The Magic Door: Cindy Puchalski on Turning 360 Feedback Into Real Change

Most 360 assessments end up in a drawer collecting dust. Executive coach and Velocity Advisory Group consultant Cindy Puchalski explains why — and what separates a 360 that changes how leaders show up from one that changes nothing. Drawing on her years as a COO and group director at Morgan Stanley, Cindy breaks down how to pair 360 feedback with coaching, build action plans that stick, win over skeptics, and answer the one question that reframes the whole conversation: do you want your people to grow? A must-listen for HR and L&D leaders weighing 360 feedback in 2026.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, hello, hello, 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 sit down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness, it isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. I want to give a little background here because there are a lot of leaders who are listening to this podcast who have gone through a 360 in one way or the other. They've gotten the report, they've sat in the debrief, and then they put it in a drawer. And there are a smaller number of leaders for whom that 360 genuinely changed the way they see themselves, the way their teams experience them. And the difference between those groups almost, almost always comes down to a couple of subtle differences: process, coaching, and follow through. And that's what today's guest has built her career around. Cindy Plechowski is an executive coach and an organizational design and performance consultant, and also a coach here at Veloci Advisory Group. Before stepping into the coaching chair full-time, she was the chief operating officer and group director of a large wealth management team at Morgan Stanley, where she discovered that her favorite part of the job had nothing to do with markets or margins. It was the people, the coaching, the moment someone walked into her office tents and walked out with a plan. She went on to earn her master's in organizational development and her ICF coaching certification. And today she works with leaders at every level to uncover the blind spots that performance reviews miss, build the relationships that make feedback stick, and create the accountability structures that turn insight into actual change. Cindy, I told you before we started recording that I was so excited because we haven't really had a dedicated episode about 360 assessments. And yet it's the number one thing that is being talked about at velocity. So thank you so much for sharing some time with us today. Uh, before I get off and running on what we're going to talk about and how we're underutilizing this tool, just want to say thank you one more time for joining us. And if there's anything else that you want to add to the introduction before we get started or, you know, anything that you're really excited to cover, and then we'll jump in and I will start to asking bad podcast questions here.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

I think you've done a great job summarizing, Alec. And thank you so much for including me.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I love it. Well, I am I'm super excited to have this discussion today. And I want to talk about this underutilized tool in leadership development within 360 feedback. And you and I bonded in our prep call that we're not talking about the one where we check a couple of boxes and we send a little note here and there, but we're talking about really unlocking blind spots and building stronger relationships and really being able to take that feedback and turn it into an action plan. But before we go there, I'm interested how you've gotten to this point. So looking at your background, you spent years as a COO and as the group director, and you've held some really pivotal roles inside different organizations. What was it that stood out to you within this team building, within coaching, within the roles that you've had that you were like, you know what? That's it. That's the thing that I want to invest in. That's the thing that I want to spend the rest of my career doing, and that you are are really fired up about.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

So I think my last role, um, the CEO role at Morgan Stanley, really was the one that um helped me realize, you know, the excitement that I had for coaching and um, you know, working with folks in that capacity. I was working with a team that had a national presence and they were growing like crazy. And I wanted to help it in their growth. So I got my master's first first off, which you had mentioned, and um then realized through that um the coaching piece of things. You know, I was exposed to it through the master's process and enjoyed learning about it, but was also using it um in real life every day with with my team. Uh my team used to say that I had a magic door in that they'd come in stressed and and just you know, full of emotion, and we talk and they'd walk out and they'd do one of those. And you know, they were calmer, more focused, and had a plan. And I loved helping them in that. So I decided to do it full time.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

