Like The Show? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory
About The Guest
Julie Winkle Giulioni is a renowned expert in workplace growth and development, with a passion for helping individuals and organizations reach their full potential. She is the co-author of the international bestseller, Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Want, which has been translated into seven languages, and Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive.
As the founder of DesignArounds, a training firm that provides services to organizations worldwide, Julie has earned numerous accolades for her work, including recognition from Human Resource Executive Magazine’s Top Ten Training Products, the New York Film Festival, Brandon Hall, and the Global HR Excellence Council.
Julie has extensive experience in product development, having previously led cross-functional and international teams at AchieveGlobal. She has also held multiple training management positions and has taught at various levels, from high school to university. Her first job teaching modeling and charm to children inspired her commitment to a career in development.
As a sought-after keynote presenter, Julie has traveled around the world, sharing fresh, inspiring, and actionable strategies for leaders who want to support their own growth and the growth of others. She is a regular contributor to Training Industry Magazine, SmartBrief, and other publications, writing on leadership, career development, and workplace trends.
Talking Points
- 00:00 — Intro
- 03:06 — Julie Winkle’s origin story
- 07:59 — Moving from training programs to career development
- 11:05 — The reason behind the title Julie chose for her book
- 14:51 — What motivates and drives people to move in a certain way to their careers?
- 17:18 — At what point should you start advertising and hiring for your company?
- 25:07 — How can you help people as a manager?
- 33:27 — “To be a leader you should be a prism”
- 35:57 — What should a person look for before going into an organization?
- 38:56 — What is the current reality of the job market after COVID?
- 42:50 — What impression does Julie want to leave on the world?
- 43:59 — Where can people connect with Julie Winkle Giulioni?
- 44:55 — The biggest challenge Julie has overcome in her life
- 46:09 — The most impactful person in Julie’s life
- 47:56 — Julie Winkle’s book or podcast recommendation
- 48:31 — What would Julie Winkle Giulioni tell your 20-year-old self?
- 48:50 — What does success mean to Julie Winkle Giulioni?
Show Links
- https://twitter.com/Julie_WG/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliewinklegiulioni/
- https://www.juliewinklegiulioni.com/
Podcast & Newsletter Sponsors
- HUBSPOT – http://hubspot.com/successpod/
Watch on YouTube
What is the Success Story Podcast?
On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.
The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.
Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures, and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and insights.
He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their stories to help pass those lessons on to others through both experiences and tactical strategies for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between.
Website: https://www.staging20.scottdclary.com
Host of the Success Story Podcast: https://www.successstorypodcast.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/scottdclary
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottdclary
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdclary
Facebook: https://facebook.com/scottdclarypage
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/scottdclary
Medium: https://medium.com/scott-d-clary
Newsletter: https://newsletter.scottdclary.com/
Machine Generated Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
managers, people, employees, organization, career, career development, development, promotions, grow, book, dimensions, hubspot, growth, talent, spoke, day, climb, framework, job, creating
SPEAKERS
Scott D Clary, Julie Winkle Giulioni
Scott D Clary 00:00
Welcome to success story. I’m your host Scott D. Clary. This success story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible podcasts like entrepreneurs on fire hosted by John Lee Dumas, entrepreneurs on fire Stokes inspiration and share strategies to fire up your entrepreneurial journey and create the life you’ve always dreamed of. Listen to entrepreneurs on fire or success story wherever you listen to your podcasts. Today, my guest is Julie Winkle Giulioni
She is a two Times best selling author. She is a TEDx speaker, and she is a champion of workplace professional growth and development. She is a co author of the international best seller helped them grow or watch them go that was translated into seven languages. And she is the author of the soon to be international best seller. Promotions are so yesterday in addition to writing and speaking on workplace and development issues, she leads the firm design arounds. They create trainings to organizations worldwide. They have earned praise and awards from human resource executive Magazine’s Top 10 training products, the New York Film Festival, Brandon Hall, and global HR excellence Council. She has built her entire career about how helping people level up in their own careers. So we spoke about her origin story her pivoting from teaching to creating global corporate training programs to what she speaks about and evangelizes. Now how people can help their employees level up how we can create better frameworks for professional development and workplace development. We