Welcome everyone to Real Talk with Tia and Jill and our very special guest, Amy. Yay. We are so happy to have you here, Amy. Park's kicking off our Real Talk season. Thanks for having me. Yes. We're excited to have you here. Very much so. Yes. And we know that there's like other people out there as well. So if you're listening in, be sure to drop a hello. In the comments, because we love having you part of this. And of course, if you're listening to us on the podcast, well, stream along and you could certainly comment there too. And put it in the chat. Where are you listening from? We love to hear. We love to see where you all are listening from as you maybe kick off your day or end your day, getting close to the end of your day. Yeah. And if it's your first time here, welcome to Real Talk by Catalyst Food Leaders, where we like to have honest conversations to lead people forward in food. I'm Jill. This is Tia. I always get the side wrong. And today's episode, I'm looking forward to it. It's called Buried or Blurry? The Truth About Workload. So many leaders this time of the year say the same thing. We're overloaded. Curious, does anyone feel like that out there? That's what we hear, right? But what if the real problem isn't the amount of work, but it's actually the lack of clarity around your work? Yeah, that's why today we're talking with Amy Parks about what happens when expectations and roles and even systems get muddy. And how you can slow down to create clarity. And that might actually even be the boldest move that you make as a leader this year. So thank you, Amy, for being here. Of course. Yes, yes, yes. OK, Jill, did you have a what's trending topic? Well, you bet I do. It's coming. oh wait is this the one i had last week i might have grabbed the wrong one for this week you know what we can just talk about it right because i always have a good office one and it was one with jim and he's like it was something like hey let's have a meeting to talk about productivity yeah which of course that's like the thing we do when we're like, Oh my gosh, we're so overloaded. We should have a media and talk about it. Right. Right. That's going to solve everything. Right. Amy, will it solve everything? No. I know. I don't have the meme up there. Then we could have a good laugh at it. But you know, here's the reality. It's there. It's a known fact that less than half of employees actually know what's expected of them at work. That's, data that has been gathered for years less than half wow does that even seem possible Well, we feel it, right? We feel it at work where people, right, don't know exactly what they're working on or there's even just miscommunication between groups, right? Am I supposed to be working on it? Are you supposed to be working on it? We get to the end and it's like, well, it's not exactly what we wanted. It's not exactly what we're looking for. So people feel this lack of clarity and what they're supposed to be doing, but what others are supposed to be doing. Amy, are you weighing in on this? Do you think less than half seems like a realistic? I believe it. You believe it? I believe it. Yep. Because everybody thinks somebody's doing it and then it doesn't get done. Oh, yeah. The one where you talk about it, but no one really owns it. No one's really doing the tag until the end. And then everyone's like, oh, were you supposed to? Yep. Well, you don't. I think starting the year off is good, talking about this like buried or blurry. Because the part that I found really compelling as I was looking at, well, the gym meme that you all don't get to see, is there was also this other stat that said really it's uncertainty and role ambiguity that is a stronger driver of burnout than the workload itself. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So not the amount of work you have. It's the mental gymnastics. It's the emotional load. It's the figuring all of it out that actually is what burns people out. Yeah, it's like this mental weight on your mind that just sits there versus actually being productive. It is. So this whole like workload overload isn't just heavy. It's really more than that. And that's what we are unpacking today with the fabulous and amazing Amy Parks. Yes. So Amy, for people who haven't met you before, will you just do like, you know, the quick minute elevator speech on who you are and what you do? Sure. So I'm Amy Parks. I am the director of global, um, food safety, regulatory compliance, and governance for Dole PLC. So we're a large fresh produce global company that sells, grows, buys, sells fresh produce all over the world. Experience coming from the manufacturing facilities, dairy, frozen foods, worked time in a third-party lab. Love the research and I love being in the plant too. And people. Yeah. And anywhere that allows you to ask a lot of questions. I love questions. Questions are my favorite thing to do. That's right. You know, Amy, you know, she's going to come with the questions. Yes. And I'm going to start a meeting with, I have some questions. Of course you do. And we're glad about that. But we have questions for you today. Okay. Okay. So even to start off like this topic we're talking about, like, I don't know if near and dear to your heart, but this is something you've had experience with, isn't it? Yep. Do you mind telling us a little bit about it? Sure. I would say it is kind of near and dear to my heart. I've been in a position over my career a few times where I have had a new-to-me role, but I've also had a new-to-the-company role. And so with that comes a lot of uncertainty. unclear expectations as to what's expected, right? And so I think that most recently when I stepped, when I moved from manager to director, even before Catalyst, when Jill was by herself, before you guys became the dynamic duo, Jill and I had worked together through the bootcamp, through the leader bootcamp. And one of the things that came up was expectations and i think as we were talking about it jill that really clicked a lot of things into places for me because i felt it throughout my career right in terms of um what is this supposed to look like what am i supposed to do because you know we get the job description that'll say responsible for corporate sanitation, for example, and it just says responsible for corporate sanitation programs, but we don't know what that means. And so then each person that comes in goes, okay, I think it means this, and we start down a path. And so one of the things with my last role within Dole was it was a new to us role, right? And so what we did is we took existing positions that were in different working groups within food safety, and we put them under my team and we pulled out some of the corporate sanitation systems, regulatory compliance and innovation. So