Intrapreneurship in Action: Driving Change from Within with Media Executive Eric Gillin

In this episode of The Career Refresh, I talk with Eric Gillin—an executive who’s held just about every role in media: editor, product lead, head of sales. He calls himself “professional putty,” and he’s not wrong.

We cover:

• How to drive influence without a formal title
• How to lead teams through turbulence and build trust
• Why chasing the right problems beats chasing promotions

Show Guest

For over 20 years, Eric Gillin has been a force inside legacy media—driving innovation at Condé Nast, Hearst, Maxim, Discovery, and beyond. He’s partnered with over 100 editors-in-chief, from David Granger to David Remnick, to launch digital products that moved the needle.

He’s done nearly every media job out there—writing for Esquire, interviewing celebrities at Maxim, hosting a podcast at 23, launching a dozen apps at Hearst, creating the viral Bon Appétit video strategy, and becoming the first person to run Condé Nast’s U.S. ad sales team.

Transcript

Meet Eric Gillen: Media Innovator

Speaker 1 1:05

Hey, this is the Career Refresh and I'm your host, jill Griffin. Today I am introducing you to a friend and former colleague, eric Gillen. For over 20 years, eric has been driving innovation inside legacy media companies like Connie Nast, hearst. He's partnered with over 100 editors-in-chief, people like David Granger to David Remnick, all to build new digital products. He's worked at the Street, maxim Discovery, hearst, connie Nast and, I'm serious, he's probably done every job within media you can think of from serving as Connie Nast's first person to run the US ad sales team to also helping create the bone appetite video strategy that, of course, went viral and then launching dozens of apps at Hearst, which is where I first met him, and then writing features for Esquire, interviewing celebrities at Maxim and hosting a podcast at the young age in personal finance of 23.

Starting a Podcast at 23

Speaker 1 2:08

We talk about an array of topics that it's not about the career ladder and how building influence. You can absolutely do it even if you don't have a title when you're leading through turbulent times. What are some of the strategies and what to be looking for? We also talk about his values, about creating value and being useful, what makes a leader and how. It's about the capacity to create change for others. We also discussed some of the real world challenges that are showing up in today's workplace, like how do you lead when you are younger and perhaps have less tenure than some of your direct reports, and how do you lead so that you get people and build that followership? And then, ultimately, we talk about what leaders can do to support teams when they're post-paternal leave, bereavement leave, any of the mental health challenges that people may have within the workplace, how he also managed his own imposter syndrome and what he did to support himself mentally during some of those more challenging times.

Speaker 1 3:08

So dig into this episode. Eric is a delight to listen to. He has amazing stories and we could have gone on forever. I know you're going to enjoy this one. Ready, let's do it. Welcome, eric, good to see you again. Oh, I should also, with full disclosure, say that Eric and I were colleagues for a few years when we were both at Hearst Publishing. So, and now I'll say with that, welcome.

Speaker 2 3:36

Good to see you, Jill.

Speaker 1 3:37

It's been a long time it's been a long time, been a long time, so all right, prepping for this episode, I loved reading that you started a personal finance podcast when you were just 23. That makes me think. Did you have a curiosity about finance? Was it about creating something? Was it about making what's in front of you interesting? Tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 4:01

I was at thestreetcom and they told me they needed something someone to cover personal finance and write a column about it. And so I would get a question and have to go out and answer it. And the interesting thing is, you know, I'm making like $30,000 a year with roommates. I don't know what a mortgage is, I don't know what a reverse mortgage is, which was for older Americans to pull equity out of their house, so I learned all this stuff about money that I didn't know. So all these questions, very well could have been for me. But you go out, you ask people, so in many ways I got the fresh answer. There was no bias. I had no idea what.

Speaker 2 4:36

I was doing, but I also ended up hosting a podcast at the same time for Yahoo, called Martini Chat, where we would talk, and so I was just in so far over my head. But ignorance being bliss, uh, I just kind of did it.

Speaker 1 4:51

I don't know, so go one step before that, did you have some thoughts about what you wanted to do when you grew up?

Speaker 2 5:01

uh, yeah, I wanted to be a music writer. Like I was like a little punk rock hardcore kid who listened to a lot of stuff and I wanted to be a really cool music writer and be with the cool kids. And I graduated Syracuse in 1999 in the middle of the dot-com bubble and there were no cool kid music jobs.