What I I want to jump into a bad podcast question right out of the gate because we we obviously now and in the role that you are in today, so much of this is you can be that external, neutral, objective, third-party resource. But when you were working with the team, you were also trying to hit numbers and you had people that were reporting to you and you were reporting to them. And one of the questions that we get on the podcast, and we get certainly at Velocity is how can you be a good manager and a good coach and a good leader and all of these different pieces? So I'm just curious, you know, when when someone comes to you, I don't, I'm not saying give away all of the magic secrets behind the magic door, but can you pull back the curtain a little bit about how, like, what was your philosophy to to be able to calm the ocean and calm the waves a little bit, and then have your team be able to walk out of that door and say, okay, you know, I can I can do this, or this isn't as big of a deal, maybe as I was making it. Just kind of what what are some of those things that you were able to pick up on that you were like, all right, this is this is really fun, and and frankly, I'm I'm pretty darn good at it too.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Listening and asking the right questions, right? And it really boils down to that. There's not much more than that because people go a thousand miles a minute, especially when you're running a uh, you know, successful business. And they don't all always stop and and listen. And it's very important.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I it it it it can really be that simple, right? When when we think about, you know, I I had a I had a call maybe last week where I'm on 11 and I'm I my energy has reached a limit, and I'm kind of on that teetering of, okay, I I could go in the wrong direction here from this energy. And just being able to spell some of it out and have somebody there to listen and almost ask questions to make me get to the answer myself. I instantaneously change how I'm feeling within a 30-minute window. And I think a lot of times we we talk about the power of listening, but putting it actually in practice as a leader when we want to solve or we want to just come in and take care of it. It's a much different perspective to really be able to practice that on a consistent basis. It is. Well, I wanna I want to jump to I want to jump to the 360s because that's what I was really excited about having having you on, Cindy. And I mentioned in the opening that 360 assessments paired with some level of coaching or action planning after it has really become a uh a non-negotiable for a lot of teams. And it's one of the things that people are looking to organizations like Velocity or they're trying to build it in themselves. But what I have also heard in my eight months here at Velocity is that hey, we did 360s and it didn't work. And it it we tried it and it ended up collecting dust, and we did not move the needle from going through that process. So I'm curious from your perspective, what what actually separates a 360 that we implement and it works and people are really fired up about? And that 360 that ends up in the desk drawer and collects dust, and then a year later we have the same result, the same exact tendencies, the same positives and the same negatives.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

So you need to create a plan around it. You know, you can talk about it all day long, but if you don't create action steps and then have ways to um help reinforce those later on, um, it will sit in the desk. So that's that's one thing we do. We start with a plan. We suggest folks at the end of it talk to the people that have um filled it out for them and sometimes use them as accountability partners if that's helpful to them. Yeah. And there are those places that actually have coaching built into their 360 process, and that's even better, right? Because we can follow up with them. I will follow up with them later um anyway, but if there's coaching sessions built in, that's win-win, right? Because you can talk about those action steps every time.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Well, every every data point that we have points to pairing some level of coaching with the 360, makes the 360 more effective. I'm gonna just put it in in layman's terms here. I I I know budget is a concern for a lot of organizations, but so is time and the level of investment that, you know, an action plan and accountability and mini coaching or full coaching comes with it. A lot of the feedback is we just don't have that. We we're not able to add that into the mix and we're just doing this to kind of check a box. I'm curious from your perspective, what would your, you know, if we were talking about objection handling here and and an organization said, no, you know, we don't need that level of support. We're just gonna do the 360, we'll let the teams figure it out, and and we'll we'll cross that bridge when we get there. What's kind of your counter in your mind of of the value or the impact that we can create from this process as a whole?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Well, I guess I would ask them the question do you want your folks to grow in in a way that's meaningful? Um, because the 360 helps do just that. People don't necessarily, like I said, listening before, they don't stop and necessarily take the time to think about their development. They don't think about how others view them. And it can be very impactful to get that 360. There, especially the folks that you know uncover results that they didn't expect. Uh, it can be super impactful and help them get to the next level. So I would say I think it's critical for a company to use.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

I I love the question of do you want your folks to grow? Like when you put it, when you boil it down to that, right? When we're talking about an era in work where recruitment and retention is as difficult as ever, and there's job hugging, and there are new entrants into the market on a day-to-day basis, trying to poach the talent that you have. You're fighting the remote, remote workforce and coming back to office. One of the ways to retain those top employees is to invest in them and invest in their personal and professional development. And I think just as simple, I love that, I love that question. And it's probably going to be a poll quote that we bring out on LinkedIn is do you want your people to grow? Because if you do, this becomes a part of that process, whether it's in the annual review planning or annual annual review process, or if it's in a planning session, this is something that that really showcases that investment to the individual uh with inside the organization.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Absolutely. And I would go one step further and also say that as companies bring this into their whole process, that they need to encourage people to be candid in their feedback when they do it, because that makes all the difference as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, uh a 360 where we're painting everything as sunshine and rainbows uh all the time is not going to be helpful. And I think similarly, it's it's it's a similar uh concept when we talk about coaching. Within coaching, you have to show up in a very vulnerable and real way, and you have to want to to get better and to be a part of this overall um development in yourself, right? It's one thing for the organization to say, we want to invest in you and develop you, but the individual also has to take that to heart and and take some ownership and those improvements uh, you know, on top of everything else that's going on.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Absolutely. And the people that are filling out the survey as well. You had mentioned check the box earlier, and that's that resonated with me.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

