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89% of Workers Suffer From Messaging Fatigue · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Welcome, dear listeners, to the Speak and Flow podcast, where we slow things down just a bit to help you speak with more clarity and confidence when it matters most. Our episodes are just 20 minutes long, we're going to give you practical communication tips
• 0:17
  Melinda Lee: In response to what is happening to our world, in response to what's happening within your work.
• 0:24
  Melinda Lee: And our topic today is all around information overload and messaging fatigue.
• 0:31
  Melinda Lee: I get so many messages in my inbox, I'm sure you do too, and I'm sure our guest, our leader, also does too, because he's a VP of American Worldwide Agencies.
• 0:45
  Melinda Lee: Early on, he's learned from his father to put your name on everything. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. And within his firm, they are a company known to get information where information is constant and normalized. So we're going to learn from him how to organize all this information in a way that is going to be beneficial and productive for you and your teams.
• 1:09
  Melinda Lee: And so please help me welcome Gerald. Hi, Gerald!
• 1:13
  Gerald Lowe: Hi, Belinda, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be joining you on your podcast today.
• 1:19
  Melinda Lee: Thank you so much for sharing, and I'm looking forward to learning from you. And so, before we begin, can you share with the audience what excites you about what you do at American Worldwide Agencies?
• 1:33
  Gerald Lowe: I am always focused on the people, and that's the thing that I get the most excitement out of. You know, the most gratifying part of my job is seeing some of my team members, some of my coworkers, some of my colleagues.
• 1:47
  Gerald Lowe: do better than what they even thought that they could. You know, succeeding in a task that, you know, they thought exceeded their capabilities. So really seeing, like, how people grow in their professional capacities.
• 1:59
  Gerald Lowe: That's something that's… that's really important to me. I always think, like, work is a great environment for us to…
• 2:06
  Gerald Lowe: test and challenge our skills that we can then bring to our lives outside of work, and it helps us to become better people. So, you know, that's really what I'm focused on, is like, how can we make our work environment,
• 2:19
  Gerald Lowe: A place where people get challenged, get to learn these skills of, like, time management, creating focus, prioritization.
• 2:27
  Gerald Lowe: Bring that into their personal lives, which will ultimately help them to become better people.
• 2:31
  Melinda Lee: Wow. What a great organization to work at, where people can feel like they are not only just, professionally growing, but personally growing, and being challenged, and putting their best foot forward, and also the executives are, recognizing that they do that.
• 2:48
  Melinda Lee: So, kudos to you. And so, how do you do this? With, the… what you do at the organization, information is key. Information is the commodity, it's how you help your support and how you help your clients and customers. So, how do you organize all this information, and help… and to be productive?
• 3:09
  Gerald Lowe: So, great question. Thank you very much, Melinda. I think, to give our audience, like, a little bit of context, just want to give a brief overview of what it is that American Mobile Agencies does. So, we're technically a wholesale freight forwarder, and for the people out there that's never heard the words, freight forwarding before, you're not alone. I've tried to explain this to my friends, all of them look at me with puzzled faces.
• 3:32
  Gerald Lowe: So, you know, freight forwarding is basically like Expedia for commercial cargo. So just like how we would go on Expedia to try and book a flight for us from, let's say, you know, Los Angeles to Rome.
• 3:45
  Gerald Lowe: You know, there are companies out there that's looking to move some of their cargo, some of their shipments from, let's say, Los Angeles to Sydney.
• 3:53
  Gerald Lowe: And that's where freight forwarders come into play. Freight forwarders are essentially brokers of the freight world, so
• 4:01
  Gerald Lowe: They don't physically… not a lot of freight forwarders physically own the assets, so when I say assets, I'm referring to the planes and the boats and the trucks that move the cargo, but they do have contracts with these parties that move it.
• 4:14
  Gerald Lowe: So at any given day, you know, to tie in with, like, the information overload of this, you know, this topic of conversation, at any given day, on a single shipment, you know, I am dealing with a trucker, a warehouse, a airline, a steamship line.