Being the Professional Putty

Speaker 2 5:20

So I ended up going into finance and you know financial journalism and one of the things that when I speak to students or other people about getting your career going, how you set your goals, is super critical. And, like my goal was, I didn't want to live with my mom and dad in Boston and I was going to take the first job that paid me enough money to just not be there and I preferred not to work where I had been working, which is the kitchens and other stuff. Like I want to use my brain, I had it. I sent out like 153 resumes. This is back when, like monstercom was a thing, I had two callbacks. One was for the streetcom and the other was for the New England Journal of Bone and Joint.

Speaker 2 6:02

That needed someone to run its paper and newsletters and that one was based in Boston and so, but I, I I think a lot of people are like, oh, I want to go work at Vogue or I want to go work at the New Yorker. I think that's like the finish line for your career, not where you want to start, cause if you start there, you don't in this environment, you don't really stay there. Right, you leave there and maybe you can boomerang back, but I don't know. I kind of feel like starting a place where you know I did a podcast, I did a column, I learned how to code because you had to hand hack the HTML. Back then I learned about finance. All of these things turned into huge assets 10, 15, 20 years later.

Speaker 1 6:41

Music at that early stage, that's right. Okay, so the streetcom, Maxim, discovery, Hearst, Connie Nast You've worked at some of the most well-known household names successful media companies again, as I said, from editorial to product and ultimately leading sales teams. So your career has not been this straight line and this is where we go to that professional putty. Tell me about that, because I want to dig in there a little bit more. I love that expression, but I want people to understand why it's such a powerful approach to your goals to lean into that idea.

Speaker 2 7:19

I think on some level, like some people like conflict and some people don't, and I like to make people happy I'm very much like a pleaser. I want to feel useful in a job. So oftentimes what would happen is I would end up tackling the thing that no one else wanted to really tackle, right Either. It was just like at the vanguard of what they wanted to do. So if I'm in a room full of magazine editors in 2006 and Facebook comes out and you're a magazine editor, what do you would you rather do? Would you rather spend a month working on the front of book, get it perfect, impress your editor in-chief, or do you want to figure out facebook? And I was like I'll figure out facebook like this is cool. So you know, even at the streetcom I was inventing like macros to help people code their html better, because if you forgot to call close a bold tag at that point, the entire website would be bold right, oh my god, I remember that very different era and now and now they.

Speaker 1 8:11

Now we vibe code within you know chat.

Speaker 2 8:16

So I am always trying to go to the problem. That is the most pressing problem. And then I always try to be the person who and I feel like in my career I've actually been a man without a country I live between the teams, right. Oftentimes I talk to people who are trying to hire me. I'm like I'm not the tile, I'm the grout, you know what I mean. Like I live between these things just because it's always been really about lateral, like, especially being a digital native, somebody who's only kind of had digital jobs, you kind of have to understand how everything fits together to be able to do it. You can't really live in a silo.

Speaker 2 8:50

So, again, I've been really focused on like where's the big problem? So, you know, I've worked on CMSs as an editor because the tools were important and if you didn't have tools that were built the right way, I couldn't write 20 blog posts a day. So, like, that kind of work pushes you out of whatever core you think you're in and starts to just evolve you into a different direction. And if you don't mind shedding skin and being like you know what I'm not really writing anymore, but I'm doing this other thing that is interesting, and that was always more interesting to me. It was more interesting to me to be helpful or build things than it was for me to like I'm going to be a writer. I have friends who are writers and they stayed writers. That wasn't where my pleasure was coming from, and so I just kind of I liked solving problems, yeah.

Speaker 1 9:32

So for our listeners, I would summarize some of the mindset that I'm hearing Eric talk about is the mindset and actions of like be useful, be curious, be of service, find problems that maybe feel sticky, but you're up for a challenge that really then ends up setting yourself apart because you're being helpful to your colleagues and your leadership and your management because you're helping solve some of those problems. Yeah, I never see anything else like that.

Creating Value as an Internal Partner

Speaker 2 9:59

Even if it's not in your job description, right. Like I think about my path to go from basically a writer and then, 20 years later, I'm like the head of US ad sales economy and asked across all of the brands the biggest problem in media is how you fund it. Right. And so, even when I wasn't doing that job, just because I was like okay, like who's the biggest guy in jail, I got to fight. Right. And when you're trying to be a writer and the HTML doesn't work right and the CMS is broken, that's the biggest guy in jail. Right. And when you don't have a video strategy and everyone's putting in a video.

