Skills@Work 2025: The Ripple Effect of our Influence: How Soft Skills Create the Strongest Impact

Really excited to welcome.

Uh, we have Charlie Ro, CCEO

and keynote speaker, also founder

and Ben leading organization called CS Recruiting.

She is really gonna kick us off

and talk about the ripple effect of our influence.

And so much of this for you all specifically as HR leaders,

you all are, are kind of the spearhead of all of this.

We need to really leverage our influence

and create ripples throughout the organization.

So how can we do that and what are some of the soft skills

and skills we should be developing in ourselves

as executives to do this?

So let's give a warm welcome.

If you could hit the emojis at the hearts, the clapping.

Let's welcome Charlie to the stage with us.

Charlie, it's so wonderful to see you.

I appreciate you being here with us.

I'm so excited to learn from you.

Thank you for being here with us. Thank

You for that warm welcome.

I'm super excited

to be here To kick off our conversation about skills today,

and we're gonna talk about the skills that really matter

if you work in human resources,

and I'm gonna guess that many of you do,

I bet you've been involved in a lot of conversations

around this idea of hard skills driving performance.

But the truth is, performance isn't just about what we know

and what we've been trained on or what certificates we have.

Usually performance

and success in the workplace is driven

by those soft skills like Zach was talking about.

Those innate personality traits

or what I like to call are human skills.

And the cool thing about human skills is that

as we approach the future, they're the skills

that AI won't be able to touch.

So these are the human skills that drive performance,

they drive success production,

but they also are what shape company culture, uh,

employee engagement and satisfaction.

And I know this firsthand

and I'm gonna share some of these stories of

what I've seen over the years around

how soft skills really create company cultures.

And today we're gonna be talking about soft skills in the

next half hour, but we're gonna do it

through this lens of influence.

Influence is really one of the most underrated skills

that we all possess.

We all have access to use our influence,

and it's really just a matter of how intentional we are

and how we are choosing to use it.

So when we talk about soft skills,

when we talk about influence

and the soft skills that we have to uncover

to use our influence, we're talking about company culture,

performance, success,

but we're also talking about

how we can leverage the human skills we all have just

to make work a little more enjoyable.

So let's go ahead and unpack that

and I want you to take a look at the word influence.

And in the chat, if you will, just tell me what comes

to mind, a single word

or a phrase when you see the word influence,

what do you think of?

And while you all do that,

I am gonna tell you about my research.

Uh, I did a a little bit of a small sample size to learn

what others think about influence.

So just looking at the chat, leadership, trust, buy-in, um,

impact, persuasion, motivation.

You guys are spot on.

Well, I started and I asked my son, he's 16 years old,

and I said, Cameron, what does

the word influence mean to you?

And his response went something like this.

I think he said, bru influence is when you like blow up on

social media and you get a ton of followers,

and then you start to get free merch

and then you start to stack your followers

and then you become rich and famous.

I mean, fair enough, he's a 16-year-old boy growing up in

this world of social media influencers.

So then I asked my mom

what she thought the word influence meant.

And she said that influence is when someone convinces you

to do something that you didn't wanna do,

which just makes me laugh

because of course the mom goes right

to like the negative connotation of influence.

And then I asked my grandma, she's 103 years old

and she's actually still alive today.

I said, grandma Ruth, what does the word

influence mean to you?

And here's what she said.

She said that influence is when you live your life in a way

that inspires others to live their lives differently.

These are wise words from 103 year old woman

who has seen a lot in her life.

And this is the type of influence I wanna talk about today.

We're not talking about followers or fame or vanity metrics

or bad influence, we're talking about influence as again,

something we all possess.

But it's these subtle ways we go about our days.

And this leads others to live their lives differently,

whether we're even realizing it

or not, these are small actions that rub off.

It's the way we treat others,

the way we respond in situations, the way we react

to things, the way we manage conflict

and approach some of those difficult discussions.

But at the end of the day, we all possess this opportunity

to use our influence.

And the cool thing about influence is

that it almost always creates a ripple effect.

So I learned about this concept

of influence and ripple effects.

