or and our last segment we talked about you know which may be controversial but women over fifty mind body spirit how that shows up for us and how we work through some of the challenges and issues with that this particular is really going to be focused a little bit more on the corporate landscape and how as women business leaders we show up and how we work through some of the challenges and issues i think we're going to start in the exact same place in terms of it doesn't matter whether where it work or were it home and we're dealing with family issues or whether we're dealing with a tough project it still comes back to centering ourselves right so for people that might not have seen the last show get we talk a little bit about your practice so pretty much in addition to my role at ally as a director of talent i've been years working with people in cultures in addition now i work with individuals leaders people of all backgrounds who are just kind of really looking to bring balance to their life and some of their biggest problems are trying to balance career with practical life and then all the other things in between so kind of glad that we're having this conversation today because i think that we can have a fruitful discussion on some of the things i've seen what shows up in the workplace on the projects in the companies and kind of get people of pretty good perspective on what it looks like out there and to let them know that they're not alone we're all going through it right right right yeah donna and i yesterday we were kind of talking about the second segment of the show we were kind of talking about change management you know behind the walls of america  some of america's largest companies the man behind the curtain yes the work that we do brings us to a place in an organization that's very different right yes we're working with leaders in sometimes very high profile large scale change initiatives that are very impactful to the organization and like anything else the are dealing with their own response to some of these large changes and then they have to think about home i'm going to leave the organization through this so it's a process it is i think an under appreciated area you know as we do so we have we've been working allies been working in this space for the for the last twelve years prior to that in my last term i was working in the syria as well and i was very committed to the fact that this is this is an area that people are not paying attention to we're spending a lot of time on training people but unfortunately we're spending half the time in those really wonderfully crafted training programs talking with people and coaching people on whether or not the reason prepared to be there right now what impacts their job you know how is the showing up for me the fear the worries anxiety how is this going to really affect my job at the end of the  day and we were like ok wait a minute time out there's a better way you know we need to start earlier we need to start talking with people preparing them working with leaders so they can do that within their organizations there's a little history on kind of how we got here  something that i feel like we talk about often is and what we were talking about yesterday is how this you know how this shows of i think most of this specially for women leaders just because of some of the challenges that we were talking about donna you have worked in very large organizations talk a little bit about that background and experience i mean we're working on another very large scale project right now which is takes a lot of time and time and energy talk to me about some of the things that you've seen either in your other organizations are coming into where we are right now so i think some of the initial challenges people have with even the concept of change management is that it's really a soft side of the business and any kind of implementation any kind of change to an organization and i think generally people have difficulty getting their arms around soft they totally understand what it means to you know change in accounting general ledger code from a to b or they understand tactically when things need to get done but they don't understand what this is and what we do and so a lot of the challenges that we uncover with this is that you need to get into peak people's minds a little bit more and you need to have them kind of bring those barriers down so that they're willing to really hear you or listen and truly internalize what it is that you're saying yeah because if they don't then they're just going to you know trying to it they don't like to it and they just consider change management in business says oh ok this is another textbook concept that doesn't apply to me doesn't apply to anyone well they couldn't be more wrong right because it applies to everyone and whether you're doing a small change or a law change you need some type of some type of structure around how you're going to implement and affect that change and that's been some of the challenges you know whether it be you know some past organizations that i worked at and even the organization that i'm in at this point yeah where they some get it and those that get it oh my gosh they can't talk enough about writing right now they're so entered they're so happy and just so engaged in what it is that we bring to the table and then there are other people that are very aloof standoffish we constantly have to  impress upon them what it is that we do we have to prove through tactical means what it is that we do right and we don't that's not what our role is i mean yes we do have some things that we can tactically prepare and and deliver  executive leadership but at the end of the day you know change management is all about what's in here right now right in my changes impacting you and yours impacting my me in and it's broadly and we talk about all the