• 4:30
  Gerald Lowe: terminals that we need to, get approval from, you know, government authorities who need to oversee shipments, so there's constant information being thrown at us at any given time. And where we add value to the market is we organize that information, and we provide that to our customer in a way that
• 4:49
  Gerald Lowe: they can consume it, and they can understand, okay, my shipment is getting picked up today, being brought over here, and I can expect it at my front doorstep in 4 days, or in 5 days.
• 4:59
  Gerald Lowe: So, that's really why I think this topic ties in very well with what we do, and why I think, like, this is a great topic of discussion for me to discuss with you today.
• 5:09
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I mean, because you're constantly… you're dealing with a lot of policy changes, both locally and also internationally. Things are constantly changing, and so you.
• 5:20
  Gerald Lowe: Apparently.
• 5:20
  Melinda Lee: Have to be on top of all the information that's coming towards you.
• 5:25
  Gerald Lowe: Absolutely, and I think, like, what makes freight forwarding such an exciting industry is it's… it's essentially like a backstage pause to what's happening in the world. You know, like, we hear about, like, tariffs being imposed on different countries, like.
• 5:39
  Gerald Lowe: not a lot of that changes, like, has an impact on everyone's, like, day-to-day lives, but we can see that on the shipments that are moving in or out of the US, right? Because those policy changes immediately affect that, and now you've got to
• 5:51
  Gerald Lowe: Understand this policy change, understand how it's going to impact the business of your customer, and then communicate it to your customer in a way that they can understand it.
• 6:01
  Melinda Lee: And so, it's so critical, this information, because it can impact… it can have a domino effect.
• 6:07
  Gerald Lowe: Correct, correct. So, and I think that's why it's so important for us, like, as an organization, we've looked at, like, creating clarity and focus, because what we're trying to do for our customers is to create clarity, like, what is going on with my shipment? Where can I get the latest status update? And the only way that we can create that for our customers is if we can create that for the people that work within our organization.
• 6:32
  Gerald Lowe: If we don't create that clarity and focus for the people in the organization, ultimately that's going to have an effect on the amount of clarity that we can provide to our customers.
• 6:41
  Melinda Lee: But how do you… where do you draw the line? Because if this information is so critical, and important to your clients, and important to the team, it's coming at us from email, from text, from Slack, how do we draw the line? Because if we miss something, it could cost millions, millions of dollars.
• 7:01
  Gerald Lowe: Absolutely, and I think, you know, drawing the line there, that's, like, that's very dependent on, like, the… the business that you're dealing with. I think what we've, what we've, we've trialed and erred, you know, trialed and tested, should I say, not trialed and erred, that… that implies a negative, but trialed and tested in our, in our business is
• 7:21
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, we just look at very basic tools that all of us have available to us in corporate America.
• 7:27
  Gerald Lowe: to help create a little bit of focus for our teams. So the three things we've really put a lot of focus on is organizational structure and clear communication channels.
• 7:36
  Gerald Lowe: Well-defined job descriptions.
• 7:40
  Gerald Lowe: and then regular performance reviews. So, sounds super basic, super simple, but the amount of effort and intention we've put into it has made the difference for us. So, when it comes to, like, defining organizational hierarchy and communication channels, you know.
• 7:58
  Gerald Lowe: Making sure that every layer of our organization knows
• 8:01
  Gerald Lowe: exactly who reports to who, if I need to go and ask a question, who do I need to get that information from? How do things get escalated?
• 8:09
  Gerald Lowe: You know, that's kind of like prepping the team to make sure that, you know, everyone throughout the organization, we're not siloing information. We are absorbing it, right? We're not siloing information. We've got a tried and tested, like, communication flow of information down to, everyone else in the organization. So, you know, information would come into, like, the executive level, and then through the organizational
• 8:34
  Gerald Lowe: hierarchy that would make it through to the mid-level managers, you know, supervisors, coordinators, and then ultimately down to the operator level. And everyone understands this information has been absorbed, dissected, and the parts that apply to me that relate to my job description and what I'm supposed to do, that information is being passed on to me.
