Closing the Power Skill Gap

Kim Havens (2s):
Coaching had really gotten a sense of being able to drive myself forward and I knew where I was going, where I wanted to go, and was open to all the opportunities that could be out there for me. And I wasn’t seeing that in lot of the women they were waiting for. Well I can’t go after that job yet. you know, I need to check a few more boxes. I mean, I would hear this over and over again and I would look around at the guys in the office and I’d say, well, they’re not, they’re not waiting until they’ve checked all the boxes. They haven’t gone back to get their MBA. They’re just stepping up and asking. A bit of seeing the benefits of leadership development in myself, watching other women get frustrated, either quit or kind of just lean back.

Kim Havens (45s):
Yeah, it was a bit frustrating. And when Noa and I met through our children, we said, what could we do? What could we do to help be a part of fixing this problem and how can we help the face of senior leadership looks like? And this is where we started really hashing out what Kahilla could be.

Announcer (1m 2s):
Welcome to Difficult Conversations: Lessons I learned as an ICU Physician with Dr. Anthony Orsini. Dr. Orsini is a practicing physician and president and CEO of The Orsini Way. As a frequent keynote speaker and author, Dr. Orsini has been training healthcare professionals and business leaders how to navigate through the most difficult dialogues. Each week you will hear inspiring interviews with experts in their field who tell their story and provide practical advice on how to effectively communicate. Whether, you are a doctor faced with giving a patient bad news, a business leader who wants to get the most out of his or her team members, or someone who just wants to learn to communicate better this is the podcast for you.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (1m 47s):
Well, thanks for joining another episode of Difficult Conversations Lessons I learned as an ICU Physician. This is Dr. Anthony Orsini. And today I have the privilege of introducing to you two amazing women doing some extraordinary work. I know it’s been a while since we’ve put up an episode, it’s been several weeks, but I think after hearing this episode, you’ll say to yourself that this was certainly worth the wait. So I’d like to introduce to you today Noa Ries and Kim Havens. They’re the Founders of Kahilla. In 2018 with a vision to transform the culture of the corporate world and see more equity in positions of senior leadership Noa and Kim formed Kahilla, which is an innovative digital platform to scale access to personal and professional development for underrepresented minorities in the corporate world.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (2m 28s):
Through their curated content and ongoing engagement. Kahilla helps members become more confident and informed and emboldens them to make their own choices, whatever they may be. The spirit of empowerment, inclusivity, and accountability forms their core values that and every aspect of including diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy and charitable comments. So Noa has a background, an entrepreneur and I’m gonna ask both of them to tell you their story. And Kim comes from a commercial real estate background. So Kim and Noa, welcome. Thanks. I always love having multiple guests And, so it’s really awesome to have you both here today.

Kim Havens (3m 0s):
Thanks for having us.

Noa Ries (3m 1s):
It’s great to be here.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (3m 3s):
Excellent. So we talk about it, the Orsini Way and during the lectures, how important it is to build trust with people that you’re hearing from, especially when during an interview. And the only way you can build trust is to build rapport. So let’s start out with Noa and just tell the audience your story and as we say how you came to your pinnacle of your career being on this podcast.

Noa Ries (3m 24s):
Well it’s awesome to be here. Thanks for having us. My career has had a few turns along the way. I started my career in advertising and you can hear from my accent, I’m Australian. I grew up in Australia though I was born in Israel and I had a stint for a few years living in Singapore and then Los Angeles. And the reason that’s relevant is I’ve had to reinvent myself several times in my life and also build my network from the ground up several times. And you know, as a woman, as a mother, I know firsthand how important it is to have a community of like-hearted and like-minded women, especially around you, to support you through the highs and the lows.

Noa Ries (4m 5s):
And I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my career and my careers as an entrepreneur was really centered on community, really connecting people on shared identities. So before this was the founder of a women’s activewear brand, that our brand was really centered on building a community of people who were committed to health and fitness as a lifestyle. And along the way I’ve invested a lot of my own time, money, and effort in personal and professional development and that’s been really transformative for me. I am a voracious learner and a voracious reader. And you know, I think that constant need for continuous improvement and growth has been something that’s really been a through line throughout my career.