time how it's of one of our science in the  see you women naturally gravitate to it yes yes why maybe they're just more open maybe they understand that to impact somebody in a way that you you can get them to change their behavior is is more than just saying because i said so right and organizations many years ago they could operate then when i was a different structure of hierarchy and from the top down you can say this is what we're doing this is why we're doing it and you will do it if you want your job  they can literally just flip a switch and everyone's going to say ok yeah that's great i'm going to do it they're realizing that doesn't happen and even if it does happen it's really a financial model right we talk about this all the time it's the it's the difference between when i get my return on investment if i've invested fifteen million in dollars in a major technology implementation and people are really utilizing and optimizing the system for two years that is that time my not my money is now depreciating not appreciating hand i don't even begin to see return on investment until two years later ok left unattended they're right with the type of structure that we put in place that could look like six to ten months six months to twelve months where people are really proficient in getting into the system so huge difference when you're talking about that amount of money and so organizations that can look at it from that perspective as well as culturally and w can attest to this in organizations that we work in now the culture and people feeling like they're cared for oh and people who you know when people are are are within their job or all and they feel like the organization cares about them enough to bring them through this process in a more meaningful way that's yours to be a huge reflection on the company right so just as people are looking for meaning in their lives you're looking for meaning why they're doing what you're doing yeah why am i doing this job at our company like this if they don't care about me i get that this is a business decision but i've been part of this come company for ten twenty years and nobody has even spoken to me or cared about how i feel so guess what yeah ok i'm not really going to work with this i'll go look for something else so it's even deeper because your culture is what you really want to keep today because as baby boomers are retiring and you know work forces and entering in that guess what the new workforce cares about all these things so that's why change management is so important as a way we do any don and i were just at a pretty extensive meeting for one of the projects that we were in for several days and some of the ground rules were no computers no cell phones it was night and day from the past meet us ok people are presenting people are not the people in the audience maybe thirty people or so were not distracted they were paying attention they were looking they were engaged they were asking questions i mean it was intense the entire two days were intense because people were engaged and how often to people really get a chance to do that anymore in a meeting at work i mean i've gone to conferences where people bring cell phones i pads and you're trying to learn something and i'm really good about this i shut my cell phone off just like i say to people what do you do in the morning the first thing they say oh look at my phone i'm like really no that doesn't happen to me but anyway you're in there trying to learn about a topic you're in there trying to communicate with people and hose on the phone who's texting so i think it's not mindful it's not intentional so yes so how do we how do we go about changing that that we have to change the individual the leader yeah ok everyone involved so you know those are some of the things i think we're getting better at yeah and or but they should only we ask ourselves this question all the time because we're working with large program project teams a lot of times and we're implementing changes with in new york the great organizations we're taking a look at culturally how is this going to connect what's it going to do how is it going to show up day to day how is it going to change things how is it going to change the way these two groups communicate i mean all of those dynamics and so much of that makes up kind of the day to day culture but i i mean you know again we i feel like we've experienced time and time and time again where we've been in meetings and presentations where people have their laptop tops open and they are but trying to stay very present and why am i here right now what am i hearing how my responding to that how my contributing you can ask yourself those questions and i struck it right very true i've done i've done both so i have i feel like i've been on both sides i think we all have yes where you think you can i don't say get away with the multitasking but you do you put your you put it on mute your multitasking and you also fall prey to the i'm sorry you know i i missed that last where now i'm at a point where i don't do that and i deliberately stay focused look at the screen look at the presentation or focus on the notes trying to hone in on is there something that i need to take away from this and i find that it's just far more effective and just a much better use of my time right and i get annoyed when other people do it because i know if i can make that change i think a lot of people should be managed change yeah so but i think a good question is what's the catalyst for that right i mean  for the past what year and a half we've been we've been slowly forming and trying to structure something called the corporate kindness project beginning of last year we did a lot of work on this and really kind of the premise being how are we help helping organizations be everything they can be and and people see one another and treat one another