The Conversation Advantage: How Ryan Payne Builds Culture One Dialogue at a Time

 In this episode of Activating Greatness, host Alec McChesney sits down with Ryan Payne, Director of Leadership & Development at Velocity Advisory Group, to unpack how culture is built through everyday conversations—and how leaders can improve performance by getting intentional about the micro-moments that shape trust. Ryan draws on 13 years at GEICO leading teams as large as 250 people and shares practical, repeatable approaches to developing leaders, reducing turnover, strengthening engagement, and rebuilding momentum during challenging periods. You’ll hear why “energy” is a learnable leadership behavior, how to create connection in remote and distributed teams, what it looks like to lead with emotional awareness, and how small habits like consistent check-ins can drive measurable results in service, execution, and culture. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello, hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney. And every episode, we're sitting down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organization. We're going to talk about the real stuff, leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for showing up and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. And I am so excited for this episode today because we're going to be talking about the real stuff in a new and interesting way for this podcast, which is going to be about conversations and how conversations create culture. And our guest is Ryan Payne from Velocity, who I'm going to have introduce himself in a minute. But Ryan, I have to tell you that it was maybe 14, 15 months ago now that I was sitting in the client's shoes, and you came to the organization that I was at and delivered a bird session. And we worked through some communication styles, some uh, you know, engagement. You made me try to build something out of marshmallows and glue. Uh, and your energy, um, the word that I would use from the vibes perspective and the parrot, your vibes in that room, you know, it was already selling me on all of the things that Velocity does, all the things that you do. So um, one, thank you for that. Two, thank you for spending an hour with us today, or however long I can convince you to talk to me and share your insights with our listeners. Um, but before we get started, why don't you uh, you know, give us your background, give us your introduction for those who maybe aren't familiar yet with Ryan Payne.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Alec, thank you so much. I just want to say that moment about 14 months ago was one of my favorite. The energy in that room was just phenomenal. And let me say this too. I was actually asked yesterday, Ryan, what is your facilitation style when you're in front of a room? Give me one word. Only one word. Oh, only one word to talk about my facilitation style? And I said energy. So it's funny that you mentioned that because that is what I believe brings just everything to life. I love it. And not just facilitation, leadership. Where are you going to spend that energy and where are you going to put your time? Let me back up so people know who I am. Ryan Payne, very excited to be here. I'm head of our leadership and development department at Velocity Advisory Group. Been here about three years now, and I will say this it's it's been a dream. It's been a dream. Being able to do what I love the most, making somebody better tomorrow than they were today. Does it get better than that? Does it get better than that? And and I just that's what I that's what I live for. So let me rewind a little bit further. I was at Geico Insurance Company for about 13 years, and I had the pleasure in my last six years of leading a team of about 250 different 250 individuals. And it ranged from property damage adjusters, a training team, working with the leadership and development department over there. And it was just a wonderful experience. And I had many leaders across many different states, too, that I was working with. I started off in the in the Baltimore, DC, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, California. It was a wonderful career. So I got to see many different styles, many different things that worked, many different things that didn't work.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

When you're talking about leadership and culture, I was always brought in to change a culture, to make it better, to make people want to be part of something bigger. And I love it. And I could talk about it all day. So thank you so much for having me. I look forward to sharing my experiences with everybody today and just diving into this topic.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

I I told you right out of the gate that this episode might go all over the place. Uh, and you you've already tapped into this with the energy theme. And, you know, I I say all the time, energy is free, right? Like if you can bring that energy, you can change how people take news, you can change how people are sitting and living. And so I have a question for you that's not in our outline. And I I'm allowed one, if not two, bad podcast questions. And for those listening, I'm gonna bring the out right out of the gate. Can that be taught? Can that mean learned? And and the reason I ask this is when we talk about the disc profiles and you talk about flexing on your bird style. And when we talk about going out of your comfort zone, one of the things that I hear when I say energy is free, and I'm saying it in different rooms than you are. But when I'm saying it, a lot of people push back and say, that's not that's not me. That's not my style. I don't have that. And my counter to it has always been the way you bring energy is different than the way I bring energy. But you still have to be able to do that. So I'm curious from your perspective, heavy hitter, right out of the gate, is that something that can be taught? Is that something that can be learned? What is your perspective on that, Ryan?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

