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March 20th, 2023
The time-honoured tradition of defining a career development exclusively in terms of promotions, moves, and title changes is, well… dead. Don’t panic! One of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 speakers, author Julie Winkle Giulioni sits down with Rob to talk about many ways that employees can; and want to – grow. Curious? So was I!
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
• Other things that motivate people other than promotions, moves, and title changes!
• The risks and challenges associated with defining careers and career development exclusively by promotions & positions.
• Some alternate ways to think about careers and career development.
• Alternatives to promotions.
• Management training’s contribution… or lack thereof… to this issue.
• How Julie came up with this model.
• A wonderful questions, from over 100 Julie writes about that really sparks reflection and productive dialogue.
• How employees can grow beyond climbing the corporate ladder.
• Mentors that played a part in Julies journey.
For more information about this author:
Website: JulieWinkleGiulioni.com
Email: julie@juliewinklegiulioni.com
Primary Phone: 818-219-7988
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/julie-winkle-giulioni/7/713/4a7
Rob Jolles (00:00):
The time honored tradition of defining career development exclusively in terms of promotions, moves, title changes is dead. Don’t panic. Let’s have ourselves a pocket-sized pep talk because my guest today believes there are so many other ways that employees can and want to grow. Curious. So am I
Intro (00:23):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:36):
Today’s guest, Julie Winkle Giulioni is a champion for workplace growth and development and helps executives and leaders optimize talent and potential within their organizations. One of Inc magazine’s Top 100 speakers, she’s the author of Promotions are so yesterday and the co-author of the international bestseller Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go Translated into Seven Languages. Julie is a regular columnist for training Industry magazine and Smart Brief and contributes articles on leadership, career development and workplace trends to numerous other publications. I am thrilled to have her with us and it took us a while to get her, but glad to have you on the show. Welcome, Julie.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (01:20):
Thank you Rob. And I am thrilled to be here.
Rob Jolles (01:24):
Yay. Well, we’re going to have a party, so let’s jump right in. And I want to start with the promotions, moves and title changes are dead. That did shake me up. Okay, why?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (01:37):
So it’s intended to be a bit provocative and that might be a little bit of an overstatement, but they’re definitely dead as an exclusive way of thinking about career development, progression satisfaction, engagement in the workplace. So for some time now, the world’s been changing, hierarchies are breaking down mid layers of management or sort of being pulled out. Work is getting done more organically. My dog is digging in the background, which has huge workplace implications. Anyway, the world’s changing. And then we as individuals, you know, think about the last three years and what many of us have been through and having to look mortality in the face and really get clear on what’s important, what our priorities are. All of this is converging to create a really different set of circumstances in terms of workplace growth and engagement. And yet when we think about career development, we just sort of default back or kind of rubber band back to this idea of climbing the corporate ladder, which just is available to fewer and fewer today. And so the basic idea here is how can we expand the definition to more appropriately align with today’s workplace and what’s really possible.
Rob Jolles (03:07):
And I’m glad you’re bringing it up because when I was at Xerox, I was kind of fighting that corporate ladder and trying to go up that corporate ladder and frustrated by the corporate ladder. And there was always some confusion as to the criteria of the corporate ladder. Anyway. So I think what I really craved was recognition, not necessarily a title change, of which I always felt there was a lot of stinginess there too. But both of them kind of confused me and I really thought I’d, I’d be a steroid forever. And I can tell you that April will be 30 years since I left and became an entrepreneur. But that was the single biggest thing. It was kind of confusion about recognition and promotion and all that. So I’m glad you’re writing to this.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (04:00):
What, and I think that dissonance, that confusion has just perpetuated itself over these last three decades. The idea of it being a ladder is kind of silly. I don’t know how we ever got to the ladder metaphor because we know organizations are pyramids, so there’s far fewer and o opportunities and they’re farther between as you move up the food chain. And what I’m finding through my research is not everybody aspires to that, and yet it’s kind of our deep default or exclusive way of defining success. And so it creates real confusion for folks.
