Speaker 0 00:00:00 Your organization has certain ways that it communicates and certain ways that it doesn't communicate. And if you want to effectively communicate within that organization, it part of becoming an organizational scholar is taking some time to understand the ways in which your company communicates so that you can think about how you can fit in and support that.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Hello and welcome to integrity through compliance AMS business success series. This podcast was created by season's compliance experts and affiliated monitors who will provide their observations on industry trends, gear to raise your awareness and to protect your brand. So grab a cup of coffee and join us as we guide you to integrity through compliance,
Speaker 2 00:00:47 Hello there, and welcome to affiliated monitors, integrity through compliance podcast. I'm your host, Jay Rosen. I'm the vice president of business development at affiliated monitors and also monitoring specialists. But it doesn't really matter who I am or what I do because we are here to meet two great people today. I've got a couple friends of mine, the sabbatical and teeny Walker and Steph Shita. And we are here to celebrate something amazing that they have written their first book called raise your game, not your voice, how listening, communicating in storytelling shape compliance program influence. So we're in for a treat. We're going to do a two-part podcast. Uh, we're going to do just the facts now and find out how Lisa Beth med staff and how they came up with this wonderful book. And then after that, the authors are going to give you a sneak peek at chapters one through four. That is part one of those podcasts. And in part two same bat time, same bat channel we'll come together. Talk about parts five through eight, and then, uh, what the future may hold. So ladies, please take it away.
Speaker 3 00:01:54 Jay, thank you so much for having us here today. Um, this is Lisa Beth and Steph and I met, uh, quite a long time ago, probably almost a decade ago at this point. And we were working together. We were coworkers before, you know, before we grew up and got to own our own businesses and navigate the world on our own terms. We worked with each other in, uh, in house and she was on the communication side of the house and I was in the compliance legal space. And, you know, normally you wouldn't think that we'd get along as well as we do. But the fact of the matter is we instantly recognized in each other different skills and strengths that were so important and made us stronger together. So we started out at Carlston Monte and Lee travel, and that grew into a, uh, a lifelong friendship now. Um, so I'm just very fortunate to have ever met Steph and gotten to work with her. And now I get to work with her in different ways
Speaker 2 00:02:58 And stuff. Uh, is there any truth to what Lisa Beth just shared? Do you have a different recollection?
Speaker 0 00:03:04 Uh, there is true. So what she said, absolutely. And one of the themes I think that comes through in this book that sort of grew from our relationship is this idea of an unlikely partnership. So often communicators and legal folks, maybe wouldn't be seen as sort of being cut from the same class, if you will, right? Like often have very different mindsets, maybe very different perceived goals and objectives. And yet we were able to come together and form a really effective duo working together because one, we established some common ground and understood each other better and took the time to do that. And two, we were both really focused kind of on a common goal, which was how to get information that we were communicating to that end user and really thinking with their perspective in mind. So, um, I think it's a beautiful if unlikely partnership that's obviously lived on for years now and, uh, and it's such a pleasure to get to work on this book with her.
Speaker 2 00:04:00 So you work together at Carson wagon li uh, what have you been doing in the intervening years and, uh, what brought you back together to put this book out?
Speaker 3 00:04:10 Well, for me, um, I started up my compliance ethics and corporate governance consulting firm called lumen worldwide endeavors. And I get to work with lots of different companies and syndicate some of the good that we do in compliance and ethics. I oftentimes come in to build when there's a problem or when things need to have a stronger foundation. So I get to work with all sorts of people. Um, I've, I've worked in house, I'd worked in house for a number of years before I started my consulting firm and was with a, uh, regulator. I worked for the securities and exchange commission in Washington, DC in the early days of my career. So now I just get to help lots of companies around the world with their compliance, ethics and corporate governance needs to help them put values into action
Speaker 2 00:04:58 And stuff.
Speaker 0 00:04:59 Yes, I run my own communications consulting business called cheetah communications, and we help companies of all sizes clearly communicate to those who matter to their success. I did a few more years of in-house work myself after I left Carlson volume travel, where Lisa Beth and I worked together and then went out on my own a few years ago. Um, and just absolutely kind of echo what Lisa said. I love doing the work that I do with companies of all sizes across industries. Um, and it's just a really fascinating thing to get to work on.