we went from having one structure to having a new structure. And one of the things that we would hear from time to time from my employees was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed, I can't get this all done, whatever. So then I started to go, okay, but what are you doing? And then we started pulling the layers back of what are you doing? Why are you doing it? And I realized just like I had done many times in my life, still do from time to time, we pick up extra little things. We're like, oh yeah, I have five minutes to take care of that. And then somehow it becomes hours. And so we, and there were some like one, one thing that sticks out to me is we had someone that had left a position and then this annual report came due and they called me and they said, you got to fill this report out for us. And I'm like, what is this report? And it was a facility specific report on wastewater. And somehow our sanitation manager had picked that up as part of the responsibilities because she was the one that had been there the last year that it got done and the facilities manager. So it just became this like, piece, right? So it just became something else to do. Or sometimes it'll start out as hey, we're trialing something new, start to do it, then it just becomes something we pick up. And then what might start as, you know, ten minutes of my time each week has become three hours of my time because the scope of the project grew. And nobody was realizing that it grew. And now we're now we have all of this work that maybe isn't the best for us to be answering. So what we did, what I've done, and what I love to do is create an expectations document that helps us align on what exactly my role is when it comes to the specific topic. So the easiest way to do it is to take your job description and then say, as the manager, say, okay, responsible for the labeling program means X, Y, and Z This is who you work with. This is, you know, the things that these are the key deliverables, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we sit down together and we say, okay, Tia, like you tell me what you think this means in your job description and you tell me, and then I go, okay, this is what I think it means. And then we work together to align on it. So when we, so, and that's what we did at the beginning, especially when you had somebody already in the role and then you have those conversations and then everybody's on the same page. When you're working cross-functionally, it gets a little more fun because as we started to look at some of our SSOPs, sanitation standard operating procedures, it said disassemble the equipment. And at one point we had operations, maintenance, and sanitation all in the room. And we said, who disassembles this? And everybody had a different answer. Oh, wow. And I was like, okay, so who's going to disassemble this, right? So even that clarity of in a procedure, you know it really really helps because then we all like everybody's aligned on on who's doing what with with that item or that possibility yeah clearly that's great right and i've done it for myself i've done it um in my last two positions i have taken that and done it for myself and then had the conversation with my manager I love that. One thing that I love about this story that you're telling us through your experience of looking at your expectations and also having conversations with your team. Not just you doing it by yourself in the silo, but you sharing it either with your manager on, hey, this is what I think around my expectations. What do you think around expectations? the expectations and see if they're aligned as well as with your team, right? This is what I think. This is what you think around. Now let's get on the same page. I love that because many, many times we skip some of those steps, right? We're either waiting for our team member to do it and they're not doing it. And we're just letting them live their lives with this mental load that we talked about. We're just letting them be that way. by saying, well, they need to come up with their own list, but not really helping them get there. Or we set our own expectations, but haven't necessarily clearly communicated that to our team members. And sometimes they're hard conversations to have. Oh, yeah. It's tough, right? But at the end, it's so much better for everybody if you just rip the Band-Aid off and have the talk. Yeah. Well, and you've done this firsthand, right? Where you've had people who were like, hey, thanks. but not real excited about it. Right. How did that go? I mean, yes. So been there, done that. So I think that, I think it's just a continual continued conversation, right? So it's really, and I really try to come into it, especially with my asking questions. So sometimes I feel like maybe a bit of an interrogation and it's not intended to, right. It's really intended to say, Hey, not why are you doing that but how are you like what are you doing how are you doing it what's the story of how that ended up on your plate or within your workload or is there a better way to do it or maybe it's the right way to do it and we just have to you know work through the complications of or the frustrations or whatever um but i think in some in some situations where you're building something new it's because we've always have approached things a certain way or hey this is and it's not even so much that here's how we've always done it right but it's oh you're giving me something new and it's going to be hard and it's something new I have to learn and I don't have time because I'm overwhelmed because I have unclear expectations that I'm already drowning and now you want me to stop and go this direction yeah but I think it's important that when you have those conversations, it's not a Tia, you're going to do it, go do it. It's, we're going to do this together because the only way we get better is better together. So if we do it together, then we can explore it. And if it doesn't work, we go back to the drawing board and say, Hey, that didn't work. Right. I think that within that you have to have an I mean, you talk to your team about having an open mind and being open to it, and then you just have to continuously coach and talk and have the conversation. And a lot of times what I saw was really cool is I had a very distinct team, meaning we had multiple people doing very distinct jobs that were very, did not, weren't cross-functional. in the sense that systems didn't necessarily know sanitation didn't necessarily know regulatory compliance. Right. And I was trying to figure out ways to build the team, like a team environment. So, and so we just started sharing programs or pop like program or, Hey, I'm stuck with this or whatever. And it really started to kind of break