What We Get Wrong With Corporate Communication with Jeff Olson

CEO of Sense & Color, Jeff Olson, brings over 25 years of experience helping global companies with their communication sharing what we often get wrong when it comes to communication. He gives practical insight into how we can approach communication differently to make a lasting impact that improve employee engagement and culture. 


Connect with Jeff: 

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffolsoncommunications/
Website: https://www.senseandcolor.xyz/

Transcript

Britta Blanski :

Welcome to the LinkedIn Lounge podcast, a space where we dive deep into questions surrounding culture, community, employee engagement, employee experience and what it looks like to help be an active voice to improve our workplaces. Linkedin is an amazing place of connection and opportunity, so when you're willing to dive into that space and be a little bit vulnerable and lean into your authentic, genuine side when it comes to relationship building, you'll be surprised at what you find. So grab those earbuds, find a quiet space and enjoy this conversation. Welcome to the LinkedIn Lounge Podcast today we will have with us Jeff Olson he is a Fractional Chief Communications Officer with over 25 years of corporate communication experience including leading brand reputation teams for one of the most recognizable brands in the world, McDonald's due leading all COVID communications at a retail pharmacy in between dozens of well known clients from his time and executive roles at global agencies so welcome to the show Jeff i am so excited you are here. I just, I'm going to dive right in and I'm going to ask you right away, from all your experience, what would you say is the number one thing that we get wrong with communication?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Well, I think as a whole, communication is a very nebulous term and when we think about it from a career perspective, when we think about it from a company perspective, I think a lot of times people think it's going to be writing memos, going to be emails and maybe the glamour of PR. In my time, I've had some of that glamour and working with celebrities and almost accidentally killing Barbara Walters and doing all these things but for me, what we don't understand or what we get wrong about communications is the impact it has to influence behaviors and get people on the same page, create alignment so that a business can move with less friction and also and ultimately get better results and so I think that communication is one of the biggest misconceptions is where the role is and for me, the role is making sure that you, all the stakeholders understand why you do what you do and how to get everyone aligned to that and thus the number one stakeholder for me is employees. And people don't often think about that they think about other people that you're trying to communicate to.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

So why don't people know what you're about and what you're doing and what their role is? Where is the gap that's getting passed down in the communication?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

I think again, my context comes from the world of corporate and I think the beginnings of it were a little bit more focused within the realm of marketing so it was PR, it was working with the media, it was maybe doing events. A lot of times communications people were quote, unquote handlers for executives or others that were part of an event at an organization or what have you. Those that have done communications well, those that have had the impact, they ultimately somewhat become a concierge if you will to ACEO. They become an A trusted advisor and thus they can provide advice and guidance on the communications, the messaging, the narrative that's going to most impact business results. And i think often times communications doesn't have that seat at the table. And when you, when you become a trusted advisor, when you are able to whisper in the ear of ACEO, when you're able to influence behaviors and create results because you're considering what every stakeholder needs and wants and how they want to feel and what they want to believe, then communications becomes a key and leading component of the organization. But all too often people think of it as kind of that peanut gallery PR perspective, if that makes sense.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Ok so then how exactly would you defined communications? What is communication in the corporate world and for you to give us, ourselves and our audience and listeners a context?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Communications in the corporate world is to me this is Jeff Olsen's definition of communications. It is two way alignment, meaning the communications can't just be from CEO to employee or from press release to reporter. There has to be an ongoing dialogue that then ultimately creates that connection and that alignment to move things forward so for me, communications equals alignment, and when you have alignment it's hard to measure, but you can feel it and you can see it and the results come through.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Ok that was perfect because my next question was going to be, how do you know that you're misaligned what are the indicators that OK, something's off.
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Well, one thing I think that a lot of organizations don't do well, and I've seen it myself many times and I've tried to fix it many of times, is that you don't do the homework and the assessment and the audit to start so you might say, let's use an initiative, You want to communicate to employees and you are the. For the most part, people are going to say we need to get the memo out or we need to get an email out or let's do a video or let's do a town hall they start with the tactic and then they just push the information to the employee. What often is missed in that process is really understanding who their employees are, what you know, how they want to feel, what they believe, really understanding their current knowledge of the clarity of the direction of the organization, the why of the organization and if you're missing those things, it doesn't matter what you're going to communicate, it's not going to hit. And so I think the very first thing that always has to be done is understanding your employees. Just like a marketing process goes through understanding customers when you better understand if they have clarity, if there's some gaps in that clarity, if they do or do not understand where the organization's going, the purpose, then you can better address how to reach them and you can. The communicator's job should be helped frame that context so the context is people don't really understand where we're going as an organization they don't know why we do what we do and you know they're kind of not paying attention. Well then you can frame the messaging in a whole different way and build a plan that makes sure that you are getting to them in ways that matter for them, that you're thinking like them, communicating like them and ultimately turning the tide and getting that buy in so that they can be part of where you want to go.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