Rob Jolles (04:39):
Where else I found out, Julie, in terms of being a manager, when I mentor people who go, well, I’m doing this, so I guess then I have to move into management, sort of the same thing. It’s like, no, I was a manager at Xerox too, wasn’t my cup of tea. I learned that I’m really good at managing me. I’m a pretty good hunter. I put so much faith in loyalty and Santa Claus and Easter Bunny too, that when not everyone had the same definition, it broke my heart and I had a good mentor who took me aside and said, not everybody just moves to management. That’s not necessarily part of that ladder you’re talking about. You can be really good and happy at what you do and still grow and feel encouraged by your career. But to tell people that we’re not all cut out to be managers either. Sort of the same thing, at least for me.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (05:39):
Yeah, it’s so important. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who aspire to move into management or leadership. And when I ask why, what are you looking forward to? It’s just like deer in a headlight. They don’t know. It’s just a reflexive response to culture, expectations, all sorts of things that just have us kind of moving without thinking sometimes in a direction that is not in any way aligned with what we love or what we’re good at.
Rob Jolles (06:12):
And we’re going to get to this in a couple minutes because I have a pet peeve about how we train our managers, but I want to hold that thought cause we’re not doing anybody any favors when they get there sometimes. But we’re really lined up on this thing. I wish more people understood that you can have a fabulous career and not necessarily have the title of a manager and very rewarding. And there’s just so much else out there. Alright, well, so let’s talk about some alternatives. So we’re not all about rung after rung, go up the ladder. Matter of fact, a quick funny story for me, but remember writing this in a blog of how I had to almost teach myself to not put my hand on the ladder. I was climbing as an entrepreneur and it was costing me creating some dysfunction with my family and things like that. But I only knew one way and I thought it was up. Nobody taught me that. You don’t have to grab every rung, but let’s talk about some alternatives. So maybe we don’t grab the next rung on that ladder or we’re not immediately promoted. What else do we offer people to keep ’em engaged and keep ’em excited about what they’re doing?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (07:23):
Yeah, and the beauty is there is so much beyond and between beside that ladder. So over the last 10 years or so of working with organizations around the world, when I talk to people about what their careers meant to them, what was really important, the answers were all over the board. Sure, a few people said moving up the ladder, getting that sense of recognition that comes with the corner office and all of that. But far more people were talking about making a difference, doing something that left the world better, the connections, the real friendships and relationships and community that came out of work. Building skills, having this opportunity for lifelong learning and testing their metal and pushing the limits of their capacity, developing their talents. They were talking about this wide range of things that went way beyond the structural expectation of the next run.
(08:25)
And so as I listened carefully, the idea started to bucket themselves into these eight categories. It ultimately became the eight dimensions of the multi-dimensional career framework. So the alternatives to the climb. And it’s one of the dimensions as much as I say. So yesterday, it’s today, it’s tomorrow, it’ll be forever. It’s part of the structure of organizations, but it’s one of a whole constellation of dimensions and ways we can express ourselves, engage and grow and develop, and that managers and organizations can leverage to help us do the same thing. So sorry, that was a really long preamble to your question, which was what are the others?
(09:10)
And so the research that we did, what’s really quite stunning, I have to say it blew me away. When I developed the framework, sent it out, we did about 800 folks internationally across ages, genders, levels. And what we found was the number one dimension, the thing that they were more interested in than anything else in aggregate was contribution. People have, and we know this, I mean this isn’t news. I mean the human soul and spirit has a need to express itself and contribute and make a difference and be of service and live on purpose. But knowing that and knowing that in aggregate it is the most interesting of all of the dimensions, is really helpful, hopeful information for managers everywhere because what manager wouldn’t welcome someone making more contribution? And the key is how do we use that strategically so it’s not a one-way street, but where that person is getting value to beyond the engagement even in terms of developing. So as I step up and I do more, I’m growing new skills, I’m expanding my network, I’m adding new experiences to my portfolio. So it becomes a really synergistic sort of way of thinking about engagement and development.