So yeah. It's uh it it becomes a it becomes a strategy rather than a task when it's done right, is kind of how I've I've I've been learning the more that you and I have talked about this, and it also becomes a part of your organization, right? You mentioned that it can require uh a village to be able to do this. You want an accountability partner, you want a uh an owner inside of the organization, and then maybe you have an external partner like a velocity who then has a wonderful coach like Cindy, and there's different players that are in this mix, but I think that goes back to the the strategy and not a tactic. And so, you know, I'm gonna ask a uh it's not a bad podcast question, but it's a vague podcast question, which is which is we've kind of talked about what happens when it goes wrong, but I would love to hear just kind of what happens when it goes right. And so one of the questions that I got recently when I told people we were doing this podcast was they were just curious, like what would a coach walk us through a coach's process? What is a 360 look like when it's done right from the debrief all the way to actual behavior change? And I know we've talked about the raiders have to then be vulnerable and candid and give that feedback. But as vague as that question is, however you want to answer it, Cindy, I would love to be able to share that with our with our audience as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

So it's important to me to always meet the client where they're at. So you can have folks coming to a 360 in all manner, right? Um, you can have someone show up that is completely expecting everything that they've seen on a 360, right? Um, and for those folks, it's a different process than it is for the folks that um are surprised, right? For the folks that expect it, you know, it ends up to a certain extent to be almost more of a coaching session than it is a 360 because we will go over the results, but um we spend a little bit more time talking about, you know, their business or or how how things are for them so that we can figure out ways that they can um have action steps that will be really relevant um to what's going on and and meet their needs. And the folks that come that, you know, are a little surprised by it, well, we'll probably spend more time in the report itself because you really need to talk through, you know, uh there's different questions throughout that might um resonate with them. Or, you know, there's just different ways to talk through it so that they um have more of a comfort level with it toward the end and then can create those action steps because you can't start that action step process until people are are at the point that they're ready to create action steps, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. And I think one of the follow-up questions that we get a lot of times in the sales process at Velocity transparently is what does an action plan look like? And the answer is always, of course, it it really depends, right? Whether we're talking about something really specific, like, hey, how you present in a room when there are 15 people or more in the room doesn't work the way that it does when there's three people? Or if it's more, hey, we need you to be more adaptable, is there a is there a gauge that you, you know, is it two to three pieces that you're gonna say we're gonna pull out and we want just two or three parts of this action plan? Or is it, hey, it might be three for one person and then 17 for another? Or how do you kind of grasp and grapple with, okay, we've got this feedback, even if it's positive feedback, we still want to build upon it. How do you kind of build out that action plan with a coache and really make sure it's something that's attainable as well?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

So there's typically not 17 different usually that doesn't typically happen. Um, typically there are some underlying themes that um point to different things that are happening, right? So it could be communication, it could be, you know, who knows what it is that that person needs to work on. Um, but typically it's it's a few buckets and it's it's figuring out the best way to kind of attack those in in real life situations, if that makes sense. Um so you're not whittling down. Um it's more of a high-level process to kind of think about the different themes and then you know, figuring how out how best to help them apply that day-to-day um and and create steps for the opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