spoke about her actual framework, she has a seven alternative dimension of development framework. So not financially driven, not job title or promotion driven. She focuses on contribution, competence, confidence, connection, challenge, contentment, and choice and how as a manager, or a leader or CEO, to actually upskill your team. With these seven dimensions, we spoke about why promotions are so yesterday, why alternative career development is so important. We spoke about what career development looks like today, the reality of the job market, what people are looking for, why they’re staying with companies, why they’re leaving. We spoke about what it means to career climb. Today we spoke about as an employee what to look for, if you’re going to go into an organization, what type of culture should you be part of how to take initiative if your manager doesn’t multiple ways to grow your career competence and efficacy. And then lastly, we spoke about what leadership is in terms of career growth, why we should be looking at leadership as a prison what that means exactly, and how it can help you better understand how to support your team. So let’s jump right into it. This is Julie Winkle Giuliani. She is a TEDx speaker. 2x Best Selling Author and evangelists of workplace growth and development.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 03:06
The origin story you know, I’ve been a teacher I think since I came out of the womb, I just remember my first play dates are all about blackboards and books and showing people how to do stuff. And my mom. When she went to her first parent teacher conference, when I was in kindergarten, I had gotten stars on all my papers. So she was expecting a great conversation. And she came back. And she shared with me that I was doing very well academically, but that the teacher was afraid to leave the room. Because she was afraid that I would take over the class and start start teaching if she wasn’t around. So in my heart and soul, I think I was just born to to teach. And so it made sense that my first job was teaching, it was actually teaching modeling and charm to children. What does that mean? These little, you know, Squeaks their parents would bring them in and they’d want them to learn how to say please, and thank you and demonstrate good manners. And we also threw a little modeling in there as well. They got to, to graduate with a fashion show. And I’m firmly convinced if you can teach five year olds manners, you know, that’s a great platform for probably anything in life. And so it moved on my audience just grew up and I taught high school for several years, I was a college professor and department chair before going back into industry, but also in learning and development roles. I was training manager for a couple of different organizations before going to work for a commercial training company that built and delivered training worldwide to organizations and so that’s where I cut my consulting teeth and that’s where I learned this really weird niche skill around how to build Old, a commercial training program, which is really different than building a program for one organization or one small audience, building something that’s going to work for any level, any industry, any country, it’s a really, it’s a different animal, and a great skill set to have learned. So 20 years or so I left that role went out on my own and continued to do that kind of work. And I still do that kind of work. I love the instructional design training development puzzle. But to 10 or 12 years ago, I guess it’s been now one of my clients, Beverly Kay invited me to co author a book that turned out to be helped them grow or watch them go. And at the time, I said, Sure, you know, it’s kind of one of those bucket list items. And how hard can it be right? Discovered, but it’s thrilling opportunity, just a wonderful chance to be able to step into a whole new and yet not whole new skill set, you know, date was playing off of my teaching and the writing work that I had been doing. But help them grow my bucket list. Let’s do that. Because it’ll be fun sort of project turned out to be a real game changer. I had no anticipation, or how big that book would become, it became a best seller. It’s been translated into seven languages. It was a best seller in Russia, I ended up keynoting in Russia as a result of all of this, the opportunity to really have an impact on managers and supervisors who are struggling with it, how do I have these career conversations with people, it’s been just a joy for the last 10 years sort of riding that wave. And that’s what you know, allowed me to do that the TEDx talk and literally traveled the world talking about career development. And it allowed me to keep learning more about career development as well, really the realities that people were up against. And the question that I asked everybody everywhere I went was, what does career mean to you, and it became sort of a field resource research project. Anyway, fast forward. A couple of years ago at DEA, the Association for Talent Development, which is one of the biggest learning and development associations in the world, invited me to do some blog posts. And at the time, I was pretty busy, and really had to think about Gosh, can I fit this in, but ATD is such a great organization. And gratefully I did, because one of their editors read one of the posts and said, that could be a book would you be interested. And so that’s how it’s, it’s come to pass that I have written promotions are so yesterday, we define career development help employees thrive, and it comes out on March 8 2022.