down the walls and really it was really neat because one time the systems guys said, Oh, you're looking for a request, like you're wanting to get all this information from the plants. We can build a form and they can just fill it out and then you have it and it summarizes it. So there was just some things like that, that we were able to do, but it's a lot of conversations and a lot of time. And as a leader, sometimes you're also overwhelmed with your pile of unclear expectations and your workload. And you're like, oh my gosh, I can't get this done. If you don't stop and do it, it's never going to get any better. Right, yeah. I like the phrase Jill, she used it earlier, like sometimes you need to slow down, right? You have to stop. Right, so that you can speed up, right? So that you can actually do what you need to do. Yeah, and I think that's important too because we've had some times where we've been in the middle of a crisis and we're coming out of the crisis and senior leadership has said, I want X, Y, and Z done today. I want X, Y, and Z done, go do it. And so the marching orders are, the president said, you have to do this, go do it. So I stopped and I went back to the president and I said, I will do whatever I need to do, but can you just explain to me what the end objective is, right? Like if we're, what is this supposed to get us? And he was like, well, I want to know these three things. And so we got, we started walking through it and I made him stop and slow down and explain it to me. And at the end he goes, that's not going to get us what I thought it was going to get us. And that, when I targeted that conversation, that was not the intent at all. Right. It was literally, I needed to design a process and I didn't understand what my end goal was to figure out how to design the right process or the right project, the right research project. And he goes that Amy, this is a horrible idea. he was like, thank you for telling me. Like, I was like, well, I didn't tell you it was a horror, like we're through it together. Right. But like the implications of the project would have potentially negatively affected operations in ways that he didn't necessarily hadn't necessarily fully thought through. So when I started asking questions about my project goals and my objectives and the what ifs, he goes, oh yeah, let's not do this. So I think it's important. And sometimes it's hard as leaders when you have a, you know, you're in your head and your team comes back and says, Hey, we need to stop and think about this. It can be frustrating, but you always have to remember if the shoe was on the other foot, I would, I would want clarity and those explanations too. Yeah. And I imagine not everyone, like every project you've come around, come across or every like, Hey, go do this today has been open to, well, let's pause for a moment. So always, But I'm sure you've seen moments where you're like, really, we should be pausing before we plunge into here. Like, how do you, especially leading the function, like, how do you make an internal case for people to slow down so that you can go faster later? So I actually didn't slow down last week. So I was dealing, we were dealing with, um, an import question. And when that question came up, I, I was like, okay, this is what we're going to do. X, Y, Z, boom, boom, boom. And the team was like, um, yeah, but this is different than that last situation for these three reasons. And I was like, oh, dang. Okay, stop. Help me understand what's different. Like, what do we got going on this time? How is this different? And so I think that to answer your question is how do I get how do you get people to stop, right? I would say part of it is building the relationships up front. Because if the only time that they have interaction with food safety is when something has hit the fan, then those people are less receptive to those things, right? So another example, I had started coming in on sanitation And everybody panics because I was coming in on sanitation. And they're like, oh, we're in trouble. I'm like, what do you mean you're in trouble? I just wanted to see how it works, right? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just here to learn. I'm just here to learn. But that was because the only time that anybody from leadership came in was because something was happening in the plant and they, something needed to be addressed. And so when I started showing up at first, if I'd have gone in and said, okay, we're going to try this and do this differently, they would have absolutely said, no, thank you. And they absolutely would not have stopped and said, Hey, this isn't going to work because X, Y, and Z, they would have been like, you want to do it. It's not going to work, but we're not going to tell you that because. Yeah. And so by the time that I left, we were at the point of the team would say, Hey, like, We can try that, but it's probably not going to work because of this. This is the other impact. So it's really a lot about building. It's time to build the relationships. I feel like a lot of people that's listening, whether listening live or listening on podcasts, are always trying to figure out, like, how do I move my culture forward? How do I make my culture stronger? I think this is a huge piece of it. Is that are your people saying, OK, well, it's not going to work, but I'm not going to tell you I'm not going to be a part of it. Or are they bringing up things like, hey, like, let's stop. Let's talk about this. Or I don't think it's going to work. Or, you know, calling out some some stop gaps to say, like, hey, let's pause. Like if you people listening, if you're thinking about your culture, if you have not heard someone tell you to stop for a minute, let's have a conversation. assess your culture, right? Because people should be telling you that we know we don't know everything that's happening in the organization, even though we might be responsible for some decision makers. Your team should be able to tell you to stop. And I think it's important you give them permission to do that. Yes. So I was meeting, since moving into the global role, I was supporting one of the divisions and we were working with the sourcing team. And I said, if you gonna tell you guys now as we work through this if you do not speak up and tell me that i've made the wrong assumption or that i'm headed down the wrong path and we are left with something that doesn't work when we get through with what we're doing that's on all of us because this is your time to say because if i design it from my office having not seen an avocado farm or a blueberry harvest before then I'm going to build something that's not functional and like, now's your time. Now's your time. And the other thing that we've done, and then I