A few years ago I read a book, it was called The Gift

of Influence by author Tommy Spalding.

And in the book he talks about how

most humans will go about their days

and they will influence about three people a day.

And this could be through grand gestures

or very small actions like eye contact

or smiling at a stranger.

But when you think of an average human living 80 years old,

or maybe we'll all be lucky to,

to live over a century like my grandma Ruth.

But if we live 80 years, we are going

to influence 80,000 people in our lives.

And in the book, the author paints this picture,

he walks the readers through a visualization

and he brings you into a stadium.

So imagine you're in a sports arena or you're at a concert

and you're standing right in the middle of the field

or the stage and you have an opportunity to just look around

and you see all these different faces in the crowd.

And some of the faces you know very well,

they're people who've been in your life forever.

As you get a little higher up, you start to see faces

that are familiar, but you don't really know

where you know them from or how you know them.

And then when you get into that nosebleed section,

there's faces you've never seen before in your life.

And this visualization is the whole idea of 80,000 people

and looking around that stadium to really take that in

and realize that these are all the people you have somehow

influenced in your 80 years of life.

And maybe you influenced them directly

or maybe it was part of that ripple effect you created,

but it's a really powerful thing to think of.

And next time you're in a stadium

or a sports arena, a concert, I want you to look around

and think of that like, wow, if I live 80 years old,

I will influence this amount of people, this volume

of humans just by being who I am and going about my life

and the way I use my influence.

So this is something that I think about a lot.

I am a leader in the recruiting world

and I know, um, I work with a lot of HR people

and I know very well that HR is

so much more than what people think it is.

It's not just payroll management or overseeing benefits.

It's not just about talent acquisition or compliance.

The jobs that you are all in in human resources are the jobs

that influence not just strategies and processes

and policies, but you're influencing humans

and you're influencing lives inside and outside of work.

And I'm gonna guess that you're here today

because you understand the power of our soft skills,

the power of what we can do as humans,

and how we can use our influence to lead

through small actions that will create ripples

and make a very big impact.

And obviously we're talking about skills at work.

So I wanna just touch on this idea of how our influence

and the ripple effects don't just influence people on a

personal level, but it actually shapes a company culture.

So I own a recruiting firm

and I've led a team for the last 10 years.

And over the years, my team and I have had thousands

and thousands of conversations with job seekers,

and we've also had thousands of conversations

with company leaders, HR reps, decision makers,

talent acquisition folks.

And at the end of the day, I feel pretty confident saying

that when we look at these trends and these similarities

and these conversations, we have a pretty good idea

of why people join companies in the first place,

why they stay at companies, and why they leave companies.

And it's not pizza parties, it's not about casual Fridays

or bring your dog to workday.

It's about the other humans.

It's about the way we are able to connect with each other.

And we have a pretty big issue in our workforce today.

According to Gallup's most recent workplace study, eight out

of 10 people say that they are disengaged.

They don't feel a connection to their job, to their company,

to the work they do, the people they work with.

And that's a problem. And it needs to be fixed.

And I know that's a big problem,

and you may be thinking like, okay, I get it

and I see it all around me, but how am I gonna fix that?

I'm one person, I I don't have that power.

And what we're gonna talk about today is that you do have

that power, you have influence,

and your influence can create a ripple effect that will go

well beyond your greatest expectations.

And so I wanna talk about how we can use our influence

to create these ripples.

And I'm gonna share three different ways

that you can use influence to create ripples.

First, we're gonna talk about showing up

and this idea of how we can show up,

especially in situations when we don't feel like we belong

or we don't even feel like we're ready to be there.

We're also gonna talk about this idea

of lifting up other people,

and it's really looking for seeking out moments

where we can create connection

and show appreciation and recognition.

And lastly, we're gonna talk about the idea of speaking up

and having the courage to spark conversations

that really will drive change even when

it feels uncomfortable.

Everything we talk about today is available to everyone.

I don't, it doesn't matter what your title is.

It doesn't matter how much you make.

It doesn't matter what role you're in

or where you fall on the hierarchy.

No budget is required.

It's just about the way we go about our days as humans.

So let's dive in and talk about this first

concept of showing up.