And then that's where if we pair some level of coaching, even if it's just four coaching calls or six coaching calls over the course of the next handful of months, we're able to come back and say, okay, you had that board meeting. Exactly. What was what what did we do well? What did we not do well? Did we feel like we improved upon it? And and then kind of being able to measure against the results that we had from and really measure against the action plan and the themes that we were able to create from that 360 report. Absolutely. Okay, I love it. I love it. All right, one one other question that I have around this do you want your people to grow? Was in our prep call, I asked you specifically who who is a 364. And I asked this question because some people think it's only for the leadership team. I've had others that are like, no, we want it to be kind of the middle managers or the frontline managers because we don't need this over here. And it seems like there is such a differing of opinion of who needs a 360 and who doesn't. And what you said was the 360 is right for anyone who has a growth mindset. And I wrote it down all caps, put asterisk by it, and said that's absolutely uh a question that we have to bring out. And one, I want to pause and say, is there anything that you want to add to that before I even get to my question? Is there anything that you want to add to that quote of a 360 is right for anyone who is of the growth mindset? Anything that you'd like to add to that part, Cindy?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Um I don't think so. I mean, I think any level of person can benefit from it, right? As long as it's done properly. As long as it number one is intentionally filled out, like we've been talking about, right? Um, from both sides of it. And two, if there's a process behind it. Um, I think it can be beneficial for all levels, um, because managers, it can put them on the path to leadership. Uh, leaders, it can strengthen their outlook and process, which can translate to the entire company um, you know, working better, depending on the leader's visibility visibility.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, I it's it's it's a good segue into the second part of the question. Uh so I I'm I'm glad I paused to kind of give that T up because there's also the audience when we think about a growth mindset, uh, let's say me, for example, I I believe that I have a growth mindset. Uh, but five years ago, if I would have gotten a 360 back and I would have had negative feedback within there, I would have gone. And chip on the shoulder approach. And I would have been a little skeptical. And I would have maybe thought, I already know this negative feedback. This is not relevant to me. And thankfully, I've, you know, uh uh evolved over the last five to six years. And and a large part of that is because of actual 360 feedback that I've gotten. So I'm just curious when you go in uh at this level, how do you handle when there is somebody that's really skeptical of this process? And they might have a growth mindset and they might understand that they want to be a director or a VP or a CEO, and they're in that that thought process, but they're skeptical. They already think that they know all of the feedback and they know how to handle it. It's kind of like the quote, I don't need to go to therapy, I know what's wrong with me, I just have to overcome it type of approach. How do you how does that change how you approach the the situation? Because I do think there are a lot of leaders who who are are sitting in that position right now uh here on May 21st in 2026 still.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

So I think I'd start by complimenting them on their self-awareness because it's it's not the easiest thing to be self-aware. It takes some work, right? Uh then I might um acknowledge that because they are self-aware that the 360 might seem ineffective. But you know, seeing as we have the time, why don't we talk a little bit? And talk about their business, talk about the things that challenge them. And from that conversation, typically there are themes that draw them back to the feedback that they've gotten on a 360. And and from there, you know, you develop the actions, action step. So once again, it's meeting people where they're at, listening to what they have to say, and you know, helping them find a path.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah, I I like that you went to the the compliment on the self-awareness piece of the puzzle. And I think that's an example where the coaching becomes even more important than the 360 feedback, right? For for the individual for those individuals that are really maybe skeptical or assumptius, uh assumptive of of what's going to be in there, it feels like for me, yes, we want to do the 360, but really the gold for that level of an individual is in the three, four, five, six months that follow, and having a thought partner that they can maybe banter with and go back and forth with in a way that is how they want to communicate within that process.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I um I'm curious how does and I know we didn't talk about this in our prep, so forgive me for for going down a tangent here, but in the situations where you are doing coaching following a 360, and we're three months in or six months in, and we're falling back into bad habits, and we're falling back into the the feedback that came from the the 360. How do you try to pull people out? And this is more of a coaching question, but you you said something earlier that made me think of it. So I'm just curious, how do you build in those kind of milestones or or part of that action plan to really be able to pull somebody out if they have a bad month or a bad quarter? And I'm also selfishly asking this question because I'm somebody who can be really darn good for two months and then I get really tired. And that third month, sometimes I can fall back into my parrot or my eagle ways, and uh it's not as productive or consistent as I need to be. So I'm curious, just kind of what are some of those things that you've picked up on over the years that you can pull people back out of and and really make sure that we're still moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

So what's getting in your way, Alec? What's happening that doesn't, you know, um isn't helping you connect those dots? And what can we do differently?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

We're gonna go into a full, we're just gonna record a coaching episode right now. We're just gonna record a coaching episode right now. Um do you do you bring do you bring back the feedback from the 360? Or do you just say, hey, I you've you've you've been honest with me that you've had a tough stretch. We don't even need to look at the feedback because you know it. I just want to hear from you. Is it more on that conversational than it is, well, we got to remember the action plan and we've got to kind of remember, or is again, is that kind of based on their personality in that conversation too?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

I typically just my style, um, and people have different styles, but I typically don't that's almost a chiding someone for not getting things done, and that's not really how I show up. Yeah um, you know, um one thing I didn't mention is when we're talking about creating the plan for them at the outset and developing those action steps, part of that process is asking what might get in the way. Yeah, right. Just like a regular coaching session would do. You you try and work on some of those, um, some of those impediments before they even show up. So there's that. Um, hopefully you've got the accountability partner in place if if that's helpful to you. Um so you know, asking questions and figuring out what's what's what's not what's not jiving helps. It also helps some people, and it everybody's different, right? Helps some people to vision. So who do you want to be in six months? And and if you want to be that person, what do you need to do to get there? Right? Sometimes that helps too.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