Speaker 2 00:05:31 So when you are able to be at a company, you can actually affect change and you can see it happening right about you. How does it work with a book now in terms of what kind of change are you able to affect and what led to you? You know, sometimes people are, you know, I've been dying to tell this story all my life, but I'm wondering if there's any type of Genesis moment where, you know, the light bulb went off over your collective heads and you said, we need to write this book. And this is why,
Speaker 0 00:06:04 You know, I have to think about that actually for a minute. Like, it feels like we've been working on this book for so long that sometimes it's hard to remember the moment that it sparked in us. Um, but you know, Lisa Beth and I have continued to have a close relationship since working together. We've, we've not worked together much longer than we ever did work together at this point. And at some point I think we just continued to talk about, you know, the work we've done together, the importance of the, you know, communications for compliance professionals. And we just decided that this book needed to happen. And thanks to her wonderful, you know, network and profiles in this industry, you know, she very easily helped us get this book delivered out into the world, but Lisa Best, this might be one of those moments where you have a little better recollection than I do about some of the Genesis of some of this.
Speaker 3 00:06:55 Well, I will say I was looking at what I call compliance, gone wrong, or, or compliance gone bad. And there was just a lot of it. And a lot of it was around people trying to communicate what they wanted and needed rather than taking into account what their audience needed to hear. Right. There's, there's so many different facets to communication. And so often we get stuck with the, this is what I want to say, and then expect people to hear it the way we wanted them to, instead of saying, what does this person need to hear and how can we help them? And so I really wanted to flip the script and make sure that all of the people that I worked with regularly had an easy resource with lots of work sheets and, and a path forward in case they weren't lucky enough to have a staff like I did.
Speaker 2 00:07:55 That's perfect. So, um, one other thing, when we prepped the other day, we talked about exactly what is the process that two people go through and writing one book. So if either of you can share your thoughts on that. I think that would be of interest to our audience. And I Steph if you can kick off with that, that would be great.
Speaker 0 00:08:17 Sure. You know, the way we created this book sort of mirrors the way that we sit back and I tended to work together, which was, you know, come together at the beginning, make a game plan, um, sort of understand whose perspective is best suited to cover different topics and to take the lead. And then we kind of go away into our corners of the world and do the work in this case. Obviously it was doing the writing in between, you know, lots of other engagements, lots of other client work that I kept us busy. And then coming back together, especially important here where, you know, there's two voices in one piece of work to bring it all together, just in terms of the topics and the content and the tone and the voice and all of that. So it does again, very much mirror the way that we've partnered to do actual work. Um, but you know, you'll see in the book, there's certain topics that are very compliance related and then some that are very communications related. So you can imagine who took point on each of those and then plenty of overlap in between where there was even, um, greater collaboration.
Speaker 3 00:09:16 I would echo what Steph said. One of the beautiful things about being able to work together on really challenging things is that we got to see each other under a lot of stress and pressure before we ever started writing this book. So we knew enough about each other and about each other's work styles and had a level of trust and respect for each other that allowed us to work together collaboratively in a really healthy way. That does not mean that we always agreed because we clearly don't, but I have a deep, deep respect for staff. I know the talents and skills that she brings to the table, and she knows what I'm bringing to the table too. So we compliment and amplify the good parts of each other really well.
Speaker 2 00:10:14 So it'd be fair to say that we can use that. Um, one plus one equals three in this case, because you both bring certain skills to the table. I guess the last question I'll ask before we go into looking at the chapters, um, first of all, let me make a statement that I was really gratified that Lisa Beth and Steph, uh, asked me to read the book and sent me an advanced copy. And they're just so many things that I want to take from them and put into practice. But in regards to what you just said, Lisa, Beth, um, you know, sometimes it's not about the messenger, but it's about when the message gets there. And there's lots of things that hopefully we'll, we'll talk about in the next podcast and a half, but if not, you know, we'll bring it up after fact. But the lessons that I learned, two big takeaways was that compliance can not happen in a vacuum and you need a partner to amplify that.
Speaker 2 00:11:13 And that is the relationship that compliance had with communications that both Lisa, Beth and Steph lived. And the second part is, is it just doesn't happen because the CCO deems it to be appropriate. So not only do you need the resources and the institutional knowledge that communications offers gets the message out to both internal employees and external stakeholders. You need to be able to do that and actually go back to the CCO and say, look, yeah, we agree. This is a great message, but how do we serve it just in time and how do we get it to people when they need it? So those are my, just a, of the myriad of takeaways that we have. Like, what we'd like to do now is start diving in for a little preview from chapters one through four. And, uh, this is one of my favorite parts of the book. Uh, and we I'd like the ladies to discuss what it means to be a deep scholar in your own organization.