with kindness now that being a very simple premise it's got tons of arms and legs right in terms of what that looks like and and how that shows up on a day to day basis and some of that are activities and exercises that allow people to do just that right to allow them to share with one another in a way where somebody shows up completely differently i mean it's it's what a lot of organizations are calling the whole person r right so the whole person i'm taking a look at you is a whole person someone shared a story with me about a young woman you know that they were hiring who said very clearly i don't you know i don't care  i will send e mails to a date eight o'clock at night or i will answer your e mails or i will do a project for you in the evening if that's what it is requested but if my best friend goes to aruba and gets engaged at noon you know during the day i want to be able to be on facebook congratulating him and because this is our whole life very rightly not segmented into a we leave our life behind us when we walk through these doors you know and again with with things changing even in terms of brick and mortar buildings or  expect that i use their answer their email or be do a project for them as do the next morning is that an unfair expectation like those are the things that i think are really valuable that we don't talk about and when you're joining an organization you have to sort of figure that out right you know and some organizations will say you know what you may feel like you're getting caught up on your e mail at ten o'clock at night but other other people might find that offensive because if you are some expectation that they're on e mail a ten o'clock at and yeah and then if you give in to it then you become part of it and then the expectation is already there so a lot of times there's nobody to communicate to i mean i worked for companies where the whole place was virtual yeah and the whole team was virtual and they were like oh yeah i spoke to this one that one but meanwhile they never had an opportunity to have any connection time yeah even if it was once or twice a year just to get to know each other i didn't really spend time with going out as a lunch which never right never has a day of rage right so i think that's the other challenge that we have and let's face it younger people are a lot more into technology tools than we are i mean they are i still like to pick up the phone talk to people i mean most of them like to hear from a some of them don't answer but what if i had my jordan keeps texting me back even though i call but i don't want to talk to you so i think we're we kind of bridge the gap i think in this age group the i was we've been you know we lived in a time where we were our parents were depression people and they told us about oh you know you got to do this and you've got to be on time and you have to be this way and save and be worried about everything and then we lived our life and we raised our children and how many divorces later for whatever and now we're like ok here we are in this life now we're dealing with a lot of technology that we have to learn how to use but we still want the personal connection yeah and we're trying to get them over to the edge of the saying how about a little personal connection so but it's the same thing in our life balance right it's like a full working in an organization that we're not aligned with right now that there are principles of the way they do business every day don't really match with the way that we want to work ok then we either stay there and become miserable and overwhelmed or we go out we find something else ok so i think that's what's going to happen in a lot of these organizations unless they start to realize how impactful these changes are and how we do have to worry about the impact on the individual as well as any individual who's running it because whatever message and body language and presence they have is what the initiative takes on right we know this writer and that they could be looking at that one individual saying i was this what the organization is like but maybe somebody is allowing them to do that  so it's a real it's a balance i keep seeing the balancing act and it is you know in everything we're talking about i'm here and we talk about this in our women's leadership series because we talk about we bring people in to focus on mindfulness and you know what are the some some of the other practices in the ballot ease that can shift our thinking and shift our presence you know i think when i talk with a lot of women business leaders that i work with that i know personally we also kind of struggle with the same thing and and there are many women they get it they get it they see these things they're even speak in english as we're talking about to practice the these things so you know for me the question remains how do we bring that into the corporate world you know where does that show up and we begin to we've already begun to get into our practice of change management and mindful change and where we can do some of these things millennial leaders are going to have to change their look at that generation they were just unique they just operate differently their expectations are differently here about different values do they do and it's not rationally right i was just going to bit i know this is really what's driving you this is what's near and dear to your heart but just gonna chill a little bit about it as your approach and bring it to other people so when you're saying that i just got this message that said but this is what it means to be authentic and that's what i think we're talking about so how do we get the message to organizations and leaders yeah we just stay as the way we are ok we become authentic and i don't mean saying ok just take all your baggage and bring it to work every day or so whatever but let's say you're a woman