Strategies for Bridging Generational Gaps and Promoting Inclusivity at Work - podcast episode cover

Strategies for Bridging Generational Gaps and Promoting Inclusivity at Work

Feb 19, 202535 minSeason 7Ep. 88
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Episode description

Join hosts Brett Johnson, Katie Ellis, Tonnisha English-Amamoo, and our incredible guests Meredith Ulmer, and Kelsea Cozad as we talk about the crucial topic of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace.

Our discussions are filled with actionable insights and inspiring stories, perfect for anyone looking to create an inclusive and forward-thinking work environment.

Here are three key takeaways from this episode:

🔹 Adapt and Innovate:

  • Learn from Kelsea Cozad on the importance of evolving with technology and how platforms like TikTok can be leveraged even if you're not in their prime demographic.

🔹 Strategic Communication:

  • Tonnisha English-Amamoo stresses understanding your audience's language—whether that's ROI, legal, or corporate speak—to align your execution with agreed strategies effectively.

🔹 Empowering Leadership:

  • Meredith Ulmer offers insight on leading diverse, multi-generational teams and emphasizes the importance of mentoring and supporting the next generation of leaders.

Our guests also weigh in on the importance of open communication across generations, promoting inclusivity in hiring practices, and leveraging social media trends to impact business success.

Inspiring Moments

04:43 Leading marketing for housing authority and resident initiatives.

06:59 Emotionally charged LinkedIn posts prompt private responses.

11:09 Challenging corporate structures, valuing ideas over titles.

13:33 Explaining viral internet trends to leaders is difficult.

17:57 New dictionary requires understanding generational learning.

22:38 Ask how leaders best digest information.

25:19 Promote achievements; self-advocate to gain recognition.

29:17 Promoting diversity by consciously inclusivity in careers.

31:32 Addressing past misses by improving leadership practices.

Inspiring Takeaways

  • Adapt and Evolve with Technology
  • Innovate Within Constraints
  • Speak Your Audience's Language
  • Tailor Information Delivery
  • Learn from Organizational Communication Patterns:
  • Self-Promotion and Networking
  • Genuine Advocacy in the Workplace
  • Breaking Traditional Hierarchies
  • Educate on Social Media's Impact
  • Inclusivity and Mentorship

The Individual Contributor on Spotify

The Individual Contributor on Apple Podcasts

Kelsea on LinkedIn

Meredith on LinkedIn

To run a successful business, you need resources, valuable connections, and community recognition. Business Inspires will provide you with the tools, resources, and examples to inspire you to create the business you envision.

With more than 60 years as an integral part of the Grandview, Upper Arlington, and Marble Cliff communities, the Tri-Village Chamber Partnership is dedicated to a singular purpose - the success of the business community.

Thank you for downloading, listening, and following Business Inspires, a Tri-Village Chamber Partnership podcast.

This season is presented by: 


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Transcript

Brett Johnson [00:00:00]:

Welcome to Business Inspires, where our goal is to inspire you to create the business you envision. I'm Brett Johnson, Tri Village Chamber Partnership board member and the owner of Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Thank you for following and subscribing to the podcast. With me is Katie Ellis, president and CEO of the Tri Village Chamber Partnership and cohost of the podcast. Great to be here with you, Katie.

Katie Ellis [00:00:23]:

It's great to be here and to have the opportunity today to discuss a really crucial topic, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in our workplaces. We have the good fortune to welcome 3 guests today. 1st, Tanisha English Amamu, who is the founder and chief marketing officer at TJE Communications, a boutique marketing agency helping small businesses level the playing field through digital marketing solutions. She's got over 10 years of experience, and it really enjoys working directly with business owners to reach their full marketing potential. When she's not trying to take over the world, she loves spending quality time with her husband and 2 daughters. She pulled dances and loves watching housewives. Next, we have Meredith Ulmer. She's always finding the good on the Internet and has made it her passion to create space for driving wholesome moments and showing off a brand's message to its fullest potential.