try to do, and I'm currently doing it now with a group is when I, when I step in to a role, the first thing I've tried to do is go around and meet everybody and, and have a conversation of, Hey, who like, well, one, who are you? What do you do? Like, what is your path within the career food safety, the organization, sourcing selling buying whatever right and then hey like how are things going what's going well what's not going well where are some of those pinch points that we've had like where do you always get stuck and then you can start to see or what do you wish we had like if you could have the perfect system in the world what would that look like and then I think that that gets them to thinking too and then they're more again more willing to come back and say hey we got a like this came up. Yeah. So even, and, and, you know, and then sometimes for me now it's hard to do because I'm not, I love face-to-face meetings. And so I'm not in all of our countries. Right. And it's hard to get to meet. But we've had a lot of those zoom calls and a lot of the one-on-ones to say, hi, I'm Amy. This is what I do. I would like to know what you do. How does this work? Yeah. So that's really, A lot of time, but it's so important. So important. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, thinking about we're always trying to do things with less people, with less resources. But yet we still have big goals as organizations, whether it's product launches, profitability, whatever that is. And, you know, you often think about like you can't scale trust or outcomes without that clarity to get there. And you talked a little bit about like when you started this with one of your teams, then people could start kind of supporting each other a little bit differently. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, you know, whether it's like within your team or individuals or even as you've talked about providing clarity to help lead up. Like, what have you noticed from people? So when you do this, because some I'm sure get excited and some are hesitant. But like, what have you noticed in either your team's ability or your ability to be more effective? I think that sometimes it's not always noticeable at first. So when I when I started at another company, I had asked one of the R&D managers some questions about specifications and constructions and how we got there. And he gave me an answer. And one of his comments was, and food safety always makes us delay our launches. So, you know, you guys are really frustrating to work with because you always delay product launches. And I said, well, how does the product launch work? And so he started going through the time and I was like, okay, so what is the timeline? And this was over the course of two or three meetings, right? Because at first he was like, oh, great, here comes food safety. What do they want? Right. But as I got to know him and I started asking those questions, Then it became, hey, so as he was telling me about the timeline, I said, so can I tell you, do you know how lab studies work? And he was like, well, you call the lab. And I was like, no. So I explained, because of my experience in the third-party lab, I was like, okay, so if you call me on Friday and tell me that you need the study, I said, it's going to take this many weeks for us to prepare the study. It's going to take us this many weeks to run it. and i said and then your team the food safety team internally has to look at it and then they have to digest it so really when we say four to six weeks in the lab it's more like maybe six to eight weeks by the time your team gets it and that's from the time the lapse starts the study right like really and i was like yeah so we adjusted the timelines there and then um there are a couple other things and as we were as um we started looking at like air fryers right and so I had to go back to them and I was like, hey, I need, like, I'm not sure how, I think I know what the study needs to look like, the study design needs to look at, but I need to collect some extra data. But over the course of that year and a half and that development of that relationship and like those conversations, I ended up going in to work with R&D to cook French fries in an air fryer one day because, I mean, they needed help, right? Everybody's shorthanded. It was also in the middle of COVID. We had limited numbers of people in the office. And I was like, I can cook French fries because we had to get the variability data. But in the end, we were able with the variability data to save time and work and money on everybody's on everybody's plates. Right. But we had to like I said, it was the relationship. And then before we left. Before I left, we were in a project meeting for a different project. And I couldn't I couldn't say no fast enough because he had said that's just not going to work from a food safety perspective. We can't go down that path. And so that's really kind of when, you know, you get it. And you build you bring people along. It's not fast. I would say sometimes it's not always fast and sometimes not everybody gets on board. And then you have to, when they don't get on board, you have to say, okay, you know, what is the level of variability, right, that I'm willing to work within? And then if not, you have the hard conversations. Let me ask you about something that you said just around the timeline. And we've been saying, like, slow down, right, to speed up, slow down to you can set, right? But even this timeline, people are like, well, we have so much to do. Even as you talked about resetting expectations, a part of that mental load is that we know that there's all this risk that's happening, or there's all these projects that's happening, and you want me to come over here? Well, who's going to do that? Who's going to do this stuff? Oh, we're going to just stop doing it? We have to do it, right? This is what I've been doing forever that's been this mental load. and so people like you said earlier people get nervous about that they do nervous about slowing down so from your experience i'm curious do you have any ways that you really get people to slow down or see the benefit like really even see the benefit of slowing down and easing their minds around yes we are moving over here but all of this other stuff this is how we're going to take care of it or this is why you can release this mental load I think sometimes, I mean, sometimes you have to start small, right? So there may be something because the same conversations I'm having with the business of what's going well, what's not working, where are the pinch points, whatever. I'm also having those conversations with my team, right? So what's going well, what do you do? Like, what does your day look like? What are the most