• 8:58
  Gerald Lowe: We've really just spent a lot of time with that. What we've then…
• 9:02
  Gerald Lowe: Done in conjunction with that is, you know, really taking some time to put together job descriptions with a lot of intention.
• 9:11
  Gerald Lowe: I think, you know, with the rise of tools such as AI in the business, which is, you know, a buzzword these days, people sometimes gloss over the importance of a job description.
• 9:20
  Gerald Lowe: I see job descriptions as… you know when you go bowling, when you were a kid and you go bowling, and they put up those, like, safety, rail guards on the side, right? So you can throw the ball and it can bounce off the guards, but it will still hit the pins.
• 9:34
  Melinda Lee: That is what we see job descriptions as. Love it.
• 9:37
  Gerald Lowe: Right, so you're defining guardrails for people to help them understand, like, what is my core focus in my role? Is my core focus in the role customer satisfaction, or is my core focus in the role responding to a Teams message that just came in?
• 9:53
  Gerald Lowe: Right? Like, and we have to delineate between, you know, what is important in your role versus, you know, what are distractions that come in throughout the day. So we've defined that very, very well. And then, you know.
• 10:08
  Gerald Lowe: Job descriptions really only work when you can give people respectful, constructive feedback on a regular basis. You know, I think…
• 10:18
  Gerald Lowe: I'm a big fan of Stephen Covey, and I think he was the guy that coined the term dialogue's oxygen to the workplace. Yes. If you stop anyone on my team, they will tell you that they're tired of me saying that, but I always say, like, dialogue's oxygen to the workplace. Me, as
• 10:36
  Gerald Lowe: as a manager, as a leader within our business, I need to be able to receive constructive feedback, right? You know, it's something that helps me to grow, so…
• 10:46
  Gerald Lowe: Just what we've done with our, like, performance reviews is, you know, we've identified the core responsibilities and focuses for each one of our team members through their job description.
• 10:56
  Gerald Lowe: That is then pulled through to the performance review, and it is linked with key performance indicators that has metrics associated with it, and they get regular feedback on that. We currently have a quarterly performance review program.
• 11:10
  Gerald Lowe: Where we sit down with each one of our employees, for at least an hour every quarter to give them that feedback.
• 11:16
  Melinda Lee: Really?
• 11:18
  Gerald Lowe: I think… I think we'll change that to, you know, as we've grown, we're sitting at around, like, 170 employees at this stage, and so you can imagine that's a lot of reviews that take place.
• 11:27
  Melinda Lee: A lot of reviews, I'm thinking, maybe.
• 11:29
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah.
• 11:30
  Melinda Lee: Biannually?
• 11:32
  Gerald Lowe: Biannually, so we're in the process of switching that to more biannual
• 11:37
  Gerald Lowe: You know, to still give people that feedback. So, you'll see what your job description looks like. That will translate through to your performance review, which has specific KPIs built in there, which is very clearly communicated to you, and then you'll get scores on it.
• 11:55
  Gerald Lowe: You know, so we engage in that constant feedback. We don't… we don't just say the dialogues, oxygen to the workplace. We try to live it as well.
• 12:04
  Melinda Lee: And you mentioned, are you doing anything around employee engagement? Are you having an employee… because I can imagine continuing to do this over years. Employees must be very satisfied and engaged.
• 12:15
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Melinda Lee: That they did.
• 12:17
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, so we are, we launched this initiative for this year called the Euro of Action, and the concept behind the Euro of Action is broken down into, like, three
• 12:27
  Gerald Lowe: components. So, how can we make, you know, 2026 our year of action, where we continue to grow as a business and mature, you know, because we were a smaller company, but we're maturing to a more, like, mid-sized corporate entity here in the US.
• 12:40
  Gerald Lowe: And this year of action, the three components that we've identified as important to us is dialogue, action, recognition.
• 12:48
  Gerald Lowe: Dialogue means, how can we have open, clear, honest dialogue with one another? Doesn't always need to be positive. Sometimes, you know, dialogue can involve friction, but done in a respectful manner. How can we use that dialogue to, one, diagnose the challenge that we're facing?