Katie Ellis [00:01:24]:

She's worked for brands like Wendy's, Amazon, Lyft, and more. She's got the proven results and the passion to make her corner of the Internet as purposeful as it can be. We also get to hear from Kelsey Kozad, who has over a decade decade of experience leading external communications for high profile brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Root Insurance, Express, and Raising Canes through price through PR crises, social media trends, and brand purpose work. She cohosts the marketing podcast individual contributor with Meredith Ulmer as well. So ladies, such a warm welcome. Thank you so much for taking your time and being with us to showcase this conversation today.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:02:08]:

Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:02:10]:

With us. Hello. Well, I guess something new for our chamber listeners is that I'm gonna be taking over today. So, I am excited for this. I feel like, you know, with us being around the same age, I feel like we've had a lot of the a lot of similar experiences when it comes to just navigating your career and coming into, a a workplace where, you know, where you're the youngins in the room and sometimes our voices, you know, don't get heard. And now with us, you know, moving towards the age of being, you know, the managers, the directors, the leaders, and now we have a new generation coming up. I think it's in this topic is just really important so that we, you know, don't repeat those same things that were done to us, and that we, you know, think about how we can be collaborative. So first off, before we really dive in, what has been going on with the 2 of you? I heard a little birdie mention that maybe some new jobs, some new roles going on.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:03:24]:

Meredith, what have you been up to?

Meredith Ulmer [00:03:27]:

Yeah. So I am off of the consulting realm or out of the consulting realm, which is very exciting. I am at weather bug, which is strange and fun. I did not expect it, but I love it. I am working on a rebrand and I love it so much. So I'm working with a team, and my boss actually was my boss at Wendy's. And whenever he said, do you wanna talk about doing kind of what we did at Wendy's? I could not pass up the opportunity. So it is a great team, and I'm super excited.

Meredith Ulmer [00:04:08]:

There's new leadership and really great energy. There's a meteorologist on my team. I get to work on very exciting and very impactful work that, again, I never expected that I would be able to do. And, like, right now with the wildfires going on, I'm able to actually give back in a very impactful and cool way. So I could go on and on about how unexpected and cool this job is, but hand it over to Kelsey because her job is also very impactful and cool since last time we recorded anything.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:04:39]:

Nice. Kelsey threw this. Spell the tea.

Kelsea Cozad [00:04:43]:

Of course. So I found myself pretty localized. I'm here in Columbus, Ohio and working for the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority, leading marketing and comms which is really important. Servant leadership I would call it. It's, ultimately placing families in in housing and solving the affordable housing crisis here in our community. But it's also a plethora of like wraparound services to not just get people under a roof, but get people ahead in life and and and get families into a better spot. So we just launched, our resident initiatives arm called the RISE Center, and, we're providing workforce training and literacy and day care and, things that are just really needed. We all know the state of the economy and the world right now is just rough stuff for everybody.

Kelsea Cozad [00:05:32]:

So it's it's interesting because Meredith and I started our podcast really with, servant leadership in mind. Right? Like, we wanted people to get the leg up that we think we found through experience and through mentorship our own, to people that maybe didn't have that exposure. And then we both found ourselves in sort of, like, the same sort of work from a 9 to 5 perspective too. So, I think it's it's really nice. It's really rare to find a soul fit that also pays the bills. So, I think we would count ourselves very lucky.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:06:03]:

Yeah. For sure. I love that. I love I feel like the work doesn't feel like work when you're able to actually, like, make a difference. So that's exciting. Also very

Kelsea Cozad [00:06:14]:

millennial of us to, like, have to like where we work. You

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:06:18]:

know? Yes. Yeah.

Meredith Ulmer [00:06:22]:

Yeah. It's fun. And I like the people I work with. Like, it I feel really, really grateful right now. It's an exciting time. Mhmm.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:06:29]:

Well, congratulations to both of you. That's super exciting. Which speaking of your podcast, The Individual Contributor, it's all about bridging the gap between senior leadership and individual contributors as you call them. So tell us what inspired the podcast. What made you think of the name? And then also, what made you just think that, you know, these conversations needed to be happening?