Speaker 2 10:31

So, even though it wasn't my job, I wanted to kind of be in the room to give the point of view from whatever function I was in at that time, to help the people whose real role it was. So I also comment this from like a support staff mentality, and I still do. As a leader, I believe that my teams, like don't work for me. I believe that I work for them, and so thinking about yourself is like I am trying to be the most useful, helpful person, to become indispensable in my job, even if that meant being outside of my function and I just had to be very careful to do that in a respectful manner where I wasn't telling someone, hey, you're doing it wrong. It was more like how can I help, like what's in your way, how can I assist you, and I think people really appreciate that, because you become a safe person, not a political person.

Speaker 1 11:19

It also reminds me of the idea that I believe, again leaders, at any level, their role is to create capacity for others. That's one of the signs of a leader that you are. Whatever that mountain is, whatever that challenge is, you're there and you're moving mountains to create capacity for others, to create that change, so that, I think, is a really powerful place and a place that people can think about leaning in. Here's the question, though, if my job description is going to weigh me on these, or my job description is going to weigh me on these, or my performance review is going to weigh me against these 10 or so things. How did you keep yourself within the swim lane of well, this is what I'm getting paid to perform against? Yeah, I see these challenges that aren't in my core responsibility, but they're needed. How did you think about dividing your time between how you're being measured and potentially compensated versus what's all outside, as you say, the grout?

Speaker 2 12:21

I mean, a lot of our work takes place in meetings and so you just kind of have to be careful about how many of those extracurricular meetings you end up in. You know what I mean. I mean it's just that like oftentimes it was just showing up offering a point of view that, like I represented a team you know like somehow like being part of edit right, it was really critical for an edit team to show up at a CMS meeting, but like no one in that management system.

Speaker 2 12:49

For anybody, it's a CMS but no one really wanted to show up to that meeting from editorial Right and so like I would do that. It was still part of my job and I just had to like they were just so grateful to have a real partner to like answering email, like so much of that huge value stuff is. It's really hard to understand or nuance or get information, so I found myself just being like an emissary or an ambassador. You don't have to do an awful lot there of like work. You know I'm not coding it. They just need a point of view or perspective or someone to like help represent that. So a lot of like that stuff that is extracurricular.

Speaker 2 13:27

I was really focused on my job, but what I find some people do is they like you ask them to do something and they say like well, I don't have the bandwidth, I'm too busy, I'm too harried, like I would never say that you know, you know what I mean and so, but a lot of people would shut it down and I see this happen over and over and over in work environments. And then if you become the person who just says yes, like I'll give you five minutes, I'll get a lunch, I'll get a cup of coffee. That's the, the entrepreneurship where that's like how you work in internal. Cohort of people to like get a brand where you're helpful. Cohort of people to like get a brand where you're helpful. You just show up consistently and don't like dump on people when you're having a pretty stressful day. Just help them if they ask.

Speaker 1 14:08

Yeah, so it's professional brand, it's building trust, it's collaboration.

Speaker 2 14:13

That's what comes out of that yeah, you'll like people ask and if you get a reputation as someone who will come when asked, everyone will come to you, right, and then to your point.

Speaker 1 14:24

You're now indispensable because everyone's coming.

Speaker 2 14:26

That's right. You're creating value every day.

Leading Experienced Teams as a Newcomer

Speaker 1 14:28

All right, I want to get a little specific though. So can you walk me through a time you know again, you've worked at top media. Companies within what you can share publicly, companies within what you can share publicly. Can you walk me, maybe like a Connie Nast or Hearst, where you've navigated those internal structures to bring a solution to life?

Speaker 2 14:47

There are lots of them. You know I would say that from the sales side. You know I was at Lifestyle Collection, lifestyle Division, which was kind of my home court. I had done food.

Speaker 1 15:03

This is at Coney Nass.

Speaker 2 15:04

Coney Nass. Yeah, so I had done, you know, bon Appetit, I'd done Epicurious, I'd done a lot of food and video stuff. I'd been pretty successful on the content side. I was a little bit of a digital general manager. So I was also sort of working with the Architectural Digest team and the Conde Nast Traveler team, sort of functioning like product, a little bit of a GM helping make business cases, and I had been doing the sales team then from that. So I knew that was all I had known.

Speaker 2 15:28

And they finally uprooted me and moved me to a totally different sales team called the Culture Division, which was totally new brands. It was the New Yorker, it was Wired, it was Pitchfork Totally new team. It was pitched for Totally new team. Didn't know anyone there right, and totally new categories to have to sell accounts right Auto, media, entertainment, business technology, finance, spirits as part of the group, and these are very experienced salespeople 20 years of experience. I've got one official year and the team had been struggling. We had done a lot of reorgs and so they were not the highest performing team they were. They were struggling a little bit to feel like a division or like a team and I remember going in there and meeting everyone, and I think the thing that I wanted to do upfront cause I get the sense that people were, they didn't know me and they were afraid of me. Yeah, and if you know me, it's sort of like I'm the most approachable, whatever.

