrative, somebody else will. It's not that there will be a lack of
information. It just will not be the information you want to give people. And I have seen incredible
things happen when senior leaders come to the table and say, you know what, I just, I don't have all
the answers, but we're going to sit here together. We're going to answer what we can. We're going to
make a plan to be uncomfortable together. But the commitment is authenticity and honesty. And from
that incredible things can happen. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Rachel. Well,
thank you, Sheila. It was so much fun to be here. And thank you all for joining us on another
episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.