Meredith Ulmer [00:06:59]:

Yeah. So we thought about it because Kelsey and I both post a lot on LinkedIn, and we post a lot probably more emotionally charged than other people do on LinkedIn. And it gets traction, but not necessarily engagement traction, which I think is super interesting. I get a lot of DMs of people saying the things that you talk about are the reason I get food stamps because people don't see me as a person in the workplace. People don't see what I am putting into every day. They don't see me as a person, me as a mom, me as a human, and that, like, broke my heart. And I felt, like, as an individual contributor in corporate in the corporate world who people have looked up to for my previous roles, like, at Wendy's, I felt like people could listen to what I say because of the engagement that I have gotten off of my posts. And Kelsey has a a larger platform than I do, and we have friends who have large platforms and who are really good managers who have been senior leaders at great organizations.

Meredith Ulmer [00:08:13]:

And we've thought, how are these people still respected within huge organizations like Peloton, like Target, like Aspen Dental, huge places, and remain good people. And they have people who look up to them that are individual contributors and grow within their careers and within their teams and really figure out, like, what are those questions that they're asking their teams every day and that they are being asked as leaders. And so we wanted to figure out how to ask those questions and share those with a wider audience. And, Kelsey was the one who came up with the name, which was an awesome name. And, we did this at a very chaotic time in our lives. Kelsey was pregnant. We both were looking for jobs and I was consulting with, like, 6 clients at the time. So hindsight, very happy we ripped the band aid off and did it.

Meredith Ulmer [00:09:10]:

Now we're ready to to come back season 2.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:09:14]:

Yeah. Season 2. Yeah. Well, and I've been able to, you know, listen to the podcast as well. And what I love is that, you know, layers of someone's title and actually having genuine conversations about how can you be an advocate for other people in the workplace. I think, you know, when when you're focused on your career and you're trying to, you know, climb the ladder, it can be easy to just, like, focus on your goal and not really think about the other people around you. But it sounds like the people that you have interviewed have been very mindful about that. I just listened to the one, before this with, I forgot her name, but she worked at Disney.

Kelsea Cozad [00:10:08]:

Is there a bit?

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:10:09]:

Yes. Yes. And she was talking about how that there was a woman who, there was, like, a trip coming up or something. And instead of her being the person that went, she actually suggested that another person on her team went. And, you know, just giving people those opportunities is is super important. And I think, you know, for millennials, you know, we used to be the ones kinda getting a bad rap in the work in the workplace with you know, we, you know, we don't stay at jobs for more than a year, or like you mentioned before, we have to like the people that we work with. And now we have gen zers in the workforce. And from what I've been seeing, there's also been, you know, some negative, connotations around what being a gen z, you know, person in the workforce means.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:10:57]:

So why do you feel like it's so challenging for, like, the the elder generations to be open to new faces and new ideas in the workplace?

Kelsea Cozad [00:11:09]:

I think to speak to the title of the podcast and to all the great stuff you just talked about, Nish, it's, sort of the, like, box and the structure we've put ourselves in with these titles and with these hierarchies and what our podcast seeks to destroy. Right? If you look at examples like Spotify, Spotify's rap was started by an intern who had an idea and that idea was sort of like plucked and turned into this like big cultural moment. But probably would have been ignored because of her status in the company. Right? And especially in the social media space, which, Meredith and I have oodles of experience in. There's still this idea that big brands are being run by social media interns terms or like give your intern a raise or give that girl when in reality it's teams with hierarchies and and managers and directors. So I think there's just a lot of, unlearning that still needs to be done from the corporate structure. And again, individual contributor seeks to kind of help push that along. And I think, you know, the longer you've been in a space and you've learned to master those structures.