Noa Ries (4m 46s):
And Kim and I met because our eldest daughters were in kindergarten together and our youngest daughters are six months apart. And, we just identified a kindred spirit at the school drop off line. I’ll let Kim tell you her story.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (4m 58s):
Many of friends are made at the school, drop off lines. So I

Noa Ries (5m 1s):
Dunno about how many business partnerships though are started on the school drop-off line.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (5m 6s):
How many children do you have?

Noa Ries (5m 7s):
We both have two. Two girls.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (5m 9s):
Okay, fantastic. Great. And Kim.

Kim Havens (5m 12s):
So I come from a really different background. As you said earlier, I was in commercial real estate development building communities in real life and really thinking about that, what does it mean to build a community? How do you do that? And one of the things in that profession is when I looked around I was almost always the only woman in the room. So whether it was financial meetings or construction meetings, even design meetings, I was, there were very few women at the table literally. And so I struck out earlier in my career to find more women and to build the community and who could be my mentor? Are there senior women out there I could connect to and get sponsorship from and got really involved in a community of real estate women professionals that were all about helping each other, driving each other forward, continuous learning, a lot of education, And.

Kim Havens (5m 58s):
So those two things combined when Noa and I met, we were both new to the area, so both looking for a new physical in-person community and combined with sort of the same time, not long after meeting, we were both thinking about the what’s next. And similarly as Noa, I had done a lot of personal and professional development and also saw that transformational benefit of it and notice other women getting sort of midway in their career and feeling a really strong sense of kind of a lack of empowerment, actually a lack of like, gosh, I just woke up and I don’t even know how I got here and I’m not really sure where I’m going And. so they were starting to feel pretty frustrated, especially if they were in a large corporate setting or a larger, I was in always very small, much more entrepreneurial companies, which I think has a lot to do with it.

Kim Havens (6m 41s):
But again, through this coaching had really gotten a sense of being able to drive myself forward and I knew where I was going, where I wanted to go and was open to all the opportunities that could be out there for me. And I wasn’t seeing that in other women. They were waiting for, well I can’t go after that job yet, you know, I need to check a few more boxes. I mean I would hear this over and over again and I would look around at the guys in the office and I’d say, well they’re not waiting until they’ve checked all the boxes. They haven’t gone back to get their MBA. They’re just stepping up and asking. And So that a bit of seeing the benefits of leadership development in myself, watching other women get frustrated, either quit or kind of just lean back.

Kim Havens (7m 22s):
Yeah, it was a bit frustrating. And when Noa and I met through our children, we said, what could we do? What could we do to help be a part of fixing this problem and how can we help you know what the face of senior leadership looks like? And this is where we started really hashing out what Kahilla could be.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (7m 36s):
So as Noa said, not a lot of partnerships are formed on the bus line. So help me visualize this. Does this happen as a cup of coffee after you drop the kids off? Or is this over a course of a real long time where your kids are friends? How’s this work?

Noa Ries (7m 49s):
Actually, there was a definite moment. We went out for guacamole and chips. And, we okay And. we sat around And, we chatted about what do we both wanna do next? And, we both wanted to help people realize their full potential. That’s something that is really important to both of us for different reasons. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor whose potential was cut short because of obviously horrific oppressive systems and she wasn’t able to live to her full potential. And Kim’s grandmother was working during World War II and at the end of the wall was told, thank you very much, you can go back to the kitchen now. And Mothers of Daughters, we both feel it is incumbent upon us to do our bit to change the paradigm for future generations.

Noa Ries (8m 34s):
And. we both are, you know, incense when we see individuals who aren’t able to live to their full potential And. So we kind of sat around guacamole and chips. There may have been a margarita or two, but it was in April, 2018 And. we both thought, you know, how can we do something big? How can we do something to change the world? And, we looked back And, we thought wow, we both invested a ton of time, money, and effort in our own personal and professional development. And as a result we feel like we’re in the driver’s seat, as Kim said. But yet personal and professional development is usually only given to those who are already at the top in an organization or those who look like those who are already at the top.

Noa Ries (9m 14s):
And as Kim shared, our friends in the corporate worlds were getting stuck at this, not even a glass ceiling, a concrete ceiling, especially for people of color And. so we thought, well what if we make personal and professional development more accessible, more democratized and more equitable so that everyone can have access to this transformative benefit.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (9m 33s):
So tell us how kela works. It really started out for women, right? To help empower women and now you’re expanding that into all minorities, males and females. We’ve had several really powerful women on, we’ve been really blessed Liz and I on this podcast. If you go back to all the episodes of amazing Women that we’ve had on and I have a daughter And, so this is really near and dear to my heart and she’s in the corporate world and she just got married in December. I’ll just share So that, that was exciting.