So how do you get your employees to start paying attention?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Well, I think once, first of all you have to do that auditor assessment, understand who they are once you have that, I look at it in a couple different ways i think foundationally and I'm probably going to bring this up a lot of times i wish Simon's neck would start paying me. But I think the first thing is the notion of start with why and purpose people. What Simon had always said is people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it. People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. It's the same exact thing for employees they want to be a part of something they want to know why we're doing what we're doing and what their role is in it. So the first step for me is foundational in terms of creating some threads in your message agenda. To me, a thread is always the purpose that's one thread. Another thread is always casting the vision and helping people understand where you're going to go and what winning looks like down the road so they can see themselves in that winning position. And then from there a strategic, a message agenda is going to hit on some of the things everybody touched on. What do you want people to do what do you want them to know? What do you want them to believe? And then how do they want to feel and those two threads, I kind of those four questions kind of hit into two threads. One is the business thread, what do they need to know and do and what the business is all about? And then the other part is a little bit more on that, right, brain, emotion and belief, are they a part of this? Do they feel themselves a part of it so when you have those threads of purpose and vision and business and culture, that's how you start to get people brought along and then of course you have to do a few other steps like thinking like them, the content they want, the right channels but then that you know that then starts to be your plan.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Ok so I know that you are working hard on improving employee engagement, which I'm sure is a big part of making them feel like they have a purpose and they're part of the larger purpose, right, the bigger purpose of the company in the organization.
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Right.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

So what would you say is one of the most effective strategies when it comes to employee engagement to make them feel like they are part of that purpose?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

I think there's it speaks a little bit to what I was saying with understanding where they are and then building the threads that help them understand i think, you know to add a little context to this, you know, we always see from Gallup different research studies that talk about quiet quitting or employees that are actively disengaged, not engaged and consistently. You know, the headline may change i kind of laughed this past year it was all about quiet quitters making up the majority of employees globally. Well, those numbers haven't changed a whole lot it's just what we're talking about and framing it and how we're framing it. The reality is, usually it's only 20 to 30 % that are actively engaged and thriving at work. And usually there's another 20 % that might be considered actively disengaged, meaning they're just not paying attention but also maybe speaking I'll of the organization or actively looking and letting people know that and then you have that huge middle bunch that just are not engaged, they're just showing up and doing their thing and so if you can make small tweaks to that middle bunch, make small improvements, the 1 % improvements, that's going to make a world of difference to the revenue. And so getting back to your question, how do we do that? Well, what people want is a clarity of expectations so that comes back a little bit to the purpose and vision. What they want is that connection to the mission or purpose of a company. Daniel Pink did a wonderful job in his book Drive talking about people just want mastery, autonomy and purpose. And that really that's what's about they want opportunities to learn and grow. They want to learn and master what they're doing and feel like they're they have the opportunities to do what's best for them. They want to have the autonomy to innovate and do things that they feel are going to best create get that to that winning picture of what the vision looks like and how you achieve that why of the purpose. And then you know, I think that purpose is they want to see just how they fit and that they're cared about and that people are listening to them and all of that so you know I think those are those are the things that need to happen when you communicate is those clarity of expectations is understanding where we're going to go and then providing a lot of stories along the way and I'm sure we'll get into that. But I think once you start getting into how do you communicate, it really starts to get into to things like stories and voices and types of contents that really resonate.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah so is it realistic to have an organization that's, I don't want to say 100 %, so I don't think that is, but that's 90 % engaged. Like, is that even a realistic goal to be aiming for?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