Speaker 3 00:12:14 This is one of my favorite chapters to talk about actually, because organizational scholarship is actually critical, no matter who you are. Um, it's critical to credibility. It's critical to believability. It's critical to connectedness and connecting this drives trust and respect, or it can drive trust and respect. So all of these good things come from being an organizational scholar, right? And one of the things that we were asked recently was, well, no kidding. You should know the organization, you work for it. Doesn't everybody already know this. Like, what's the big deal here. And my answer to that is everybody knows that you need to know about your organization, but oftentimes people read, you know, the, the Wikipedia blurb or they spend a little bit of time saying, oh, well, I, you know, I wear Nike shoes and therefore I know about Nike and that's not really how it works, right.
Speaker 3 00:13:16 Just because you've experienced with the product, just because you have some contact, doesn't make you an organizational scholar. An organizational scholar really gets down into the weeds and tries to take an independent look at all of the data points. So you have your own data point, but then you look at what's out there and it's not a task. It is a practice. And that's where people oftentimes get, get hung up because we all have busy lives. We all have other things that are priorities. So this practice of continually refreshing and understanding what's going on within the organization, what's shifting, how has a strategy shifted? How have different players who have taken on different roles, gotten promotions, been brought in, et cetera, your organization, any organization you deal with, whether it's a nonprofit for profit, et cetera, they're all kind of living, breathing organisms and constantly in a state of change and growth.
Speaker 3 00:14:31 So those scholars not only know the history, but they kind of understand the pulse of today. What's shifting, what's trending. And they take that in with a level of scientific rigor and regularity. So it's not just a half hazard like, oh, here's a data point, oh, there's a data point there's organization and structure in that understanding. And because they're willing to ask questions and engage in inquiry, they understand at a deeper level and they continue to move forward. And then one of the key is, is they share that knowledge, organizational knowledge hoarders are actually detrimental to healthy organizations. And there's a great story about this in the book. I won't give away all the details, but basically if you are hoarding information as an organizational scholar, you may think that safeguards your job. But what it really does is it undermines your credibility and you become a liability. So organizational scholars, like, you know, w looking to, to, to, um, you know, the star wars analogy, you have to be, um, you know, kind of with the forest, rather than going to the dark side or whatever you want to call it, share that knowledge become a resource, a go-to person. And that really is the essence of that scholarship is collecting being, you know, independent taking in other viewpoints and then being willing to move forward with sharing them.
Speaker 2 00:16:18 So, Lisa Beth, you do a great job of kind of, uh, digging down deep in this and the chapter. Well, while we wrap things up, could you quickly cover the six steps to becoming an organizational scholar and how somebody can set off down that path, please? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:16:33 Yeah. So the six steps seem pretty intuitive, but all of this takes time and regular practice. So you can start to see trends over time. First, look at what your organization is doing publicly on his website. Make sure that you're looking at any public statements, press releases, et cetera, that are coming out. You'll see how the organization wants to portray itself and what it believes of itself in terms of how it speaks. The second is look at what the company is saying and doing both on traditional and on social media. So not necessarily the formal, formal, formal version of what's being put out, but also those informal interactions, like what are those tweets look like? How is it responding when there's an issue on Facebook or whatever other platform you're talking about, go deep into the financials and try to figure out who's getting incented to do what so understand what drives your business success from a financial perspective.
Speaker 3 00:17:33 And also how people are rewarded. Get deep on company. Culture is the fourth element. You need to understand that culture is the compilation of all these different experiences that people have every day. So you can start a sense for what is the every day expectation within that organization. I also like to look as a fifth element into industry insights because how your competitors view you and what's going on competitively within the industry is really, really informative. And then last but not least great questions are your best friend, ask them of others because you will get unvarnished viewpoints if you ask great insightful questions. So those are some of the key elements and there's many more, but those are the big takeaways for how you can start down a path of organizational scholarship.
Speaker 2 00:18:33 That's perfect. Thanks for sharing. So next, we're going to take a look into chapter two and it's entitled intentional relationship manage management, how to manage your relationships like a boss. And, uh, there's a great graphic that unfortunately we can't share with you now because it's an audio podcast, but once you buy the book, you can see it. But Lisa Beth, uh, can you tell us about, uh, the five types of stakeholders and how to specifically engage best with each of them?
Speaker 3 00:19:04 Absolutely. So if I were to describe this, I would say what access you have the level of power and influence within the organization and on the bottom horizontal access, you have level of support and the level of support that you may have personally, or your program may have can vary, right? Mileage can, mileage can differ based on each or, um, but what you try to, what we tried to do with this, uh, stakeholder chapter and, and intentionally managing relationships was really to talk about identifying where you can leverage support for your program support for you personally, for your brand, as well as where you're going to encounter resistance or challenging situations and how to navigate people, depending on what they are resisting, whether it's you personally, or what you're trying to do with your program, you need to be able to understand where you stand.