That helps me. I'm thinking about it right now. You've got you've got me sidetracked right now. It uh it it's it's funny because you know, and obviously there's so many different models, and and velocity uses the disc and birds, and and everybody has their own style and their own things. But when you ask that question of, well, what's getting in the way right now, Alec? And I kind of leaned back, it's like that question would work on me. You know, I I joke all the time that you know when when I go to when I go to therapy, my therapist uh Lisa, shout out to her, she has to say like 12 words because she can ask one question, I can just talk, and then she asks one other. And it's just kind of tweaking how somebody else, she might have to ask 47 questions in order to to get you know 10 words out of it, but how she adapts, it's very similar to some of the stuff that that we talk about here with how to how to approach it from a listening and and kind of that art of being able to ask questions as well. I think that's right. I love it. All right. Last last question I have here for you before we get into the rapid fire. This has been uh I looked down at the clock a minute ago. See, we're at the 40 uh 3:40 central time, which means we've already been recording for 30 minutes, and it does not feel like that, which means it's a great episode. Uh that's exactly what we want to do. And we've got the title of the magic door uh already for the episode, which I'm I'm I'm pumped about. But I I I kind of wanted to share, and and this is not gonna be uh unfamiliar for a lot of people, you know, I've had I've had senior managers on LinkedIn reach out and they have a team of 10, or they are uh, you know, they're on the C-suite, and they only assume that a 360 is for people who are struggling or for when teams are struggling. And we, you know, obviously at Velocity we push that a 360 is actually a great time to do it when things are working really well. Let's let's double down on what's working and and find those those kind of uh the the cracks in the system. But a big topic of conversation has been that now in 2026, this is not a nice to have. It's it's kind of an essential piece of the puzzle. Um, in your opinion, is there a level of leadership, whether it's at a size of an organization, a team, is there a level where you're like 360s need to be a part of the mix? They they have to be. Or in your opinion, is it 360 should be one of the first things that we're developing as an LD team or as an HR team? Um, I'm just curious what your perspective is, because I do get that question a lot. Is it 360 right for us? Is it 360 right for my team? Is it 360 right for our organization?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

And I would definitely be in the camp of um, I think it's essential for the organization. Um, you know, especially there's so many companies that are growing these days that don't have manager training in place. They don't have a lot of different programs in place. And this is kind of an easy, easy thing to implement more than some of the rest of it is, that will give people a great breadth of you know um knowledge or whatever about themselves that can help them work on things, you know, right off the bat. So I think quite frankly, all levels um can benefit in one way or another. It may be different, right? But I think it's still beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yeah, I I had a podcast guest on uh earlier this week who who has some qualms with the saying low-hanging fruit, uh, which I have historically said, uh oh, it's low-hanging fruit, let's just do it. And and her point was if it's low-hanging fruit, will it really make that much of an impact? And I just the way that she was thinking about it was was different than how I have thought about the phrase the low-hanging fruit before. Um, however, Melissa, I apologize. In my opinion, after having this conversation and learning more and more, like this feels like the we have to have it. Like it's not impossible to build it. To your point, a a leadership program that you go through for nine months or for 12 months, that's a heavy lift. That is time, it's investment, it's money, it's all of the above. Whereas a proper 360, you know, you could really do a good job with mini coaching and do it over the course of a quarter. You could do it over the course of an annual review cycle. And so, not to say that it's low-hanging fruit, but it is one of those foundational elements to leadership development that we could be able to bring into an organization as well. I think that's a really good way of way of putting it. All right. I love it. Let's let's go, let's let's turn our attention to some rapid fire leadership round. We get four questions here. Each question is about 30 seconds in length. Uh, the scoring system is made up by me and it changes every episode. So there's no consistency whatsoever, but I will grade each of the answers. The first, the first question is what is one leadership habit that you rely on every day?

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Uh, gaining more knowledge, whether it's reading management articles, books, uh, want to keep current and bolster my knowledge to help my clients in new ways.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

We are 40 episodes in, have had 40 unbelievable answers, but we've never had that answer, which means you get 11 bonus points on the first question. It's a really big deal. Uh, that's a really big deal, Cindy. If only, if only you know, uh, like it's a really big deal. Question, question number two. What is the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful today?