Now, showing up is different than just physically being

present in my mind.

Showing up often is a situation where you thought

for a moment about not showing up, and it's usually

because you're not ready or it feels hard

or it feels like something that you're just not capable of.

So think about this in your own context.

And you know, how many times have you talked yourself out

something, you have an opportunity to work on a project,

but in the back of your mind that little voice says, well,

if there's someone who can do it better than you, uh,

maybe there's an event that you're invited to

and you wanna go, but something is telling you

that you're not quite ready.

And maybe next year you'll be in a better spot.

Maybe showing up is speaking up for yourself

or having that difficult conversation.

And the back of your mind you're thinking, well,

I could do it, but what if I say it wrong?

And maybe it's just easier to hold back.

Now I learned a lesson about showing up probably the most

important lesson in my career.

And this was about 15 years ago.

So to set the scene, I had just had my third son,

I had three boys under the age of four,

and I was working as a talent acquisition rep,

a corporate recruiter

for a company in the trucking industry.

And my company sold

and it felt like overnight I found myself out of a job.

And so I was in that, you know, third of my life crisis,

if you will, where I wanted to work.

And I didn't know where to start.

I had an infant at home

and I just didn't even know how to use my skills

to find my next position.

So I started to just use my network.

And what I got in return was a lot of resumes from people

who knew I was a recruiter and they wanted me to help them.

But then I also started to talk to people

who knew I was a recruiter and they were hiring.

And before I knew it, I started doing some matchmaking

and just introducing people who were looking for jobs

with people that I knew were hiring.

And I created a nice little side hustle.

I was very modest with my fees.

I was not thinking I could charge a lot just

to make these introductions,

but it started to turn into a little bit of a business

and I had a nice balance.

I was working maybe 25, 30 hours a week.

I was able to be present as a mom.

And then one day I got a call from someone in my network

and they said, Hey, I just want you to know I gave your name

to someone who is looking for a recruiter.

It's an individual who's an investor.

They're starting up this trucking and logistics company.

And I thought of you.

So I was contacted by this investor a few days later

and they invited me to a meeting and I hemmed

and hawed about this meeting.

And in my mind, like who was I going to this meeting

and telling these people that I could recruit for them.

I, I knew how to recruit in my domain,

but I had no idea what their expectations were.

And I was driving to the meeting, I probably almost turned

around several times and really got into my head.

But I went into that meeting and I just showed up as myself.

I asked a lot of questions.

I had done a lot of research

and I showed a lot of interest in these individuals.

There were three men all wearing suits all buttoned up,

and these were men

that worked in the trucking and logistics industry.

So, you know, aggressive, kind of rough and tough

and they just wanted to talk business.

But I showed 'em the human side.

I showed interest in who they were as people,

if they had children, how they got

to this point in their career.

And I guess you could say

that like I faked it till I made it a little bit, um,

because somehow I walked out of that meeting with a contract

and they needed to hire 200 people in six months.

Now, if any of you work in recruiting, you know that

that is not a job for one person.

That is a big job to help a company hire 200 people.

And so I remember vividly driving home on the highway

and I'm, you know, first I'm full of excitement

and I'm really proud of myself.

And I called my husband and said, you won't believe this.

I just got this huge contract.

And he said, okay, that's awesome,

but how are you gonna do that?

How are you going to actually deliver on this?

And that was the moment that I panicked.

I remember looking in my rear view mirror, caught a view

of three car seats in the back of my minivan.

And I thought to myself like, what did I just sign up for?

Who do I think I am? And I, I kind of say that

that was my sliding door moment, if any

of you have ever seen that moving sliding doors,

it's just a moment in our lives

where we make a single decision

that can take us down one path or another.

And as I thought this through on the ride home, I thought,

okay, I don't know how I'm gonna do this alone,

but if I know anything, I know how to recruit.

So maybe I could recruit someone and train them.

And then together we could help this

company fill these roles.

So I went home and I wrote a job description,

which was a skill that I did have from my experience,

and I put it out there and I got a bunch of garbage resumes.

So I started to think about my network

and who I knew that would lead me to someone

that was maybe just a few years outta college

that would want to work under me and I could train them.