Scott D Clary 07:58
So we’re going to talk about that in a bit. I want to go into a few things that you experienced in your career and understand them. And maybe that can sort of frame why you moved from training programs into career development. So as when you’re creating these training programs and structuring and for organizations, what did you see was missing with all the employees across all these different different industries, categories? different geographies? What was the what was the thing that you saw that they were lacking in their career? Because obviously, it was enough that it prompted you to sort of go down this rabbit hole of I’m not just going to teach and sort of deploy these glow these global training programs. I’m going to help people understand how to better communicate and interact and engage with and support their employees.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 08:51
Yeah, yeah. So so much of the work that I’ve done in instructional design is in the leadership space. So I’ve had the opportunity to really delve deeply into leaders, managers, supervisors, and what they’re up against, which is extraordinary. You know, there was a time when managers only manage the performance of people, that was their job. And today, there are very few managers who don’t also have deliverables, projects, clients and all the rest of the day to day work that employees have as well. And all by the way, make sure you fit in that most important, most critical responsibility around helping your people grow. And so what’s been missing for a lot of organizations, a lot of leaders, a lot of employees is a manager’s capacity to really meet people where they are in terms of delivering the support required for the growth that they want. You know, I did some research a couple years ago pre pandemic, but I would stand by it today and asked employees about what their expectations were of managers. One of the top expectations that employees had across the generational continuum from Z’s through boomers was their managers have a fundamental responsibility to help them grow. And yet, in organization after organization, when you look at the engagement surveys, the climate surveys, the exit interviews, one of the primary problems people have is that they’re not getting the growth. And so the problem that the last book in this book promotions are so yesterday, is designed to really address is how can we help managers who are overburdened have more to do than can ever get done in a given day? How can we give them the tools that make it easy for them to do job one, which is growing their people?
Scott D Clary 11:01
Okay, that makes sense to me. So that so I understand that the progression through through your career, career, excuse me, now. The particular I always find this interesting, the title of your book. So promotions are so yesterday, why did you choose that title? What does that mean? And and, obviously, what does it mean to you? And why was it so important? But also, what does it mean in the context of the average person in an organization? Why would they not want to get promotions? Why is that a thing of the past.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 11:32
And thank you for asking, because the title really is intended to sort of get attention, it’s intentionally cheeky to, to grab the hearts and minds of potential, very good. And I can’t take credit for it. My publicist, fuzzy a Burke of FSB associates came up with it, just as kind of a throwaway line one day when we were trying to figure out what to call the book. And when she said it, both of our eyes just kind of got really big, and it was like, that’s the name of it. And the truth is, if my publisher would let me have a billboard, rather than these, you know, few square inches, the title could have probably been something like promotions or so yesterday is the exclusive and default definition for how we defined career success. Yeah, we could have gone on a little bit more, but the shorthand promotions are so yesterday, acknowledges the reality that we’re up against today. When you look at today’s organizations, their lean, their flat, mid levels of management have been, you know, taken out of the the org chart, some positions, they’re going open longer. And now with so many organizations going remote and hybrid, even, you know, some of those geographic boundaries, now that are down mean, there’s more competition for roles within an organization. And yet, despite the fact that intellectually, we all get that there are fewer, you know, the nature of a of an organization is a pyramid or a pinhead, in some cases, that it gets narrower and narrower. And we understand that intellectually, and that there’s something in our hearts or in the gray matter somewhere, that when we hear career and career development, it just hijacks the brain and takes us to that expectation that we’re going to be invited up that corporate ladder, it’s just this default setting that somehow, you know, has slipped into our DNA. And it’s a mathematical impossibility. At the end of the day, we can’t give a promotion to everybody who wants development. And yet, because that’s been sort of the only thing on the menu, the only way we’ve talked about what career development is for all these years, we’re creating dissatisfaction for employees who aren’t getting those promotions. And we’re creating tremendous angst for managers and supervisors who know they don’t have those promotions to give. And so then they’re wary about should I even have this conversation? I don’t want to set expectations and tick people off and disengage them. So promotions are so yesterday as the only way that we’re going to be defining career development going forward. And what my field research found was, there are actually seven other dimensions of career development that are actually they’re more interesting to employees than that climb up the corporate ladder. It’s just that we haven’t had the language to talk about it, or the the additional items on the menu for folks to to order those up.
Scott D Clary 14:51
Understood, and is that a recent phenomenon is this because even before we were speaking, and we press record, we’re talking about what motivates what drives people to move in certain directions for their career. So what has the landscape changed in the past two years? Or is this a generational thing? So walk me through that,
Julie Winkle Giulioni 15:11
to the landscape has been changing, you know, ride along. And I would say the last two years have probably amplified some of the issues that we have have been grappling with, what I would say is this multi dimensional career framework that I’ve developed, speaks to engagement, and it has elements that levers maybe is a better way to say levers that managers and leaders have probably been using throughout their careers. What’s different about this is we can use these same levers or dimensions, specifically for the purpose of development. So what happens is, for instance, one of the dimensions is contribution, what we know from the research is people want to there’s this human need to step up to, to make a difference to be of service to do something to live on purpose. And so managers, you know, for years have tapped that use that leverage helps people feel that sense of contribution. What I’m talking about in the book is, let’s keep doing that. But let’s make it reciprocal. Let’s turn it into development. Because the truth is, when I step up, and I do something more, when I decide I’m going to make a difference, I’m going to change this process, or I’m going to lead this project, or I’m going to problem solve for the customer. I’m making a contribution to the organization. But I also have tremendous opportunity to grow and learn through that. And when managers on the front end of that contribution when managers can sit with an employee and say, What do you want to get out of this? What skills do you want to have developed? What visibility might you want to enjoy? What do you want to be able to do differently on the other side, that it’s at that point I’m giving, I’m also getting? And at that point, we’ve got a really rich reciprocal relationship there.