Noa Ries (10m 1s):
Congratulations. Congrats.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (10m 2s):
Her boss is a woman and her boss is an amazing person. And I really took the time cause I first, that’s when I met her at the wedding to tell her what an amazing role model that I thought she was to my daughter. Not only is she a great servant leader, but she is the perfect example of how women can do whatever they want to do and have a family and rise up in the corporate world. And she just, actually, my daughter’s just on her way back from Bali where her boss and a did a whole retreat for whole bunch of C-suite level women. So it’s exciting and it’s great to have such a role model, but not every woman has that. And. so tell us about Kahilla. So now you have a woman out there and she needs help.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (10m 43s):
And tell us how this format started.

Kim Havens (10m 45s):
Sure. So in 2018, Noa and I both put out a survey to all of the women in our network, which was, it was like 1500 o over 1500 women really checking in with like, is there something, right? This idea of connecting women in the corporate world together, building a community, giving them leadership development. And what came back was absolutely, everyone said, I hey, I want this, I need this, I’m struggling. So we said, okay, the first iteration we launched in January of 2019 And, we were really a hybrid. We are hybrid of in-person events and a digital platform and it was moving on really well. But one of the things we noticed, incredible in-person events that were really transformative to people.

Kim Havens (11m 29s):
But by summer we had a, a large summer event, three day event, a summit with speakers and it was kind of mixing physical and mental activities. So really helping that mind body connection and movement and challenging people with awesome coaches and speakers. But what Noa I noticed were two things. One, it’s great that we had 60, 75 women coming to events that you know up to a hundred, but that’s a drop in the bucket. Two, it wasn’t equitable, right? Whether even we had events in New York, we had events in San Francisco, And, we live out in Sun Valley, Idaho. But all of those places it co, I mean it doesn’t matter, even if you’re going down the street to come to an event and pay for an event out of pocket, it costs money and it creates just a divide between those who can pay for it and those who can’t out of their pocket And.

Kim Havens (12m 16s):
so we were getting from very senior women like, oh I’d love to get an invoice that can get reimbursement from my company. And that’s when it really dawned on us, we should go to the companies, these women were getting professional leadership development and they were paying out of pocket and some were just eating that cost. And we thought the companies are spending money on training but they’re not really giving people this executive coaching. And that was the big pivot moment for us where we completely flipped the business And. we built a whole new digital platform and launched exclusively B2B and have been now working since January, 2020 with large clients.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (12m 51s):
And. so now people are signing up through their companies. And you’ve, you mentioned some, well you told me on a call, you know some pretty big companies. Tell us who are your clients?

Noa Ries (13m 1s):
So we have some incredible clients and Fortune 500 clients in financial services. We’re not allowed to mention their names And, so, okay. But very large organizations, Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies, a couple of the large consulting organizations. There aren’t that many of them, the very big ones. But then also smaller organizations that are couple hundred employees, couple thousand employees, commercial real estate, pharmaceuticals, healthcare. We work really across industries, across geographies. We have members all around the world. And our program is, it’s an annual membership, men’s program that we’re launching in April will be a 16 week program.

Noa Ries (13m 42s):
But it is, you essentially are buying a membership and when you become a member of Kahilla a, you get coaching on what we call the power skills. You’re also getting curated content across the intersection of personal and professional development. And then you are getting access to that community, a community of cheerleaders in your pocket 24/7.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (14m 1s):
And this is a personal coaching too. So suppose I have specific coaching needs and of course the name of this podcast is Difficult Conversations. So I’m really interested in one of the things we had a whole episode on, just how do you approach your boss to for you know, I think it’s time for promotion, how do you approach your boss? So if I’m a woman or if I’m in part of Kahilla, how do you coach them through these conversations? Because really it’s all about how you present yourself, right? And. so tell me about how I would get coached in that if I’m a woman to wanted to do this.