That would be based on all the research that for an example of Gallup shows that would be pretty ambitious. But I think there are organizations that whether you call them a firm of endearment that follows certain considerations of employees as a top stakeholder, the notions of conscious capitalism, which is you know doing well by doing good, those consistently show more higher engagement employees and frankly they get more profitability than competitors. I don't know if 90 % is the target for me i would always say let's take a look at where you are today and let's see what we can do quarter over quarter, year over year and if you'd like but I can. I can give you an example of a couple things that I've done in my career that did make a difference and started to show some results.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah why not why don't you give us one?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

So quick, you mentioned McDonald's. You know we've all seen over time the ebbs and flows of McDonald's reputation. Sometimes it seems as though they're doing really well within the world of culture and really resonating with customers and then other times they have a bull's eye on their back, whether it's Super Size me or Fast Food Nation or legislation or what have you. I happened to be there a lot of times when the bull's eye was on the back, which was job security, I suppose close, but nonetheless, one of the things that we found through a focus group that I LED was the top performing restaurant managers the top 1 % didn't really understand much about the food. Crazy right it's a restaurant how do the managers not understand about the food? Well, McDonald's is well known for its focus on operations and efficiency, and that has served us well over the years but that's what was ingrained into managers is more about times and temperatures and quality and cleanliness than really understanding where the food came from and how to talk about it. So we went through, we up first we understood and assessed that there was a gap there. Then we help people understand why we do what we do, where the food comes from, put together a whole mix of training and communications to get people to understand not only the information but then what to do with it. So if you're at your kids soccer game and someone says, oh, you work at McDonald's, that's interesting i, you know, I just thought it was a place that, you know, low income and you know, makes kids unhealthy. We help people basically through a shortened version of media training, help turn that around by telling stories of their experience, of a customer's experience. And that actually the results of that, you know it seems and it seems like it's one of those things that's not necessarily as black and white as being able to say we sold X amount for of because of this promotion or we instituted this new policy and saw X amount more customers come through, drive through whatever it may be. Interestingly enough, in the restaurants that we did this against the control, brand pride increased, turnover decreased, operational efficiency scores increased and customer satisfaction increased so what we saw which helped the pilot move to more than 5000 restaurants was if you help employees understand why you're doing what you're doing, the information they need to be able to tell stories and how to tell stories, the metrics that matter, the KPIS that matter in your business also get better. So that's one example quickly when we were at right, when I was at Rite Aid, a retail pharmacy in the US twenty five hundred locations, the third biggest behind Walgreens and CVS, the pandemic hits, we had a company turn around plan we had a plan for how we were going to move this organization and brand forward. And then the next thing you know everything is about masks and PPE and essential businesses and vaccines. So employees were a little unsure and confused about what was happening in the world we all were. But what we could control is what they knew about our business and we found, hey, they were confused they didn't know the clarity of direction of plan are we still doing turnover or excuse me, turn around plan or are we all in are we just only doing things to impact our community's Wellness as it relates to the pandemic? We put together similar to everything I outlined for you already, a communications plan that really thought like them, that give them the content that they mattered and really attached to their purpose. And we saw a 20 % improvement in their understanding of the plan in three months. So those are those are the types of impacts you can have when you really focus on the communications in a way that matter to the employees.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah, that's so cool. I just have to say something quickly because I just think it's such an interesting cultural difference. You know, clearly you're like you're located in the US, but I'm located in Italy and McDonald's here is the coolest place to be when you are a teenager like that is where everyone goes to hang out and spend time and so if you got a job working at McDonald's, you know, as like a 17 year old in Italy, you would it would be like, you know, you're a hotshot because everyone that's like the cool hangout spot and they also are really big on where they source their food so like McDonald's makes a really big point that their meat is local, it's from Tuscany, it's a certain type of beef and all of this so it's just fascinating the different cultural nuances and how it is important that the employees understand that but also, you know, in upper management too, you know, as you get higher up in the chain there of how the employees communicate to other people within their own culture, like their own community, right?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