Kelsea Cozad [00:12:16]:

Right? The older generation has just had a lot of time and experience in figuring out the game. And then here come millennials and Gen Z and Donnell, but seeking to dismantle the game altogether. There's a friction. There's a rub. And I think our podcast serves as, like, maybe a kinder, safer space to have that rub, and facilitate those conversations.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:12:37]:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I there's another woman also blanking on her name who worked at, Chick Fil A, and she would post She was an employee and would post, like, you know, her different meals at Chick Fil A. And she got a letter from corporate, like, please stop. Like, don't do it. And now she has, like, you know, millions of followers, and, you know, she's, like, doing her thing. So just being open to new ideas. As you both have stepped into, you know, positions of leadership or or having teams be being a part of teams, what are some things that, you have maybe experienced yourself? And how have you been able to navigate that, rather it be from your leadership perspective or being a team member and having a leader who maybe wasn't so open to to new ideas and experiences?

Meredith Ulmer [00:13:33]:

Yeah. That happens frequently. That happens all the time in social, specifically, I would say. I think that explaining to senior leaders or even people who just aren't on social in general because I think if you think you may know a 27 year old who never downloaded TikTok and is all of a sudden celebrating that they feel like they beat TikTok. But, explaining the Internet and why it matters is hard. And explaining why feta sold out in 2022 because of baked feta pasta and that there wasn't a campaign for feta. There wasn't a feta company that said, I want to sell more feta today, but there was some creator who I don't know the name of the person off the top of my head made a recipe. And then that one recipe had a trickle effect across the Internet and billions of people viewed this one recipe across the world.

Meredith Ulmer [00:14:42]:

Literally billions of times I could guarantee baked feta pasta has been viewed. And, just the the trickle down of how Internet culture works and has shaped culture is just not even measurable today. So explaining that is hard. And learning that is just kind of something that you have to do with being online. And what how I like to do it is just bring people along for the ride, and I like to this is very, very tactical, but I like to share a deck and it might just look like a little scrapbook. That's like a little, here's what's going on this week 101. Like, this is what weird Internet is doing today, and I'm going to explain to you, does it matter for our brand? Probably not. But could it? Maybe.

Meredith Ulmer [00:15:43]:

And if it did, here's what an execution could look like. But let's have an exercise to say, but does it have something to do with I have Microban spray sitting here. Maybe it has something to do with Microban spray, and this is what an execution would look like for them. And so it starts to get people in your organizations who might not have, like, that marketing brain or that social media brain, like, thinking, oh, here's a trend and here's how Microban might be thinking of seeing that next thing. So it really takes, like, looking at a very tactical piece of a trend or a piece of content and just breaking it down for someone who may not understand.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:16:28]:

Yeah. I mean, to to that point, we saw that happen with the Stanley Cup. Yeah. Well, and, you know, just thinking about the weather, I follow a weatherman. His name is Nicks. I don't know his name, but he dances. He's always, like, doing all the dances. And, I mean, he's been all over the world, and he's a meteorologist at, like, you know, a local news station.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:16:51]:

There's another woman. Her name was Demetria. She was also a news a a meteorologist. I mean, she was beautiful, so everybody, like, just loved, you know, seeing her. And now she's retired from that. And so just seeing, you know, how content marketing essentially, I think it's hard to explain the putting dollars behind it. Like, if it's not gonna directly have an ROI, like, we're gonna say buy this cup, and then we're gonna see sales versus we're gonna have this influencer, you know, show off all of her cups, and then people will, you know, just wanna follow this person because they have all these cups. It it's definitely hard to explain.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:17:35]:

It's a tough job that we have in marketing, to explain trends and how something that may not you know, doing a new TikTok dance may not make sense for you. But other things around different trends might and just getting, you know, leadership open to to try those ideas can be first.

Meredith Ulmer [00:17:57]:

It's it's an entirely new dictionary, and I think that getting people to understand that it's an entirely new dictionary is step 1. And having them understand that there is a step that they don't understand is also, like, step 1 b. That is I super, super helpful. And I think that the second part of your question was why do other generations, like, struggle with all of this? And I think that it is just learning with time because if you say, I didn't grow up with this, well, yes, I did. I I know. I whenever I was in a teenager, I had Myspace. Yes. But technically, as I have gotten older, TikTok still exists.