Kim Havens (14m 32s):
They’re kind of two ways, or maybe three ways actually. So the live executive coaching courses are built in a one-to-many model. So it’s not one-on-one, which also is what makes it scalable for companies to buy hundreds or thousands of licenses at a time because executive coaching is extremely expensive and there is a place for that. But that’s not what we do here do here at Kahilla. It’s really this community-based, cohort-based learning And. so in those live executive coaching courses, which of course are always on demand, everything is available on demand in kahilla. But you can now, if you have a very specific question, they all have themes, but if you have a specific question you can jump into the hot seat and actually get on stage with a coach live and go through, they walk through a live coaching session and those who don’t wanna be on stage can sit and listen.

Kim Havens (15m 19s):
And, we have found this to be unbelievably transformative for even those who are just listening to the process of changing mindset or rewording language. It could be in a meeting or a difficult conversation with a manager, your manager where you said, oh yes, okay, so this is the way I spoke last time. Maybe I could use, you know, a couple some different language. And the coach would walk that person through different steps and getting them to a new place. So there’s that. There’s small group matching and peer matching. So we give them discussion guides and around these different skills where they actually coach each other And. so they get to in conversation with their peers, talk through some of these like this is how I handled it but I didn’t think that went very well.

Kim Havens (16m 3s):
Does anyone have other ideas that worked? And something that we really encourage our community members to use is in my experience, right? So because it worked for me doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for Noa in in her conversation, but this is something you might wanna try. So that works really well for the peer-to-peer coaching.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (16m 21s):
I love that peer-to-peer because I think most people think that maybe their problem is unique or there’s not that many people out there that have the same issues and then they get into this community and say Wow, there’s other people that have the same issues and this is how they’ve handled it. And as you said, they may not handle it the way I would handle it, but certainly there’s a lot of aha moments I would imagine. Correct.

Noa Ries (16m 41s):
Totally. Actually, one of the things we strive for is the aha of, oh I never thought of it that way. And because we are connecting members who are across industries cross professions with these universal skillsets and mindsets that quite frankly everyone needs in order to rise and thrive in the corporate world. But very often underrepresented minorities don’t have access to these skillsets or development in these skillsets. But we had a member for example, who lives in India, she’s an engineer and she posted a question to the community And. so the third way members are able to get coached is crowdsourcing. They can post a question onto our digital platform and ask for feedback or advice from our community.

Noa Ries (17m 21s):
And. so this specific individual is an engineer and she said I got feedback as an engineer that when I am presenting to senior executives, I’m too technical. Does anyone have any tips on how to handle that And? so our community shared based on my experience, have you tried this? Have you tried that? And we’re striving for the, oh I never thought of it that way because very often our members are kind of in echo chambers. They work in one industry in one role and they’re only ever talking to people who are in their roles And. so they often think of the same approach to age old problems without thinking of different approaches.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (17m 56s):
Yeah, I think that kind of, let me run this by you attitude really great. We do some coaching and sometimes people have to give a speech or a presentation or they’re in front of a board or they’re talking to their boss and they’ll say something and the community will say, Hey, how about trying it this way? And like, oh that sounds great. So I love that. Now your company started in 2018, that’s only four and a half years ago and you’ve come a long way. What were you think the biggest barriers were when you started it and did you think it was going to, it was gonna progress this quickly? Cuz that’s not that much time.

Kim Havens (18m 27s):
It feels like a lot of time sometimes to us. Oh it does.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (18m 31s):
No it’s not when it comes to the entrepreneur world. So

Noa Ries (18m 34s):
That’s true. That’s true. What were some of the barriers? I mean we are a small nimble company. And, we work with really large companies, And. so sometimes we move almost too fast for the companies we work with. And, we have to, Kim and I we jokingly say, and our teams kind of terrified of us cuz we move at the speed of light. One of our coaches says page to stage, we have an idea And, we go to execute it really quickly. And that pace is sometimes out of alignment with the pace of the organizations that we partner with And. so that’s been something that we’ve constantly had to calibrate I, think,

Dr. Anthony Orsini (19m 8s):
Do you want everybody to work as quickly as you? But it doesn’t happen.

Kim Havens (19m 13s):
I, think also just the network we both Noa, wasn’t here she is now, but in the United States And. so she didn’t have that corporate network and I didn’t work in large corporate America anymore. I did early, early in my career. So again I, we didn’t have this amazing network of people to call on to even test the product. We had individuals but they were really our members. But now we’re selling to enterprises and So. that was a hurdle. How do we get in, how do we find these people And that, how do we convince them that we are a good solution for them?