Speaker 2 16:27

And so I had a big long think and I was like you know what? I'm going to just tell them who I am really. Quickly Like, here's me. You're never going to catch me. Flip a table If you need me to be angry, for you to feel like I care, like you're never going to see it, but I care deeply thing too.

Speaker 2 16:41

I care deeply. I'm going to show up in your work. I'm not going to micromanage you, but I'm going to be in the weeds with you, like that's my management style, and you're going to teach me about your categories Cause I don't know this stuff. But I'm going to have your back and move mountains for you, but I don't tolerate people fighting each other and I just like I had a code I started with I'm not going to get angry, so you can feel safe, I'm going to work very hard. You're going to teach me, right, some humility in there. And then I finally said we're going to perform and I need you to buy in.

Speaker 2 17:12

And it was like a very clear thing and you could see some people could go four for four with me and some people could, and the people who couldn't go four for four, it was okay. You know what I mean. Like they, they found their own way out at some point. Yeah, they self-selected out, right, but but it was. But I found that. That and I found out later, years later, that like that was one of the most memorable experiences they had with me. Like that worked, that went a long way. That clarity basically got us six months down the road, and then you have to figure out any of those things on their own Right.

Speaker 1 17:44

So, eric, what you're saying is making me think of something that so many people are, I'm going to say, in the 45 plus crowd are experiencing today that they're getting a new leader that may have less tenure, but it doesn't mean they don't have fantastic experience. So your new supervisor or boss might be younger than you, might have less tenure in the space or in that particular expertise, but is bringing tremendous expertise to the table. How did you I mean, you talked about it just a little bit but how did you continue to nurture those relationships so that those people didn't feel uncomfortable or, um, or even like you won them over? They didn't feel they didn't, they didn't come at you like the professor, which is a lot of what happens in that organization. Well, okay, you might be in charge, but I have more experience, I have more wisdom, and then again it just upsets the entire opportunity for collaboration.

Speaker 2 18:44

You know a couple of things, and I'll end on the major one. Last, I guess One is you're in sales. You're getting your ass kicked all the time, right, and I think that one of the things that I really like to do is when someone is coming to me and they expect me to lose my goddamn mind and I am the nicest, kindest, least frustrated, best person of myself they feel so much better about that, and so I really try to be like. Big problem is a big opportunity for you to really be calm and lead, and so when someone has a really big problem, be like you know what this is on me. I own this. Your number is my number, right, so I'm not going to yell at you. If you have a bad day, let's get in there and fix it, because everything is figureoutable. And then the second thing was the pandemic. I got this job three months before the pandemic.

Speaker 1 19:34

Yay.

Speaker 2 19:36

Four months before the pandemic, and so that was also another time where it was like you got chin checked super hard and I was. I was like, guys, we're going to go home. We're probably because we were part of like a test pilot, we didn't know we were going to be home home when we were sent home.

Speaker 1 19:52

So, guys, we're in New York City with a test pilot.

Speaker 2 19:56

Yeah for sure, and so I think the pandemic really helped us kind of trauma bond with each other and I still feel very close to them. But I think consistency is key. The leaders that I see, really especially the younger ones, the younger ones who are dumping their emotional stuff on their direct reports 23 year olds cannot do that right. They can also be totally consistent and totally mature. So I do think that, like for me, if I had a boss who was younger than me, experience wouldn't matter. It's just how do they handle a crisis right? Do they need everyone else around them to carry them in a crisis, or can they actually be consistent? And so I really wanted to pride myself as a leader on being the same person on a good day that I was on a bad day, because then people can really trust you, that like they can come to you with anything. I think that for me, would be how I would gauge a new leader is like their emotional maturity.

Speaker 1 20:56

Yeah, yeah. And again, that can come at any age. It doesn't necessarily come just with tenure or wisdom or chronological age. It can come at any age, at 23,. Html.

Navigating Parental Leave and Grief

Speaker 2 21:06

I was like a duck in a pond and I could see these people who were older than me had no idea and could not get it, but for me, building websites and apps and everything else that happened in the last 25 years, that was a lived experience for me. I didn't know any different or better, so I couldn't question it. I am too old now to have AI be a wholly lived experience where I'm going to vibe code something myself. Someone younger than me is going to be native to this right and the way that I was native to digital. That experience for them, that mindset, their ability to think more elastically that is a huge advantage in why someone could end up being above me. I can't do anything about that. I can't change my brain. I can't change the experience.