Meredith Ulmer [00:18:44]:

I've adopted TikTok. Yes. I'm not in their actual youth demographic, but I I I've gone with the times. Like, I understand that there are content creators who are my age. There are many content creators younger than me. But if you don't adapt with how technology and news is being shared, then unfortunately, news and technology are not the problem. You are. And I think that that is what a lot of, like, I I hate the word thought leader, but a lot of, like, thought leaders and, like, people who are trying to lead spaces are not understanding is if you're not going with it, you you're the one not going with it.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:19:26]:

Right. Right. And, Kelsey, we come from a world, when we work together where nobody really knew what Mailchimp was or or email marketing was. And I think all 3 of us, have been people that maybe we're not breaking rules, but we're gonna find loopholes to prove out our ideas. And so would you encourage that? I'm assuming yes. But I guess, what is a safe way for individual contributors to to look at the rules, maybe find a loophole to kind of prove out, if you will, that this idea that I have could actually be beneficial to the organization if you just give me a chance.

Kelsea Cozad [00:20:13]:

Yeah. That's a great question. I think it's unlearning 101. It's what we all have to do when we wanna unlearn anything. And so we have to know our audience, like, who who are we trying to hold hands and walk through this, like, scary journey with, And what language do they speak? And maybe the language they speak is ROI. Maybe it's legalese. Maybe it's, like, corporate, whatever. But how can you put it in their language? And it it does take some rule breaking.

Kelsea Cozad [00:20:41]:

I think the word you maybe wanted to say was manipulation which sounds scary but it it is what it is at the

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:20:46]:

end of the day,

Kelsea Cozad [00:20:46]:

you know. I can't say to your previous points that, I can put a dollar amount to all of this brand awareness but I can say to your point, Meredith, if, we would have paid for all of these views we got on TikTok, on the local news, or on a commercial, we would have paid 1,000,000 of dollars. We could do this essentially for free. That's a language that an elder millennial or somebody older in the in the business world can understand. Right? That's like attaching some sort of ROI. So I've had a lot of success in my career, equating it to different, older antiquated marketing tactics. I've had a lot of success in not, reacting in the way that my gut wants me to. Right? So if a leader comes to me and says, my 14 year old niece says that we should be on YouTube Shorts, My reaction is to want to draw a heave, but I also don't do that.

Kelsea Cozad [00:21:41]:

I say, great. I would love to talk to your 14 year old niece. Or why does she like that? Or here's what I know about YouTube Shorts and why it does or does not fit into our brand. And then the 3rd piece I would say is to, like, just be really clear on your strategy and get your strategy bought in on. The execution can, you know, ebb and flow. But the strategy, if you can get that bought in on, I think you'll have a lot of success. So for example, if you know and you can get leadership to agree that we need to go all all in on, like, some top of funnel brand awareness stuff, maybe TikTok is a great way to to do that or maybe email marketing is a great way to do that. If you can get them to align on on the bigger picture, the details, I think, you'll have a better success rate at getting that that fluctuated.

Kelsea Cozad [00:22:27]:

So those would be my tips. I mean, break some rules, flip some tables if you want to, as long as, like, everybody is under the same house and understands the reason we're doing that. Right.

Meredith Ulmer [00:22:38]:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I really agree. And I wish that when I was younger, someone told me to ask leaders, even just my manager, how do you best digest information? Like, that is now one of the first questions I ask a new manager or a client or anything. So that you understand, do they need to have a regular one on one where they need to see something, or can you just send a request in a one off Slack? So I think that that is something that can catch someone pretty junior off guard. Like, if you're trying to pitch an idea that you're really excited about, but you give it to someone in the wrong way, like like Kelsey saying, you could do all of that work and that could be absolutely beautiful. But if you are a sweet, sweet junior baby, like or Kelsey and I had been, you pitch it in the wrong way, you get crushed, and then you're spiraling and nothing gets done.