Rob Jolles (10:30):
Can you give me an example of, I did some reading on you, this is part of the string of Cs, lots of Cs, you like the letter C, do you?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (10:41):
I like alliteration.
Rob Jolles (10:43):
Okay. We may get to a few more of them, don’t worry. But I was looking at, can you give me an example of or two of contribution?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (10:53):
Yeah, so I mean there are folks who might have in the past been interested in climbing the corporate ladder so that they could have more influence so they could make a bigger impact. And yet that’s not what’s necessary. You don’t need to be in a new office or with a new business card. And I dunno if we even use business cards anymore, but a new title in order to make a greater impact. So to recognize that contribution is really driving me and find a way to have that greater impact, whether it’s taking on a new assignment within the scope of one’s role, stepping in for someone who might be on leave, taking on maybe some tasks that your manager typically does. Starting an employee engagement group, taking on an initiative to make a social impact within the organization always that we can express that need for contribution. We feel that sense of achievement that comes with that greater impact and possibly even learn and grow in the process.
Rob Jolles (12:01):
Yeah. Okay. So you get it. I was nibbling away at that boy. I think part of the problem is it’s like we, like a car start, we put in another battery, but that doesn’t necessarily fix what happened with the car. Sometimes it’s the alternator that’s taking the battery power out of that battery. And so we’re not really fixing the problem, we’re just delaying it. And I think one of the problems I’ve always had is just how we even teach managers who are kind of in place for many reasons, but one of ’em is to mentor these people that you’re talking about and to be looking for those contributions. And I remember I was trained by a company called Zenger Miller, and we looked at 25 managed by eyes, see your eyes opening up on that 1 25 different management pieces. But my favorite too were recognition because they really struggled understanding what that was about and how to do it properly. And it was so damaging to people. And the other was delegation. And I think we’re sort of on your contribution, contr contribution. We we’re sort of nibbling at both of those. If we had somebody who knew how to delegate and understood a process for recognition, we might be getting at that one.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (13:12):
Oh my gosh. Well you are just making my heart sing. Rob, I’ve got to tell you, I worked for Zinger Miller and I developed some of those training programs.
Rob Jolles (13:21):
Oh, they’re great. They were great. They’ve stayed with me this whole time. I still, Julie, I still, I loved it so much. You said business cards are dying. But I love the little cards that I got in a nice little book. Folks, if you can imagine, you think business cards are going out. Many years ago we would take business cards and put ’em in their own little book. And so they were little sleeves for each business card. And what Zanger Miller did was they took each process because I love that they processed everything you want performance review, we got a process for it, whatever. But I had that booklet and it really helped me as a job manager understanding and working with people. So big Zinger Miller fan, loved it and still use some of the things that I learned so many years ago.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (14:07):
Oh, so many years ago. It was a great company and really some great training that I think set the stage for a whole generation really of managers. So thank you for the little walk down memory lane there. I think you’ve nailed it and I hadn’t really thought about it, but you’ve this even further. I think it is the combination of delegation. Maybe the first step in the process is really having the kind of trusting authentic relationship with an employee to where they’re willing to share with you and you have an understanding of what’s driving them, what their interests and motivations are. But then once you’ve got that information on the table, delegation is really kind of at the core of what’s involved in terms of figuring out, so if this person wants this experience, where can we find that? Where are there the opportunities, the activities, the initiatives, the voids, the special projects, whatever they might be? And then how do we make a match there and set the goals and set the process in place and help people with the support that they need and remove the roadblocks, create the runway for that development to happen. And then to your point, the recognition, oh my gosh, it takes almost no time. It takes almost nothing beyond some sincere attention to what’s going on with folks. And that kind of recognition is just gold in terms of helping to keep people focused and motivated on their development goals
Rob Jolles (15:51):
As a salesman and as a sales trainer, everybody wants to talk about objections and we work reactively, but I like to look at objections proactively as, okay, so what causes that problem? Again, why is the battery losing power? And I think one of the issues in recognition is that because managers aren’t trained in it and they are locked into the thought that everybody just wants more money, and that somehow this will haunt them, that if they’ve got somebody who isn’t necessarily a superstar and oh my goodness, those are the ones we really looking for, folks, the superstars, they kind of get it, but they do one or two things extremely well. It could just be getting to their desk at 8:00 AM every morning, but by golly, there she is. There he is. When we teach them, you just have to be more specific with the recognition.