Dr. Anthony Orsini (19m 47s):
It’s been our experience when we’ve done training programs for corporate that you speak to somebody, they’re very excited and they say, can you start tomorrow? And then, and you’re like, you take them literally almost like I’m ready to go and then months and months.

Kim Havens (20m 1s):
Yes.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (20m 2s):
And if you’re dealing in the healthcare industry then it’s even more months for the check. So everybody’s enthusiastic but the wheels don’t go that quickly. I get that. That happens to us all the time.

Kim Havens (20m 12s):
There’re often many decision makers. We need to one, make sure you actually get to the decision maker or arm the people who will speak to the real decision maker with the right knowledge and information so that they can act as the salesperson. But that has been a learning curve for us as well.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (20m 28s):
Yes, I can imagine that’s always a barrier, especially when you wanna move quickly and you’re enthusiastic about what you do, et cetera. And that Company and you run to this big corporate America. So what made you, so you started out with just women and then you expanded to men. Take me along that decision like why you decided to do that and when did you actually go to that live or have you yet?

Noa Ries (20m 49s):
So it’s always been top of mind for us since we launched this was really helping everyone live to their full potential. It’s not just women who are underrepresented in senior leadership in the corporate world. Men of color also are underrepresented in the corporate world. And, that is actually one area. I think probably the only area of our business that we’ve done in baby steps. We are two white women And. so we don’t pretend to know the experience or the challenges that men of color face in the corporate world. And. so we’ve gone through test and learns iterations over the last few years. One has been testing, does our content resonate with both men and women And.

Noa Ries (21m 30s):
so we’ve done over the last couple of years a few series that have been open to both men and women with the explicit purpose of testing. And then the next test is, does the experience resonate? So we as women feel it is incredibly valuable to be connected to a community of peers like-hearted, like-minded peers. We hypothesize that men would appreciate that because it’s so beneficial. But we don’t know that for sure And. so we’re testing that as well.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (21m 59s):
So you haven’t opened up to men yet or you’re still

Kim Havens (22m 1s):
It’s opening in April. It opens in April. Okay. It’s a 16 week pilot. And then after we get the results of that, that’s a real test with a men’s platform full running content. And so we’ll wrap that up in July and we’ll really assess it with our team and if it’s successful, the plan is by 24 to roll out a full annual plan for them as well. Program.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (22m 23s):
It’s interesting what you said we’re white women And. so when I do my keynote speaking, there’s generally a format for all lectures. It’s problem, credibility and transformation, right? you know there’s a problem but it’s the credibility that you had to work on and I think the credibility that of the success you had with women, you’re hoping that that transforms with minority men but seems like you have a good concrete basis for that. I don’t see why it wouldn’t.

Noa Ries (22m 46s):
And you know on that note we’ve worked really Kim and I are not the coaches. We have built the container, if you will, to amplify the voices of amazing subject matter experts. But we’ve worked really diligently to ensure that our experts are representative of diversity of our community And. so we have now more than 75% of our content of our coaching is delivered by amazing subject matter experts who happen to be from historically underrepresented minorities themselves across the intersections of race, ethnicity, orientation, gender. And we’ve worked really hard to ensure that And that does two things. One, our members can see themselves aspirationally represented and also our white cisgender members can learn from people unlike them through both story as well as theory.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (23m 35s):
Excellent. I really like that. We had talked briefly about this before cause I think you mentioned about people that can’t afford that. So I think you mentioned in their call now about a step up-reach down, gifting program. Tell us about that.

Kim Havens (23m 47s):
So we donate 1% of profits to nonprofits that are serving underrepresented minorities and that’s been built into the company from the very beginning. So kind of going along with this diversity of our experts, which when we launched Kahilla we were at 35% And. we were there because we said hey let’s be above corporate America. What are the stats in corporate America? Let’s beat that. But then really with the murder of George Floyd, we said we took a pa, we actually literally took a pause in our programming, reassessed with the team and talked about you know, what can we do as a company? What could we change, how can we be more supportive? And one of the things that came out of that really was this, let’s not just beat where the diversity is in corporate America, let’s actually kind of reverse it on its head.