So, you know what? I'm gonna actually take off the glasses on this one because it's that important. Lean a little bit further because it's a learned behavior. If you want, it's gonna cause pain. It's gonna take effort. This is not something, I know we're we're on a podcast. This is not something you're gonna get by listening to a podcast or reading a book. Let me give an example. I'm gonna go back in my life a little bit here, if you don't mind. I'm going way back and date myself a little bit here. Going back to my college, I was in a public speaking course. And guess what? This is good, this is the part that will date me. I had a VHS recording. Okay. So on one of my moves, I was telling you, I lived lived all across the United States. I was stumbled upon upon one of my VHS tapes. I put it in the VCR, I watched my speech, and I took it out and I threw it in the trash because it was terrible. I never wanted to see it again, never wanted to watch myself present in that fashion. But from that moment on, I said, I want to get better at being in front of people, bringing energy. What does that mean? So now I said, okay, how can I practice this? I really wasn't sure, but I said, I have a team of seven people. So every single Wednesday, I'm not kidding you, every single Wednesday, you can call that team right now. I presented to them for an hour. 30 minutes to an hour every single Wednesday. And then I kept this habit going. Team grew to 90, team grew to 250. Now I didn't do it every week with a team that large, but every other month I was in front of them on a stage giving some type of presentation because I wanted to get better at that. That was important to me. It was painful. There were many nights where I was sweating underneath the armpits, didn't sleep. Because guess what? I am not. We're talking about styles here. I'm not the pair or interactive style that people would say. I am a dove. That does not come naturally to me. So it took me years. I always asked, how long do you think it took me, Alec, before I started to become more comfortable with this environment and bringing that energy? How long do you think that took?

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Seeing you in person in a room with 52 other team members, I would have said that you were born with it.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

It took about seven years. Wow. But guess what? I was determined to make that part of who I am. Then my disc profile started to switch, and I have some ego in there now. But that wasn't always the case. So I do believe you can learn it if you're willing to put in time. Now that might be extreme. I might be one person that, hey, it took seven years, could take someone else two minutes. Yeah. But it took time and a lot of uncomfortableness.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

So I love it. And I think so much of what we talk about just in terms of learning and development is the willingness or the curiosity to admit that we can be a little bit better, right? And that there are ways that if we could enhance this or enhance that. And your story makes me laugh. Uh, similarly, in in college, uh, it wasn't in a VHS tape, unfortunately. It was uh it was it was on a YouTube channel. I knew that video was gonna be really important in some capacity in my journalism career at the time. And I was not comfortable. I mean, you can see it now. I I mentioned this on a podcast we recorded yesterday. I'm a lot. Uh polish isn't necessarily Polish isn't necessarily the name of the game, but I was really struggling at the time taking the written word that I love from journalism and being able to put it into one minute or two minutes. And so somewhere on the on the interwebs, if you really wanted to find it, you could find a black screen and me doing morning recaps of the NBA games from the night before. Show learn how to communicate. And when I started at Velocity, I went down the the rabbit hole a little bit of my first year at the journal star watching myself hosting videos just like this, and me being like, oh my goodness, it was terrible. Why did they pay me money to do that? And now it's like, hey, you hit record and I won't shut up. And I feel so comfortable talking to you and doing this. And so I don't know, we went on a super tangent right out of the gate. But I think it's so interesting that two people who come from different bird styles, but are kind of in the same result took a the same pathway of we're gonna have to practice this, there's gonna have to be that uncomfortability in order to get where we want to go.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Absolutely. And to me, there's just nothing better when someone says, I want to learn this. Yeah. You are doing whatever it takes to do. It's a magical thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

I I love it. So let's get back on, let's get back on track here. The the goal for today's conversation, you you when I asked you about what we want to focus on, one of the things that you called out was conversations. And that culture starts with conversations, it can build real connections. And I think in recent podcasts that are out now, by the way, if you're listening to this one, it's your first one, go listen to all the other ones too. They're fantastic. We've been talking about conversations in good times, conversations in bad times, you know, how to lead through the most traumatic, you know, year that you've had. So I'm curious, just from your perspective, why do you, or I guess when you think about, when you think about culture, why do you put such an emphasis on conversations? Why do conversations matter so much? And where do leaders overlook maybe the impact that a good conversation can have?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