Meredith Ulmer [00:23:33]:

So I think that it's really important to ask always. What's the best way you like to receive information?

Kelsea Cozad [00:23:39]:

Yeah. And pick up on that sort of unspoken cues. Right? Because sometimes people don't know how they, like, best, like, to receive information. And so take the time to observe, take the time to, like, learn from the nose and the shut doors, you know. How are other people getting success up the ladder? And that's what I mean. Learn the language that your your audience speaks, and that takes time unfortunately. But try not to be discouraged and get your confidence from the data. That's that's what I mean by that too.

Kelsea Cozad [00:24:08]:

The data you collect anecdotally with your eyes and your ears, but also what you're testing and learning on social, on email marketing, etcetera. So

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:24:15]:

Mhmm. Yeah. I love that. You kinda answered my question about, you know, thinking about the most effective ways to kinda communicate cross generationally. And I think it just comes down to having open communication and conversations about how people, need to receive information in order

Kelsea Cozad [00:24:34]:

to actually digest it and then be able

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:24:34]:

to move forward together. And actually digest it and then be able to move forward together in the workplace. And so for one of my last questions, I'll ask about when when you're thinking about Gen zers or even, like, younger millennials, soon, you know, our alphas, you know, will be getting up there in age where they're gonna start, you know, working, get into the workforce as well. How can, you know, all of us really push through when we're trying to be heard or seen in the workplace, and maybe we just feel like it's just not we're just not getting through? Like, what would be your best advice for that?

Kelsea Cozad [00:25:19]:

I am always a harbinger of touting my wins and tooting my own horn. So even if they're small victories, even if they're little things that aren't necessarily, like, huge revenue drivers or whatever, no one's gonna know that you did it unless you tell them that you did it. You're always gonna be your base advocate. I think people feel very uncomfortable, talking about themselves or tooting their own horn. But the the the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right? If you wanna stand out, you have to just be and I'm not saying that every 2 seconds in the morning stand up, you should talk about how you logged on 15 minutes early and you you know, whatever. But, once you have some tangible data and some success that moves the needle in some fashion, make sure people know about it or make sure you're keeping a record of it that you can share a performance review time or you can share, when the time is right. But you have to advocate for yourself, and you have to get comfortable with doing that.

Kelsea Cozad [00:26:18]:

And that's the kind of stuff we talk about and we learn from our senior leaders and, from the people that we interview on on individual contributor who have made it up the wrongs and who have done this work already, who have experienced the shift in leadership from sort of the boomers to the millennials and so on and so forth. And everybody's got some sort of extroversion in them that they have to pull out at one point or another to do the networking that you do once you already have the job. Like, that's important too is you don't turn the networking off once you get the offer. Right? You continue to show your face. You continue to, meet people and and blend personalities, and you continue to talk about yourself and tell your successes. So it's uncomfortable, but it it served me very well in my career.

Meredith Ulmer [00:27:01]:

Yeah. Yeah. But keep showing up and keep using data. Like Kelsey's saying, data is what you have is your story. And, again, this is another very tactical thing, but something that I wish I had when I was more junior is if you're consistently not seeing that someone is understanding your wins or what you've been doing in your career, do something as simple as, like, a read back email with your manager or after a big meeting. Say, here's what I took away from the conversation we just had, and here are 3 data points of why I just share or what I just shared and why it was great. And here are some takeaways and here are my next steps of how I'm going to keep improving on x y z. And it's not saying that you're doing a bad job at anything.