Speaker 3 00:20:08 So we gave names to these different personality types, and we tried to use very, you know, gender neutral names because they come in these, the people who support your program and the people who don't support your program, or the people who, um, have a lot of influence or less influence are from, you know, every gender under the sun. So we talk about them as Nat, neither. It's not particularly, you know, um, known who, what they, they think they're kind of in this neutral category. Um, the champions leader leave is a high influence, high support, low influence, low support is who we call our side-eye Sam's. The challengers are the high influence people. The people who have a lot of clout within the organization and don't support you very much. So those were our, or who we call our elbows out Elliott, and then the resilience are low influence, but they really support what you're doing.
Speaker 3 00:21:10 So those are your cheerleader Charlies. And when we look at all of these different people, they may have different motivators for why they're either supportive or not. And they may have different ways that they influence within the organization, but knowing who the people in your world are and what their support or lack of support is emanating from Kimberly helped you be a little bit more transparent and, and, and navigate your organization better. So we also talk about how to build trust, right? And building trust is something that takes a long period of time to do well and a moment to lose. So built and trust is a lot about consistency. It's about being true to your word, communicating clearly making decisions carefully, um, being consistent, being welcoming and inclusive, helping even when you don't have to and admitting mistakes. The biggest mistake that I see is that oftentimes compliance professionals and others get so wrapped up in being right and being unable to see a different point of view, that they lose credibility and trust.
Speaker 2 00:22:28 Perfect. So, um, what we're going to do now, Lisa Beth is allow you to take a breath, have a cold sip of a beverage. And, uh, we're going to loop in Steph and we're going to talk about chapter three, which is audience dynamics, winning others over in the mouse storm. And I want to quote something from the book as George Bernard Shaw once said, England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Even when the common language, because of regional and cultural differences, it will be necessary to clarify communication over time. And the same is true within core corporations and even industries. So with that, um, intro staff, can you tell us about launching a new language?
Speaker 0 00:23:17 This chapter really starts to get to one of the core concepts in the book, which is, you know, communicating with your audience in mind, communicating from their perspective. And before we can do that, we have to understand our audience. And that's what this chapter is all about, is taking the time to better understand your audience. And we have an acronym in our book called launch that helps you kind of think about how to do that. And the L in launch stands for listen. So, you know, there's a lot of talk about out there about active listening and how bad we all are at it. Right. You know, most of us listen, um, with our response in mind the entire time and just waiting to get our, our response in there. And this is really about active listening, trying to understand where somebody is coming from and really hearing what they have to say.
Speaker 0 00:24:05 And part of that active listening is asking questions, um, as part of that discussion. And again, it's not trying to get your viewpoint in there or asking questions that demonstrate how smart you are. It's all about clarifying that you truly understand what the person is saying and what they need. Um, so really open-ended questions, um, getting them to kind of drill in a little bit deeper, then there's the you in launches for understand. And there are many ways that you can confirm understanding when you're communicating with someone simply, you know, clarifying, uh, repeating back what they've said to you. Okay, what you said is this, this is what I'm hearing. This is how I understand it. Did I get that right? So it's checking for understanding throughout the discussion, the N in lunch is for navigating or managing change. And that's what we're really trying to do at the end of the day is, you know, we're communicating key information.
Speaker 0 00:24:59 It's about getting people to do things differently and managing that change. And so that's a key concept as well to see is for communicate. And clearly this entire book is about the process of communicating, but just to drill home the point that it really is a collaborative process. It's not a one-way street where, you know, you as a compliance function has something to say, it's about creating a two-way dialogue with an audience and understanding and hearing their feedback after you've communicated something and using that to adjust your approach. And then finally, the H in lunch is about human steward leadership. And this is just talking about, um, the purpose-driven and really thinking about what's the purpose behind what we're doing here. Um, you know, in the compliance world, it's not about communicating a policy for the policy sake, but it's really about helping to share the why, what is the purpose for why we're doing this and how does that ultimately help us accomplish our bigger goals as an organization?
Speaker 2 00:25:56 That's great, Steph. So now, um, there's a part that really resonated with me about motivational interviews require three key communication skills. Can you give us a little hint of that, please?