I love this. And it's it's near and dear to my heart because I have seen both ends of the spectrum here. Yeah. Where we're really focused on the mission, we're really focused on the vision. We have our great essential behaviors on the walls when you're walking down the hallway of the organization. But guess what? Culture doesn't live in your mission. It doesn't live in your vision. Some people might think it does. But to me, it lives in your everyday conversations we have with people. And it starts with that. Most leaders I feel underestimate this. This simple, simple concept that culture they think culture changes with these big moments, this all-in-staff meeting, this strategy rollout, this annual off-site where we had so much fun together. We're we're breaking bread together, we're you know, we're going to play whatever it is together, going paintball fishing. But no, uh culture actually is shaped by the small moments. The hallway check-ins. How did how did Alec handle that ch tension? How did we give feedback? How do we respond when someone makes a mistake? All of those little uh different check-ins are what I believe starts to uh make this really come out. And I want to go a little bit further if you don't mind. Yeah, please. Every one of those interactions uh to me sends a message to what really matters. All those hallway check-ins, all of this. But what I'm saying, you'll find out very quickly does that leader value learning or perfection? Do they listen or do they rush? Do they follow through or they just uh talk about it? And these the real ways to me that you're gonna start to get the signals as as uh an employee working with some for somebody. But guess what? And this is what a lot of leaders forget. People aren't gonna remember the slide deck, they're not gonna remember what you put on this big uh business plan. What are they gonna remember you for? How you made them feel on that Tuesday night after that rough day, that tough phone call, or the hard conversation, they're gonna remember how you made them feel. And when you uh start to be intentional, more intentional about those conversations, you stop overlooking the impact that those casual conversations have on people. Because some still feel that casual conversation that doesn't count. They absolutely do. Absolutely do. Employees are constantly, again, in my opinion, reading your tone, your consistency, your emotional presence, your EQ. That 60 second interaction will either build trust or rotate. So when I think of when I think of culture, it's a series of micro leadership moments. And I just don't think some leaders look at it as much or they don't have the time for those micro leadership moments. When leaders get in one more thing, when they get intention about those small exchanges, that's when the culture starts to shift.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Fantastic, fantastic. And it instantly brings up two two call-outs questions that I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with, and I'm gonna ask you a pushback question a little bit. The first is I've gone on a couple of rants on this on LinkedIn that culture is what we repeatedly do, right? Culture is who we are day in and day out. And it's not a set of words, it's not a logo, it's not the CEO's name. It is who we are day in and day out. So I absolutely love that. This second question is we don't have a water cooler, Ryan. I'm in Omaha. Where are you at? Right. How can we instill those touch points in a world that is forcing us to be increasingly remote, includingly removed from one another? And we're trying to hit deadline, we're trying to hit goal. And I haven't seen my direct manager or my up-level manager, step-level manager, in a month because we've been in all these big meetings. How can we be more intentional when culture and environment and the ecosystem is telling us to deprioritize that right now?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

That's a wonderful question. Something I talk about to many people because you go pre-COVID, the world was very, very different. Your worries were different. Yeah. Post-COVID, the world's very different. Your worries are so different, right? And now it's a lot about intentionality. And you you use that word, but how do we become intentional? So, kind of I was saying, as that learned behavior for energy, yeah, it's a learned behavior to show what is important to you. Are you only going to put meetings on your calendar for that big meeting or our all-in staff meeting, or the things that in your mind are the most important for our company to be successful? Or are you going to be intentional using your calendar and saying, you know what? I need to talk to at least most of the people in the organization on a recurring basis. And how are you going to do that? We have plenty of systems that make it very easy to do that. Yeah. Also, I don't like to just put it on my calendar and say, I'm going to call Alec every single Friday. He knows I'm doing this. I put on my calendar, here are the five people I want to connect with this week. But I don't put it on yours. And I know when your green spots, you're going to be open on your calendar, and I just blind call you. Some people are like, Ryan, why are you doing this? I don't like blind calls. It's what but they got over it over time and said, all right, I appreciate this because you are having a conversation, a real conversation. You're not just blind calling me because there's a problem. And people in this world have gotten so used to if I see this phone or this name on my phone, there's a problem. Yeah. I don't want that to be the case anymore. And having that time where I know I'm just reaching out to say, hey, how are you? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But really wait and listen and pause and understand is the magic where that comes to happen.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