Scott D Clary 17:17
And is that something that so? So is when when do you start to deploy this framework, so I’m a manager or I’m even a an early stage startup founder. And I want I want to hire talent, obviously. And I want that talent to, to, you know, work hard for my organization, exceed all their KPIs, I want them to feel like they’re, you know, they’re welcome part of our culture, I want them to feel like they’re growing, because I know that if they feel like they’re growing, they’re going to be excited about working for the organization. So that’s probably going to, you know, be to my benefit as well. Now, at what point do I start is when I first onboard them, I’m setting these expectations about what career growth looks like? Or is it like, I guess, sort of practical test for somebody that wants to sort of deployed this in the organization? When did they start working on it? Is it from day one,
Julie Winkle Giulioni 18:08
I would say it’s from Day Zero. When you’re in the recruiting and interviewing process, that’s the perfect time to start painting a picture of what growth development engagement success looks like within your organization, to set a realistic set of expectations about what that candidate can expect when they join you. And so if you think about it, especially right now, candidates have so many choices, the competition for talent is fierce. So if you had a choice, if you are a candidate sitting with a manager, who says, you know, we are really committed to development here in this organization, and certainly moves in promotions and positions, that’s a piece of it. But where we focus in on is what’s going to be most interesting to you. What kind of growth Do you will you want at any given time. And so we’ve got this framework, and we’re going to talk to you about sometimes you’re going to want to step up and learn through contribution. Other times it’s going to be competence. Sometimes it’s going to be connections, you know, building your network, and we’re going to work with you to get that visibility, build that kind of a community that you’re looking for. There are going to be times when confidence is where we’re going to want to work together and find ways jointly to help you really feel that sense of assuredness and that you’ve got this in your space. There are going to be times when it’s going to be challenged or or let’s be honest, there are times when you know, over the course of this career, you might have to back off a little bit and lean into contentment and ease and joy and balance. We might want to find ways to boost the choice, the autonomy, the flexibility that you have. We have all of these different avenues to go down During the course of your career with us, and we’re going to work with you to make sure that you’re growing everyday you’re here versus a candidate who’s hearing from a manager. Yep. Okay, so you’re coming in as manager, and in a couple of years, you could probably get to a director level and by year five, maybe or a VP. know about you, I’m going with manager number one. So no, oh, I’m sorry.
Scott D Clary 20:25
No, no, no, I was gonna say I was gonna say, I want to, I want to understand. Because the other part of it is how do we. So I see what you’re saying you want to go with manager one. But I want to understand, is it the candidate that we have to look for that looks for alternative development, like these, like these seven development dimensions? Because I know that there’s also people that I’ve interviewed in the past that are like, I do want the title I do you want more money? So can I still hire that person and maybe set expectations, and I’m just sort of spitballing here, but maybe my expectations are, I’m going to develop you so that you could actually go somewhere else where that is tangible. But I’m going to use you for these two years or something like that. And this is what I can offer you right now. But know that we’re going to try and get you to where you want to go in your career, and it won’t be with us, is that something that we could do for somebody that is driven by some maybe different levers?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 21:21
Absolutely. And there are folks for whom the climb up the corporate ladder is absolutely their goal. So that’s the reality, I don’t believe that at any point that that motivation will entirely go away. And it’s probably the appropriate step for nearly all of us at different points in our career. The challenge with the climb up the corporate ladder, is it’s out of the control of the manager and the employee, you know, we have very little influence over that. Whereas the other seven dimensions are absolutely within the control of the manager and the supervisor. So in that scenario, absolutely, you have someone who has traditional ambitions to move up the corporate ladder, no reason to close the door on that person. But when you overlay the opportunity that beyond in between, and besides those promotions, here are all the other ways we can help you grow, you’re not going to be sitting on your hands sitting in the waiting room, you know, in between those moves, you’re actually going to be in the training room in the classroom day in and day out, developing the skills, the ability, the network, the confidence that you need. And we acknowledge, you know, maybe we’re not going to be the place you’re going to retire from. And that’s okay. Because the truth is, I mean, as you well know, Scott, managers who do this well develop a reputation for development, they don’t have any trouble backfilling talent, people are standing in line to work for someone like that. Now, at the same time, though, I also want to show the other side of the coin here, because climb is absolutely important to some people different points in their career. But when we when I created the multi dimensional career framework with these seven dimensions, plus climb, we did some research with over 700 folks worldwide. And we just simply ask them with a quick line of definition for each of these, prioritize them, sequence them rank order them for most important and what’s your most important what’s most interesting right now to you, how you want to grow right now, all the way down to the least interesting and when the research came back in aggregate, all of those seven dimensions, contribution competence, connection, confidence, challenge, contentment and choice all ranked higher than climb aggregate climb was at the bottom. Now there was one group for whom climb wasn’t it was second to the bottom it was the 20 Somethings we did it in 20s 30s 40s and so on. For for the 20 Somethings climb was second from the bottom and choice was dead last for them which kind of makes sense you know as a newer entrants to the workforce may welcome more structures they kind of get their legs under them, but in aggregate contribution was first competence was second and and then you know, it goes from there but climb was absolutely dead last. And so what’s happening is so many managers are fearful. They’ve got this angst or they avoid altogether the career conversation because they don’t think they’ve got anything of value to offer. Are people, they’ve got seven dimensions that in many cases are more valuable than the climb.