• 13:06
  Melinda Lee: Hmm.
• 13:06
  Gerald Lowe: To, brainstorm to come up with potential solutions for that challenge.
• 13:11
  Gerald Lowe: you know, that's… that helps lay the foundation. Once we've brainstormed potential solutions, we then empower people to take action on those. So, whether that be at the operator level, at the supervisor level, at the manager level, we empower people to say, you know, you guys have come up with this great idea, or this great concept, let's go and let's follow through on it. So that gives people a little bit of, like, agency, right? They can see.
• 13:35
  Gerald Lowe: if I speak up and I have this idea, you know, it will be seen and have the opportunity to execute on the idea. You know, not all ideas work out the way we intend them to, but again, that's an opportunity. Then we just go back to step one, and we say, dialogue, where did this go wrong? How can we learn from it?
• 13:53
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, and then the third component to this is recognition for us. You know, I think recognition is the ultimate momentum builder within a business.
• 14:04
  Gerald Lowe: you know, so we try to recognize people, on… in small ways, in big ways, and you know, like, that needs to be very… deeply done very intentional. Managers usually have a good understanding of the staff members that they work with, so
• 14:19
  Gerald Lowe: You know, whether your staff member would prefer the quiet tap on the shoulder and say, well done with this job, or someone
• 14:26
  Gerald Lowe: you know, likes a little bit more, like, public recognition, you know, we'll recognize them on our social media platforms, in our internal weekly newsletters that we distribute within the company, to just say, to recognize this person for engaging in dialogue, taking action, and ultimately getting the result, or learning from it.
• 14:45
  Melinda Lee: I love it.
• 14:48
  Melinda Lee: And did you know that 2026 is the year of the horse?
• 14:52
  Melinda Lee: Which means action and momentum. So you're right on the… riding the energy of the year of the horse.
• 14:59
  Gerald Lowe: Man, I did not even… I didn't know that that was… that was the symbol of the year of the horse.
• 15:04
  Melinda Lee: You're the horse. Action and momentum. You're in alignment. And so I love that, but like you said, recognition. Hardly anybody will ever… I mean, dialogue, action, and recognition. And I don't think executives or people think about that enough, because they're off… they're…
• 15:23
  Melinda Lee: running the business. And so, how have you been able to get the entire company in alignment with doing these, quarterly alignments, or the, feed… performance feedback reviews? And it's amazing to have this type of culture, while we're
• 15:41
  Melinda Lee: Business, and doing business, meeting with clients, getting, getting bigger deals, and expanding the business to other regions.
• 15:50
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, I think, you know, like, what we've tried to do is, like, every component of our business has different priorities, right? Like, if you're in business development or sales, like, your priorities are, I need to get in front of customers, I need to try and build our business. If your focus is more on operations, then you need to make sure, you know, the specific key performance indicators we've established with our clients
• 16:13
  Gerald Lowe: they need to be met. So, your focus is so…
• 16:16
  Gerald Lowe: you know, we're all in the same business, but we have a very different focus and a very different idea of what success looks like in our role. Again, so this just comes back to… we've gone, like, very basic on this. It draws back to the job descriptions. Job description tells you what your focus is.
• 16:32
  Gerald Lowe: And that's what you'll be assessed on, because you'll get those performance reviews. And when we came up with these, like, three components, you know, action, or dialogue, action, recognition, the question we kept on asking ourselves were, how can we define three concepts that is understood universally from the top of our organization all the way down to the bottom?
• 16:52
  Gerald Lowe: If I walk out into our warehouse and I talk to the gentleman that's driving the forklift, you know, he needs to understand what action, dialogue, recognition looks like in his role. And if we can, you know, get behind those same concepts, like.
• 17:07
  Gerald Lowe: you know, he has a very different focus to the, you know, director of sales, who is out meeting clients today. But, you know, in his role, and in his response… or in his focus, you know, there's also an opportunity for him to engage in dialogue, action, and recognition.
