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"I Watched a CEO Alienate 300 People in 10 Seconds." · Speak In Flow

• 0:03
  Melinda Lee: Welcome, dear listeners, to the Speak and Flow podcast, where we dive into unique strategies and techniques to help you and your team achieve maximum potential and flow, even when the stakes are high. I have an amazing industry leader in strategic management.
• 0:22
  Melinda Lee: Strategic Communications, Crisis Management, and Training. She is the principal founder of Wixed and Company. Her name is Eileen. Welcome, Eileen.
• 0:36
  Eileen Wixted: Melinda, thank you so much. I'm so delighted to be with you and your listeners. And I'm excited to talk about, communication and really how to elevate, become more effective, and gain greater clarity, given the very crowded, noisy environment we all operate in today.
• 0:55
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I agree, and with over 3 decades of experience.
• 1:00
  Melinda Lee: You have so much wisdom to share, and I can't wait to dive in. So, before we get into the meat and the meat and the potatoes, what are you passionate about lately? Like, what are you doing within your company and your firm that you feel so passionate about?
• 1:16
  Eileen Wixted: What I'm really passionate about is working with our clients who recognize today more than ever that we are living in and operating in this attention-based economy.
• 1:28
  Eileen Wixted: everyday leaders and others are really fighting for mindshare. How can I get people's attention? And so what's interesting about that is, if you're a leader, or let's say you are working with a client, if you can't get their attention, there's no way that you're going to be able to get them to listen, right, or feel a certain way, or do something. And so what I'm excited about is to really
• 1:52
  Eileen Wixted: unlock that or decode that for people. And it really comes down to
• 1:57
  Eileen Wixted: Really recognizing the importance of being relevant.
• 2:02
  Eileen Wixted: how… how can I be relevant so that what I'm saying is so important, speaks so deeply, that people not only want to listen, but they want to lean in? And it really comes into becoming audience-centric.
• 2:16
  Eileen Wixted: And I think from a leadership standpoint, in fact, we just had a quarterly team meeting yesterday, and it's interesting, you know, there's so many things I want to share with our team as we look at results, and we look at the current environment, and we talk about the challenges, and what we're going to need… what we will need to be doing as we… as we head into the end of the third, and… and finish strong in the fourth
• 2:41
  Eileen Wixted: quarter, but I always go back to, what do they need to hear?
• 2:45
  Eileen Wixted: And quite candidly, I didn't learn that.
• 2:49
  Eileen Wixted: Until, I think, far too late in my career, right? I've been doing this for about 3 decades. I wish I had learned this, you know, 3 decades ago. I really learned it much more 2 decades ago, that if I don't… if I don't think about what's relevant to the audience.
• 3:06
  Eileen Wixted: and build that connection and common ground about what's important to them first, they're not going to listen, they're not going to lean in. And if you can't… if they're not going to listen, there's no way that you can
• 3:18
  Eileen Wixted: you can, you know, increase their awareness or understanding of an issue. There's no way that they're going to be able to feel anything, let alone do anything.
• 3:28
  Eileen Wixted: And so, it's really about meeting people where they are, and really thinking about what's relevant to them. And I'm really passionate about that, because you can sit, you can sit in lots of different meetings, and you can just feel when someone is missing it.
• 3:46
  Eileen Wixted: And really stopping those big misses is something that I'm really passionate about.
• 3:51
  Melinda Lee: Thank you for sharing that, and would you… do you recall the moment when you realized back then, like, oh my gosh, this is something so important? Was there a story behind it, and some biblical example?
• 4:05
  Eileen Wixted: So it was really interesting. I was, … we do a tremendous amount of work. We're a strategic communications crisis management and training firm, and we've got about 5 key sectors that we work in. And one of the sectors that we work in heavily is in healthcare.
• 4:21
  Eileen Wixted: And back in the day, this was in the 90s, right? Mid-late 90s, where
• 4:28
  Eileen Wixted: There was a lot of consolidation in healthcare, and so there might be, in a mid-market, there may be 7 independent hospitals. And then in the 90s, there was a lot of consolidation as health systems began coming together.