Scott D Clary 25:06
So I’m a manager, I have 1,000,001 things on my plate. And I’m sure that you figured out a way for me to do this effectively while still doing everything else. Because I know that’s the first thing that anybody is going to, you know, they’re going to push back on, they’re going to say, Listen, like, I would love to, I would love to help this person network. I would love to help this person have more autonomy, I can barely keep track of what they’re doing already. How am I just giving them new jobs, new roles, new responsibilities all the time? So what’s the framework for actually doing this as a manager? Because I think everybody would want to do this. I don’t think anybody’s gonna be like, No, I don’t want to make people better. It’s always a it’s always a matter of like prioritizing and time and bandwidth, right?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 25:46
Yeah, no, you’re you’ve hit the nail on the head. You’re right. I don’t think any manager wakes up thinking, I think today, I’ll throw up my people and keep them small. It’s in everybody’s best interest for employees to grow. That goes without saying, and you’re right, you know, when we did the research for the first book helped them grow or watch them go. We wanted to get to the bottom of why managers weren’t doing this. And time was number 1321. Any other issue, and you can’t argue managers are absolutely starved for time. And so so the question is, how do we use the time that we already have with folks, perhaps a little differently, so we aren’t going to invent more time or add any more time to the day? But how can we redeploy the time that we’ve got? So first thing that we’ve done is we’ve created a self assessment that employees can take, that helped them understand their priorities, there’s a copy of it, of course, in the book, but we also have an online version of it. So managers can accelerate the conversation, by inviting people to do this self assessment, and even the act of self assessment, assessing even before they get their their results, just the act of starting to consider these different dimensions, and rank ordering some of these things, that becomes a huge aha for folks. So they go through that process, they get a personalized report email to them. And it, it rank orders what their greatest down to their least interesting dimensions are, defines this a little bit goes into their top dimension or dimensions in some detail and gives them some reflection questions. So if a manager is committed to engaging with employees with this new framework, they can with you know, simply an email to that employee make this suggestion and be conversations ahead by the time they actually come together? And then can look at all right, where are so there’s no guesswork, it’s very clear, where are the interests here. And then what the book does is each of the chapters is one of these dimensions. And it gives specific activities that you can engage in with the employee, most of which are embedded right in the work, I use the expression transforming while performing, when we can double team it when we can make real work be the development, then again, you’re taking that time issue off the table. And so how can we embed, for instance, a new challenge that’s really focused and aligned with somebody’s growth goal? How can we embed that in their job I mean, it becomes one of their KPIs one of the goals on their performance review. It’s not separate from over in this you know, corner, here it is the work becomes the development and the development then becomes the work. So those are just a couple of ways that we can start to address the legitimate time challenge managers have.