frustrating parts of your day, blah, blah, blah, like all of the things. And sometimes. When you take as the manager, you say you have all those conversations. Sometimes you can find something easy that you can get an easy win with. So it may be something as simple as we had a labeling process where three of us were checking the same thing on the label, which doesn't sound like a lot of time, right? Because it's like, well, I'm already in there. I'll just check it. but we clarified who did what. And then it seems like it was simple, but we clarified it. And then we also did, we had a lot of confusion and it was causing a lot of back and forth about, um, Especially after COVID and during COVID, this label's approved, this label's not approved. We're switching back to ingredients because the ingredient supplier now has this, and now we're going back, all of that kind of stuff. We kept managing the fire, and we kept the fire under control. But over here, we also did a label audit where we took hours for us to pull all the labels, go through and say, okay, this was the last version. This is what's on the package. This is where we are, should be or whatever. And in doing that, And we started to clear up some of those. And then this fire started getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And everybody's like, oh, that's why you mean. Now I'm not getting ten phone calls a day. I'm only getting one, right? But that goes back almost to like what you talked about. When you start this work, you may not see the results all right away. But it's these. it's almost like the buildup of like, as you do it and flex this muscle of, I own this, you own that. Yeah. Then you do start seeing kind of an easier flow through the process. And sometimes those conversations are hard too, right? Because it may be something where we have to have a conversation of who should own it because I've always owned it. No, I've always done this. And okay. But like, take that, take all of that away and say, where should it be? Who should own this? Or we both own it, but maybe we only own piece of it and so how do we so that's like the sanitation procedures right that i talked about earlier like we were having some issues with particular piece of equipment and so i like we put up the ssop on the screen like i said we had maintenance operations and sanitation in there and we got three different answers and i was like okay so this is the group that can make the decision and and the poor the poor maintenance gentleman that was in there like he he his job was to And he's in there with me. Right. And so there's a couple of layers of of management there. And he's like afraid to talk. And I'm like, I need to know what you do only because like I want to understand what you're doing because you're the one that tears it down. I don't know how to tear that piece of equipment down. Right. Maintenance doesn't allow me to have a screwdriver. maintenance at my house won't let me use a screwdriver. Like I'm not mechanically inclined. Right. So like, tell me what you do. And he was really nervous to speak up. And then as like, and I just, I just don't, like I said, he and I had a one-on-one conversation with ten other people in the room that I just ignored. And finally he was like, okay, and then we do this, but I always have problems here because of this. And sometimes I don't have time because of this. And we quickly figured out that in that situation, maybe maintenance wasn't the best person to do all of the work, but they needed, because it was sensitive, they had just given it to maintenance to begin with. And so we hadn't really worked it all out. So then I was like, all right, so now step one, Jill's responsible. Jill's position's responsible. Never people dependent, right? Like position's responsible. Step two's Tia. Step three's Amy's job. if so and so is not available this is who like it seems simple because we all should know what we're doing but when you people leave or people change roles or somebody new comes on that like some of that stuff gets lost yeah yeah i want to ask amy about difficult conversations because like even in this example and you can stick with this example if it makes sense, but like, as you take yourself back and think about these times that you were in these scenarios and you had to have the difficult conversation, can you walk us through for, you know, our audience on like, how did you get over that? Like, it's not easy to have a conversation, which is like, I feel like it's like core to leadership. You have to know how to have difficult conversations or even not even difficult, maybe even I say, yeah, conversations outside your comfort zone, like reframe it, right? We're not experienced with it. Yes. Yes. And sometimes it's so hard for people to get over that huddle of, man, I'm really uncomfortable or I don't, it seems like there's friction here and I don't really want to be a part of, you know, I don't know how to even start the conversation. What are some things that you do? Like, how do you get over that hurdle? So I usually don't eat. the night before and I don't sleep well. Because they're hard, right? They're hard. They're hard. And I usually play, sometimes depending on what the conversation is, right, I play it out with somebody ahead of time. I'm like, okay, so if they say this, then I'm going to say this. I'm like, oh, wait. Because I'm a bit of an overthinker too. But I would say that some of those conversations um what i've tried to think through is i mean kind kindness too right and empathy because the other person is probably feeling much like i am and i've really had to learn this with with how i ask some of my questions sometimes um because we laughed about that but i will literally come out the gate with what are you doing why do you do it that way have you ever thought about like, and it, and it's not so much, how did we end up here? And it's not because I think anybody's doing something wrong, but. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they, the P especially when you're come to talk to about somebody that's doing the operation, they have a better solution than I would ever come up with. Right. So if I can pick that apart, but I think. Difficult conversations. go better when there's some level of trust and that goes back to why it's important to have those relationships up front. And then I think the other piece of that is you have to be willing, and this is where it's really hard. You have to be willing to listen and be able and not immediately respond when you hear something you disagree with. Right. And so there have been times, um, especially in my past life when I had a much, much larger team, um, that we would get into these situations where I'm like, I don't fully think that that's the right answer, but that's the answer you're giving me. And that's like, it just like, it really, it's really that level of trust. And then, you know, they're just transparent, like transparent and honest is, is, Even if it hurts, stings a little bit, that's kind of sometimes what you just have to say. I'm going to do this today. This is all I'm going to do. And then afterwards, I'm going to go get big old milkshake because yeah that's what you gotta do like you gotta treat yourself right um but even even last week i was in a conversation with somebody and um it was the first time that he and i sat down together to work through some like to have that introduction and i said something and he was like wow that is brutally honest and i was like well it i mean this is just this is where we are. And he was like, no, he goes, it wasn't even mean. It was just really like, like, yeah, I've been told by my husband. I can be really honest sometimes. Right. Oh, my internet's weird. So, so Amy, I'm curious because, you know, not everybody's going to be receptive to it. And I like your idea of like, how do you build the relationship and how do you have those conversations and, I would imagine when, like, if my boss came to me and was like, we're going to go and get really clear on what you're doing, my first instinct would be, like, defense mechanisms. Like, why? Am I going to lose my job? What am I doing? Are you going to fire me? Yeah. And I imagine that's a pretty natural response, especially just we know businesses, right? We're merging, shifting, reorging all the time. Yeah. How, like, did that come up? Because I'm thinking for leaders that are on or listening to this, like, how do you even position this so that people, you know, can lean in and help you with this versus be like, nope, I'm going to be difficult the whole time. Yeah. Well, the difficult the whole time, sometimes that's maybe what I tell myself too, right? True. Oh, they're just going to be difficult. Oh, I'm going to go have this conversation with them again. They're just going to be difficult. Like, I don't even want to go talk to them. Um, and then I remember that I'm the leader and that's my job. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes, it is. It is. Um, but I, I, I, I, that's a hard one, Jill, because I think that, I think I know, I know in my heart of hearts that nobody wants to show up to work and be miserable. Right. Like none of us want to come to work to do, to be miserable. All of us want to come to work and for the most part, put our best foot forward. I mean, like, have you seen the graph where it's like, if you're at forty percent today and you give forty percent, you've given one hundred percent. Like some days I have to remind myself that, OK, I'm not at my hundred percent. I'm only going to get fifty today and that's OK. And then when my my report comes in, she's having a rough time. She might only give eighty. That's OK. Right. But I think the difficult conversation piece is really. like at times I have said to my team, I, I don't like help me understand this because I think that like, and I flat out said this, I said, I took one individual. I was like, I think you're miserable in the role and you just haven't told us that you don't like it. And they got very defensive and they were like, no, no, no, no. This is what I want to do. And I was like, OK, if it's what you want to do, how do I how can I help? Because it's really about me helping you and making your life easier. That's what I mean. That's why I'm here. So what can I do to help you get a step? What can I help you do to to be part of the process right um and i think at times it's slow um because at times especially sometimes the rub between food safety and operations is a little bit difficult right because oh here they come they're going to shut the line down again i'm like okay let's talk about this and so as we started like with the the sometimes is that conversation of okay but i can help you get x percent better and get this many more packages out the door and they're like but how Like, well, we need to pick this apart because there's something in here that doesn't. So, Jill, I don't know that I answered really your question, but I think part of it's the understanding and the empathy. Right. And putting yourself on the other side of the table, because there are people that are just as frustrated to have to pick like to deal with me as I get with some other people. Right. Like there are some people that go, Amy is not my cup of tea. She's going to come in here and she's going to come and tell us that we can do this differently. Or she's going to ask five hundred questions and I don't have time for five hundred questions. Just need her to go do what I asked her to do. I get that. Like, yeah, well, one thing, Amy, that you that you said, I want to be, you know, if we're going to change topics. But one, the question of like, what do you how can I help you? What do we need help with? I find that when people are difficult or it doesn't seem like they're moving on with the process or they're not quite aligned with the rest of the team is that sometimes it's still just not sitting right with them. They have a need there in that space that haven't really quite gotten there or we haven't really aligned how we're going to solve that need. And it could be that they have a piece of the puzzle that you don't even know they're holding. So it could be that there's something within the what they do and what they hold and the knowledge that they have, that's a key to unlocking something else, right? But they, and I have worked in toxic work environments in the past and I know that sometimes you got it. Like if you, if you share this, then you become a target in some environments. In other places, maybe they've had the experience of, Hey, I got laid off my last three jobs, but I was the one that knew it. And as soon as I shared it, I'm the one that got cut. Right. So whatever, there's something causing them to hold onto this. And I think that the thing about being a leader for me is I'm only as good as my team. So, I would rather my team be the superstars. Like it's not the Amy team, right? It's the food safety team. And I would, I want to showcase and shine and show the light onto my team. And so I think that sometimes it takes a while to get that person, but then what you start doing is in the meeting you go, so I know that you have experience with this Tia, what's your experience with this? How did you handle this the last time? Or, hey, I know you've been at the company for thirty five years. What when you said it didn't work last time, why didn't it work? What did you try? What did you do if we tried it this way? Do you think it'd be better? Do you not think it would work like