Speaker 2 21:59

Well, I would argue as a coach you can change your brain, but I'm upscaling, but I do think that, like you, can't unknow what you know.

Speaker 1 22:07

There's too many circumstances you can't change. So your choice is how do you want?

Speaker 2 22:11

to embark on this, but you can respect them for their ability to kind of think differently than you can. You know what I mean. And do they react? The right way is the leadership test, though.

Speaker 1 22:23

Yeah, so, going back to something you said earlier, when you're taking on some of these problems, I have to imagine there's more than one. So what was sort of the signal or the criteria that you use to decide? Okay, I lean in there, that one. If it's still an issue next month, I'll I'll tap that. But I gotta start here. How did what was sort of that internal criteria? And again, I know some of that's going to be specific to the company you work for, but I'm thinking about um takeaways for our listeners, like how do they sort of weigh?

Speaker 2 22:55

yeah, you should weigh in so I would like what is the biggest blocker? Right? So, like I know what I want to do and like what is the main thing preventing me from doing it Right? So I'm in my living room I didn't really like financial journalism and I wanted to launch a website, and what was the biggest blocker? I had no idea how to really launch and host a website, and this is before you had online services that would do it. So this is during LimeWire, I stole a copy of Dreamweaver. I went online, I learned Dreamweaver and then for three years I hand hacked a website out of my living room.

Speaker 2 23:29

But the big blocker was I don't know how to do this one thing, and I think that getting really good at understanding what is the very next biggest problem that you have. And so when I was at Esquire, the big blocker we had was that we had to migrate a website off of iVillage onto a custom platform Right, and so I couldn't, no matter how good my content plan was, right, and so what some people choose to do, that's like a path, right. I went and leaned in to make sure that the cms was on point and got there faster through my help and participation, so we could relaunch esquire. Other people would sit back and be like I have a content plan. These are the 16 writers I want to get on board. These are my blog posts, these are my rubrics. Where are you with the cms? I can't do my job until you do the cms. So so you have a choice, right, you can lean in and help them get there faster, even though it's not your job. And this is where I think that like this is in order for me to get to my thing and answers your other question from earlier. So that's another example, right.

Speaker 2 24:33

There was another time where it was I'm in product and I'm just supposed to do Epicurious and Bon Appetit and there was no one doing product at CNT or Architectural Digest, and they told me hey, you need to help out here too, right? And I could be like okay, I will, because you can't say no. But I could have just like paid them lip service. But Amy Astley is a great editor. I get to work with a great editor, let me go help her out. Pilar Guzman is a great editor, so I get to work with two more great editors. Understand how their brains work. You know what I mean. And so this is the kind of thing where you do have a choice in work whether or not you're going to lean in or lean out.

Speaker 2 25:09

And I find that a lot of people are so hypervigilant about the exact job description. A number of young people especially come to me. The job description, it's there to help hire, but after that it kind of goes away. You know what I mean, or at least it's not as literal as they want to make it, right. Right, it's not a scorecard.

Speaker 1 25:30

And hanging out with enough recruiters and HR people. On occasion, a lot of job descriptions are just ridiculous. Who wrote this? Did someone who actually work in the job write this? Or was this written by a third party? Like it's not necessarily directly impacting the business or the value that needs to be created?

Speaker 2 25:47

right or they're. They're so you know. It's sort of like if you had to do a job description for like husband, like I mean I guess. But it doesn't get into. Like you want, you like like what kind of husband you really want?

Speaker 1 26:01

Right, right, You're really going to fall in love. It's just the core. The core part is not that you want yeah.

Speaker 2 26:04

Right, exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1 26:05

Yeah, okay. So one of the things you and I have talked about before, it's sort of the job changes, pivots returnships, parents coming back after paternity and maternity leave that last one.

Speaker 2 26:28

What'd you say? That last one, paternity and maternity leave comebacks. That is real. No one talks about that, so talk about it.

Speaker 1 26:36

Tell us about that. Tell us, you have two.