(16:51)
Number one, Hey, do you think they’re going to be late tomorrow morning? And B, just creates a wonderful environment for other conversations. And not if only you could do this better, but I mean, how can I help make your job better conversation? But the other thing real fast is I still keep it in my bag is I, I’ve got 25 other ways to recognize people that has nothing to do with money. And your book is so timely because it also doesn’t, anything to do with a promotion has to do with a human need the way I see it.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (17:26):
Absolutely. Those intrinsic motivations are so powerful and employees today have a real need to feel seen and heard and valued. And a few words, and you nailed it, Rob. I mean, it’s that specificity, knowing exactly what it is you’re focusing in on and being really strategic about naming that labeling, that specificity is what makes the recognition really saying
Rob Jolles (17:58):
And protects the manager in all fairness to them. If a manager says, Julie, I just wanted to bring you and tell you you’re amazing. Well then yeah, in three months with Juli, her performance review, if we’re still doing those, those will be yesterday too, by the way. But when we have a performance review, there is some confusion. I thought I was doing it. If we’re specific and we’re not doing it to trick anybody, every we can, everybody’s protected, so to speak. But again, if you fall back to that alternator, I don’t think we’re training people in those positions to understand what to look for, how to look for it, how to recognize it. And then for goodness sake, as you said, we want to give them more responsibility how to set it up properly so you can step back and let them make a C, maybe bump their nose a little bit, but get it right. They’ll get there.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (18:51):
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think a couple of things are operating in many organizations. The best individual technical performer is tapped to be the manager or the leader of the group. And we know that the skills and the sensibilities don’t necessarily align. So sometimes we’re promoting people into those roles who don’t have an interest and don’t have the D n A to want to do that. But then the other thing is, if we’re not training managers, it’s really hard to hold them accountable for what are sophisticated skills that have huge implications for the organization. So we owe it to managers to give them some pretty intensive development experiences because we’ve got so much writing on them.
Rob Jolles (19:45):
Yeah. Oh, I totally agree with you. All right, let’s jump back to the book for a second here, because I tell you what, we could stay there forever. That’s a hot topic for me too, but not going to, I really love pocket sized pep talks, but if I came up with another podcast, it would be called A book Finds You because we don’t find a book, it finds us typically. So tell me how you came up with the model. How did this book find you? I’m sensing the story.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (20:15):
Yeah, yeah. Well it’s interesting. So the standard story I tell I will share first and then I’m going to share something that I just discovered.
Rob Jolles (20:25):
Okay.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (20:26):
So about 11 years ago, I was invited to co-author a book with Beverly K. And that book was Help them Grow or Watch Them Go. And was really focused on helping managers engage in more meaningful career conversations. It was about expanding the conversation. We had a have a whole conversational framework in there and really help managers think more organically about how to slip development just into and around the conversations, the interactions, the work that folks are doing. And it’s great, a really great framework, really well received. I’ve done training around the world based upon it. And although managers leave feeling like, okay, I can have a better conversation, there was, I was hearing from managers a lot of reluctance that it could be a better conversation, but people are still going to want that promotion. And that’s the one thing I can’t give. So maybe it’s just better to avoid this altogether.
(21:28)
And so for the last 10 years as I’ve kind of heard that continued little bit of pushback, I was thinking, Ooh, there’s a sequel here. Although we don’t want to say sequel cause we know what that means, at least in the theaters. So that was what start. And I found myself starting to build some tools and some thoughts around it. And then suddenly, in looking at all of the field research, it just became clear that there was really a framework that needed to be crafted around it. And so that became a multi-dimensional career framework I wrote about in a blog post, and an editor picked it up and said, Ooh, that could be a book. And I said, okay, sign me up. Interesting. So that was standard story. What I didn’t realize until last week, I was doing another podcast interview and the interviewer said, you know what you’re saying sounds so much like this book that I read or the themes were so much like this book that I read 30 years ago called Hope for the Flowers.