It's very interesting. Yeah it's so interesting you bring that up and I'm glad you did because the brand reputation role i had was really kind of sourcing global best practices and bringing them into the US and the like many other places in the world you had instances in France and Italy and England and other places where there were kind of reputation issues, but Europe was first really focusing on that localization, the local farmers, where the food came from, McDonald's as an employer of choice. And then of course the big thing is the cafes where if anyone, if you've never been to a McDonald's in Europe, very different from a cafe perspective. And but we tried to bring that over to the USA little bit as well. So it's interesting to bring that up because that was part of our learnings as we then went to engage our employees was we understood, learning from Europe that there was things that you needed to do to help people understand where the food came from, what it means and who the organization is, what their heart is.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned something too earlier saying, you know, even just the employee who's at their kids soccer game being able to talk about their job. So they're having an opportunity to speak about their work so maybe not everyone is going to have an opportunity come by their way to, you know, you're not going to talk about your work with everyone you meet all the time you know, it's often the first thing you ask what do you do? but. Would you encourage employees to speak about their working experience elsewhere and in a more frequent way?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

In today's environment, I think organizations, I think that's a must do for organizations. It's it can be scary if they haven't done the work to get the employees the type of information and knowledge that they need and it's not even about information knowledge as much as it's they feel they're a part of something that they can relay the stories of what they're a part of and how they feel about it. But I think, you know we look at, you look at all the data about what Gen z expects and then you combine that with what we've seen over the last 15 years with and I don't want to make it just about generations, but you know millennials were really kind of the digital entry of where you saw Glassdoor and where you saw anyone. You know, you could get information on this company from employees and employees had a voice and then you had LinkedIn and so on and so forth. So to me, it's employees are going to talk about their experience one way or the other, whether it's they're there or after they're there, and that can impact the reputation. So it behooves an organization in today's world of LinkedIn and Glassdoor and you name it a million other ways that employees can get out there and talk about their experience. An organization should be really thoughtful about how they're engaging their employees and the experience they give them. When employees are going to leave, that just happens. But do you want them to leave disgruntled and speaking I'll of an organization or do you want them to leave saying that was a good experience i would recommend it to others i think they're a good company and so and the best way to do that is make them a big part of the process.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah so how exactly do we do that because I know too, from the employer brand perspective, when you want to have an authentic employer brand, they often encourage teams to create employee generated content. But it's definitely one thing to be like, hey, we want you guys to start sharing on LinkedIn or like, why don't you write a post or share it somewhere and you're like, the employee's like, right, OK, And then it doesn't happen so you had mentioned that it was important that they understand right the values and the direction and you know kind of the bigger picture so from your perspective and your experience, what are the necessary tools in order to make that process actually not only feasible but also have the right kind of impact?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