Scott D Clary 29:04
I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode. HubSpot. Now, if you want to organize your business, you need a CRM. If you actually want to grow your business, you need HubSpot CRM, with HubSpot, your sales, marketing, customer service and ops teams will have access to all the same dynamically updated data, so they won’t get their wires crossed on where customers in their journey or how to convert them. Plus HubSpot. CRM is easy to buy and easy to use. So you don’t have to waste valuable time onboarding your teams or managing software and you start seeing value right away. Learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better and 2023 and get a special offer of 20% off on eligible plans at hubspot.com/success pod. Can you give me I know there’s obviously a few but can you give me like one example of one of these you sort of touched on it briefly the fact that you would build this into their KPIs and actually have this as an objective but can you give me maybe like a little bit more in depth of like one example of how you would actually do this with one employee based on one of the one of the dimensions.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 30:04
Sure, absolutely. Man, we could do this all afternoon this,
Scott D Clary 30:08
I know, we could do this all go through everything, but there’s still, you still have to go get the book to get there.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 30:14
Okay, thank you, Scott, I appreciate that. So let’s just take on one connection. And, you know, I, it’s one of my favorite of the dimensions. And we’ve heard that expression, you know, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and it’s a little bit of an overstatement. But clearly, the relationships that we have have a profound effect on our career growth. And especially over this last couple of years, man connection has become increasingly important to people. So, so let’s, let’s suppose you have an employee or manager, you have an employee for whom connection is a high priority. So the question is, what do you want to learn with whom, through whom, in order to satisfy your need for connection while also growing. So what I hear from a lot of folks is, you know, they default to Okay, well make an introduction, or mentoring or coaching, and those are all legitimate, they’re in the book, they’re, you know, strategies for doing that. But what frequently falls off a managers radar screen is the opportunity to put people together strategically, on teams on projects around initiatives that allow them to engage with others, for strategic purposes, you know, really intentionally deliberately pulling this team together toward real work that needs to get done. And the good news is, you know, there are plenty of voids and problems and issues in most organizations that you can bring people together around. But so frequently, you know, when you think about networking, and just connecting, there’s a lot of social anxiety. I know, after two years of being shut down, people don’t feel quite like themselves anymore. Even making small talk for some folks is, is challenging. And if you’re an introvert on top of that, just freeform networking, that’s not going to be a meaningful way to connect. But you start putting people shoulder to shoulder working together, when you give them the excuse to be together and doing something of value to the organization, then that discomfort falls away, you’ve got something to talk about, you’ve got something in common. And you’re able to make a very, you know, meaningful connection. When I look back on projects and initiatives with others. Those are some of the strongest relationships that I have, and people in my network, my network that I know, I can really count on. So that’s one way you know, real meaningful work strategically bringing people together around work that needs to get done. That handles the connection piece of it, that leads to the growth. But also Scott goes back to the challenge that we talked about a moment ago, it’s time, this isn’t extra and above, it’s embedded right in there. And that project, successful completion of that project is something they’re also evaluated on. So you’re able to get the real work done, you’re able to get the development done, and you’re able to evaluate and support both.
Scott D Clary 33:28
One of the things that you’ve brought up in past conversations is that to be a leader, you should be a prison. And I want to understand what that means. Because I thought that was an interesting point. And I had no idea what it meant. So obviously, obviously, it’s a topic that you’ve spoken on before. So what does that mean, in the context of career growth, support your support for your employees?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 33:48
I really like light. There is something about light. Yeah, well, in fact, you know, I’ve got blackout curtains on the windows, because if I didn’t, we’d have we don’t have even window treatments. That’s how much I like light in here. And as a leader, I just really can envision that my job is to take this beautiful light that comes through your folks, each of your individual employees. And if I can position myself in the right way to support them the right way. What comes out on the other side is this beautiful rainbow of possibilities and skills and contributions and talents and superpowers that you couldn’t see that they couldn’t see coming in, it was just white, they’re coming in. But if I can get myself positioned at just that right angle for them, suddenly it breaks out and you can see the richness of who they are and they can see the richness of who they are. And the prism also really really works for this multi dimensional career framework too. Because traditionally, we have, have looked at career development in this one dimensional either up the corporate ladder, or sometimes two dimensional, the climbing wall in the jungle gyms and the lattices and stuff that have the lateral thing. But I’m almost saying let’s put the prism on the side of career. And as the light goes through, it breaks career out into these other dimensions of contribution and choice and whatnot. It feels to me like as leaders, when we’re really intentional, when we understand who that person is, when we really see and experience them as a whole, when we invest in them holistically. We can position ourselves to help them see the breadth, the depth, the possibilities, that may not be obvious initially.