It's it's such an interesting answer because it seems so simple and and it's one of those ones where we overcomplicate it, right? And I think uh, you know, I I had a post today on on LinkedIn, which we're recording this on December 11th, and this is airing in January. So it's a little bit behind, but you know, just one-on-one structures, right? And and if every one-on-one is is, hey, we're gonna jump into this crazy packed agenda and we're gonna problem solve and we're gonna be so aggressive and we're dealing with the heaviest stuff. We're we're gonna we're gonna run out of the human level of relationship. And so we've been talking more in some of these meetings in the business development process about one-on-one structure and there should be coaching one-on-ones. Then there needs to be time for one-on-ones where you tell me about your kid's game last night, and I don't feel like, oh my gosh, you're taking away from the 27 minutes I have to get your attention on X, Y, or Z. And so I think of it as like it's a it's a process problem, right? Like you have to build intentional steps to it, but also it's something that people can manage. I love the idea of putting it on your calendar, not my calendar. Um, Amanda Nichols on our team knows like I'll message her once a week and just say, tell me something good, right? Like, tell me something good that's happening, work or not work, wherever you want to go with it, I will go with it, right? And so yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's one of those ones where I think we overcomplicate the solution when it's right in front of our face.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

It's right there. It's right there. And we don't, you know, if I can go somewhere with this, if you don't mind. Please, any any time. I think one of the biggest, and this kind of goes to what we were probably going to be talking about. I think one of the biggest misconceptions in leadership, this is crazy. Some people might think I'm it might be nuts for saying this, that people are complicated. They're actually not. Right. But, right? I thought I might get that reaction, but most people don't slow down long enough to really see who they are. And what I mean by that, what drives them? What stresses them out? What are the strengths they naturally lean into? If you understand this, everything changes. And if you do those steps that we were just talking about, this comes naturally. Trust builds faster, engagement increases. And honestly, the job gets easier when people are feeling that you're no longer leading the exact same way for each person, it gets easier.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

I I so I have been a huge proponent of the whole person, right? Like we have to manage the whole person, and how I am successful is different than how John or Jennifer is successful. And I want my manager to know that. I've never heard it from this other perspective of they're not as complicated as we think they are. And I love that so Brooke, Brooke, Paige Thompson, and I have done a lot of episodes on getting unstuck and whole person leadership. And we usually do it from the employees' perspective, right? Not from the main Manager or leader's perspective and seeing it in this light of that angle. And I love you said leaders don't slow down enough to be able to see these things is it's fantastic. I mean, we're we we're we can double click on them for the next hour because what I'm gonna what I'm gonna put myself in the shoe of, in the shoes of is a leader who is under a lot of pressure. And the pushback that a lot of times we get is we don't have time for that. And naturally in the sales process, when I put my objection handling hat on, it's kind of like we don't have a choice. If you don't make time for it, they're gonna leave. They're gonna get burnt out, they're gonna leave, they're gonna do X, Y, and Z. You know, there's all of these negatives. But I think we may we might need to shine a little bit more of a light on the positives of what happens when we get it right, you know, and that's what you just started to allude to. So I'm curious, you know, I was gonna ask about how you do this, but talk a little bit about what success actually looks like. Instead of painting this negative picture of if you don't do it, they're gonna walk away, they're gonna leave, they're gonna get burnt out. What's the what's the other side of the coin when we are able to slow down and we prioritize this, we are intentional. What does happiness look like? What does success look like on the other side?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

That's a that's a wonderful question. And I like to make this sometimes some of the stuff I say, I just try to make it simple, right? And when you really think of, I want everyone who's listened to this, think of that person that you care about deeply in your personal life, not at work, right? Someone you care about deeply, but I don't want you to think of a family member. Outside of that, we all have that person we care about deeply. And I can guarantee you that person listens to you when you speak. Really listens to you when you speak. And so I'm telling you a strategy to get there. When you do that and people feel listened to, they care for you, not just the organization, they care for their leader. And when you have a team full of people that care for their leader, success comes pretty quickly. One of, I'm gonna give an example from the past, one of the most important uh numbers I had to achieve, a metric per se, was customer service. You could go through uh a speech, a spiel, uh time and process, picking up the phone quickly, answering it every single time. You could go through all of those things. But if your employee was happy and they felt like you cared about them, the customer service is much, much better. It didn't matter all those other things, other things that you did, because success is driven by how they feel towards a rear, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