Speaker 0 00:26:10 Yes. And I was preempting that a little bit with some of my comments just here on the lunch piece, but those three key skills, um, just to reiterate open-ended questioning. So again, as you're hearing what people are saying, um, ask them, you know, additional open-ended questions that help you get even more context and information. So these are not, yes, no questions. These are open-ended questions, um, that help people keep talking and, and can give you even more insight into what they're thinking and what their motivations are there's hearing, right? It's confirming that what you are hearing is right. We all hear information through our own filter. So it's really important to be listening actively. And then to be confirming back that what you are hearing is understood. And that brings me directly into the summarizing, which is, you know, synthesizing what somebody is telling you. Um, and again, really key re repeat it back to them to confirm that the filter you've just put on what they said is accurate, and it hasn't been distorted and give them an opportunity to correct that and clarify as needed.
Speaker 2 00:27:15 Yeah. And I think that's so important that you need to keep an open mind, because as you said, if you go in with any bias or you think, you know, you know, I even find myself when I'm doing focus groups and interviews that I might summarize. And as much as I try my bias still sneaks its ugly head in there. So it's, it's real good things to think about that consistently, how to ask those open-ended questions and how to synthesize the new information you're getting in chapter four staff. You're also going to take the lead on this. And what we're going to talk about is understanding your organization's communications approach. So, uh, why don't you give us a flavor of that chapter please?
Speaker 0 00:27:59 Yeah. The premise of this chapter is, you know, we talk a lot about the culture of an organization, but you know, part of that is that your organization has certain ways that it communicates and certain ways that it doesn't communicate. And again, you know, many people, uh, in the course of just doing their jobs, probably don't pay a lot of attention to that. But our point here is if you want to effectively communicate within that organization, it part of becoming an organizational scholar is taking some time to understand the ways in which your company communicates so that you can think about how you can fit in and support that a big part of this is how you collaborate with the communications team internally. If one exists, you can certainly communicate well, if one does not exist and you don't have access to those resources. And we talk a lot about that in the book, but really this is a key component because this is again where Lisa Beth and I experienced so much success working together is, you know, she figured out how to build a relationship with her communications person, me in this case, um, and how to use that resource effectively.
Speaker 0 00:29:03 And it really, um, again, is a lot about understanding your audience. So in this case, your audience is your communications partner. And so taking the time as a compliance professional to understand what makes them tick, how are they measured? What are their goals and objectives? What are they there to do in their role and how can compliance, support that and fit into that?
Speaker 2 00:29:24 So, uh, specifically there's a great list that you have checklists and I know checklists are sometimes the bane of our existence, but you've got seven steps to build your relationship with the communications team. Can you just give us a flavor of that please?
Speaker 0 00:29:40 Absolutely. Um, so the first one is share how your compliance update, whatever it is you're there to communicate about that day. Then if it's the audience you are trying to reach, and the reason that's so important is the communications team exists to serve the audience. So if you come in and you show and demonstrate that you are thinking with your end audience in mind, you will be speaking the communications team's language. You will get further faster with them. Also, as I've referenced, ask about the communications team schools and how compliance can support those goals show, you've done your homework. So you've taken the time to understand how the company communicates, what are the channels and vehicles that uses? What is the tone? What are the typical, um, you know, customs around communication, and then, you know, clarify the ongoing support you'll receive from communications. You might have a dedicated resource, who's there to help you. You might just get kind of body consulting, but just understand that and how you can keep in touch and know their processes and, and how to best work with that team to make sure that you're delivering the information they need in the time that they need it to then be able to get it out to your
Speaker 2 00:30:46 That's. Perfect. Thanks Steph. So, uh, unfortunately we are almost at the end of part one, it's just flown right by. We are taping this on Friday, September 10th. And uh, hopefully by the time you hear this podcast, the new book will already be out and we'll drop. But in case anybody is absolutely sold on it after these four episodes and they need to buy it right now, where is the best place that they can find this book? And, uh, how, how can they go about doing, uh, I guess by the time we're out there, it'll already be in the market, but if anybody needed to do a pre-launch or an order, how can they do this?
Speaker 0 00:31:27 Yes. If you search for raise your game, not your voice on Amazon, it is active and ready to be ordered. Now
Speaker 2 00:31:35 I think that's it. Ladies, we will do a short reset and come back for part two, but we'd like to thank everyone for joining us for this episode of integrity, through compliance. Our guests for this past half hour have been Steph Shita and Lisa Beth Lentini Walker, and they've been previewing their new book. Raise your game, not your voice. So look forward to joining you in two weeks when we drop part two. Thanks.
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