leverage the experience that you have within your team because they will make it? Sorry, John, you're going to ask a ask a question. Oh, I'm just thinking about, you know, even before I started on this track of being a better leader, I would have never gotten into the weeds or the details of someone's workload. Yeah. Because I would have just kind of assumed like, Hey, I kind of, I understand what that person does. They do X, Y, and Z. So for listeners that are out there going, yeah, yeah. Like totally get it. Like we're already there. Like what's next? Like, what were some of the signs or like, what would you say to someone who's like, Oh no, we already got that. But yet we're still struggling and people are overwhelmed and we feel like, you know, everything's chaotic around us. So I think, I think one of my pet peeves is, is you, you put out the fire, right? And you're like, Oh, we got it. It's over done. And then it comes back up six months, twelve months. Oh yeah. Two weeks later, next week, tomorrow, this afternoon at four thirty, whatever, Friday at four thirty. But it keeps the same thing keeps coming up and up again. Right. And the team gets frustrated over the same thing again and again and again. Well, then we don't have it fixed. We don't have it fixed. And so we have a very large number of suppliers that we import from in the U.S., And when I first started, like we've been trying to figure out how to maximize our efficiencies related to foreign supplier verification. We're a little bit unique in that we're vertically integrated. So our teams in country are doing the work, but we have to have a secondary step here, right? It literally this year, earlier this year, I was on the phone. Because this has been an ongoing source of frustration about how long some of these verifications take, especially in produce where some of our fruit seasons may be literally six or eight weeks long. Take that and now think about trying to get a global gap audit report back in that time, right? Whatever. There's a lot of complications. And literally this year I was on the phone with our team in Chile and they They go, Amy, every year you ask for a list of suppliers and we give you the entire list. So let's say for cherries, it's two hundred growers. She said, we may only send seventy of those to the US. And I said, so I'm literally chasing one hundred and thirty suppliers that I don't necessarily have to chase. She was like, yes, but it is taking us. numerous conversations she's and and and a lot of frustration back and forth right well i just gave you the list how come you don't have this done why are there so many are you like like by the time i get back whatever there was all of these like finally finally i said i don't under like i don't i just don't get it and she was like so you asked for the list we give you this but in reality we only send you this And the team is already figuring out ways to verify the work that the U S team was already trying to figure out to verify ways that we were doing the work. So it literally takes like two weeks for us for the fruit to get here by vessel. And so they figured out a process. Literally they had the problem solved within. On this call, but it took us like, cause we were talking at each other or over each other and not asking for clarification when we said that, well, that's impossible. We'd go, but I need it instead of saying why. Yeah. Yeah. And aligning all that. Yeah. So I think what I hear in there is like when you, for someone who's like, gosh, I don't have time or this isn't really that important. When you think about the places where you're feeling rubs, where you're feeling the chaos and the overwhelm, that getting to this level of detail on the expectations is almost the way you set yourself free. Oh yeah. The clarity. Yeah. Yeah. And people don't spend enough time doing it. Because we assume, right? Like, oh, I assume they're doing that. Or I assume they know how to do that. Or I assume they're doing it the way that we've talked about it. I mean, I've been burned on that. Or even for me, sometimes it's my emails, right? So I'm copying on a lot of emails. And finally, the manager and I had a conversation and I said, okay, because she emails me back. She's like, I already took care of that. I already took care of that. Why are you asking me about this again? And I'm like, finally I said, okay. She said, unless I tell you, I need your help. I like just assume that it's done. And I was like, fair enough. Fair enough. Now, if I get a reminder, you know, I did the first email. So I do. And then like the second or third email, like if it never comes to the second or third, unless she's waiting on something and usually, and she'll go, I'll go, I saw this one again. And she's like, yep. I'm waiting on X. I'm like, okay. it's clarity it's clarity right like and on the other flip side of that she's probably like oh my god if you email me one more time about this stupid request I'm gonna I'm gonna scream I gotta take care of because then what do I do by questioning her I'm quite it could be interpreted as I'm questioning her ability to do the job and it's not it's just it's in my inbox and I'm trying to decide if it's done or not and I'm I think that's where that trust comes in. And even as we were talking earlier, when someone says, well, let's talk about your role and expectations and even just the, like, why do you want to talk to me about this? You know, having this relationship with your person. having that trust, having that transparency, you know, if someone, if you say, hey, let's talk about your roles and expectation, like something came up, I just want to hear, I want to hear more from you. Like just that transparency, that openness, like, let's have a conversation. I know what I do, right? I know, I know what I have going on. If you want to shift them, that's also okay. But let's have, let's have a conversation around it. And people don't feel that angst, that, should you, you know, should we be talking about this? Like, what am I, They don't go to, what am I doing wrong? They go to, oh, we need to have an open conversation about this. Yep. And then if something comes up, they are more likely to come to you and say, hey, so-and-so reached out and asked me to take this on. And I just want to talk to you about it first. Exactly. I have time. I'm happy to support. Or hey, this doesn't fit within what we're working on. It doesn't add value. Right. Sometimes it may not seem like it adds value to the role, but we need it for something else and you have to explain. But that's where that part of that transparency comes into place. And I don't mean transparency of you have to work within the limits of your your role and you're not like what you can and can't share. Right. But