And believe it or not, I was introduced to my first hire

through my husband's second cousin's, college roommate's,

best friend's sister from home, I swear

to God, her name is Beth.

I hired her and she still works

with me today, 14 years later.

She's the COO of our company.

But I hired Beth and she showed up.

And together we were able to scale this opportunity.

Not only did we deliver

and help this company hire 200 people,

but along the way we hired other individuals for our team.

And we slowly and surely created a company

that was never really my intention.

But I share this story because we showed up.

And in this instance, showing up has led to thousands

of people getting jobs as a result of our firm and hundreds

and hundreds of companies being able

to find the perfect person for the job because of our team.

And I don't take credit for this alone,

I never could have gotten to this point alone,

but I think back to that moment

and that sliding doors just decision that I made

and I went for it, but it all started

because I had that courage to show up

and just be myself in the first place.

I didn't have all the technical skills,

I didn't have any certifications,

but I knew who I was as a human and I was authentic

and I was charismatic, and I asked questions

and I was curious and showing up led me

to create this business

that has essentially become my fourth child

and a huge part of my passion in life and my why.

So I wanna ask you,

and I would love for you to share this in the chat,

what showing up looks like in your world.

So think of it in two different ways.

First, what are you showing up for?

What are you leaning into?

And then maybe on the contrast, what is holding you back

and what are opportunities

that you may be able to show up for?

But there's just that little voice in your head telling

you that you're not ready.

Maybe there's a promotion that you're considering applying

for, maybe it's a new job, maybe it's attending an event

and you're nervous because you won't know anyone there.

But think of those things that you usually would say no to.

And that's where you can start to show up.

And you showed up today,

you guys are communicating in the chat

and making new connections, learning new things,

taking away ideas that you can go and share.

And those ideas, just like my opportunity

to start this business

and to influence so many people will have a ripple effect.

So showing up is step one

and one way that we can use our influence

to create those ripples.

Now we're gonna move on

and talk about the second step here, which is lifting up.

And this is the fun one.

So when we talk about lifting someone up,

I'm not talking about having this huge recognition

or appreciation budget or formalized program.

I'm just talking about these little things

that we can do in life

and looking out for opportunities

where we can create connection.

Now, I learned about lifting up in my very

first job outta college.

I worked at an agency that was a bit

of a sweatshop, if you will.

We worked very long hours, it was a thankless job

with a very low paycheck.

But I had a colleague on my team,

she was maybe two years older than me,

and she wasn't even my boss.

We just happened to work on the same team.

And her name was Tiffany. And Tiffany did this thing

where she would carry around little post-it notes,

sticky notes, if you will, and we'd get back from a meeting

and there'd be a pink sticky note on my chair in my cubicle.

And it said, great job speaking up in that meeting.

And then I would stay late one night

to make sure our project got on

that FedEx truck to the customer.

And the next morning there would be a yellow sticky

note on my computer monitor.

And that said, thank you for staying late.

This team would never survive without you.

And Tiffany's little ritual of leaving sticky notes stuck

with me, pun intended.

And it was something

that I brought into our company culture.

When I started my business, I didn't have a huge budget for

recognizing or rewarding people,

but I wanted to make sure that my employees felt valued,

that they felt seen,

and that they knew even though we were doing some very hard

work, that their work was appreciated.

And so I started leaving sticky notes.

We worked in an office for about 10 years

before we went remote.

And when we were in an office, I would do

that same thing Tiffany did.

I would just leave a little sticky note on someone's desk

or in a page of their notebook

or right on top of their purse when they least expected it.

And these weren't, you know, crazy notes

or long notes, just simple little things

that made sure they knew that I appreciated them.

And then we went remote

and I didn't want that tradition to die.

So I just moved to mailing sticky notes.

And yes, I then had to spend some money and pay for a stamp,

but I kept that tradition alive

and maybe even more fun for my team

to get these notes in the mail when they least expected it.

Now, about three years ago,

I got a text from an employee named Abby, who was no longer

with our company when she texted me.