• 4:44
  Eileen Wixted: And what was interesting is, Those clients always wanted to talk about
• 4:51
  Eileen Wixted: This merger is going to be great. This merger's better, because now we're going to be stronger, and now we're going to be able to provide even better healthcare, and we're going to be able to improve our quality, and enhance our safety, and do more things.
• 5:10
  Eileen Wixted: And it was fascinating to me, because
• 5:12
  Eileen Wixted: I was… I… I was working with our client, but they said that they had, that they had their presentation taken care of, that they had taken care of their presentation. They didn't need our help.
• 5:26
  Eileen Wixted: But they invited me to be in the meeting, because following this meeting, we were going to be working with them on all the communication moving forward. So I'm sitting in the back of the room, and you need to, just to set the stage, you… we have probably about 300 people, because they're going to be doing these same meetings
• 5:45
  Eileen Wixted: you know, around the clock, because healthcare is around the clock, right? So this is the early meeting. This is for the people who just got off at 7 o'clock in the morning, so people have been asked to stay. So you've got people in their scrubs, you've got stethoscopes, you've got people who have just…
• 6:01
  Eileen Wixted: spent the last 12 or 8 hours taking care of patients. They know that there's going to be a big announcement about either their hospitals being merged, or it's being sold, or something like that. And so they come in.
• 6:13
  Eileen Wixted: And I'm sitting in the back of the room, and I can feel… I can feel the nervousness.
• 6:20
  Eileen Wixted: and sort of the anxiety and the worry, you can see it on these caregivers' faces, right? Whether it's nursing, or whether it's, you know, anesthesia, or it could have been accounts payable, or whatever it is. They were mixed groups of people, not just clinical.
• 6:37
  Eileen Wixted: And the CEO… gets And says, I have some really exciting news to share with all of you.
• 6:49
  Eileen Wixted: We…
• 6:51
  Eileen Wixted: are going to be merging with, and I'll just use the name St. Mary's. It wasn't St. Mary's. We're going to be merging with St. Mary's.
• 6:59
  Eileen Wixted: And because of this, we are now finally going to be able to provide good healthcare to our community.
• 7:10
  Eileen Wixted: We're going to be able to provide quality healthcare to our community.
• 7:15
  Eileen Wixted: And I looked around, sitting in the back of the room.
• 7:19
  Eileen Wixted: And I could see the anxiety and nervousness
• 7:23
  Eileen Wixted: turned very quickly to anger and resentment and fear and frustration, because that CEO, he had just insulted all of them. What his intent was.
• 7:38
  Eileen Wixted: hey, this is exciting. We're going to be merging with a bigger player. We're going to have access to more patients, and maybe a robot, and a few other things that we don't have. But the impact of what people heard was…
• 7:53
  Eileen Wixted: We don't give good care now.
• 7:56
  Eileen Wixted: we have bad quality, we're unsafe, right? And so…
• 8:02
  Eileen Wixted: It turned very quickly into frustration and anger.
• 8:07
  Eileen Wixted: And really, people were coming in, and really, the only thing they cared about at that time was, do I have a job?
• 8:16
  Eileen Wixted: Because when you go into a merger, when the music stops, Right?
• 8:24
  Eileen Wixted: do I have a chair? And the reality is, not always. We don't need two business offices, we don't need two CNOs, or CEOs, or, you know, CIOs, or whatever it may end up being, and so… so it was a big miss. And what happened after that meeting, because the CEO was
• 8:43
  Eileen Wixted: was… he became angry. So the meeting ended, he ended up being asked a lot of questions, and people were becoming much more hostile.
• 8:53
  Eileen Wixted: And when the meeting was over, we debriefed, because you have to remember, he was going to do another meeting, like, at 10 o'clock.
• 9:01
  Eileen Wixted: That… that same morning, so it was a series of these meetings. And he said to me, he goes, I don't understand, these people don't get it.
• 9:10
  Melinda Lee: Wow.
• 9:10
  Eileen Wixted: And I remember, and I remember saying to him.
• 9:13
  Eileen Wixted: because this is the Brooklyn, New York directness coming out in me, having born in… being born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, I'm pretty direct.