(22:32)
And it was just like your zinger Miller moment. Just my eyes got big because that was a book I remember my mom gave me probably 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And basically it’s a children’s book that’s not a children’s book that basically speaks to these caterpillars discovering that climbing up doesn’t get ’em anywhere they want to go and they need to make a leap and become a butterfly. And I realized in talking with her during that interview, that was actually probably the first seed of this book. And without being aware of it, that was what kind of grew and blossomed into this whole point of view. So it’s been a weird kind of week going back in time and figuring out, but kind of tracing that back to its source.
Rob Jolles (23:22):
Yeah, that’s kind of cool. I had a sales book that I wrote that I really loved, and I had a publisher always after me, can we get another one? Addie and I even had another edition where I wrote the very first line, I haven’t Changed my mind. And that was how I opened up the book.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (23:39):
I love it.
Rob Jolles (23:40):
But again, I freshened a few things up, but it was the same thing I got from somebody who was actually thanking me because they had made a really big sale, but they felt that they were being mean because they were asking tougher questions. And it actually bothered me to an extent of, I just felt like I failed them. But I wrote a piece called it, it’s not mean, it’s Merciful and just how asking tougher questions and creating with as much empathy as possible, but creating some pain in a conversation ends up being a very merciful conversation. But it’s the same sort of thing. That’s what I mean in terms of how books find us. It’s sort of the oddest little weird things that people can trigger. That’s why people like you and me, we love engaging in workshops. We love talking to people because as I’m talking, I’m, I’m going, just give me one second. That’s a block. I got to get that down. If I’m in a closet, I can’t have that conversation. I’m not quite, I don’t come up with many good ideas. I come up with them from talking to people who are reading and talking about us. It’s very unusual.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (24:50):
When Working out there trying to sort this stuff out. Yeah, that’s really where the sparks start flying
Rob Jolles (24:57):
Quick, this is just a little side question. Was that your favorite I, because I got my favorite kid book. Was that your favorite book as a kid when you were growing up? Did you have one that you just
Julie Winkle Giulioni (25:09):
Well, first of all, may I just say thank you for thinking that 30 or 40 years ago I was a kid. So no, that was a favorite adult book.
Rob Jolles (25:20):
Okay. All right. Well go back to being a kid. Was there one that stuck with you?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (25:25):
Yeah, the story of the Little Red Hand. Huh. Which I, I’m very conflicted about today.
Rob Jolles (25:30):
Love that story.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (25:31):
Well, I’m kind of, it’s a little bit of a double sword.
Rob Jolles (25:35):
There’s a little bitterness in there, by the way.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (25:39):
Yeah, a lot. But I do really think that reading that I’ve got a real sense of conscientiousness. I’m diligent putting the seeds away all winter long. Hopefully a little more generous than she is on the other end.
Rob Jolles (25:54):
Well, no one was helping her, as I recall. It’s funny you bring that up. I hadn’t thought of that book forever. It’s got to be in my top three. Mine, by the way, is the little engine that I was blown away by that book as a kid, and I was a little on the small side and I got ahold of it, and I, I’ve always thought I actually dedicated one of my books to somebody who brought that book to me because it changed my life. The little engine that Could
Julie Winkle Giulioni (26:28):
You know what Rob, that is a perfect book for you. That’s your book.
Rob Jolles (26:34):
It is my book. It is my book. That’s funny. All right. Let’s see it. It’s I’m loving our conversation, by the way, what I was reading about you and see if I got this right in terms of this book that you ask a lot of questions to spark reflection and dialogue. Am I ringing a bell there?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (26:59):
Yeah, yeah. I’m all about the questions.