Speaker 2 26:39

I have two, yeah, there are three and seven, almost seven when, when, when my youngest, arlo um, was born, coming back from that paternity leave, I had such imposter syndrome. I kind of always struggle with imposter syndrome, um, but like I actually had to go back to therapy, I got a therapist who also functions like a life coach a little bit, just to get my head on straight, because like, they're moving at this game speed that's like a million miles an hour and you're like sleep deprived and I already felt like you know, I'm with the best sales team on earth at conda and I've got two and a half years of experience, but you know it's like I don't rate and that was.

Speaker 2 27:23

that was really really tough. But I don't think people spend enough time talking about how hard it is to come back to work. It's almost way harder actually than just getting a new job and coming in fresh. It's so much harder.

Speaker 1 27:37

So, in addition to what you did for yourself, which I commend getting therapy or coaching and getting that support as a leader what would you tell other leaders to do for their team that's coming back from maternity or paternity leave?

Speaker 2 27:53

I think just an acknowledgement. I think a lot of people they acknowledge the birth of a child, but as someone who now had a couple of people like they, they acknowledge the birth of a child, but as someone who now had a couple kids, I'll be enough. It gets really hard to have a kid six months, precisely when you go back to work, right like the early days of it and again I'm the man in the relationship, so like there's a lot of physical healing that has to happen for women and I'm not short shrifting that but from like a parenting, child rearing, like there's not a lot of acknowledgement. That like actually six to 18 months is like super hard until they get a little bit more yeah.

Speaker 2 28:33

You know what I mean. And so I think there's so much acknowledgement of the pregnancy is hard and giving birth is hard or whatever. But I would just, as a leader I've just set them aside and be like, look, this is really hard period too. I know that you're juggling more now than you ever have. Like, I'm here for you, you know, and if you need to take a beat or you need to check out early or whatever and like, try to give them as much flexibility as your return to office, slash HR overlords will let you do is your return to office.

Speaker 1 29:03

Slash HR overlords will let you do. Yeah, and I'm just saying the same thing for grief, right, there's a difference between bereavement and grief.

Speaker 2 29:06

Right, you might need a couple of days off for the immediate impact of the death, but then there's also ongoing things that happen over the next months that you might need to do or deal with, and it's ways that we can also be be again real leaders, creating capacity for others totally I've lost both parents, right, including including my dad, like recently, a couple years ago, and I think one of the things like pay attention, pay attention to father's day or mother's day, right, pay attention if you're aware not the exact anniversary, you don't have to be that weird, but you know it was may last year.

Speaker 2 29:39

Yeah, check in at the beginning of the month just because may 1st. But, hey, I know you're coming up on this, you can't be wrong then, right, you either nail it exactly, but I do think things like that, like I think, are important, like how you doing. I know it was a year ago, yeah, like I, I just those types of thoughtfulness like you will be remembered by your people forever. But, moreover, like I don't know why I have to say this it's okay to be a human being at work and not have to be someone's best friend. Yeah, like there's a middle ground between we're going to share this intense moment and I'm going to overshare and tell you everything about my life, and, just like a quick check-in, that's like hey, I care about you, how are you doing? Yeah, yeah, and I think that people learning that like little light touch. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, and it doesn't have to be this.

Speaker 1 30:30

It doesn't have to be. I had so many. My brother tragically passed away last year and yeah, it was rough, thank you. And I've had people now say to me like I didn't want to ask you cause I didn't want to upset you and like I understand why that. But I also am like you're never, like I'm okay if I shed a tear in front of you because you asked me about my brother, like I'm not, I'm not, I don't know. I just I just feel like that's the point that you can be a human, as you say, and not necessarily be best friends, but we can find the compassion for others and the empathy for others and hold space for someone, and I think that's what we need more of in leaders. I mean, we came up well.

Leading Through Discomfort and Change

Speaker 1 31:16

I'll speak for myself as a Gen Xer coming up in a time where there wasn't flexibility and it was just grind it out. See you tomorrow. You know you have a big win one day. There's no coasting. What value creating in this next 24 hours, and for the good and bad of it. It made us tremendously successful and strategic, but it also I think a lot of Gen Xers then struggle with younger generations because they have a different work style, and neither is right or wrong. It's again creating that empathy and that capacity to allow people to succeed but also find ways to nurture them that still drives against. Whatever the goal is right, we are running a business, but but making sure that you're creating a space where people aren't in fear or panicked that they can't do their job because they're experiencing exhaustion. I mean, you have two kids. I imagine the second child is exponential, not just double, like all of a sudden Thursday you're coming in.