• 9:21
  Eileen Wixted: And I said, well, with all due respect, sir, You don't get them.
• 9:29
  Eileen Wixted: And he looked at me.
• 9:31
  Eileen Wixted: And, you know, that's a calculated risk, because he could say, you're out, and he said, tell me more.
• 9:38
  Eileen Wixted: And I said.
• 9:41
  Eileen Wixted: I understand the intent of what you were saying. You're going to have so many more resources, you're going to have access to lots of different patients. This other hospital also has clinics in different counties, right? This is going to open the door for opportunity. They don't care about opportunity. They want to know, are they on the team?
• 10:00
  Eileen Wixted: The only thing they care about is, do I have a job? Is it going to be the same job? If I do have a job, am I going to get paid the same? Are my benefits the same? Do I have PTO? Right? That's what they care about. Because right now, this change is threatening their safety and their security.
• 10:17
  Eileen Wixted: We have to address that first.
• 10:19
  Eileen Wixted: And even if we don't have that answer, we have to let them know the process we're going to go through in making that decision.
• 10:27
  Eileen Wixted: I said, we have to meet them where they are. What you're excited about is the opportunity.
• 10:33
  Melinda Lee: And so the sequencing of the communication is wrong.
• 10:37
  Eileen Wixted: And therefore, you've angered, frustrated, and insulted people.
• 10:43
  Eileen Wixted: And…
• 10:44
  Eileen Wixted: that was a really important moment for me, because what I realized was there are a lot of these hospital CEOs who are… who are also
• 10:55
  Eileen Wixted: site presidents of our nuclear clients, who are also, you know, in charge of banks and other things that are going into these meetings saying, okay, here are the four things I want to tell you.
• 11:09
  Eileen Wixted: Here's what you need to know. I need to educate you on this.
• 11:15
  Eileen Wixted: And in doing so… in doing so.
• 11:18
  Eileen Wixted: you're frustrating and insulting people. Back in the 60s, which, by the way, I wasn't in business back in the 60s, right, okay? I was barely born, so I just want to clarify that. But back in the 60s, you know, you see, you know, you see these shows back in the 60s, it was command and control, right, from a leadership standpoint. You're going to sit there, and I'm going to tell you, and don't even ask a question.
• 11:41
  Eileen Wixted: 90s, 2000s, 2010, right? It's far different than that. It's far different than that. And so.
• 11:50
  Eileen Wixted: That is, that was sort of a… a watershed moment for me, Melinda, if you think about it. It was a watershed moment, because what I realized was, if you don't think about your audience first, everything else
• 12:06
  Eileen Wixted: Everything else, has the potential to go into the ditch, and then everything else doesn't matter.
• 12:15
  Eileen Wixted: Everything else doesn't matter.
• 12:18
  Melinda Lee: Oh my gosh, what a powerful story, and it's so true, when we just overlook and
• 12:24
  Melinda Lee: tell them what we want to share, listen to me, this is what I have to say, then we may have missed the mark on what do they need to hear? What are the top things they need to hear? Where are they at? So are you saying, when we think about the audience, what are some things that we could do to really be more audience-centric?
• 12:44
  Eileen Wixted: So when we think about being audience-centric, I always think about the audience that's going to be in front of me. They're asking 3 questions, so what? Who cares what's in it for me, right? So what? Why am I in this meeting?
• 12:55
  Eileen Wixted: So what… who cares? Like, why should I even care about this? And what's in it for me? How does it relate? And so, in a lot of the work that we do, people talk about, well, we're going to do our strategic plan for 2025, 2026.
• 13:09
  Eileen Wixted: And if I'm sitting, you know, if I'm in a cubicle, and I'm sitting in the back row, like, how does that impact me?
• 13:15
  Eileen Wixted: So we have to be really deliberate about what that means. That may mean… that may mean that if you're client-facing, we want you to increase your client-facing behavior.
• 13:28
  Eileen Wixted: We want you to improve it, we want you to do this, we want you to do that, right? So, I think from becoming audience-centric.