Rob Jolles (27:01):
Good. And there’s a lot of them, close to a hundred of them. So I see. Can you cherry pick maybe two or three that you think, and maybe you got to shape the shot, it fits the individual, but are there a couple that are just kind of special to you?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (27:22):
The default question that so many leaders and managers ask when they’re going to sit down and have a development conversation is, where do you see yourself in three to five years? That just, that’s if I ask it one more time, and we’ve all done it, we’ve all asked it, and to me that feels like the corporate equivalent of what do you want to be when you grow up? And it’s so narrow and locks us in. So I really like the questions that are the antithesis of that, that don’t talk about what people want to be when they grow up, but talk about what people want to do. What do you want to do? What does success look like? What kinds of customers do you want to work with or technologies or what do you want to achieve? What kind of a legacy do you want to leave?
(28:08)
I mean, those sort of bigger questions that get people thinking about the stuff that’s going to mean more to them. And that also, if I’m a manager, the fodder from those conversations can be used toward crafting a way to help people to grow, right? In the current role without having to go somewhere to be someone else to have a different title. So I like those kinds of questions as well as questions around when they go through the multidimensional career, they find out I’m more interested in contribution or confidence or contentment or whatever it might be. Just that open question, what does fill in the blank contribution look like to you? Yeah. What’s it going to feel like when you’re doing more of that? That just really helps, I think people to get grounded and specific. And the more specific kind of back to what we were talking about with the recognition, the more specific we are in those conversations, the more targeted the actions and the experiences and activities can be.
Rob Jolles (29:17):
Oh, I love that. And I have to tell you, without ever us having this conversation, my most disliked question, and I don’t know if you know this, but I’m 13 years mentoring and volunteering to help people in career transition. So I’m mocking interviews up all the time. My most disliked question is where do you see yourself in three to five years? And I’ve always had this fantasy of guys, I can’t of leaning across the table and go, I don’t know, where do you see yourself three to five years? Why don’t you give me your fairytale and then I’ll give you my fairytale? But the question you are asking is honest. It’s not a trap question. And it hel, if I’m on the other side, helps me understand not just from a hiring perspective, but how to manage you per perspective. Because also the worst managers I ever had were the ones that said, this is who I am, conform to me or you’re in trouble. And the greatest managers I ever had were the ones that said, I’m going to study you. I’m going to figure out what motivates you, and I’m going to manage you tw at that angle much. I coached a lot of basketball, much like a basketball coach when I got better at it, which was no, I’m going to assess the talent I have, figure what inspires and motivates people. Sometimes it’s a real push and sometimes it’s not a real push. But to understand my team, my locker room,
Julie Winkle Giulioni (30:44):
The best leaders I really think are the ones who are able to personalize the employment experience. And those are the ones who are going to be able to keep talent. And back to that three to five year question. I mean, part of the problem with it is that we don’t know where the world is going to be in three to five years. There’s that research from the Institute for the Future of Work, 85% of the jobs we’ll be doing in 2030 haven’t been invented. Wow. So how much hubris is there to say, well, in seven years I will be doing X, Y, Z when who knows what we’ll be doing and what AI will be doing for us?
Rob Jolles (31:25):
Yeah. That’s interesting. I saw something one time from the financial industry of they took the Fortune top 50 companies and they looked at them about 15 years later and 30 of ’em even in business anymore. And these were the top 50 companies. Just everything shifts, everything changes. Which is why I find it to be almost a trite question of, okay, I’ll give you what we’re looking for and we can pretend, yeah, but did you really learn anything from me just now? Other than I can invent things quickly. So yeah, we’re on the same page there. All right. Coming down the home stretch, let’s talk about, wait, we’re just about ready to wrap up and give me the name of the book again.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (32:07):
Promotions are So Yesterday
Rob Jolles (32:11):
And On Amazon
Julie Winkle Giulioni (32:12):
Development Help Employees Thrive.
Rob Jolles (32:14):
Fantastic. And on Amazon, you have an author’s page, correct? I
Julie Winkle Giulioni (32:18):
I Do, yes.