Meredith Ulmer [00:27:54]:

It is just saying, like, I I have it together, and here's the proof, and I have it all written down. And it just makes you look even more put together. So I would just say keep doing those read back emails and having a paper trail for everything and continue to practice telling your data story because that is all you have, and it just helps you. Someone told me one time that even whenever you go into a job interview, you're still practicing your data as a storytelling tool. It's just it's what you have throughout your career, and you always are practicing it.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:28:31]:

Yeah. I love that. And then last question on the flip side for you know, we're getting up there. We're we're we're getting older. We're we're taking over these teams, and we're leading these teams now. So how can we as you know? I'm a I'm a call us, like, mid age millennials, not older millennials. We're, like, in the middle. How can we and maybe even those, you know, gen xers that are still in the workforce.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:28:58]:

How can we lead teams, that may consist of a variety of generations? How can we also be better, to not lose sight of, you know, our come up and what it was like and make sure that we're reaching back and pulling people up with this?

Kelsea Cozad [00:29:17]:

Yeah. I think it's I think it's what you just said. I think it's sending the elevator back down. I think it's just being conscious of that. The interview I did with Christie, you know, she's really great about seeing her blind spots and being diverse in all aspects of her her life and her career. So, like, for example, when she's hiring for a social role, she'll actively look for people that maybe don't have social backgrounds, but have other backgrounds that can complement the actual job that she needs them to do, which is a conscious choice. Right? We could rely on things like AI and ATS's to to recruit for us and give these very, like, close in boxes. I think, we can be conscious of getting outside of that box and being as inclusive as possible, to sort of send the the elevator back down to the next generation.

Kelsea Cozad [00:30:06]:

And then, I think we can do the things that, like, Meredith and I are doing now. Right? Like, opening these conversations and facilitating these conversations where there are gaps between individual contributors and senior leaders, or any other gaps that we identify. So that there are free resources out there for the next generation to use. We all didn't grow up the same way. We all didn't have the same drive and motivation or the same family members or the same mentors. So how can we share some of the knowledge that we have in a way that's accessible, that's inclusive, for everybody else to to get from? Mhmm.

Meredith Ulmer [00:30:41]:

Yeah. And I have a meteorologist on my marketing team, for example, and I'm not a meteorologist at all. And she is a content creator. And then we also have a content creator video editor who, like, does her production. And I think that I am incredibly aware that I do not have either of those skill sets. And so really, really, like Kelsey said, tapping into people who do not have your skill sets and shouting their wins from the rooftops to everybody within the company is absolutely vital. And I think that is something that we all missed whenever we were coming up. And we all have had managers who did that for us, but we all can remember managers who did not do that for us.

Meredith Ulmer [00:31:32]:

And so I think that's something that I see on LinkedIn all the time is people our age are really, really trying to make up for the misses that the managers who did not do that for us did not do previously. So we can all remember very vividly the anxiety that was created from some of those misses. So that is what I'm currently trying to do. And, hopefully I am hitting those marks. But, yeah, being a meteorologist whenever I have to fill in for someone is terrifying, but I my whole leadership motto is knowing someone's job well enough so that I can fill in for them to be out, but not enough to do it, like, to micromanage. And, again, doing that for meteorologist is terrifying.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:32:21]:

I can only imagine. Well, how can people listen to the podcast as well as connect with either of you on social media?

Kelsea Cozad [00:32:33]:

The podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts. It's individual contributors on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. You can watch the video interviews on YouTube. Nish, happy to send you all that info to include in descriptions if that's helpful. Yeah. I'm available on LinkedIn. If you wanna find me there. Not a not a content creator or anything where I I need the followers, but I could give you my company if you wanna boost my follower numbers.

Kelsea Cozad [00:33:00]:

And then, Meredith, I don't know if you want you want any followers either.

Meredith Ulmer [00:33:04]:

Yeah. I'm available on LinkedIn. It's I we both post stuff on LinkedIn. Meredith Palmer on LinkedIn. But we'll bring the podcast back off of ICE. We're we're back from our insanity of the time we had personally and professionally, but she'll be back off of ice. So find us soon.

Tonnisha English-Amamoo [00:33:26]:

Well, thank you both for joining us here at the Chamber. I appreciate you taking the time to share your insights. And until next time, guys, make sure you're subscribed to Business Aspires on all the places you can get podcasts. And if you're not a member of the chamber, join us.

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