• 13:36
  Eileen Wixted: it puts the onus on you to begin thinking about what does that mean. And so, before I go into any kind of meeting, and I did this for our team meeting, is, …
• 13:46
  Eileen Wixted: and this is what I do with our clients, I go through this audience, you know, audience analysis. And the first thing is, if there are 10
• 13:55
  Eileen Wixted: if there's 3, 9, 12, 27, 250, doesn't matter how many people are in the room. I want you to divide… to divide them by thirds, right? Okay, divide them by thirds, okay? So one group could be veteran employees.
• 14:14
  Eileen Wixted: or other employees could be clinical employees, the other could be non-clinical employees, and the other ones could be… could be retirees, or whatever, whoever's going to be in the room. Divide them by thirds. The next category is what's on their mind.
• 14:29
  Eileen Wixted: What's on their mind? They're coming into the meeting. It's… they've gotten a calendar invite. It says, Strategic Plan 2025, so as they're coming into the meeting.
• 14:41
  Eileen Wixted: What's on their mind?
• 14:43
  Eileen Wixted: What do they care about? What's important for them? So, when we work with our energy clients, and we're talking about
• 14:51
  Eileen Wixted: Strategic Plan 2025, or 2026, if I'm in the engineering department, my issue could be budget. Am I going to be able to get the money to be able to do the upgrades that I know that I need, because we need to improve our system reliability?
• 15:10
  Eileen Wixted: Okay.
• 15:12
  Eileen Wixted: Last year, they didn't get the money. The year before, they didn't get the money.
• 15:16
  Eileen Wixted: They likely aren't going to get the money they need this year. So how are they feeling? That's the third category. They could be feeling frustrated, angry, disappointed. Or, why are we even talking about strategic plans? Because, you know what? We're not very strategic. Everything's a fire drill.
• 15:35
  Eileen Wixted: Right? We didn't deliver on our strategic plan the year before. So everything's a fire drill. So somebody may be coming in, and it's like, why are we doing this again? And you know what? I have high distrust.
• 15:47
  Eileen Wixted: So we think about the audience, we think about what is the issue that's important, and we think about how they feel. If that hospital CEO had done that, he would have noticed that he would have broken it down to clinical, non-clinical, okay, and people
• 16:05
  Eileen Wixted: who are… are really new to the organization, because those are the people who usually get… who get dismissed first if…
• 16:14
  Eileen Wixted: You know, if you're going through a merger, right? And the issue that everybody was curious about is, will I have a job?
• 16:24
  Eileen Wixted: Now, if I'm clinical, it's gonna be… if I'm a nurse, I'm probably going to have a job. If I'm a heart surgeon, I'm still gonna have a job. So, it's going to be, do I have a job, and will I be able to do my job the way I currently do it? Right?
• 16:39
  Eileen Wixted: Right, so they're feeling, maybe, interest, or nervousness.
• 16:45
  Eileen Wixted: But if I'm non-clinical, let's say I'm working in the accounting department, or the billing department, or the dietary department.
• 16:53
  Eileen Wixted: Okay? We only need one of those departments, right? So, for me, it's, do I have a job? It's job security. So, it's like, am I even gonna have anything? And so, my emotion is going to be fear. I'm going to be fearful.
• 17:11
  Eileen Wixted: I'm scared. I'm scared. So the CEO needs to say, I'm walking into a group, I'm walking into a meeting where people are feeling fearful.
• 17:23
  Eileen Wixted: Scared and uncertain.
• 17:27
  Eileen Wixted: About whether or not they will have a job.
• 17:29
  Eileen Wixted: And if they do have a job, will they be able to work in the way that they've worked previously?
• 17:35
  Melinda Lee: That influences my tone and approach. Right.
• 17:38
  Eileen Wixted: that influences how I begin.
• 17:42
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 17:42
  Eileen Wixted: Right?
• 17:43
  Melinda Lee: And I begin with….
• 17:45
  Eileen Wixted: I'm very excited to share with you the fact that we're merging with St. Mary's Hospital. St. Mary's, as you all know, is a bigger, bigger hospital group than we are. They have a lot of opportunity that we'll be able to grow into.
• 18:00
  Eileen Wixted: But today, I know this news.
• 18:02
  Eileen Wixted: Is… while it may not be surprising.