Rob Jolles (32:19):
Good for you. All right. You’re better. And I saw at least 87 reviews. I count these things, so lots of nice reviews on there. Some really great quotes on the book. And my audience knows that buying the book’s only half the deal. Writing a review is what we really look for. It means a great deal to authors and it actually means something to that Amazon algorithm that we’re still trying to figure out at times. But, so let’s get a copy of that book at any online store and really do a nice thing, read it, and then write two sentences, three sentences. Don’t worry about anything real long and wordy. We can’t get through those long ones either. Just something real short, just say what it meant to you and Julie, we’ll be back in a moment. Cause I’m doing a commercial, but the commercial is, it means so much to authors and I don’t think people understand. So let’s get the book. Let’s write a review on the book. And the last question for you, my friend, is some mentors. Mentors that maybe just gave you a little spark and got you going,
Julie Winkle Giulioni (33:23):
Oh my goodness. Probably the most significant of my business mentors, because of course I have family members who really helped mold me, but a woman named Beverly Marsh was one of my first early bosses, and she was an older woman. She was probably 50 at the time. But to me, she seemed older and elegant and wonderful. But Beverly had a capacity to see the best in everyone around her. You talk about recognition, this was a woman who just had this innate ability to be able to see what, maybe you were a little fragile around what needed that little bit of boost, what you saw, maybe a little kernel love in yourself but weren’t quite sure about. She had the capacity to find that and somehow shine this golden light upon it that let it grow. And I thrived in her presence. To this day, I have a friend who also worked under Beverly Marsh, and we talk about in a tough situation, what would Beverly do? Right?
Rob Jolles (34:34):
That’s great. I shouldn’t allow myself to do this because we’re talking about mentors and I’ll throw Larry Dam Monette’s name out into the ring as a zero that really helped me. But relating to your topic, I got to go back to my dad. My dad was my scout leader. I was a boy scout. We six guys. We started a troupe within two years. We had 120 boys in this troupe. It was a very successful troop, but we had a motto that I guess he created. But I mean, it was a very serious motto among the leadership. And we would say it all the time when we met. And the motto was, remember boys, when you’re leading, don’t go on and do it. Come on, let’s do it. That was our phrase, and it stayed with me. And I remember thinking there was some depth to that. And as an 11 year old, I really understood it and I was always looking for a way to get people to come on and do it, not go on and do it. And I still see a lot of these guys to this day, and they still bring that phrase up. It really landed with us. So I’m bringing Lee Jolles back into the fold for this one.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (35:47):
Oh, Mr. Jolles, we need a little plaque or something with that. Yeah. That’s beautiful.
Rob Jolles (35:52):
Yeah. Well, yeah. Nice, nice memory. He had a lot of phrases. He was a marine, some of ’em were a little rough, those phrases. But alright, you, I have enjoyed the heck out of it. How do people get ahold of you? Learn more about what you’re doing?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (36:09):
Probably at my website, juliewinklegiulioni.com. That’s kind of my central repository of ideas and contact information.
Rob Jolles (36:17):
Good. And can they reach out to you on LinkedIn and stuff like that? Is that okay?
Julie Winkle Giulioni (36:21):
I would love It. Yeah.
Rob Jolles (36:23):
I love it. Me too. I get some people are like, no, no, no. I will not accept someone from LinkedIn. I won’t accept you on Facebook. I’ve got a very few people there and I really don’t want to hear about the marshmallow treat you had. But I do take LinkedIn seriously, and as from an author to author, somebody’s going to read my book and reach out. Well, of course I’m going to welcome you to the family. So I’m glad they can find you that way too. Folks, that’s an interesting spelling of the name. So when you look for Julie, it’s Julie, but the last name, G I U L I O N I. And I will have that on our site as well. So we’ll be able to get that going. Although you could probably put that book in and find her even easier that way. So another reason why we’ll chase that book down. All right. It has been a treat, it took a while for us to get this going, but it was every bit worth the way thoroughly enjoyed talking to you, and I’m grateful you came on.
Julie Winkle Giulioni (37:20):
Oh, thank you, Rob. It’s been just a delight.
Rob Jolles (37:23):
Wonderful. Well, we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Everyone. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (37:33):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcast, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.