Latest / PCMA Convene Podcast / Convene Series: The Truth About Company Culture: Communication, Values, and Generational Growth with Sherron Washington
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- Convene Series: The Truth About Company Culture: Communication, Values, and Generational Growth with Sherron Washington *Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies Sherron Washington: Organizations are like, we're open, we have this open dialogue. But are we really having open dialogue? Magdalina Atanassova: This is the Convene podcast. Today we’re diving into one of the most important — and often misunderstood — aspects of leadership in the modern workplace: how we communicate across generations, backgrounds, and belief systems. To help us explore what true inclusion and open dialogue really looks like inside organizations, I’m joined by someone who has spent her entire career at the intersection of communication, marketing, and strategy — Sherron Washington. Sherron is the founder and CEO of The P3 Solution, a full-service marketing and communications firm. She’s a globally recognized speaker, consultant, author, and professor who helps brands simplify their message and amplify their impact. Get ready to rethink how we define “company culture,” why generational labels can hold us back, and how leaders can actually create space for everyone to thrive — not just say they do. We start now. Magdalina Atanassova: Tell me, how can organizations shift their approach to one that's more focused on shared values and strengths than maybe demographic segmentation? Sherron Washington: I think in the beginning, what is challenging post Covid is identifying what the new organizational culture would be. So you want to start with having. My perspective is organizations should start with having an idea of what the culture is going to be. And by culture I mean experience. So are we going to focus, you know, highly on integrity or inclusion or compassion or empathy? But. But organizations need to first identify what that is before they start adding on. Oftentimes happens. Maggie is that they. They're like, okay, so we get into this new space, but we have to have new tactics. And really some of the traditional tactics kind of work very well in the organizational spaces or environment. Like talking. Right. I think we focus too much on technology and we forget about let's just have a conversation or having an openness of dialogue. Because I hear this all the time. Organizations are like, we're open. We have this open dialogue. But are we really having open dialogue? For me, values are different. So what one person may see as good morals, good values, another might not. And that's why it's important for the organization to determine in their space what these values and standards will be in this space so that people can go, I'm either going to act accordingly or I'm not going to. This is not my space for value. Magdalina Atanassova: And you mentioned organizations coming and saying, we, we have this open dialogue. But sometimes there's such strict structures within organizations, right? There are these hierarchies and you cannot really jump over your manager just because it will be like the whole situation will be weird. So do you have experience how can people navigate such a situation? Is there by the way any, anything to be done here? Sherron Washington: Absolutely. Look, I'm going to give you my perspective in that I want people to observe how they communicate. Let me back up. Communication. The goal of effective communication is that the other person receives what you're saying. It doesn't mean you have to be nice or, or you have to be adaptable where you don't want to be adaptable. But it does mean that this other person, if it's affecting that the other person got your message the way you intended it. Now, so that information can be received, it is important to observe how you approach people. So in the leadership space where you have different types of leaders who are like, either you got senior execs, like you have a manager in between us go see your director. Absolutely not. We're open. But to. I can't talk to everybody. Right. So if you have it where it's challenging and difficult in that way, just observe how your director can get to your senior exec. If you really need to talk to the senior exec and not kind of go in there like you should hear me. And this is fair because your goal is that they receive the information. So, so it's important to understand who you are, how you communicate and how the other person communicates. If it's opposite to you, then you may have to do a little bit of flexibility. Maybe I'm a loud talker, hands flagrant and some people are like, absolutely not. So I have to observe who I'm talking to. Maybe I'll take my tone down low. That doesn't mean that my, the communication isn't going to be as succinct or concise the way I want it. It's just that, oh my volume, just for me, adjusting the volume may adjust how much they listen. Magdalina Atanassova: I love that. And that does not mean that you are not authentic. It just means that you rather want your message to reach the other party, right? Sherron Washington: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we think of it so sometimes when we talk about code switching and I'm a professor at university and I hear code switching in a negative space, but we all do it, we code switch from. Look, you're not. I'm not talking to my mother or my friend the way I'm talking to my mother, the way I may go to work and have conversations, how I present on stage. Although there are some core elements to me that is going to exist in my authenticity, the energy, the passion and things like that. But my vernacular may switch, my non verbals may switch based on different groups of people. And that is a form of code switching. Magdalina Atanassova: In your experience, what are the best ways to identify and adapt to an employee's preferred communication style? And the question here is again, are there first any pitfalls for companies trying to do that and is it. I don't know, is it possible? Have you seen companies trying to be so adaptive? Sherron Washington: I have, I have. And it becomes Maggie quite performative. Right. So we don't want it to be performative. Organizations write standards and rules as if people are robots. Right. So they're going here. This is the rule computer behave. And it's not really any room that allows for the human in humanity. Well, people are human. They connect to different ways. They do different ways. So the pitfall, I think one of the pitfalls that organizations try to bottle up in this one box is here is what is respect. Here's how you respect people. 