• 18:05
  Eileen Wixted: This news, well, probably is evoking
• 18:10
  Eileen Wixted: Some… some anxiousness or nervousness about whether or not you have a job, or if you do have a job, will you be able to continue to do the job that you currently do?
• 18:23
  Melinda Lee: Let me take care of that first.
• 18:28
  Eileen Wixted: Then you bring the… then you bring the temperature down. You take the air out of the tires, and that's critically important to do.
• 18:36
  Melinda Lee: So….
• 18:37
  Eileen Wixted: As we think about that.
• 18:39
  Eileen Wixted: That is about being audience-centric. And it's hard as leaders, because you know what, it's like, hey.
• 18:45
  Eileen Wixted: We're behind on our business development goals, right? Here's what I want to tell people.
• 18:51
  Eileen Wixted: The number was 40, we're at 20. Do more. Well, you've got to take this moment to be able to build
• 18:59
  Eileen Wixted: the relevancy, right? And make it relevant to them.
• 19:05
  Melinda Lee: Why do… why do we need it to be 40?
• 19:08
  Eileen Wixted: Well, we need it to be 40 because we need to build the pipeline. Why is it only at 20?
• 19:13
  Melinda Lee: Don't know.
• 19:14
  Eileen Wixted: Do you not know how to prospect? Do you not know… have you been too busy with client work? Whatever it may end up being, right? But I'll tell you, depending upon the age group, right, the generational group that you're in.
• 19:29
  Eileen Wixted: you know, some leaders that I work with are like, hey, I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain to people that it's 40, the number's 40. They just need to know the number's 40.
• 19:42
  Eileen Wixted: And then I'll say, well, Charlie.
• 19:44
  Eileen Wixted: The number has been 40 for the last two quarters. It hasn't changed. So, what you've been doing, how's it working?
• 19:53
  Eileen Wixted: I don't think it's been working. So let's figure out about how we change our communication to move the needle, to make people see that number 40?
• 20:03
  Eileen Wixted: Okay? If we don't get 40 new leads, that's gonna impact our pipeline. Okay? If our pipeline is impacted, and we don't have anything new in the pipeline.
• 20:16
  Eileen Wixted: then maybe we may not get bonuses. Oh, maybe we won't need so many people. That's the fear. Or it could be the pleasure. If we get 40 new prospects in our pipeline.
• 20:29
  Eileen Wixted: Think about the opportunities that we're going to be able to work with clients, the new projects that we'll be able to work on, the new things that we'll be able to learn.
• 20:39
  Eileen Wixted: We will certainly be able to meet our numbers and meet our bonuses. We'll be able to do other things as a firm and invest in other things, right? So pain or pleasure. But it's getting back to making that number 40 relevant.
• 20:54
  Melinda Lee: Right. And not to do that.
• 20:56
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, like, versus just information sharing. Okay, this is 40.
• 21:01
  Melinda Lee: this is 40, and it's supposed to be at 40. It's, like, just information sharing. How come it's not at 40, versus using specific languaging, depending on your audience, whether it's a pain.
• 21:13
  Melinda Lee: or pleasure type, where you're inspiring more action, or motivating more action, versus I could just be sharing or commanding information.
• 21:24
  Eileen Wixted: Right, right. The other thing, too, is that people have.
• 21:30
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 21:30
  Eileen Wixted: leaders have, and really, really, even if you're not a leader that you have when you're talking to somebody, we have these conversations, right? And a lot of conversations are done virtually. So you're on a Zoom or a Teams call.
• 21:43
  Eileen Wixted: And people are back-to-back on calls, right? And you go from one to another, to another, to another.
• 21:50
  Eileen Wixted: People end up getting saturated.
• 21:52
  Melinda Lee: Right now.
• 21:53
  Eileen Wixted: they don't have the time. We, a lot of time, talk about soak time. Time for us just to
• 22:00
  Eileen Wixted: think.
• 22:01
  Eileen Wixted: to process, to understand. And so, if you're just going from one to the other, to the other, to the other, by the end of the day, people are going to have forgotten what was that message in that 8 a.m. meeting.