I think there it might get a little granular here, but I think it's important to speak to what I call a communications flywheel and anyone in the marketing world's going to be familiar with the notion of a marketing flywheel where it's essentially the best way to sustain your marketing is to allow the customers to be a part of it you know in terms of them telling the story and word of mouth and reviews and so on and so forth, but that's a simplifies version but that that's the idea that customers can feed the flywheel and keep it going. I think the same way about communications in the organization and employees is that in order to really create an efficient process that the where your communications is continuing to have impact but do so in a way that's not onerous or inefficient is to bring them along. And that means to me that you've you're bringing them along with the right time of content with the right time of channels but then also really importantly is Co creation and collaboration. So here's where it might get a little granular. You have to have a process to get stories and it sounds either really hard or really easy depending on the seat you sit in. So getting the stories from your employees is difficult so you have to start with a leadership expectation, whether it's from the CEO down or depending on a Chief communications officer or Chief marketing Officer, someone that has a strong voice in the organization. You have to establish a storytelling process you have to create a storytelling tool kit where the leaders are essentially tasked with continuing to identify stories of the people that are living, the values who are helping to achieve the purpose of the customer that had the big moment of when that you want to celebrate so on and so forth you have to be able to recognize stories. When I talked then about the content and the collaboration and Co and Co creation from there it's you have to be able to allow people to use their voice i mean a top down communications is never going to work so identify the people who can share the story of when I did X, why happened or when I saw the customer do this and you know the customer has a very tough time with navigating XY and Z and when we applied this, not only was the customer able to get what they wanted, they then doubled their purchase what you know all the different things i think it. I think you have to be able to establish a process to be able to not only tell stories, but use the different voices. And then to your point about authenticity, I've come from big organizations where the tried and true method was to have a big production team and really glamorous videos and those things were awesome and at times they are needed. But for the most part we've all got a production studio in our hands so enable that, allow it, encourage it. Of course you can build in processes where you can kind of check off i don't always recommend, it depends on the organization. But I think that you create a culture of collaboration and Co creation. Those stories become what are much more meaningful than any kind of marketing that you can tell you know, when we were at Rite Aid, we started to tell the stories of some of the pharmacists that came from around the world and experienced tragedy and they wanted to get into healthcare and they wanted to support their communities and they wanted to go to churches and provide health services. Those are the stories that resonated and they were from the voices that were resonated versus ACEO saying that.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah so what would you say is the best way to organically get those stories because I feel like as soon as you're like, oh, I heard it's like so and so mention this one experience off hand, you know, a year ago in the cafeteria or whatever, like we should interview them and then as soon as it's set up as like again with fancy gear, everything is branded it's almost scripted, even if it's not scripted, but they know what they're going to talk about it's almost like it loses that sense of originality then you're like, oh, they're probably exaggerating oh, they probably like this is just a sob story to get us you know, like, how do you organically collect those stories where they remain authentic?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