• 17:22
  Melinda Lee: So we've really just looked at, like, what are these.
• 17:25
  Gerald Lowe: very basic elements that everyone in the company can understand, and then we're just reinforcing that. And, you know, it's very difficult, like, we're an organization that has just over 170 employees, so…
• 17:38
  Gerald Lowe: I don't want to sit here and say, like, hey, we're the perfect, perfect organization, we've got all these things figured out. You know, we learn and we grow as we've gone through this. One of the things we've learned in previous years is that, you know, when launching an initiative like this, consistency is really key.
• 17:55
  Gerald Lowe: You have to revisit this on regular occasions with the people within your company, so…
• 18:01
  Gerald Lowe: What we've done from this is, you know, we are hosting, 26 workshops throughout the year, where we go into specific topics that tie in with dialogue, action, and recognitions.
• 18:14
  Gerald Lowe: So, you know, one of the first, meetings… one of the first workshops of the year are coming up tomorrow, and the topic of that conversation, or the topic of that workshop, is going to be dialogue isn't always positive, and that's okay.
• 18:27
  Gerald Lowe: What does that mean for me? What does that mean for my team? And then, again, you know, because we've got these clear, defined communication channels.
• 18:35
  Gerald Lowe: We discuss these with our managers within the company. That information flows down to the supervisors, coordinators, the operators, so this message gets spread across the company as a whole.
• 18:46
  Gerald Lowe: So, you know, we just really doubled down on that, and that's how we… I love it. We're trying to get alignment throughout the entire organization.
• 18:55
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, and you're providing these guardrails. You're providing, right, these… this really systemized, organized way of having conversation and dialogue, and it might not be the positive dialogue, but it's okay, because you're having, real conversations about what that might look like, and how to hold each other to action, and how to recognize people, and when you do these across the team.
• 19:18
  Melinda Lee: expanded teams in a consistent way, you're gonna have the whole organization feel that change, feel that shift, and know how to have… I mean, you're singing in my, my, the same sheet of music, because this is what I like to do with teams. How do we use communication as an engine to drive growth for the company?
• 19:37
  Melinda Lee: And this is what it is all about.
• 19:40
  Melinda Lee: Right. But I love how you're distilling down… we talked about… we started this conversation off with information overload, right? Too much information, and it's coming from all over the place, but you made it so simple. It's a job description. It's having performance evaluations, and the dialogue with my manager, and I have the direct channel of who I'm gonna talk to.
• 20:01
  Melinda Lee: And… and the expectation that it's okay to have dialogue, even if it's uncomfortable. So all of these are beautiful guardrails to have, communication, be a way that's… that is not overwhelming, that is focused, and that it all helps me to… it helps us move together in one direction.
• 20:22
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, I think what it really comes down to, right, is, you know, we live in a world where you are constantly… like, everyone is competing for your attention, right? Whether that be, like, a notification on your phone through some sort of social media app, a phone call, a Teams message, a text message, an email.
• 20:41
  Gerald Lowe: You know, like, everyone's constantly, like, vying for our attention. And I think that, you know, we're not necessarily going to change that of the world, right?
• 20:52
  Gerald Lowe: what we need to focus on is how can we change our response to that? How can we better equip all people to understand, this is important, this is not important, this is something that needs to make me anxious, this is not something that needs to make me anxious?
• 21:06
  Gerald Lowe: So we're focusing more on how do we improve our way of dealing with information overload through very simple
• 21:13
  Gerald Lowe: you know, very simple things that every business has across the, you know, across the world. Everyone across the world has job descriptions. I'm hoping they have performance reviews, but everyone has an org chart and all those kinds of things. So it's very basic concepts, but they've enabled us to
• 21:29
  Gerald Lowe: You know, to help all people succeed with this, you know, with discerning between, this is information that, you know, that deserves my attention, or no, this is my core focus.
• 21:41
  Melinda Lee: wow. So I learned a lot today.