Abby had left a couple years before

and we'd stayed in touch,

but when she sent me this text, there was a picture

of a sticky note that I had left her,

and it was in her little middle council of her car.

And she said in her text, I want you to know

that I have hung onto this sticky note all these years.

I think the note said something like, I appreciate you Abby,

and I know you can do whatever you set your mind to.

And she said in her text

that every time she's having a bad day, she looks at

that sticky note and she remembers

that there is someone who believes in her.

And what the coolest thing about this story is, is

that Abby went on to tell me

that not only did she hang onto my note

and she appreciated it,

but she has become the sticky note girl in all the companies

she's worked at since she left our firm.

And it may not always be sticky notes,

sometimes it's a high five in the hallway,

or it's a shout out on a company Slack.

But she said that she was able to really understand

and appreciate those little moments

of feeling gratitude from someone else of feeling seen.

And she's always wanted to play that role for other people.

Now we are living in a world where under 40%

of employees polled even think

that there is a person in their company

that cares about them.

So 60% of people are saying that they're,

nobody cares about them in their company.

And 40% would say, yeah, maybe there's one

or two people that care about me.

And it's these little gestures.

No matter what role you're in, no matter

what budget you have, we all have the power

to leave a sticky note, to give a shout out,

to say thank you, to send that email or text.

There's an author and a speaker named Dan Heath.

And I had the privilege of listening

to him speak at a conference a few years ago,

and he talked about this idea of recognition.

And he said, recognition is one of the easiest things

to do, but it's also the easiest thing to ignore.

And I want you to remember

that like we could all go about our days

and never recognize another soul,

but we could go about our days and do these little things

and make a big difference.

And what you won't know

and what you won't see right away is the ripple effect.

But what you'll start to realize as time goes on is

that there is a ripple

and your influence, your appreciation,

whether it's in a sticky note or a conversation

or an email, when you can lift up someone,

you can create these moments of connection.

And they're generally moments

that are remembered in the moments that last.

And the people that you're able

to lift up are gonna be the people

that are in your stadium one day

as the people that you influenced.

So I want you to think about this,

and I would love to see your comments in the chat.

How can you lift up others?

Think about one person who's in your life personally

or professionally that might just

need a little encouragement.

And maybe you know they're struggling,

maybe you know they're working hard,

but they're not getting the results they want.

What can you do to ensure that they feel seen?

And it's still early in the day.

So I'd love to give you this challenge of trying to

lift up one person today.

You can do it now, you can write a note and do it later,

but it's that little moment of connection that is going

to make their day.

But I also promise you it's gonna make your day too.

So now we're gonna move on to our third way

that you can use your influence to create ripple effects.

And that is by speaking up.

Now, speaking up is always easier said than done.

I know we've all been in those situations where we have

to have a difficult conversation or write that email

and we may consult a friend

or a family member that just says, go for it.

It's, it's not gonna be as hard as as you think,

but many times it is hard.

It's hard to use our voice, not necessarily

because we don't know what to say,

but usually we hesitate to speak up

because we don't know how the information will be received,

especially in the workplace.

Are we gonna be fired? Are we gonna be demoted?

Is somebody gonna think less of me or worse of me?

And when you think of speaking up, I mean,

how many times have you kept something to yourself

because it felt uncomfortable

or you didn't know who to go to for a conversation

so you just didn't go to anyone?

Or maybe you held back something

that could have served someone else

because you just didn't think it was your place

or time to actually speak up and share your opinion.

I know we've all been there.

I wanna share the story of probably one

of the hardest leadership moments I've had,

but one moment that really taught me the impact

and the ripple effect that can occur when someone speaks up.

So several years ago we had a team member named Morgan.

Morgan was one of our very early employees.

She had been on our team over five years at this point,

and she called in sick, and she called in sick on a Monday,

and then she called in sick on Tuesday and Wednesday

and she ended up being out all week.

And if any of you are leaders

and managers, then you know

that when somebody calls in sick outta nowhere,

our immediate thought is they're probably interviewing,

they're probably looking for another job

because they weren't sick on Friday.

So how are they so sick this week?

And then Morgan returned to work on Monday,

and I saw her in the hall and pulled her into my office

and was ready to have a chat with her.