leader and you believe in meditation and mindfulness as part of these initiatives i know a lot of women and we've had them in our meetings who say i would love to bring this to my left out the door and many that you would like one of the leaders at j and j who was very high level leader you know started out all of her town hall presentations with sixty seconds of meditation what was interesting to me is the feedback from that whilst of the people in the organization within that room enjoyed that they had very good experience with it there were also several uncomfortable uncomfortable this is what we're talking about yesterday where feeling very vulnerable and feeling very uncomfortable with closing their eyes around other people that they really don't know ok i would not have ever anticipated that reaction but that  indicator of where somebody is exactly so there is that there are still a lot of fear and you know we talk about the value of vulnerability this is again from a lot of the women leaders that we talk with people phone or a very negative to a lot of a amazed at how strong that person feels and now listen i'm not saying you're going to share your biggest screw up in life but to be real and authentic and this is the way i reacted to this actually yeah so you know when i heard about the murder this is how i reacted and you know i wasn't very proud of that but this is what i did about it that you know and really being real where people say ok you know i get you you know and by the way what else do you have to say i want to follow you right well you know i think the thing that's important rath yatra you know like they say right the planets evolving we're evolving the organizations need to evolve because i've been in tallinn for twenty plus years i've been in so many different markets this is very different what's happening with the new workforce coming in they are going to architect the future of culture so ok so you're either going to have we're going to zation to respect that and who really realize that that's a core value see that's the thing people can say my culture and my people there are the product of my you know my service at the end of the day though do you really walk that talk are you walking that way in your organization and most companies for if you do they speak the language their website looks beautiful be people get into the organizations and they're like what did i do  so they don't feel like that translates into actions that's right and you know what it's like the all saying don't tell me show me so we want to see how people show up every day we don't want to hear how we think we're going to be showing up or how you think you're going to show up i think it's more important to say here's who i am here's what you said your so sometimes i think we need to be bold in our authentic way in a very nice way and coal coal leaders coal organizations it exactly and then and then to kind of release it then and the reaction is for is for them right yeah i mean that it's not nothing you've done to them you know sharing it it was an act of rhonda's and i think intentionally if you set out to do that that is how it will eventually be delivered it may not be delivered at that moment that right so that's why i go back to energy it's all about energy right it's about our energetic transmission of saying i'm giving you this feedback loving in a good way here is my intention maybe you didn't take it that way but as a person sits with it i've been in situations where people come back to me weeks later and say you know what they think you for sharing that with me i really appreciate it and at the moment after they never said anything i was like oh what did i do this is what i guessed and but you know what it's like what we do right change management is disruption yeah it's does it as she changes disrupting yass and that what the young people are doing that's what we're doing right here and so that's what we all need to do for each other organizations leadership there are people there not just affecting they are people so let's see what fuels them maybe it's the wrong leader running the organization i mean so listen if i was hiring everybody knows the way i work it's the culture here's our culture we hire for culture we can train for skill sets right and really more so her intention and you know style and philosophy if you if you  right put it all and negative so yeah and exactly when you think of that situation with you if you hire for skill and less about culture but excuse me you're six months down the road you sit and say gosh why does that person go to lunch i don't understand you know a good morning they don't say good morning back i don't get it you know they're not a really good fit yeah ok they know excel really well yeah all right well you know so do millions of other people that will say good morning and right you go out to lunch or coffee with you right so yes it's so important that you just you hire for that match that match is so vast housing create that energy that almost demands ok that we stay this way right you know i love my culture like our culture i love our culture but really thank god you know of course i'm doing the hiring and i'm thinking about what are we going to need as an organization but how is everybody going to work together yeah i mean for us and care for each other q it's super important because because someone else is walking into another organization so we're hiring for two cultural yes yes nine we're yes client or actually one really being our kind of home for our philosophy and really our philosophy has their representation an extension of who you also i'd like to invite everyone to go to the ally solutions group website if you want to learn more we're going to be launching our women's leadership series back again in september and they'll be a whole host of programs to come to intimate group of women great