Kim Havens (24m 34s):
So we went to this, how do we get above 50%? How do we go to 75% And we’re there because of our amazing team that’s done all their research and found incredible speakers And. so part of that is this idea of for those of us who have the means to do it, the ability, the power, we believe it’s a responsibility to step up be we say be the boldest biggest version of yourself, really follow what you wanna do and live into that. And while you’re up there it is your responsibility to reach down and pull somebody else up with you And. that is so what we’re constantly thinking about in our company and with our finances, like how do we help those because of the privilege that we’ve been one born into, as Noa said, as two white women and then also as now company owners with the sort of power that we have there.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (25m 19s):
I am very encouraged about the number of companies that are doing what you’re doing and giving back and doing more for charity. That 20 years ago was a nice story but you didn’t hear it. And I had a laugh, I was watching the old rerun I think it was Shark Tank and the guys from Boomba, is it Boomba socks? The sock companies. Yeah. And they had said they were gonna give a free pair of socks for socks they sold and I think a couple of the sharks said, well that’s ridiculous, you’re never gonna make any money doing that. Like that’s just a crazy business plan. And look at where they are. So I think we are in a much better place where people do appreciate the companies that are giving back and people are willing I think to pay more for it as you can see from the sock company if it means that they’re gonna be helping somebody.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (26m 1s):
So it’s a great thing that you’re doing and I wish every company would do that,

Kim Havens (26m 5s):
I forgot to mention, but even more than the donation financially is we bring on 10% of all purchase memberships. We donate 10% of memberships to nonprofit organizations, And. so also bringing those women who, again a lot nonprofits, some do, but many nonprofits don’t have the budget for leadership development and training. So giving them access but then also giving them this network, right? That’s way beyond. They’re now in there with all these for-profit companies, they’re learning a lot of new things and just building friendships and community and and learning how to do their own job even better.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (26m 40s):
That’s great. Right now there’s a whole bunch of women and minorities that are listening to this saying, I can’t wait to Google when I get home. Cause most people listen to the cars from podcasts, but they probably wanna know, so what can they do now? So I was just thinking about this, do you have any actionable insight that people can create right now? Some advice to somebody that they help them create a more inclusive environment in the workplace that they can do immediately even before they sign up. Is there what? What’s your advice for that person who’s really excited in the car right now?

Noa Ries (27m 9s):
I mean I think the first one that’s so easy is look at your meetings. Everyone has meetings, whether you’re the CEO or manager or senior vice president. Look at your meetings and look at who is invited to those meetings and look at if there is diversity in who’s invited to those meetings. And if there isn’t, fix it. And then when you’re in the meeting, look at who’s talking. you know, we really feel that everyone should have an opportunity to speak once before or have the opportunity if they want to, to speak once. Cuz not everybody has the desire to speak but I think that is something that everyone can do to make their teams more inclusive. And then I think also in the way that you step up, you have an opportunity to reach down and pull another one up.

Noa Ries (27m 54s):
There’s more than enough room for everybody at the table. It’s not a zero sum game. Build a bigger table if there’s not enough seats at the one that you’re at,

Dr. Anthony Orsini (28m 1s):
That’s fantastic advice And yeah, it’s somebody can mentor you or bring you up if you don’t have Kahilla, you have somebody who you can watch, look my daughter and see how things are done. You mentioned the meetings, it’s kind of interesting, I do a lot of Zoom meetings now in teams and Google hang out, whatever you call, boy what a mess that is when you have a bunch of people at the table and sometimes the loudest person because everybody goes to talk at the same time, right? And. so do you have any advice for that person who’s always saying, oh no, no, you go first.

Kim Havens (28m 29s):
Well a couple things. Whoever’s the facilitator or the leader in that meeting be intentional, right? Real, you got, you do need to take most of us, you need to take a pause and think through how am I gonna include everyone? If I haven’t heard someone’s voice, how am I gonna weave them in as Noa was saying? If they want to also encourage, you know, some people get really nervous even in Zoom meetings, And. so encouraging if somebody has an idea to put it in the chat. So thinking through like okay, I know, I know Noa gets shy and she really doesn’t wanna speak with 10 people on this call, but she might type it into the chat And. so encouraging people to use the method that makes it most comfortable to get their point across. And then as the people in the team who are maybe not, they don’t think of themselves as a leader, is to know that you still can show up as a leader, especially around inclusivity, where you can say, Hey, Noa just made this great point and Dr.