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Communication. Uh, there's so many ways to communicate today, but many leaders don't realize the value. Uh, it's so important to keep people in the loop from organizational changes to day-to-day things going on.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Oh, I love it. And uh, if you communicate it once, it's not enough, right? You got to become that that chief repeating officer. And it in order for it to be understood, that's that's on the communicator. We have to be able to get that message across and connect them to it. So that's a it's a great answer. Question number three is on the flip side of this, which is what is one thing that you believe that great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

So this doesn't always happen to great leaders because if they're great, it doesn't always happen. But um, relying on processes that have worked before versus what the business needs now. It can be an easy default that's not necessarily helpful to the company's growth.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

I I love that. I we've got an episode where we're May 21st. I think this episode comes out in a week uh from now, May 28th, with Krista Robinson, who is the head of HR at the Whites Company, a construction organization here in the Midwest, who, when I was asking some questions about why they made a change, the business told us so. And I just loved that answer uh about the business needs met. We had to meet the needs of the business. We couldn't stay the way that we were. We couldn't rely on the way that we've always done things. We had to evolve and we had to change. And it doesn't matter that it wasn't broken. Uh, we just needed to, we needed to meet the needs of of the future of the organization. So awesome, awesome answer there. Also has never been given, never been given on the what should uh great leaders stop doing. So we get another 10 bonus points. We're up to 21 bonus points with one with one question to go, which is a big deal. Uh, the last question here is what is the best leadership advice that you have ever received?

SPEAKER_00 36:33

So I don't know if you'd uh absolutely count it as leadership advice, but my first boss, I was beating myself up over a mistake, and she said, Everyone makes mistakes. Own it and figure out how to fix it. Don't dwell on it.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

I I'm counting that as leadership and human being advice, and uh maybe a little bit of marriage uh advice and and marriage counseling uh on top of it. Um I love it. We're gonna we're gonna do a final score of 25 bonus points, which is a really big deal. And you win the house cup for this episode of Activating Greatness, Sydney. The the last section that we have here before we let you out is what we refer to as positive gossip. This is an ode to uh Tony Burkard, who's over at Pfizer Center One and was one of our guests a couple of weeks back. And uh really what we're looking for is who's the next person? Who do we need to interview? Who is a great leader, who's making an impact in the work that they do, the relationships that they have, that the activating greatness audience would be able to learn from.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

So I've had the pleasure of getting to know Waleed Khalid, who's the CEO of Oxford Talks, and he helps startups and other small businesses to have a voice on different platforms, which I think is super helpful.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Oh, I love it. I'm not uh Oxford Talks. I'm gonna have to give that uh a look. And I can't wait to pull this clip and send it over their way and say you are a feature of our positive gossip. And now we've got to get you on the podcast here to continue telling great stories uh for the activating greatness audience. Cindy, this was exactly what I was looking for. We're right at the 40-minute marker, which is what I asked for from a time perspective, which is pretty impressive that we you and I were able to stay on time uh and on budget for this project uh for this episode, which I love. Um any final thoughts before we before we get you out of here? Uh anything that you want to add or finish with about 360s that leaders should take away today from our conversation?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Uh, you know, I think we've covered most of it. I I as I said before, I think it's uh such an important part of the process. And um, you know, I I enjoyed doing it because I I love seeing the light bulbs go on for people as they as they figure things out and move forward. So I appreciate you taking the time with me.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Absolutely. I I I appreciate your your time and your expertise. And I also, again, I've gotten all caps here. Do you want your people to grow? And I think that's gonna be the the angle for this episode. Uh, as always, everyone listening, it's the only reason that we're able to do the Activating Greatness podcast is because of the wonderful guests like Cindy, but also the wonderful audience that we have and the feedback that you continue to give us on a week-by-week basis. So make sure you go connect with Cindy on LinkedIn, let her know that the uh Activating Greatness podcast is where you found her. Uh, Cindy is also an unbelievable coach that does great things for Velocity, uh, among other things. So if you want to reach out and connect with Alec and Cindy specifically, please do that as well. And then while you're here, make sure you sign up to get the downloads and the updates for the podcast. It's been really successful. We're 40 episodes in somehow, and it's only May 21st when I'm recording this, but it only works because of you. And I still have to prove that it works. So, you signing up for downloads, listening, commenting, engaging with Cindy, leaving a five-star review, all of that continues to drive the traffic forward for us here in 2026. So, one more time, Cindy, thank you so much. And uh to the activating greatness audience, thank you as always for being part of this community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. And we'll see you on the next episode of the show. Thanks, Alec.