And in my mind, I'm, I'm all fired up.

I'm thinking she's gonna quit

or I'm gonna catch her in a lie.

And so I said, I said, Morgan, how you feeling?

I, I know you were out sick all week.

And the minute I asked that question, I knew

that I was wrong because her eyes filled up with tears.

And then Morgan proceeded to tell me

that she had been out the week before

because she had a miscarriage.

And that news just rocked my world for so many reasons.

One, the fact that she didn't feel secure with our company.

She didn't feel safe, she didn't feel trusted

that she could tell us that.

But it also filled me with guilt

because I had struggled with fertility earlier in my life

and earlier in my career,

and I worked in a corporate setting at that time.

And it just brought me back to those days where I would kind

of sneak around to doctor's appointments.

I would say I was going to a dentist

or I had to leave early for an appointment,

but I was really getting ultrasounds

and getting blood work drawn.

And I did what Morgan did.

I kept it to myself because I didn't know who to tell.

There was no policy at my company.

It wasn't something that was openly discussed.

So I suffered in silence and I never shared it with anyone.

And so when Morgan shared this news with me,

it just made me really think, I do consider myself someone

who is a human leader, someone who really tries to

see every employee for who they are behind their title.

And I've tried to get ahead of that, bringing best practices

that I've learned into our company culture, making sure

that we have just, it's part of our culture.

If you work at our company, you know

that we care about people as humans.

And I felt like I failed as a leader

because I had experienced something firsthand

that was painful for me,

but I never thought about how I could make it better

for someone else when I was a leader, when I was in charge.

And so we worked with Morgan

and we brought in our HR manager,

and we talked about

what she could have done in that situation.

And she was incredibly honest, and she spoke up

and she shared that she didn't wanna call in sick,

she just didn't know what else to do.

And that single conversation with Morgan has led us

to expand our bereavement policy.

It now includes a specific clause for early parental loss.

We also expanded it to include clauses for timeouts,

for fertility treatments, for surrogacy situations,

adoption, even adding a paternity clause

for the men in our company

who become fathers while they work for us.

It also brought us

to implement a caretaker policy when we started

to think about these new policies we put in place for people

who were trying to conceive.

But what about the people who may never have children?

They may need time off

and have uncomfortable situations for other reasons.

And now Morgan's courage to speak up in this situation

really created policies that have led to a ripple effect.

And it's also shaped like the DNA of our culture.

It's, it's who we are.

And it's not that we expect our employees

to tell us everything.

There is still a level of privacy that we

absolutely respect, but we put these policies in place

so our employees know that it's safe, it's safe to call in

and just say, I am using this policy and I need time off.

And in this last several years, I, you know,

it's incredibly unfortunate to say that there have been

many individuals in our company have used one

of these policies, and sometimes they're using it to grieve

a loss or to heal and take that time off work.

Sometimes they're using it

to celebrate when there's an adoption,

when they're a father, when, uh, they,

they're sur they have a surrogate who delivers.

But what this policy has done is it just shows our team

that we think about this, we care about this,

and there is a process, there is a procedure,

and you're safe when you are going

through something that's difficult.

So Morgan's courage to speak up, to take action,

to share that with us, to work with our team,

created a ripple that I can't even measure,

but a ripple that has truly shaped who we are

and has helped our employees feel safe knowing

that they don't have to suffer in silence

and that they can return after a difficult time

and feel supported and cared for by our company.

So now I wanna ask you, what can you speak up about?

What conversation are you thinking about having,

but maybe holding back?

And how could it create a ripple?

And on the other side, what's at risk if you stay quiet?

What if you don't speak up?

What are all the ripples that you could create

if you just had that courage?

And it's all about influence

because Morgan's influence created that ripple.

And now it has touched so many lives, people in our company,

their family members, and hopefully all of you today.

So influence isn't about having the answers.

I wanna be clear about that.

It's having the courage in this situation

to start the conversation.

And now I know we're coming up on time,

so we're gonna wrap this up.

And I just wanna recap

that we've talked about three different ways here

where you can use your influence and really create ripples.