The data backs it up. The data that we have at Velocity backs it up that when people are unhappy in roles that they're in, then the client satisfaction is going to drop down as well. And when people are happy, client satisfaction goes up. And again, even saying that out loud, Ryan, I like I'm like laughing because it's like, well, yeah, obviously, right? Like that's an it's a no-brainer, but yet in conversation, it feels like something that gets overlooked when there is turnover or acquisitions, or you know, uh the a CEO finally steps down. Like when these things happen, somehow this gets lost in in the puzzle pieces, and realistically it gets lost in the the the the uh spreadsheet, the boardroom as we're looking at revenue numbers and and and uh trying to make the the bottom line, right? Wow. We're we're heavy hitters right out of the gate, Ryan. I love it. We're 22 minutes into this episode, and you're pulling them out. I'll let you give me a give me another thought on that if you have one, and then I'll take us in a in another direction.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Well, I just want to say just paying paying attention to conversations, the tone people are using, the energy that they're bringing in, what lights them up, what shuts them down, people are constantly just giving us clues. Right. And again, I'm gonna use that word again, rushing. Most leaders rush past them. And what ends up happening is you're working a lot harder and longer in the end, if you just move past this too quickly. And yes, do these conversations take time? 100%. Coaching takes time, getting to know people takes time, but it will make everything much easier in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

It just will.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

It takes time, and it's not something that you can set it and forget it, right? And and I think we've got a couple of pieces of content out there that talk about how culture takes a long time to build, but it can be broken overnight. Trust takes a long time to build, but it can be broken overnight. And one of the things that you mentioned earlier is you were brought in in different roles, and certainly here at Velocity, to help change culture. And whether that was because, you know, there was uh it was a high pressure environment where something went wrong or you know, we weren't hitting numbers for quarter after quarter after quarter. And they said, All right, it's it's time. Let's bring in Ryan. Let's bring in, let's bring in the guru. I'm curious as you present up, second bad podcast question. As you present up the plan to a leadership team, to a board, to a private equity, right? Whoever that might be, I can picture that they're in the room expecting to hear big things, revolutionary change. Here's how we're gonna turn this, and we're gonna go from being down to up. And they want heavy hitters, and you come in and say, hey, we're gonna do this piece by piece. We're gonna do it conversation by conversation, human by human, and one day at a time, you look now, three quarters from now, we're gonna be back on back up on top. I could picture a lot of people hearing that and saying, absolutely not. I want revolutionary change. I want Indiana going from four and 10 to 11 and oh winning the Big Ten championship right now. Am I right in that? And how do you handle that conversation for those that are listening and thinking this sounds great, but my team would never be on board?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

You are more than 100% right. It is one of the it was one of the most difficult conversations to navigate. Because to your point, you know, a C-suite executive team, they want to know how you're gonna give me profit tomorrow. Yeah. Honestly, they really don't even care how you're gonna make it. Just I want it. Yeah. I want it now. So most people weren't jumping on board with my plan of action through culture, through training, through getting people, uh getting in front of people on a very, very consistent basis. And honestly, a lot of people on the team are like, I don't have time to do what you're talking about, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

They didn't know how to do that. Yeah. The the one piece that helped me, I was able to provide the past numbers from each place I have been. So obviously at the beginning, you don't have that. Okay. So I had to give someone someone had to give me a little bit of trust in that first time. That was a smaller scale. I wasn't talking two C-suits, right? I'm talking about a team of seven people. Yeah. I could kind of make my own world. Now, fast forward ten years from there, when I am talking about a very large region, there's only ten, I was managing one of them. And uh to say I am gonna be taking actually everyone out of the field from doing their job six times a year, I got looked at like I was insane. Yeah. They said, You mean to tell me you're gonna reduce productivity for all of your staff, not a portion, all of your staff in the same exact day six times a year? I said, Yes, I am. I am but then I was able to point to what we've done in every other place I've been and show our productivity increased. Because now we have a team that is a team, because guess what? I had the I was lucky enough to have the virtual world before virtual was a thing. Yeah, everyone was scattered all across the whole state or states, right? Yeah, so we had to figure out a way to be intentional about our learning, understanding people, having those conversations. And I said, I'm gonna be intentional by making this uh conference and bringing everybody together these six times a year, going over a lot of different topics, how to negotiate, how to have fun, breaking bread together, doing different activities, but that's our culture. Okay. So the very first time we did it, I said, senior executives, come on down, and they did. They watched. And then shortly after they said, When's your next one gonna be? Yeah. Because it you had to almost see it to believe it. Yeah. And they saw, okay, this is the large scale, but I showed them how to do this in the bite-sized pieces on the everyday conversations, what we're talking about today. But that was a large scale what they saw. So it really was this adopting by by watching mentality of this makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