• 22:16
  Eileen Wixted: And so, because you don't want to have the meeting after the meeting.
• 22:20
  Eileen Wixted: Prepare before the meeting to be relevant, to think about the audience.
• 22:25
  Eileen Wixted: And, you know, we talk about, you know, informing, you're absolutely right, Melinda, informing, what do I want you to know?
• 22:32
  Eileen Wixted: Right? But if you want to be persuasive, it's…
• 22:35
  Eileen Wixted: how do I want you to feel? And between the head and the heart, it's about 18 inches.
• 22:41
  Eileen Wixted: So, that takes a little bit of think time to make it relevant for people.
• 22:48
  Eileen Wixted: That makes sense.
• 22:49
  Melinda Lee: Oh yeah, definitely. Right. It requires that we take the time, because we may know what is in our heart, or what we want.
• 22:58
  Melinda Lee: At the same time, it's not going to be the same thing as what they might want, or thinking, or feeling. So it's taking time to really hone in a message that bridges that gap.
• 23:11
  Eileen Wixted: Yeah.
• 23:11
  Melinda Lee: Right? And you're meeting them where they are at, so they feel heard and understood.
• 23:17
  Melinda Lee: But it does take… it does require… and I thought I was pretty good at it, but I actually learned recently that I'm still learning, I'm still…
• 23:27
  Melinda Lee: Because…
• 23:28
  Melinda Lee: I have these great tools and X activities in a workshop, and sometimes they're not ready. Like, sometimes in terms of
• 23:39
  Melinda Lee: I'm not ready to do this activity and allow for that. Like, so when I share an activity, and I feel it's great, this is the best thing, you're gonna feel so transformed!
• 23:50
  Melinda Lee: And I learned the other day, sometimes they're just not ready, and that's okay, and so I had to reframe and change my way of introducing it to say, if you're not ready, it's okay. Just your presence being here is enough.
• 24:07
  Melinda Lee: And if you want to take a deeper dive and share more, that's great too. So just kind of having that range of where people are at and thinking that through.
• 24:16
  Melinda Lee: And so I'm continuing to learn in this area, or evolve, too.
• 24:21
  Eileen Wixted: Yes, so what you just did there for your client, you affirmed them.
• 24:27
  Melinda Lee: And I think that affirmation is important, and that really gets to the whole discussion on empathy.
• 24:34
  Eileen Wixted: And so, some leaders view being empathetic as a weakness.
• 24:39
  Eileen Wixted: And those are leaders that skew a bit older, right? I don't understand why we have to be so empathetic with all these snowflakes, you know? Work is hard, let's go. Let's get that mental toughness.
• 24:49
  Melinda Lee: Going.
• 24:50
  Eileen Wixted: Yes, and empathy, I have found, and I haven't always been very empathetic, but I have found that empathy
• 24:58
  Eileen Wixted: is really… Acknowledging that people may be in this place.
• 25:04
  Eileen Wixted: And, and, and this is where they are.
• 25:07
  Eileen Wixted: Now, it could be… it could be of their own making.
• 25:10
  Melinda Lee: Okay? But….
• 25:12
  Eileen Wixted: Feeling of where they are, frustrated, missing a deadline, worried, concerned.
• 25:18
  Melinda Lee: being empathetic.
• 25:20
  Eileen Wixted: Of how they feel allows them to have that acknowledgement, and then move forward.
• 25:27
  Eileen Wixted: and then move forward to be able to get things done, which I think is important. But you hit on one of my favorite, favorite concepts, and that is growth mindset.
• 25:38
  Eileen Wixted: So, you… you adopt, and you have this growth mindset. I have this growth mindset. I get up every day and say to myself, what more can I learn? What am I going to learn today?
• 25:50
  Eileen Wixted: And in our team meetings, we always talk about what's something that we've learned? What's something that we've either learned about ourselves or something that we've learned in working with our clients that's made us better.
• 26:01
  Eileen Wixted: And sometimes they're difficult learnings, right? Where somebody may not have been ready, or in our trainings, we put people on camera.
• 26:10
  Eileen Wixted: And we put people on camera because we want people to be able to see themselves as others see them.