First is show up. Put yourself out there.

Even if you don't feel ready,

I promise you it will be worth it.

Second is lift up.

Look for small very intentional ways

that you can remind people that they're cared

for and that they matter.

And last speak up.

Have the courage to have those conversations

because those are the conversations that will create change

and lead to a better future for our workforce.

Every one of these situations can create ripples at a

magnitude that we can't even fathom.

But the question is not if you have the influence you do.

We all possess this ability to influence others.

The question is, how will you use your influence

and will you be intentional about it?

So I wanna leave you

with my grandma Ruth's words to remember.

We influence people every time we go through our lives

and we inspire them to live their lives differently.

That is what this is all about.

The small, very intentional things that can add up

to something so much greater.

So use your influence, consider it a skill

and maybe the greatest skill that you have

because every conversation you have,

every time you intentionally connect with someone

or lift them up, those are all opportunities

where we can create a ripple.

And this is how we are gonna make work and keep work human.

So thank you everyone. Now go lift someone up.

Thank you.

All right everyone. Wow, Charlie. Amazing.

I mean, shout out to Grandma Ruth.

That is such a powerful quote.

And I would love just to like reinforce that message

to all of you listening.

Like if we could create a ripple on all of you

and start thinking about how you could change

how you lead differently internally,

which one do you need to go to work on?

Like, which one do you need to start to improve?

Is it showing up more, uh,

I guess like assertively within your role

and within your, your presence as an executive?

Do you need to lift up others around you more often?

Because everything culture

and skills is typically co-created.

So how do you lift up others to guide it with you?

Do you need to speak up?

But then the chat, I'd love to see what that is for you.

Charlie, I'd love to ask you just a quick follow up question

as we wrap this up.

Sure. And it's, um, I'm curious, I mean, one,

it's a little bit in alignment to

what you just talked about in these three themes

and these, these kind of key buckets to create ripples.

But I would also love just

to hear your perspective from like the recruitment

standpoint of how you've seen people maybe change

how they evaluate or hire talent.

And have you seen companies start to pick up on this

where they, they actively look for talent that show up,

lift up, speak up?

Like is that part of their maybe like evaluation process

or have they changed how they start

to look at skills in recruitment?

What are some of your things

that you're noticing on that side?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, traditionally recruitment has been about, you know,

matching the skills on the resume

with the skills on the job description.

And, you know, I'm all for ai,

but AI has, has been a little dangerous in the world

of recruiting because of auto matching.

I mean, you're looking at a job description

that was maybe created by a robot,

and then you're asking your robot to create a resume

that matches that job description and all the key words.

So it starts with that job description

and then it, it is followed by

how someone prepares their resume.

And our team has just been really on this like soft skills,

human skills, innate personality traits, wagon for a while.

And so, um, our company's doing it proactively some,

but as a recruiting firm, this is

where we're really driving those questions.

When we're working with the clients,

we can look at all the technical skills

that they need their talent to have,

but we're asking them about their culture.

We don't wanna just find them a culture fit.

We wanna find them a culture add.

And what does that look like?

So not necessarily in this context, Zach, I mean,

we're not saying do you want them to show up or lift up,

but you know, taking it, uh, peeling back a layer

and what are the soft skills that make someone, you know,

show up or lift up or speak up and, you know, speak up.

Maybe it's their strong communicators.

Um, maybe they are, um, you know, loyal.

Maybe they are analytical,

but they're able to really express that.

Maybe they're curious, they're courageous.

So those are the things

that when we look at a technical skill, we start

to immediately think of like, okay, a technical skill.

You know, someone who's good in sales

because they've been trained in this certain methodology

and they have this process down.

What else do they need to bring to the table as a human?

And they need to be persistent and resilient

and creative and curious.

And so that's how we really try to, um, yeah,

peel back those layers and understand

what soft skills can come out of the hard skills

because we're trained to think of hard skills.

That's just how recruiting has traditionally worked.

And so now, now it's time, now that AI is going

to take a lot of those technical functions away.

Now it's time to think of

what are the corresponding soft skills

that we can really identify.

Um, and that's, that's what's gonna make a difference in the

future.

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