Speaker 2 32:14

I mean, I would say, like the role right, you're tapping on something that, like I did when I took over culture, and I've done it a number of times when I unified the US sales team at Condé as well your job as a leader is to create an ecosystem. Your job is to create weather right, it's not about points on the board. I need to create an ecosystem by which people feel comfortable taking risks, and to do that by checking in on them. They start to feel safe with you, right, and if they feel safe with you, then they'll run through a wall. That's this next generation of people, right? The previous generation of people. I'm a Gen Xer too right, it was like I don't care how you feel about it. I'm telling you to run through a wall, so run through the wall, right, I'm taking the risk. So you're taking the risk.

Speaker 2 33:00

That's really top down. It's really messed up, but I don't. I mean, listen, it is what it is. I don't think that it works now because all of the business models post-digital I think it's actually a digital thing that disrupted it. It's not so linear like I'm running a factory and it's literally a conveyor belt. That is straight. It's an ecosystem.

Speaker 2 33:22

Now there are too many moving pieces. It's not this vertically aligned industry, it's all horizontal, it's a mesh industry. It's all horizontal, it's a mesh. And so I think when you're dealing with a cross functional mesh, you have to create safety, that people feel like they can talk to each other, that they can be bottoms up.

Speaker 2 33:40

I don't think you can run these things top down and I think you look at some of our business leaders today that are trying to be super, super top down. They're not really getting the results right, like the. The leaders that and it's like that book, good and great. The leaders that actually do the best are the ones who are kind of anonymous, kind of soft-spoken, and everyone there feels pretty safe. So I think by checking in on people and you make them feel safe, they're going to be willing to take risks and if they don't take risks they can't succeed. So I think a lot of building buildings that have bad leaders who are very top-down pushing, no one in their day-to-day is taking many risks. They're kind of working to rule and then they're out.

Speaker 1 34:20

I think that's also been classified as soft versus hard power. They're pushing with hard power versus soft power of really understanding what teams and your customers need. All right, a couple more questions and then I will let you go. So in these times of like there's such major transformation, I mean I'm tired of kind of saying that we live in unique times. But if you think about you know you and I as digital neighbors coming into the workforce and you know I was there a couple of hours before digital happened and then creating that change and figuring out how do we integrate digital into publishing, um, and then eventually you know video. But thinking that through you've led during these times. How did you stay grounded and sane?

Speaker 2 35:04

uh, I didn't know that I always did. So we can start there. You know, I certainly had my moments. I think I had to be really honest with something like I hate change, I hate like instability, and I think just by continuously understanding that I am uncomfortable, you can be like, okay, well, discomfort is growth, and the thing I keep in my mind is like I do not like going to the gym, but if I go to the gym and I'm sore, it's because I went to the gym, which is good for me, yes, and so all of these things that I was doing, even though it made me uncomfortable, even though it was unpleasant, it was just growth, and I it got to a point where, after about 15 years, I could look back on how uncomfortable I was for all the stuff and I was like, oh well, this is my career. My career is being uncomfortable, and no one likes being uncomfortable, so you can't be surprised. So am I seeking something that I don't like? And I was like well, I like the outcome of when.

Speaker 2 36:06

I survived this uncomfortable moment and I was like, well, maybe that's just the trick, like you can be very upfront with yourself that I actually don't like change at all, but by being the person who's willing to undergo change and helping others undergo change, I was able to reframe it and being like well, if I can make it a little bit easier for everyone else around me, we can all go through it together. And so I wasn't a martyr, I was just an interpreter. I was just helping everyone else do the same thing I was doing. And then we were all equally uncomfortable and I kind of feel like that's been my trick is that I'm I'm able to be uncomfortable. I know it, I don't like it anymore today, whether it's public speaking or whatever. And I just even acknowledging that because I think so many people want their leaders to be like bulletproof or fearless, and I'm not, and I think that they feel the same way I do, and that makes it easier because we're all in it together yeah.

Speaker 1 36:59

So what I'm taking away from that is change.

Speaker 1 37:03

Well, things are going to happen either way and you can sit and resist it, and that's going to be uncomfortable exactly or you can do it and you're still going to be uncomfortable, but at least there's a shared learning or a shared outcome or a shared win with the people that you're doing with and you're pushing it through, versus staying in your dirty diaper and not and not creating any change you know, also, like I'm not sentimental, I mean, I love things, but I'm not I've I'm not somebody very sentimental which helps I love things, but I'm not.