Scott D Clary 35:57
I love that actually is a very good analogy. I’m glad I asked that it’s a great analogy, it makes a lot of sense. And let’s let’s flip the script a little bit. And let’s look at from the perspective of the employee or the person going into an organization, what should they look for? What are the cultures that usually tend to foster development and the people that you’d want to work with?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 36:21
You know, if I were looking for a job today, and sitting down across the table from a prospective hiring manager, I would ask them to tell me a little bit about the people who have left their organization, what they’re doing, where they are, how that went, that speaks volumes, to be honest with you. I was talking to it’s been a little bit ago, managing director of a financial services firm, and just a marvelous director of developer of people. And he would take talent and just bring out the best in them, scale them up, and business organization wasn’t able to compensate them well enough. And so they were being picked off by competitors. And as we were talking, he was still so upbeat and positive about the whole situation. And I finally just had to say, John, helped me understand this, you know, you are hemorrhaging talent, you’re doing everything you can to grow them, and they’re just leaving by the droves. Help me understand why you’re smiling is you’re having this conversation with me. And he told me about a situation where someone who had grown gone to a competitor, obviously very disappointed about the whole thing. But they together had just collaborated on a piece of business, the largest piece of business his company had ever been able to secure. He said, I could have never done that with just anyone. I could trust him. He had my back, I had his back. I know, he was loyal to me, I knew his skill level. And we could do something together, even though he wasn’t in our organization any longer. And I thought, gosh, what an abundant mindset to bring to talent. But it also was just this perfect, you know, like karmic circle, that he did the right thing. And the right thing came back to him. So I would love I think, evidence of a development culture is how people talk about those who’ve left i That speaks volumes about how we approach development, and the generosity, you know, sort of back to the point that you made earlier, I might only have you for two years. And that’s okay, let’s make this a great two years where you’re contributing to us. But we’re we’re making a difference to you as well.
Scott D Clary 38:54
And I think that, you know, you’ve you’ve mentioned that you’ve pulled out a few data points, and you’ve done a few studies. Can you paint a picture of the reality of the current? I think you’ve touched on this, but just to sort of double down on it the reality of the current job market, why it’s so important to even care about this in terms of how fast employees switch jobs, or what employers are looking for? Everything that has, like you mentioned sort of fast forwarded through COVID. What does the average employee do? Do they stay for a year they stay for two? Do they? If you don’t focus on these things, how fast are they moved to the next job? Obviously, everything’s virtual now. So it’s very easy to switch jobs. So do you have any data points or just some thoughts on on the current reality we’re living through?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 39:39
Oh my gosh, yeah, we could run through numbers from now. It’ll doomsday. So the latest numbers I’m familiar with, we will have an average of 12 jobs over the course of our year, our careers. average tenure is down to four years, but that’s variable based upon level industry and that kind of thing. career development continues to be one of the primary reasons people join a job, stay at a job, you know, leave a job, linked in, did a survey want to make sure I get the number right 94% of employees said they would stay longer in an organization if they felt like the organization was investing in their development. But the statistic that is just blowing me away these days, employees who don’t perceive growth opportunities are almost eight times as eager to leave, even if they like their jobs. So someone who is not satisfied in their job, it’s not like they don’t like what they’re doing. But if they don’t feel like they’ve got growth opportunities, eight almost eight times as as eager to leave and find something else. So from my perspective, you know, as we look at the great resignation, reshuffle reevaluation, whatever you want to call it, lots of reasons for that. But one of the levers that managers have completely in their control is the ability to offer people opportunities for growth. And if we can paint a possibility filled future, a picture where opportunities for growth live, I think we have the opportunities managers to keep folks longer, and also to attract the kind of talent that we need.
Scott D Clary 41:24
Yeah, no, that’s very, those are incredible stats. I, I didn’t know you had them handy. But that’s really good. That’s, that’s really paints a picture, I had no idea like I had, I had some idea. But when you go into the numbers, it’s it’s very, very obvious that people have to get, you know, pardon my French, like, get their shit together when it comes to providing the proper culture for people. Because I think that if you’re lazy, and you don’t focus on these other other dimensions, and these other levers to help people grow, I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult for you to secure talent for you to keep talent, it’s going to be like, there’s, there’s, like, there’s financial reasons why this is going to be a necessity at one point.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 42:05
It’s gonna really good point. That’s a really good point, Scott, there is a business case for doing this. You know, we used to think of career development as a soft, squishy stuff. But this is hard bottom line stuff. And again, even the best developers of people, you’re gonna lose talent, stuff happens, people are going to shift and move and interests are going to change and whatnot. But if a manager or a leader builds people development, career development as a core competency, they don’t have to fear the loss of talent, because they’ve got the the ability to bring that next person in and up to speed very quickly, effectively.