1, 2, 3. But again, there's different ways of doing things. I could say this. So my family is very colorful and diverse in our ethnicities. Nationalities too. So like Nigerian, Trinidadian, Philippines. So American. Right. And so oftentimes what happens is the way we communicate is going to be in different spaces. If you think about that, when you have people that come from different backgrounds, even if I said just American, there's so many different subcultures and cultures. Right. We can expect them to be in a box. So I want organizations to stop going. We package this standard up, follow it to the T and not allow for some room for change. Okay, so what was the other part? It was three parts of this question. Magdalina Atanassova: Let me see if I can recall. So if, if there is a good way for companies to identify and adapt to employees communication style. Sherron Washington: Yes. So I don't think it should be forced. The first part of that is to understand who is in the community after the culture. After you decide this is our organizational culture and how we function. Right. After you decide that in the organizations that need to then identify how to talk to people individually, I think it's more understanding the individual in front of your face instead of this is how you go to the marketing department because they're this. Right. Well, this is how you talk to the meetings department because this is this. So instead of giving again these kind of large boxes for people to adjust how they communicate based on the box. I think companies should make room for individuality specifically in these times because that is wanted to be noticed. Even if you oppose the view. I think we sometimes come to a consensus that this is a wrong. So wrong. I teach philosophy. If you haven't taken a philosophy class, you know the crazy circles we go in. But in my philosophy class, I teach it there. When you talk about beliefs and values, there's no absolute right or wrong. Absolute right or wrong. There are consensus of people who believe in this is the right and this is the wrong. And I think if we could, at least from my perspective, and if we could look at. Okay, so this isn't necessary. Everybody can be right at the same time, by the way. Right. And you can understand without acceptance, without accepting it into your life. I think if we say we understand, we go, you know what that means? I condone it. But you don't have to condemn it. You don't have to condemn it. So my thing is that organizations want to make sure that they're taking a pulse of who is in their organization. You may not have a bunch of Gen Zers or if we're talking generation, right. Gen Zers, Gen Xers, whatever that large population is, I think they should pay attention to that, but also make room for the smaller populations when it comes to generation. Because when we. I think what you're going to ask me this question, we'll talk about this sooner. I think of generations as lifestyle and not necessarily age because the experiences you have, you can meet a Gen X that has experience that hangs with a lot of millennials and they're a different type of Gen X because they are building experiences based off another generation that does things a little bit differently. So I think companies just need to be more open and adaptable to that. People are individual and not necessarily a collective. Magdalina Atanassova: How do you define company culture? Because it feels like this thing we all have agreed upon. There is a company culture. But how is this defined? Isn't it the individuals that influence that. Sherron Washington: They can depending on the company. Right. If you look at other larger companies, I use PCMA. Right. For example, because I deal with a lot of the company's employees, a ton of them in different departments. You all do. There is a note of culture that says that all of you exhibit or have bought into the ones I've actually connected with. You all kind of buy into building. It's almost like hospitality. Like you're the hospitality association. So it's going to be hospitable. You're going to say, where can I help you? There's always assistance. Right. So I don't know if that is from the leadership because Sheriff, you know, will speak highly about. My experience with. Sheriff has always been in Leonard. And anybody does it. Right. Like anybody, anyone. You, the incoming board chair. I have had great experience with them, but the one thing that's this kind of one thread is assistance. So it could be leadership and it trickles down. Or is it somewhere written in PCMA that we are first here, customer service first. So yes, the employees drive the culture, could drive the culture. But if you don't have any expectations as a company and say, hey, we're here to serve, I don't care what you do, this is a service place first. If you don't do that and set out the expectations, having the employees dictate what the culture is can be dangerous. Magdalina Atanassova: Can you elaborate on that? Sherron Washington: Yeah. So it can be dangerous in this sense. What if it's negative? Right. What if there's a habit? So I train companies like this a lot of times and I can think of one company in particular. I'm not sharing the name, but I can think about the company in my head and their issues. So because there's no culture that's defined by leadership, it's kind of willy nilly, kind of do whatever you want