I think that's probably and you talk to any communications person that's probably one of their biggest challenges is that authenticity and organic as you said, kind of organically collecting them. To me it comes back to what the culture of Co creation and collaboration is all about and from the top down so what I mean by that is, let's say that ACEO is very invested in the purpose, communicates it well, enables people to also share their perspectives on the purpose and everyone really understands why we do what we do from there if you are in, for example, a retail environment, one of the things that might be able to happen, assuming your purpose is a thread through everything, I'll come back to that in a moment. But if it's a thread through everything, if you're in a retail environment and area supervisor or district manager or even a manager is always going to be a lookout, on the lookout for those type of things like how do we tell the story of our purpose. And they are going to be it encouraged and possibly enabled to ask folks and put it on camera and say, hey, I heard that you did this thing last week, you tell me a little bit about it. The key has to be to that. Maybe the best way to answer this is the purpose has to be a thread through everything in the organization, not just a communications thread but it has to be the decision screen on what, how and what you do with operations, how and what you do with HR, marketing up and down the line. So when you think about operations, for example, if the threat of your purpose and why you do what you do is how you hire, how you promote, how you recognize, how you reward people that might be in a retail location, well that's going to be front of mind for everyone. Someone wants to be recognized, they want to be rewarded, they want to be promoted. They're gonna start telling stories of the purpose. And so i think my very long winded way to answer your question is it almost goes away from communications and it's a leadership perspective that the purpose is woven through all we do. And when it's especially woven through operations in HR, managers know that everyone gets rewarded, recognized, promoted because of that purpose then the stories start to come. I hope that makes a little bit of sense.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah, I know it's great i love that i mean, and that's i'm all about leading by example, you know is if you can clearly communicate and get everyone on board, it becomes so much easier. And but you know, you have to be willing to take the initiative and start talking about it you can't just assume like that's the thing it's dangerous when there's assumptions like, oh, I know it, so they must know it or oh, there was that memo sent out so everyone knows it, right?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Right and that's the worst assumption you can have because you have to be extremely repetitive and tell the stories and use the voices for it to even begin to sink in with people. And just to take the what I was saying before a step further and say the opposite. That's when it. That's when this gets really hard, when you're grasping at straws to get stories from employees and to get content and you're and you feel like you're scripting them and it becomes something that's less authentic. That's likely because there's a big disconnect behind the corporate jargon of whatever a purpose is or a mission or the values. And then what happens day-to-day in the employees world. So it's a lot harder to get stories if you say we're a purpose driven company or we do this for our mission and then day in and day out people are hammered over transactions or profit or whatever else. But when you stay true and use it as your thread, it just be everything becomes much more seamless and the reason I say thread is it doesn't unravel you know so that's, I think that's the opposite and that's why it's hard is because there's people just see a disconnect, they see managers that are only worried about certain aspects of the business and it's a disconnect from what other people are saying.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah. So how do you close the gap in the disconnect? Like if the manager doesn't see the connection maybe between someone who's doing, I don't know, maybe they just see that rolls. I don't want to say too far below them that's not what I want to say but that's what I mean if they're just like, that's not my world, I can't connect to that i can't see into that like how do we get them on the same page and I know it's probably a much bigger issue too, of like respect and understanding and you know, there's so many layers to that. But I think it's not supreme being like, well, I'm here, I'm up at this point and they're down there and that's just too big of a gap. There's no connection.
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Yeah that's a great point and I think that what we see in a lot of organizations is there's a, there's a, there's a huge gap of course between what might be a entry level or frontline employee and then of course the executive suite. And in the middle you have generally mid managers that haven't you know really haven't they have their job and they may be very good managers in some respects, but they have not been given the guidance resources, training and understanding that what's important is our purpose and how we do it and so there's there, the mid manager group is really important to this. And I think, OK, so how do you do that how do you close the gap? It's some of the things I spoke to before, it's I think first and foremost you have to understand where everyone's AT and address and see those gaps i mean people perceive gaps. I see it all the time they think that employees aren't engaged for XY and Z and then you actually do the work to understand why they're not engaged and it's AB and C, not XY and Z. So first of all you have to understand that but then from there, you know one thing that I've seen that has a lot of success is when you pull in kind of a cross functional mid manager group that really helps you, number one helps you determine the steps to take based on the research that you have and helps play a role in how you're going to communicate your purpose, What it means to when you're having one-on-one conversations with employees. How are we going to reward and recognize that? What does that mean for how we're going to hire people are we going to look for people that can do the job or are we going to look for people that inherently fit what our purpose is because they are more engaging XY and Z so I think what I've seen as success is really having the middle managers be part of that process. They represent certain parts of the organization. They represent some of their colleagues. They get excited, they start to share and then from there they have to become part of that outreach plan so it almost becomes like a train, the trainer, you again, you're going to hear from me over and over you just can't have top down it's the front lines that know all the problems. They're the ones that know how to fix it. The middle managers kind of play that middle piece so if you can train the trainer in terms of them being the key voice, they're going to be able to understand the problems that people at the entry levels are seeing and want to fix and they're going to be able to help with that but they're also going to be able to dialogue of. That's amazing. You identified a problem and the fix actually really fits extremely well with what we're trying to do and the why we do what we do and so I love that i'm going to make sure that I share with my boss what you've shared. I'm going to make sure that it would you be comfortable in US telling the story of what you've identified and how we fixed it. So it's somewhat, it's somewhat of a conscious and focused effort to have mid managers play a big role in it versus kind of this CEO says something and hope everyone pays attention and then three months later it goes away, yeah.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