Scott D Clary 42:49
Very good. Okay. I want to I want to pivot into some rapid fire just pull some last minute insights out of you before we pivot. What closing thoughts on on your work? What what do you hope to accomplish over your life? What would be the ideal outcome? If somebody was to look back at your body of work? What What impression do you want to leave on the world? What impact you want to leave on the world?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 43:14
Wow, that’s deep scar.
Scott D Clary 43:17
It is what you’re doing. You’re doing this for a reason. So what is what is? Where do you where do you hope to see your work impacting the future of work, the future of progress, the future of, of personal professional development? Because you’re doing it for a reason?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 43:29
Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, if people said, what she did make my job easier and more joyful, made it easier for me to help people grow and it made it more joyful because I really saw that the development was happening and I saw people reach their potential. People said that about me I would feel like that was a life fairly well lived on the work front.
Scott D Clary 43:57
Very good, very good. Where do people go get the book and then also more also, as just as important? Where do people connect with you on social all the websites all of that
Julie Winkle Giulioni 44:09
probably the easiest place to find me as my website Julie Winkle giuliani.com And I’m sure you’ll put that in the show notes Yes, love letters there. And at that site, you can learn anything that you need, you can learn about the book you can also take that self assessment that I mentioned and the book promotions are so yesterday redefined career development, help employees Thrive that’s published by a TV press is available for preorder now and it launches on March 8. It’s available on Amazon and all your fine booksellers.
Scott D Clary 44:45
Perfect. Is there any socials your best?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 44:48
Yep, I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook.
Scott D Clary 44:52
I’ll save name Okay, perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay, let’s do a couple rapid fire. The biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in your Your personal or professional life? What was it? How did you overcome it? What do you learn from it?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 45:06
Biggest challenge I don’t think I’ve overcome, I still struggle with it. And it’s balance, you know, it’s finding that balance. And you probably share it too, when you are an entrepreneur, when you’re doing your own work, and you love what you’re doing, it is so easy to just become consumed by it, and forget, you know, even with family and friends and everything to forget that I am in a constant tension between it and not trying, trying to throw myself into my work and thoroughly enjoy that, while also making sure that I’ve got the the ease and the rest and the rejuvenation and the other kind of fun time as well. So that’s, I think that might be life’s challenge for me this time around
Scott D Clary 45:53
100%, that that is a challenge of everyone who’s passionate about anything, for sure. And it is a constant struggle. But that’s a good challenge. It’s a good problem to have, it means you’re, you know, you’re in your zone of genius or whatever, whatever you call it. You’re doing something you love, and you’re passionate about. If you had to choose one person, obviously, there’s been many people, but one person has had an incredible impact on your life. Who was that? What did they teach you?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 46:18
I’ve been blessed with so many great role models. And it’s probably cliche, but I’m gonna go with my dad, my dad was this amazing man. He had an eighth grade education, he had to drop out of school when he was in eighth grade to support his family. And he ended up being a printer. And when he and my mom got together, and they had family, and we were starting to go to school, my brother and I, they wanted something more for us than they had had, and a printer salary doesn’t go very far. And so my dad made the commitment, he basically took a second job, my dad worked two jobs. Most of the time I was growing up, he was gone before I woke up in the morning, and not home till after I was in bed. And it was the most extraordinary and generous act. I didn’t realize it at the time. Of course, you know, kids take that for granted, but in retrospect, the most generous act of love for his family. But he was also an incredible role model for work ethic. And so not a day goes by that I don’t reflect upon that and really aspire to honor the work ethic that he brought to our family and the gifts that he gave to me as a result. While at the same time. You know, he he also is a reminder of that balance that I do want to strike that I don’t want that to be the way my days are lived in the way my my life is lived.
Scott D Clary 47:54
Very good. If you had a favorite source to learn and grow a book, a podcast and audible something that’s impacted you, what was that so people can go check it out.
Julie Winkle Giulioni 48:07
Oh, gosh, yeah, we’ve got a whole library to go through. Right now. What I am really appreciating is Whitney Johnson’s new book smart growth, really good. And it just it speaks to the nature of learning, and lays out a roadmap that I think is helpful for anyone at any phase in their career learning anything in general.
Scott D Clary 48:32
If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing what would it be?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 48:37
Chill out. mellow out. Yeah, I mean, stop worrying about everything. Half the things you’re worrying about are going to happen. Just you know. Let it go. It’s going to be okay.
Scott D Clary 48:51
And then last question, what does success mean to you?
Julie Winkle Giulioni 48:55
choice, choice control autonomy, flexibility, volition being able to decide who I get to work with when I work how I work. To see the experience of of having choice in my life is success.