You know, it's uh on the on the marketing side, there's a a B2B marketing group called Exit Five, and they've got this philosophy that life's too short to work for a CEO who doesn't get marketing. And to a degree, right, whether you're a CEO or a senior HR leader or a VP and you're trying to make this case, there is a little bit of that. I need you to trust me. I need you to see the compounding effects of it. And, you know, we've heard from other, you know, clients of ours, potential clients who have tried other things in the past. It's like, well, we've tried five other things and it hasn't worked. So is that decision fatigue or is that a reason to do something that's actually different? Right. And so there's this balance. And one of the things that I heard you say is six times in a year, right? And that goes to my point in the lead up of that question, which is culture is not a one-time thing. It is who we are all the time. Let's let's just look at right now, there aren't a lot of companies that are getting together six times a year. Not a lot of companies, certainly not a lot of individual teams, right? Like we've got a great off-site, and then we travel here and there. I mean, whose responsibility is it to ensure that the culture that we create in an off-site is carried throughout the year? Is that at the C-suite? Is that I feel like people put that, hey, that's HR's job. That's a culture committee's job. That how do you get that message across that everybody's an owner of this and that each manager, each leader is like, how do you talk about the responsibility of carrying the torch of culture off of an offsite throughout the year?

SPEAKER_00 33:45

One of my favorite things to talk about, because it could be off-site, it could be you name the situation that we're talking about. Yeah. And I get this question a lot when I'm all around with velocity and a lot of our clients right now. It's Ryan, I'm one person in this 60,000-person organization. What do you want me to do? And I always look back at them and I say, guess what? It takes one person to be the disruptor. Yeah. Are you gonna start to be that, or are you gonna say it's too hard for me to do? It's really, I don't like to hear that uh anybody say, Well, senior leadership should be doing this, senior leadership should be doing that. You are a leader, at least from everybody where you are below. So that's what you control. Yeah, you can say you don't have all of the control, but most of the time you do, because guess what? You're already saying senior leadership's too busy to get to talk to you. So are they really stopping you from doing those things that you say matter the most? So I always go back to that. Takes one person to be a disruptor. Are you ready to take that journey? Or are you not?

SPEAKER_02 34:54

And to that, to that end, if you can, if you can create a culture within one relationship and then within two, and then within three, it can change so quickly. And again, it's one of those things that it's compounding. We see it work, and then everybody else wants in. Oh, what's going on on that side? Oh, over here. Oh, let's now let's add, let's add. And again, I go back to work just doesn't have to be this hard, you know. Like, I don't know. I want to enjoy it. I want to hop on a podcast with you and be able to talk about, like, I don't know. You know, we we I think it goes back to that your comment, which I just love about the overcomplicate, like overcomplication of humans and the nature, the like the workforce, all of this stuff. And it just doesn't have to be this difficult. Like we should be able to enjoy ourselves a little bit more if we're gonna have to do it for 50 plus years, uh, you know, at this rate. So I think that's a that's kind of my it's it's where I always go back to is I'm gonna ask somebody how they're doing because honestly, it's gonna make my day a little bit better. And I want to have that human connection too.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yes. I was in the room yesterday with a group of 43 directors and above. And this question actually came up. And I said, Do you know the amount of influence is just sitting in this room? Some of you have teams of 300, 250. We're talking, this is a major chunk of the organization sitting right here. If you want to make a change, you can make a change.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

The right people are in the room.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

The right people are in the room. You just gotta say, okay, I'm ready to take that leap. Because, like you said, it's exponential now. If we all go out and we agree that we're gonna make one change tomorrow, one person have one conversation tomorrow. I even gave them questions that they can go ask their team. And they said, All right, we're diving in. We're gonna make it happen. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

I'm giving that one a little space because it's gonna be a snippet for LinkedIn. Um, that that's gold. Uh, this has been, we're at the 40, I don't know, 40 minute mark, uh, and it's been absolutely worth the price of admission. It is free to listen, but you you know, you get the point, right? Like I knew this would be a great episode. Um before we wrap up, I've got two other trains of thought. The first is I'm gonna ask you four leadership questions. These are gonna be rapid fire. I'd like you to, I'd like you to answer them relatively quickly. So far, everybody is doing their best. Um, and and some answers go long, some are short. Question number one What is one leadership habit that you rely on every day?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Check in with people, but not just work. It's what we were talking about earlier. It's the simple thing of how are you? And I love if you can remind me exactly how you said that, what you said to Amanda. Tell me something good. Tell me something good. Oh, it's my favorite. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. That's the one habit is so important for any leader. It just adds that connection, the trust, opens the door. Yours opens the door from wherever it could go, dude, on many different places. It keeps it keeps me grounded. The fact that Alec, we're leading humans. Yeah. We're not leading tasks, we're leading humans.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

I I I had I picked a huge fight with just the realm of like B2B, B2C. It's all human to human. And if if you can understand that, you could be a lot more successful. But it's not my place to answer your questions. You have a great, great answer on question number one. Question number two What is the most underrated skill that a leader needs today in order to be successful?