• 21:46
  Melinda Lee: that your dad did, instill a very powerful message that you've carried on, and I could see the sos and the benefits of what he taught you early on, and that is, when you do something, you're putting your name across it? What was it that he said?
• 22:03
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah, so my dad, I was born in South Africa, my dad is, you know, he came from a military background.
• 22:10
  Gerald Lowe: And I… I remember he gave me this task one weekend and said, like, hey, I want you to do… I want you to do this thing. And me just being a kid, it was a little chore around the yard, right? Me being a kid, you know, I put in minimum effort, got it done to the point where he couldn't give me trouble for not doing it, but I definitely didn't put the effort into it that I should have.
• 22:29
  Gerald Lowe: And I just remember him, like, calling me afterwards when he came to look at how I did it. And he was like, listen, son, like, I'm not mad at you, like, you did do what I asked you to do, but…
• 22:40
  Gerald Lowe: just remember that everything in your life that you do, like, imagine taking a labeling gun and putting your name on it, and the rest of the world can see that. So, are you… I'm not gonna ask you, like, I'm not gonna be mad at you for the way that you did this, but I want you to ask yourself the question.
• 22:55
  Gerald Lowe: are you proud of the effort that you put into this? And if you can't answer that truthfully, then you're a problem. I mean, we've got one name, right? So, I never want the quality of my work to defame my name.
• 23:10
  Gerald Lowe: So, that's where that came from.
• 23:13
  Melinda Lee: And I see, I'm sure that American Worldwide Agencies also feels that impact as well.
• 23:19
  Gerald Lowe: I'm hoping so. I'll continue to work on it, and, continue to, to see if there's better ways that I can help people succeed in their roles.
• 23:27
  Melinda Lee: I agree, I agree, and just asking that question, constantly asking that question, and you will be taken there.
• 23:34
  Melinda Lee: And so what is that one takeaway that you want people to remember?
• 23:40
  Gerald Lowe: I think…
• 23:42
  Gerald Lowe: I think the one takeaway that people… that I want people to remember is, you know, there's a lot of, like, self-help podcasts, books, all these things out there, but, you know, and we can read through all of these things, and we can launch initiative after initiative with our teams week after week.
• 24:01
  Gerald Lowe: But ultimately, what it comes down to is you need to be able to create… your teams are going to be confused by, you know, a multitude of different stimuli coming in, like, you know, as we said, communication overload, like, there's going to be
• 24:15
  Gerald Lowe: So much messaging fatigue that your teams are going to experience.
• 24:19
  Gerald Lowe: But ultimately, what can you as an individual do to help them succeed in it? If I'm picking an initiative, I want to be consistent with that. Like, you know, we've learned in the past, we've launched initiatives to help try and create focus with the respective teams in our company.
• 24:35
  Gerald Lowe: But what we've lacked was consistency. You know, choose something that can resonate with your entire organization, something that, you know, the CEO can understand, but also something that the front desk clerk can understand.
• 24:51
  Gerald Lowe: and is applicable to their role, and be consistent with it. Invest in the people in your business to help them deal with some of this messaging fatigue through very simple measures, and that's, I think, how you equip your people to deal with it a little bit better.
• 25:07
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I love that.
• 25:09
  Melinda Lee: be consistent with it. So pick something, and be consistent with it, follow through with it. And it doesn't have to be something elaborate, just something simple, because that's how it sticks, that's how the whole organization can get on board.
• 25:22
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah.
• 25:23
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 25:23
  Gerald Lowe: Yeah.
• 25:24
  Melinda Lee: And do it, right.
• 25:26
  Melinda Lee: Well, thank you so much, Gerald. That was amazing, wonderful conversation. Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences with us. Really appreciate you.
• 25:36
  Gerald Lowe: Thank you very much, Melinda. It was fantastic to be on the show, and thank you so much for having me. It was an incredible privilege.
• 25:42
  Melinda Lee: Thank you. And thank you, audience, for being here. Remember, anytime you have a chance to communicate, you are also connecting and making a positive difference. Take care. Until next time. Bye-bye.