• 26:20
  Melinda Lee: Because we think.
• 26:21
  Eileen Wixted: And we… we see ourselves a certain way, right? And, oh, I come across this way, and here's what I see. But it's really important to be able to… for… for you to see yourself as others see you.
• 26:36
  Melinda Lee: ….
• 26:37
  Eileen Wixted: And what we find in some of our training sessions,
• 26:42
  Eileen Wixted: And this happens frequently with, some of our energy and some of our nuclear clients, because we work with about two-thirds of the commercially owned and operated nuclear power plants in North America. Our nuclear engineers tend to be very resistant.
• 26:58
  Eileen Wixted: And they don't want to do that. They don't want to get up, and it's that fear. And what I always tell them is, this is part of this growth mindset.
• 27:07
  Eileen Wixted: Every day in the nuclear industry, we work and strive to get better, and this is part of striving and working to get better.
• 27:15
  Eileen Wixted: And so you kind of try to cajole people, but just last week, I was working with, a client, and when I walked in, there was a group of four. And, the client had told me ahead of time.
• 27:29
  Eileen Wixted: The guy on the right, he could be a tough, tough customer.
• 27:33
  Eileen Wixted: And it was, as advertised.
• 27:36
  Eileen Wixted: he was a tough customer, quite resistant, quite defensive, all these other sorts of things, and so what I ended up doing was, I empathized, I said, I know it's uncomfortable, you already are a strong communicator, you're going through this. Humor me a little bit.
• 27:53
  Eileen Wixted: we won't have you go first, why don't you go third? And so we ended up sort of moving in slowly, and it's always so funny, because at the end of the session, he was the one who hung back and talked to me about what he learned about himself. And I think that…
• 28:12
  Eileen Wixted: that… that… being aware
• 28:15
  Eileen Wixted: Being empathetic, being audience-centric, versus, hey, I should be on slide 6 by now, because I'm 10 minutes in.
• 28:24
  Eileen Wixted: And we're still on slide 2, because we're kind of… because people aren't necessarily moving along at the pace. We have to be able to do that, because we only get one shot at this, if that makes sense.
• 28:36
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 28:37
  Melinda Lee: Oh my gosh, so many… I love that. I love that he be… he… you were there, you met him, you moved him slowly through, and… and helped him to learn more about himself.
• 28:49
  Eileen Wixted: Yes.
• 28:50
  Eileen Wixted: Yes. I will tell you, the old Eileen….
• 28:55
  Melinda Lee: Would've….
• 28:56
  Eileen Wixted: The old Eileen, and my four children. I have two daughters and two sons. They're grown now, but, I had them in five and a half years, so they were boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. My husband and I kind of started late, and then it was like, woo! All of a sudden, we had four kids, and it was so wonderful, just so wonderful, and our…
• 29:15
  Eileen Wixted: our youngest got married a couple weeks ago, and that was the very first family wedding, and it was just wonderful to see. But I think what the kids would have told you is, I would be like, hey.
• 29:28
  Eileen Wixted: Let's go!
• 29:29
  Eileen Wixted: Now, right? Let's go. I'm on 3, I'm on 2, I'm on 1. Let's go. And as they got older, I became, more empathetic. I think they will tell you that I'm very empathetic now, but I think when they were younger and into
• 29:47
  Eileen Wixted: you know.
• 29:48
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 29:49
  Eileen Wixted: Toddler, grade school, going into high school. I think when they were in high school, I was a bit more empath… I was more empathetic. When they were in college, empathetic.
• 29:59
  Eileen Wixted: And now, forward. And what I have found is, you can't go wrong with that empathy. You cannot go wrong with being, audience-centric and thinking about them. It goes back to that old adage that we've heard
• 30:15
  Eileen Wixted: so many times, You have to seek to understand before being understood.
• 30:23
  Melinda Lee: And so….
• 30:24
  Eileen Wixted: I think as a leader.
• 30:26
  Eileen Wixted: That's important for us. And then the challenge is, but our board, or our investors, are expecting a return on investment, and so we're going to have to motivate people to be able to pick up the rope, and let's go, and all go in the same direction.