Kim Havens (29m 20s):
Orsini, you kind of talked over her, I’d really like her to repeat what she just said. Or we hear this a lot with women’s ideas being sort of stolen by stronger voices in the room or men in the room often. Where again, those of you who feel confident in those meetings, even if you’re not the leader, just step up and say wait, that’s great, thanks for repeating Noah’s idea. Really be the person who is an supporting the people around them and helping them to shine more. Because some people are just more introverted and they’re not gonna speak up in those situations And. so knowing that you can be without being the leader, you can actually help everybody around you be more successful in a meeting.

Noa Ries (29m 56s):
And I wanna add to that from the individual perspective, what you say or don’t say is your brand And. So when you are in a hybrid or a virtual meeting, how you present on that tiny little thumbnail is the way people remember you And. so you obviously teach communication, but you know, we really encourage, everyone should say something whether you’re saying it on camera or as Kim said, typing it into the chat. But if you want to enhance your visibility, accelerate your career, you need to be memorable in a good way And. so being intentional about what you say and contribute to a meeting is really a simple way to stay in people’s minds.

Kim Havens (30m 36s):
Yeah, we have heard some examples from both executive coaches but also some very senior women who’ve said, you know, I’m actually quite introverted and my advice like to myself was I’m gonna make sure I’m the first person to speak or I’m gonna speak within the first 10 minutes of the meeting. So I just kind of break the ice because I get nervous. And that’s a really powerful tool for somebody who feels like, oh as soon as everyone starts talking I’m just gonna lean back and nobody’s gonna hear my voice. So kind of just know that, do that self assessment. Know how you respond in a meeting or how you work best and if you need to jump in quickly and then you can feel like, okay, people know I’m here.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (31m 14s):
I like what Noa said in the beginning is that it’s really the facilitator’s responsibility to make sure that everyone’s included And, that everyone has a chance to speak so they can say, Kim, you’ve been quiet, is there anything you want to say? And I think that’s the responsibility. The other advice that I would add to all that wonderful advice is turn your camera on. Oh my gosh if you don’t have your camera on, nobody’s going to notice you. Yes. And you never know whether that person without the camera is even there And. so the facilitator’s not gonna call you. So I’m sure you give that same advice, like you have to be present.

Noa Ries (31m 43s):
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean we sit in meetings sometimes, you know, with eight individuals and I know it’s exhausting to be on zoom, that zoom fatigue is without doubt real And. so take mental breaks throughout the day, step away from your computer. There are some calls, you know, one-on-one calls for example, that It can be just audio. But when you are in a group and you are wanting to be memorable, have your camera on. Yes, our executive coaches, especially those focus on communication and personal branding, they just are horrified that people would even think of keeping their cameras off.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (32m 20s):
Well 80% of language,

Kim Havens (32m 21s):
Right? You’re making a statement by not turning your camera on, even if it’s not intentional. You are, people are reading that and they’re making a judgment about you. And yes, show up as Noa said just

Dr. Anthony Orsini (32m 32s):
And 80% of language is nonverbal and we’ve all given speeches before. I’ve given lectures in front of a thousand people and even though there’s a thousand people in the room, there’s usually one or two people in that room that are nodding their head like, yes, I, I agree. And what happens? Your attention goes to that person. Yes I can find this man or woman in the middle because he or she is just saying yes, I agree with you, they might not agree with me, but it’s just if you want to get notice, use your nonverbal. So great advice, Kim and Noa I. think Liz already gave you a heads up on the question that we’re gonna end with. Is there anything else you wanna say before I ask you the question that you wanna say about Kahilla?

Kim Havens (33m 8s):
Well the one thing I’ll say is we do have individual memberships now available and they are incredibly affordable for individuals to become members in the Kahilla community and get all of the benefits of executive coaching, curated content and community And. we would love to hear from you. So check us out Kahilla.com

Dr. Anthony Orsini (33m 28s):
And we’re gonna put all that in the show notes for those people that are driving and we’re gonna be linking you and tagging you and this is gonna be a, a long relationship that we have with you. I hope. So let’s finish with the conversation. Liz was very nice to you and gave you the question beforehand. Sometimes we don’t do that And, we put our guests on the spot. But what is the most difficult conversation that you had? And you can say type, so you don’t have to be specific. What’s the most difficult type of conversation you have? And please give advice to the people out there on how to navigate that conversation.