to. The employees have created a culture of being able to say their mind. So they, they can, they can be open, but they also can be very disrespectful. So no, they could yell, they hang up the phone each other, they could curse and what they use profanity or whatever. So the new leader is trying to change the culture. Well, if you've been doing this 20 years, 30 years, if you've been creating, letting these habits fly, it's going to be very difficult because now your leadership is the one who has created that negative culture. And without an organization fan in the beginning, you should change. It's a hard change. But without the organization kind of setting standards, we don't do this, we don't do this. And you almost have to these days. You almost, I believe like some of my clients will push back and go, well, they're adults, they should know. But they don't because they may not have had the experience or the experience that they're having within the different cultures in different offices is different than everybody else. It is varied. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. Interesting case. Very, very interesting example. Thank you for sharing. What are the most effective strategies for managers to foster collaboration? Especially, you know, having that example that you just mentioned and without making assumptions based on employees age. Sherron Washington: So I think that they should lead with influence. Right. So we get so hung societal things that we get hung up on in organizations as title, title. Right. And then people see because those are that's another bias that happens is this kind of title bias. And people go, oh, my God, if that person is the CEO, I need to act this way, this way, this way, this way. So I want to tell leadership to kind of take the title out of it. Be more casual in having conversations so it seems like you're more relatable. Like, I would tell, like I would advise employees. It's about understanding who's in front of you at the moment. So without going, oh, you know what? Because I'm a Gen Xer, and Maggie, let me tell you, the biggest problem that happens to me is I get mistaken for millennial, right? Really, like, all the time. So I'll be 52 this year. I'm a grandma. I'm have kids 31 and 32. Got all these identifiers is what young people would do, right? So oftentimes when people are talking to me until they find out how old I am, it's like, okay, all right, little person, let me help you. Because you don't. But then they get to talking to me like, wait, what year did you. How can you be a professor for 19 years? Exactly, exactly. And then the conversation changes. So it's. I really found that it's our mindset based on what we've experienced that we can't unless we go, you know what, I need to back up a little bit and treat this individual as an individual. I'm a professor, so I get the Gen Zers and now Alphas. That's another generation. So I'm able to bridge the gap with them because again, I recognize my authority. But I'm so corny, Maggie. Like, I try to use slang with them, but I use it to identify my old age. They laugh at me sometimes they give me slang. Sometimes they're like, no way. But I think the best way for leaders to do that is kind of see where the commonalities are instead of the differences and communicate accordingly. Also, I think you should just give people a chance to shine in their genius. So just because I'm a Gen Xer and I believe in this effectiveness doesn't mean that the Gen Z er couldn't modernize my effectiveness. So I have to be able to be open, and leaders need to be. To be open that the value. There's value that comes from the youth. Now for the youth, I'm going to say the same thing. Just because it was done 30 years ago doesn't mean it will work today. New isn't always the best thing to do. So if we could kind of see where our genius lies. So for example, if we use a. I'll use this slight kind of boxed definition of baby boomer genie. So you got baby boomer maybe thought of as. That's equated. Not really. You think baby boomers don't know how to use technology, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So if that's the case, if you have this real life boomer who is technology adjacent, then as a boomer, I can go, hey, to this gen Z. And again, it's just a baseline. It's not 100%. And as we mix the generations, I think that that will become antiquated anyhow. I think that we need to start looking beyond their age and our expectation of them at that age. Their age, because we comparing ourselves to that age at their age. And so if we stop the comparison, they're not me sure that they didn't have an encyclopedia. I had. I grew up on encyclopedias, but that doesn't make them any less. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. And is there any structured way or know programs that companies can create to encourage this intergenerational learning? Sherron Washington: I think it's important to acknowledge it. So training. Training, definitely like this, but more engaging training with activities that will help them see their own biases. The idea is you want to unmask the bias that I have in me to then be able to change my mindset, that which changes the behavior. So I think it should start with interactive activities. It doesn't even have to be a training. It could be a retreat. So you have generational retreats. You have. You could have not just having leadership retreats, but company retreats where you pick kind of seven people from different departments, different ages. It becomes an inclusive environment and you begin to see generation in a different form. Right. And it may not be so stagnant that I use that stereotype for boomers as rigid. But my mother is a boomer and she loves tik Tok. It just depends on the experience that you create with your. With your circle. Magdalina Atanassova: I think we've observed that there is this kind of perception that the young people like technology and the, you know, more mature people are afraid of it. But also the opposite is true. It depends so much on the individual and not necessarily on their age. I know very proficient people that are older. Sherron Washington: So I do. Right, right. That I have to say, hey, how'd you do? Sometimes I gotta go, how'd you do that? Because we're talking about technology and I think I'm pretty savvy. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, exactly. Is there a way that Companies can exactly extract this confidence from their team. Especially now when we speak about our industry, the events industry, I feel there's a lot more of this inclination. The younger people should do the tech party more. You know, seasoned people have. Have to do only strategy and look big picture. But how can you raise the confidence in your team to do what they're really like? What you said they're where their genius lies. Sherron Washington: I think there's cross training across. Across experimental. I don't know. Shadowing and training is such a stiff word. So I think it's more of kind of cross shadow here, you know, not necessarily a day in the life, but not only a day in the life, but here I'm a CEO. I'm going to get three people, three of my entry level who just got there. Here's a day in my seat. I'm going to give you some things to think about on how you can strategize. First of all, if I was entry level and CEO said, hey, come in and help me to strategize on something, man, I could write even. And with the caveat that this may not be used, but I just want you to understand what it takes, what kind of experience and brain power it takes to be at this level. Let's see what you got going on that way. I think that helps for the CEO to identify their own bias. Like, oh, this was good. I couldn't have thought of this. This is great. Young people are amazing. Then for the other opposite side, hey, I thought that CEOs are stiff. This is a lot of work. Let me not take that for granted or whatever epiphany they come to. But I think that that's a more inclusive environment. Magdalina Atanassova: I wish I had such an experience when I was just starting out, you know, that would have been a game changer. Sherron Washington: And if they said, hey, maybe use it, we might use it, we might table it. Don't be discouraged. But I just want to see how your mind works. Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, exactly. And now with remote work, AI. So how do you see workplace communication evolving over the next few years? A whole episode in its own right. Sherron Washington: No, I know. So I teach AI and for the pr, so storytelling. AI, storytelling in public relations. You know, the more we get technologically advanced, I think my experience has been less we're thinking about people skills or the importance of people skills and peopling. But. But because I love AI and I love new technology, I think it's important to figure out how to collaborate and use new technology. That seems a bit threatening, like invite people to use it. There are still companies that are like, where do I use the AI? And it could be security. You know, it's too new. I don't know if it'll talk about information. It could be security risk. I get that. But the idea to be just so adversely against it to me is a mistake because the reality of this or the my reality of this is that it's coming whether we like it or not. So I think companies should embrace that and then see how they can integrate their people. Look, AI is only as good as your prompts, po. Use it, my friends, in the PCMA community atmosphere. Use it as a tool. Don't rely on it. Just like a Google or dictionary or encyclopedia, it is a tool to help you identify what you need. So I don't think that it will. I think we need people. Will it decrease the market? You know, the marketplace and jobs? That's a real possibility. But where one door closes, others open. Social media gave a whole another path of jobs and that's technology. Right. So gave a whole other path for you to think about. Jobs to have. Magdalina Atanassova: If you could give leaders just one piece of advice to improve their communication across generations, what would that be? Sherron Washington: Patience. Please, please be patient with the people that you work with. They may not be the same age. They could be the same age. Sometimes we falsely think because people share the same age bracket, we share the same experience or same generation. We say we share the same experience. Absolutely not. So be patient in how you deal with people and not jump to stereotypes that are often embedded there to say, okay, they're this, they can't. Or they're this, they won't. Just really focus on the individual. Magdalina Atanassova: That's awesome. Was there anything we didn't mention we. Magdalina Atanassova: Should before we wrap up? Sherron Washington: Look this. Everybody's still figuring it out. We're still figuring it out. And there's generations that are coming up. We had the start of this year is beta. So if you were born on January 1, 2025, you are. Congratulations, Beta. Welcome. Welcome to this space. Understanding that generations are fluid, that it's not Gen X's aren't this unless you've had the experience of what is labeled as a Gen X. Yes, I played outdoors. Latke kid. We did. I'm lucky to be alive. There were so many dangers that I did too. But. But I also passed that to my Gen Z millennial. Sorry Millennial children who actually share kind of that same experience. Same music love, same excitement to be outdoors. So you know that for that conversation. I just want you guys to understand that there could be differences that we're missing and missed opportunities. Magdalina Atanassova: Wonderful end to the conversation. Thank you, Sharon so much for being on the podcast. Sherron Washington: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was fun. Magdalina Atanassova: Remember to subscribe to the Convene Podcast on your favorite listening platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. For further industry insights from the Convene team, head over to PCMA.org/convene. My name is Maggie. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.