• 30:45
  Melinda Lee: So….
• 30:46
  Eileen Wixted: That's the challenge, but we begin with this audience-centric mindset. We begin with that empathy. We begin thinking about them first, building common ground, connection, and laying out the business case.
• 30:59
  Eileen Wixted: And also being very candid and direct. And so, being candid and direct is important, because you're going to be… you may be asked a question.
• 31:08
  Eileen Wixted: And there are certain, certain questions that you're simply not going to answer.
• 31:13
  Melinda Lee: But you have to tell your team.
• 31:15
  Eileen Wixted: I appreciate the question. That's information I'm not going to share at this time, because it is… confidential, proprietary.
• 31:26
  Eileen Wixted: competitive, whatever it is, it hasn't been approved yet. So, being very clear that
• 31:34
  Eileen Wixted: you know, you're on a need-to-know basis, and as of today, you don't need to know, but when I have the ability and authority to share, I will. I will share. So I think that even in the Q&A, being upfront and candid.
• 31:50
  Eileen Wixted: is going to be important. And you don't have to apologize for that. If you've been empathetic up front, audience-centric up front, when it gets into Q&A, you can answer the question, and there's only 3 ways to answer any one question. I know that information, and here it is. Number two, I know the information, and I'm not going to share it, because…
• 32:09
  Eileen Wixted: have the respect to explain why. Or number three, good question, I appreciate you asked that.
• 32:15
  Eileen Wixted: I don't have that information.
• 32:17
  Eileen Wixted: I'll be happy to get it for you. What I can tell you is that.
• 32:21
  Melinda Lee: That helps.
• 32:23
  Eileen Wixted: Create sort of that holistic, respectful, audience-centric communication model.
• 32:30
  Melinda Lee: Wow.
• 32:31
  Melinda Lee: So good, so good. So many golden takeaways and nuggets for our audience. And Eileen, if there's people out there or companies out there that are looking for your help, they're going through some strategy, crisis management, and they need training, how would they get ahold of you?
• 32:51
  Eileen Wixted: Well, I appreciate you asking that, and yes, if people… if organizations and companies are going through… through change, or they have a crisis situation, or need a communication planning, or we do a lot of media training, presentation training, stakeholder engagement training, those sorts of things.
• 33:08
  Eileen Wixted: I would invite you to please visit our website, and it is Think, like you're going to think, and it's Wickstead.
• 33:18
  Eileen Wixted: And so, it's W-I-S.
• 33:21
  Eileen Wixted: X marks the spot.
• 33:23
  Eileen Wixted: TED.
• 33:24
  Eileen Wixted: So, it sounds like there's an S, but it's W-I-X.
• 33:28
  Eileen Wixted: T-E-D, and you can always reach out to me directly. I love to talk to people, I love to learn about what's happening in different
• 33:37
  Eileen Wixted: Companies and industries and the challenges. And really, whatever… whether you're in healthcare, or energy, or manufacturing, or finance, or anything and everything in between.
• 33:52
  Eileen Wixted: The real competitive edge is your ability to communicate effectively.
• 33:57
  Eileen Wixted: And that's with purpose, with strength, and with clarity. And if you're not audience-centric, then you're not able to convey what the purpose of your communication is. You won't have strength of communication, and it won't be clear. So, it's thinkwickstead.com. So…
• 34:16
  Eileen Wixted: Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to… to visit with some of your listeners.
• 34:21
  Melinda Lee: I would… they need it. Your information, your wisdom, your techniques are powerful, and I really, really appreciate that you shared them with us today. I've learned so much, and I really appreciate that you did that today.
• 34:37
  Eileen Wixted: Well, Melinda, thank you so much, and thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast, and … and spending this time with you and your listeners. It's been an honor. Thank you.
• 34:48
  Melinda Lee: Thank you so much, and thank you, listeners. I trust that you got your golden takeaway. It was a power pack today, and so go implement them right away, and…
• 35:00
  Melinda Lee: Remember, anytime you have a chance to communicate, you're also connecting and taking that information and making a positive difference in the world.
• 35:11
  Melinda Lee: Until next time, I'm your sister in flow. Take care. Bye-bye.