SPEAKER_00 38:42

All right, I'm gonna rail back and say be quick. Emotional awareness, part of the EQ spectrum, right? I think EQ is if you don't spend enough time reading books about it, jump into it. That is to me what elevates a leader versus just a manager. Right there, EQ by itself. Lead with clarity and impact.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

I love it. I somewhere in my notes, man, you're putting me on tangents. Somewhere in my notes, in this lovely notebook here, I started at velocity and I was going around and I was asking everybody what our value proposition is. And I am gonna make the the listeners sit and wait and like almost watch as I look for this page because I know exactly where it is. And you said that velocity's job is to help leaders lead with accountability, clarity, and empathy. And I put just giant asterisk next to that everywhere. And I use that the first month right out of the gate, just over and over again. We help leaders lead with accountability, clarity, empathy. So absolutely love that. Um, fantastic answer for number two. Question number three on the opposite side, what is one thing that you believe great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Stop assuming silence means agreement or alignment. Who people that stay quiet are usually maybe they don't know. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's uh lack of clarity, maybe it's uncertainty. But I guarantee you, when you were saying, all right, anybody else have any questions? And you get silence, there is a lot of questions. Draw that out, dive in, or maybe they just don't feel safe to have that conversation with you.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

LinkedIn, social media post right there. That's that might be up today on December 11th. I love that answer. Uh, question number four, and the last one what's the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

I'm gonna say two things here. Please slow down at the right moments. Speed is important. I'm not saying it's not, but presence is powerful. That's my serious one. And my fun one, don't try anything twice. Because you never know what could have happened on that first one, right? I think you've heard me say that before, but I really believe that because people do have bad days, and that's okay. So if you do reach out and you're asking them, tell me something good, and you get an awful response, make sure you come back and you're consistent. You ask them the next day, too.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

I love it. I love it. Okay. Um, unbelievable. We have gone all over the board, which is what I expected. I can picture people are listening to this and they are very interested in more Ryan episodes. And so I'm gonna make a uh a commitment, Ryan, that we'll get you back on at some point. Um, we're obviously recording this in 2025. It's airing in 2026. We'll get you back on as we move through these episodes. Um, but before we wrap up, the last question, you know, the goal of this podcast is to shine light on leadership. And that leadership can look a lot of different ways. Velocity works in a plethora of industries. We work with all types of leaders, small, large team, all of the above. And we want to tell their stories to one, emphasize great leadership and and have more role models out there. And two, to be able to connect the dots. And I think the more of these stories that are out there, the more successful all teams are gonna be. So, with that being said, who is one leader that you believe that we should interview next? Somebody that's doing meaningful work and somebody that others can learn a lot from.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

You know, I would. This is a great question because there's so many good leaders out there. But this person that just popped in my mind, one, they have energy. They bring that every single time. And that's important. Even when you know they're having an off day, they're gonna bring it. And they want people to feel excited. They do interesting things to engage and involve the entire team at all times. And they're just a fun person to talk to, let's be honest. So, this this gentleman, his name's Terrence Edwards, and he is a director at Geico currently. But the wealth of knowledge and his ability to teach, coach, train, and bring people together is uncanny. And he's just, like I said, just a great person. I love it. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

Sounds like the perfect addition to the Activating Greatness podcast, which, if you are listening to this, whether you're on our YouTube page, our website, Apple Spotify, you can get this podcast anywhere. If you're listening to it, you think, gosh, I have to connect with Ryan, please do so. Send him a note on LinkedIn and he'll be happy to see it. Tell him that the Activating Greatness Podcast is where you listen to his brilliance and make sure you leave it a five star review. I have to prove that this works uh to my bosses. Uh, and so I'm really pushing for that. Thank you so much for being a community of leaders who refused. Thank you so much. And as always, bringing the energy.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Absolute pleasure.