sometimes the transparency of, hey, we're working on something and I can't necessarily share the details, but I'm going to start asking you for things. know that, like, I have your back. I have the team's back. Like, I just need this information to satisfy this other project that I'm working on. And they're not, I mean, at times that being on that side of that conversation of not in the know, you're like, oh, what's going on? Yeah. I mean, you got to do the leader can only, you know, and I think even then you say, I'm working on something that I cannot share. And it kind of it allows them to say, okay, there's something going on. You know, the trust is there. Amy's got our back. Right. You can't talk about it. Right. Yeah. And that is transparency. We've talked about that many times on the show and with other people, as they think about how do I be transparent in a, in a role that I can't share, but that is transparency. People should know you can't share everything about your role. People should know that. And then the other, the other piece of transparency is to own up. So if you made a mistake, own it, own it. Yes. Right. Yes. That was me guys. That's on me. I screwed up. I will do better next time. Yeah. Yeah. As we kind of wrap up, we would love to hear, you know, what are the top, out of all of our conversation, right? Like really talking about this blared lines or are we burying the workload, right? Really around expectations and clarity. What would you say your top two or three things you want people to walk away with from today's conversation? ask the question. I would have never guessed that one on there. I know. Right. No, really ask the question. Like, um, my, my dad, I made an assumption when I was, um, and I will never forget this. My dad drew out the word assume and placed two very, um, intentionally placed lines within the word and explained to me what I had just done, right? And he said, don't ever assume again. And that's probably where some of my questioning comes from because I've learned to ask the questions instead of making assumptions, right? Lifelong events. piece of advice but I think that core memory I think that you know asking and understand that if you're an employee and you're not a manager it's okay to ask your manager why now it's on them to not have an attitude when you think just do it because that's what I said right like Like you, you can ask, help me understand this or why am I doing this? Or how do you want me to do this? Like stop and ask the questions. Cause you're giving yourself clarity and then you're not sitting at your desk going, Oh, Amy gave me this and I got to write three pages and I don't know what I'm doing. And I've never done this, but like ask the questions, right? Ask the questions. I think the other piece is stopping to do the work. So like, If you don't, if you have a frustration because you have a problem that keeps coming up over and over again, or if you have a situation that comes up over and over again, or this person keeps doing the same thing over and over again, you as the manager have to stop and do the work, put the time in to put a solution into place. Because if you don't stop and put the solution into place, nobody's ever going to put the solution into place. And then every two weeks you're going to be like, oh, I got to do this again, or they messed up again, or I can't believe this. And you just sit and you just get, and then that in turn affects you negatively too, right? Like dread. So stop and do the work. And I think, I mean, clear, transparent, honest, as much as you can. I mean, even to say, hey, like I've told my team this before too, like, hey, I'm having a bad day. And I'm, I'm distracted. So if I ask you three times, please, please take it for what it is. Like I am not on all, I'm like, I'm firing on four instead of eight today. Right. Um, so I think clear, transparent, honest, um, is kind. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's good advice. Ask the questions, take the time to do the work and be transparent. Yeah. because that's what leaders do, right? That's our role of helping support our teams, which helps support our organizations do all the things. And it's not easy, right? It's not easy. Well, and I think all the things you talked about today kind of show too, like, yep, it's workload, but workload isn't just about workload. It's about the clarity. It's about the structure. It's about the trust and transparency that you have like within your team and across the organization so that you can really forge ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic insights. Thank you, Amy, for being here and sharing all of that. Yes. Yes. Yes. A great conversation around the importance of expectations and clarity, right. And setting them for yourself and your team. Yeah. You know, and if you're out there and you're like, I wonder how Amy did that. Well, she mentioned our bootcamp and of course our spring cohorts are open and people are registering to be part of that because one of the core pieces is how do we have clarity around expectations and workload and all the parts that Amy talked about, like building better relationships, having those conversations that you might be uncomfortable with. Yeah. How do you influence? Cause that's really relationships and connection. and kindness and empathy. All of that are part of the, I'm going to say critical skills, because I hate calling them soft skills. The critical skills needed. Yes, we want them to be a new term. Yeah, yeah. So join us. Join us for boot camp. Join us for strategic leader as well. Like Jill said, those cohorts are open. And if this episode did spark something for you, we want to share our Readiness Compass tool. It is a free tool for you to download. And even as we had this conversation, um today is your team ready right to have those conversations are you going to get the is my job at risk are you going to get someone to are you going to get your team members to lean in and say yeah let's have this conversation i will i want this clarity our readiness tool can help you understand right just gut check your leadership systems before the chaos of change happens right before the chaos of com of certain conversations happen So that's a free tool for you. It is out there. If you're listening to the podcast, we'll make sure to add the link to our resource hub where this lives. Yes. You know, and as we go, you know, remember leadership isn't a one person show and culture certainly does not grow on its own. It takes intention. It takes a system. So remember that when leaders grow, cultures change. With that, Amy, thank you so much for being on Real Talk this week. Thank you for having me. And we will see or hear everyone next week. Make it a good week. Bye, everyone.