Speaker 2 37:32

I'm not somebody who's very sentimental which helps me, because everything that we have done in our careers and I would argue it's been this way 250 years of the Industrial Revolution it's all a one-way door. It's all a one-way door. I used to joke that if you gave some of the early editors that I worked with a billion dollars, they'd invent time travel, not a better internet. They would just go back and replay the last 10 years. And so I just think that, like you know, tomorrow has to be better than today, right, like there's all the one way door. We're not going back. So it's sort of I like the way you put it, like there's just an inevitability of it. We're gonna have to do this anyways. So, but I do think the bad advice is like we'll get comfortable with it. Well, no, that's not helpful.

AI and the Future of Work

Speaker 1 38:15

But I don't think being comfortable at least I'll speak for myself I don't think being comfortable has really ever created the change. I'm not saying I'm an excruciating pain, but I don't think me being comfortable with the exception of, like, my yummy bed has ever delivered a result that I want to share or talk about or feel proud about. Right, it's that that itchy on the inside. Oh my God, that you figure out how to get.

Speaker 2 38:46

it's okay to be a little scared, especially at work. It's okay. You know what I mean. Like the stakes are lower than you might think sometimes, right, right.

Speaker 1 38:54

So you mentioned a little earlier on that you just finished a like mini AI MBA. Tell us what you're thinking about or onto next.

Speaker 2 39:07

I am loving. I'm advising a whole bunch of small companies. There's one called Edamom that is doing AI in the nutrition space and I just I have the time to learn and I think that's the other part of a good career You're always learning, even if you're the CEO of the company, you're going to learn. So I'm just learning and, like, AI was something I dabbled in but didn't have enough time to like actually think about, and so the way I learned was really by hands on. So I've been able to build my own GPTs and learn some ways to do it, and I need to know enough to be dangerous and I've gotten there.

Speaker 2 39:40

So I'm advising, you know, some early news startups, talking to people, consulting with a few companies, and you know, for me, I think it's been, it's been fun to just like talk to a whole bunch. I'm not I don't consider myself a great networker, Um, and so it's been great to just be able to network and spend a lot of time talking to people and listening and just learning again, Uh and so, yeah, there, there's a lot of really exciting things happening out there and this point of transition is, it's wild, the things that AI will do and can do. It's truly. It reminds me of 1999. Like you know, it cannot be understated enough.

Speaker 1 40:20

Yeah, and I would even just say, as you know, yes, I'm an executive coach, but I run a company and, as part of my company, there are and it's not content it does not write my content company there are and it's not content it does not write my content, but there are so many things that my economics and profit would not be the same if I had to approach it indifferently. So where AI has really helped me in ways it cannot emplace the human connection I still have people on my team, but it has definitely helped all of us in ways that I just I couldn't accomplish as much as I could, as lean as I am. Yeah, otherwise just wouldn't.

Speaker 2 40:59

People use mental models a lot to kind of make sense of things, right, it's like a way to be efficient thinkers. This is not hammer and nail at all, like this is so much bigger than that. This is like the discovery of germs or fire, you know what I mean. Like it's just conceptually on such a different level that I think that even now, right, like, oh, it transcribes my meetings. It's sort of like, oh, how cute, you know, but where it's really heading is somewhere very, very different than that. And again, this is why I have a lot of respect for people younger than me with plastic brains, like they're going to understand and get to that reality. First, my job is to support them. Right, because there's a whole lot of grownup stuff. I know that they don't, but there's a whole lot of future stuff they're going to feel that I can, and so my job is to help them with their feelings. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 41:54

And that's kind of the approach they have now is that, like people who are creatives or people who are innovators, need someone that they can lean on well as a support to make cogent business decisions, but also practical emotional ones. This is very stressful right now to try to grow this business because it's shifting too fast for anyone to keep up with in the stakes field.

Speaker 1 42:18

Well, it's trying to catch a falling knife right, that expression, it's like don't or do or no.

Speaker 2 42:24

Or grab a glove. You can't sit still. So we're definitely in the frothy petscom era of AI businesses. Sure, and you don't want to kind of have your hand in the sock puppet at the Super Bowl, but at the same time, I'm talking about petscom 25 years later. And they weren't wrong, they were just early. So I just again like the. The thing that has been super fun is I never thought I would grown up in the room and like, somewhere along the line you become a grown up. It's enjoyable. It's enjoyable and you know, the last few months have been great, just consulting and, you know, figuring things out. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 43:03

Well, Eric, I thank you for being here and for everyone. If you have questions, you can email me at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom. We will get them to Eric. We will bring Eric back because he's smiling and I know he'll come back and answer questions if you have them and, as always, embrace possibility, be intentional and kind. We'll see you soon. Thanks, Eric. Thank you.