Noa Ries (33m 57s):
Ironically, I think it is actually giving people feedback. I am a, I would like to say recovering people pleaser, but I’m still definitely a people pleaser and I hate offending people or having it feel like people don’t like me And. so delivering feedback hurts but obviously hurts the other person receiving the feedback more. And I think the best way to mitigate that and overcome that is being specific in the feedback that you’re giving somebody and direct and as prompt as possible. We have failed in the past of giving people feedback too late And. so they become very defensive cause they can’t remember the thing that they did three months ago.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (34m 36s):
Excellent advice. All right, Kim, you’re up.

Kim Havens (34m 38s):
Well it’s not that dissimilar, but I’m thinking of giving feedback up the chain. So rather right now it’s, we’re more in the position of giving feedback to our team members, but I think, I can think to some of my most Difficult Conversations being, giving critical feedback on bad behavior to a manager and to a boss and how hard that was. And again, actually thinking through one, giving it rather than sitting around getting angry And. so knowing that, you know what if I don’t give feedback, here’s the reality, I’m going to lean back and start becoming passive aggressive and hostile or I’m gonna quit, right? And. so I felt it was actually really important for me to give that feedback and to open the conversation and say how do we work better together?

Kim Havens (35m 20s):
But it was terrifying. I mean I remember just that physical, like I’m gonna have a heart attack, you know, the heart rate going through the roofs. But then as soon as you know, having that, opening the mouth saying the first sentence where you’re like, okay, we can open the dialogue, we can kind of try to, to work through this together. And I just think remembering you can give feedback to your boss about how you like to work even, you know, I completely disagree on how we’re running a project or moving things something forward and know that they actually, there’s a lot of respect that comes out of that, of being like, well thank you. Like all these other people have been yessing me, but at least you’re telling me something that either I need to work on or as a team we all need to improve And.

Kim Havens (36m 3s):
so I can still viscerally feel a a couple those.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (36m 6s):
I’m watching your face just on my, you’re nonverbal, you’re getting your blood pressure’s going up a little bit, that’s difficult, but your advice is to show up and do it because if you avoid it, it’s just gonna fester.

Kim Havens (36m 17s):
It does, it gets way worse And. so do it quickly. And it’s the same thing as Noa saying with giving feedback to anybody. The faster you do it, the better you’re gonna feel.

Noa Ries (36m 26s):
One of our coaches once said, it’s kind of like telling someone they have spinach in their teeth.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (36m 31s):
They appreciate it, they

Noa Ries (36m 32s):
Appreciate it. Yes. and it, they would rather be told immediately that they have spinach in their teeth. Then you know, waiting till your next one-on-one for example, you’re not gonna say, Hey, last week when we were eating lunch you had spinach in your teeth, And. so I try to remember that now and just do it as promptly as possible.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (36m 49s):
I think that’s a great analogy because if you go into the room and you say to your boss, listen, I don’t think this is going in the right direction, this is what I think, a lot of times you’re gonna get the, well thanks for telling me that’s that. I’m really now gonna consider that. And then you leave there going, wow, I’m a real part of the team. So excellent advice on both parts, Kim and Noa, this has been great. It’s really great to meet you I. think you guys are doing just wonderful, wonderful things. Really appreciate what you’re doing. I know you think it’s a long time, but what you’ve accomplished in four years to me is really amazing and congratulations on that. Thanks for coming on And. we are going to put all this stuff in the show notes. If, you enjoyed this podcast, please go hit subscribe and share it with your friends and then go back to the 80 something other podcast episodes that we have and compare them to this one.

Dr. Anthony Orsini (37m 36s):
So it’s been fantastic. Kim, Noa, thank you so much.

Kim Havens (37m 39s):
Thank you.

Noa Ries (37m 40s):
Thank you

Announcer (37m 42s):
If. you enjoyed this podcast. Please hit the subscribe button and leave a comment and review. To contact Dr. Orsini and his team or to suggest guests for future podcast, visit us at the Orsini Way.Com. The comments and opinions of the interviewer and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of their present and past employers or institutions.