I love that it just really highlights the importance of also you know, regularly seeking opportunities of recognition that intentionally get passed along. Like if you were a mid manager and you're like, that's solely my goal is how can I communicate, you know, the entry level to the executive. Like if that was all you were seeking to do was bridge that gap and obviously that's not all you do but you know, not having it be so divided and being like, yeah, we want to create the story and tell it across, right?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

You bring up such a great point on recognition too, in the sense that everyone wants recognition, right first and foremost i mean, that's the easy thing. I mean people, you know, people love to be recognized and the work that they do and that of course is a huge part of motivation. And I like to say that recognition and internal communications are like peanut butter and chocolate. I happen to be a big peanut butter and chocolate fan so to me it makes sense but I think what I mean by that is when recognition is incorporated into how you communicate, whether it's more official company communications or telling people's stories or recognizing people at regular at different moments in time as well as just the day-to-day interactions. When recognition is built into all communications that you have in your organization as part of your culture, that works very well they're they are best friends. But interestingly enough, most organizations just communicate on what you need to do. Here's the information, here's what we're doing, It's a three page memo and then it's never said again and then people wonder why people had no idea what someone's talking about a month later.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Yeah so to kind of wrap up this conversation as a last question, on your LinkedIn profile, you have as your headline, Stop the Bleed, get your employees and stakeholders back so what would you say right now is maybe currently the largest wound, Where are companies bleeding from what is their number one issue right now?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

They're bleeding engagement i mean, we talked about the Gallup information before there's always anywhere, depending on you know, how you define engaged, disengage and all that. 60 to 80 % of people are somewhat disengaged. That is bleeding. So you're bleeding engagement and then what happens is you're bleeding revenue because there's turnover, because people aren't productive, because people aren't paying attention and participating. So there's just the bleed of engagement leads to the bleed of revenue and leads to very costly dynamics in the business. Whereas again, if you make small improvements with engagement, it leads to bigger improvements of your ultimate KPIS of revenue and profitability.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Awesome great so, Jeff, if someone really liked what you shared and they would like to learn more, or they would like to work with you or connect with you, where can they find you what's the best place to connect and follow along?
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Well, I happened to be a LinkedIn guy, so Jeff Olson look for me on LinkedIn. Jeff Olson Communications would probably be a good search. I am happy to take an email. The name of my business is Sense in Colour because I bring Sense to your communications and add some colour. It's also one of my favourite lyrics in the song, but I'll get to that later if you'd like but Jeff, Yeah, you.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Have to share you have.
 
 

Jeff Olson :

To share oh, well, OK sense in colour so inspiration moved me brightly light the song with sense and color hold away despair. That's a lyric from Robert Hunter in a Grateful Dead song, Terrapin Station. That quote, that lyric has stuck with me forever and then when I decided to go out on my own here and I was thinking about what do I do, I always saw communications as kind of being common sense. Ok, so there's the sense. But I also said you have to add that inspiration you have to add that color you have to tell stories you have to use voices. Hence the sense and color. So if you want to email, it's Jeff at sense and color dot XYZ. Got to go with the cool domain these days dot XYZ Jeff at sense and color dot XYZ.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Awesome and that's your website as well sense and color www.hansoncaller dot, XYZ OK awesome. And I will drop all of that information in the show notes as well thank you so much for being here today and sharing your really highly valuable insight i really appreciate it.
 
 

Jeff Olson :

Thank you for reaching out to me. I've had a great time and I appreciate the conversations that you and I have online and offline so thank you very much for all that you do.
 
 

Britta Blanski :

Awesome thank you.