This episode features an interview with Marla J. Albertie, Owner and Founder of Truth Speaks Group, a multimedia coaching company that helps women create strategies for work-life integration. She is also the Founder and President of I/O for Teens, a program that teaches adolescents transferable life and career skills. Marla is a certified life, career, and executive coach and has authored several books on work-life harmony. In this episode, Amanda and Marla discuss why cultural fit is a myth, how to brag about yourself, and what we’re getting wrong about DE&I.
This episode features an interview with Marla J. Albertie, Owner and Founder of Truth Speaks Group, a multimedia coaching company that helps women create strategies for work-life integration. She is also the Founder and President of I/O for Teens, a program that teaches adolescents transferable life and career skills. Marla is a certified life, career, and executive coach and has authored several books on work-life harmony.
In this episode, Amanda and Marla discuss why cultural fit is a myth, how to brag about yourself, and what we’re getting wrong about DE&I.
-------------------
“The reason I call myself the work-life harmonizer is because there's no such thing as balance. You're never going to be perfect. You’ve got to learn to harmonize. I say you have to integrate work and life because guess what? It is your life. Work is a part of your life. It is not separate. It is a part of what you do. You're a human being. Let's start there. Then we can talk about being a spouse, parent, mother, all those roles come later. You’ve got to first realize you're a human being.” – Marla J. Albertie
-------------------
Episode Timestamps:
*(02:14): Marla dives into her book The Ultimate Brag Book About Yourself
*(12:38): Segment: Story Time
*(19:21): Marla explains Truth Speaks Group and I/O for Teens
*(29:42): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(34:06): Why DE&I progress has slowed down and how to solve it
*(48:20): Segment: Ripped From The Headlines
*(48:37): Marla’s opinion on returning to work for the sake of culture
*(54:47): Segment: Asking For a Friend
-------------------
Links:
Connect with Marla on LinkedIn
Follow Truth Speaks Group on Instagram
Follow I/O for Teens on Instagram
Subscribe to I/O for Teens on YouTube
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Marla, thank you for joining me today.
Marla J Albertie: Thank you so much, Amanda.
Marla J Albertie: I'm excited to be here.
Amanda Berry: I'm excited to have you here. I love your energy. You've got like this energy that I just wanna nonstop talk to you, so I'm super excited about this. Yes. Let's just jump straight into it. You've recently released a book called the Brag Book, 100 Questions about How Awesome You Are.
Amanda Berry: First of all, I love that title. It's fantastic. Can you tell us what the book is about?
Marla J Albertie: Yes. So it is a journal. So the ultimate brag book. So let me give a little bit of context and background how that journal came to be. So by me being a certified career and life coach, I've coached, I don't know, I've lost count over 300 plus people in my 10 years of coaching.
Marla J Albertie: So my main niche audience is the nine to five working woman, helping her discover work-life, harmony, and integration, not work-life balance. I don't believe in balance, but through those coaching conversations I've had with these women, One thing that's been consistent and constant is that they don't find the value in themselves.
Marla J Albertie: They don't, you know, brag on themselves. You know, when I talk to them, you know, coaching is about strategic questioning, right? So as I'm asking them these deep questions, they have a hard time trying to figure out the goodness and the greatness on the inside. And one thing, as a coach for all those coaches out there in the world, we already know there's gold inside of you.
Marla J Albertie: 'cause who wouldn't took you as a client, right? So, but you have to know there's gold inside of you. So I said, you know what? I want to create fun, right? I'm a fun person, I like to have fun. So I wanna create a fun book that not only allows you to. Write down things that are awesome about you, but simply brag on yourself.
Marla J Albertie: Bragging is such a negative connotation. Now, I'm not speaking about Amanda. I'm not talking about, oh, you think you're better than somebody else, or being conceited. That's separate. That's something else. That's a whole other podcast, right? We're talking about just finding the value in the things that you like.
Marla J Albertie: When was the last time you wrote down your 10 favorite restaurants? When was the last time you wrote down 10 things you love about yourself? When was the last time you wrote down 10 companies that you could be c e o of? These are fun questions that I have inside my book, you know, and it is just a fun book.
Marla J Albertie: It is a hundred questions. I even left some pages in the back so you can think of your, some, your own questions for yourself. But I relaunched it back in January and people just love it. I have mother and daughters doing it. I, I had a couple of husband and wives talk to me about, say they wake up every morning and do a question each morning together, so, oh, that's so sweet.
Marla J Albertie: You know, so, yeah. It's just, that's why I got the book. I, that's why I wrote it. 'cause I want people to see their own value and realize that yeah, you matter. You don't have to wait for the world to tell you that what you want matters. What you desire matters. So I'll
Amanda Berry: put that in context for me. Why is it important to brag about yourself just even in, in the job professional context?
Marla J Albertie: Yeah, definitely. I'm glad you asked that because. Let's take an interviewing for an example. I just talked about this the other day on another podcast. So when you go to interview, right? So a lot of folks, this is something I have to coach people in career coaching, a lot of folks are going in, they're nervous, you know, they gotta ask the questions, you know, I'm gonna answer the questions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Marla J Albertie: So I say, well, what questions are you gonna ask them? Well, I don't have questions to ask them. I said, well, yeah, you're interviewing them too. They're not just interviewing you. It's a two-way streak here. So that none lets them know that you're interested. That lets them know that you have confidence and that you have expertise.
Marla J Albertie: That, hey, it's a pleasure for me to work for you, not for me to accept your job. Right? Right. So it needs to go both ways. He needs to go both ways. So you need to have that confidence, and if you make a list of things that you like, and you're consistently working on these things, I know everyone's not a big fan of affirmations.
Marla J Albertie: I am. Because what you say and speak to yourself matters, right? We're not asking people to be perfect. No one's perfect. We all make mistakes. We all have issues. That's fine. Even the c e O of the company you're applying for has issues. Everybody has issues, right? But what we want you to realize is if you don't see the value in what you're bringing to the table, how can someone else see it?
Marla J Albertie: If you're a leader of a team and you can't bring that value forward, how do you expect your team to do that if you're not doing it right? So, so that goes back to being able to make that list. A lot of times in my coaching sessions, if that's the first thing I ask people to do is make a list of, if you remove all obstacles from life, money, kids, family, spouse, whatever, remove everything, write down 10 things you would do.
Marla J Albertie: And you know how many people struggle with that? People struggle with that question. Right. Write down 10 things you would do. Because they don't take time to sit down and think and in in the work environment. You have to be able to sit down and be able to think critically and be able to take time. I believe it's Apple or Google.
Marla J Albertie: They give their engineers thinking time. Like it's literally a time that they can sit aside and think about projects that they wanna work on. I can't even
Amanda Berry: imagine. Yeah. I'm thinking time. Wait. You had mentioned when we started this conversation that women are really bad about bragging about themselves.
Amanda Berry: I know that I am, I know that I have a couple previous managers who would agree with that, but why do you think that is specifically like a problem that women have?
Marla J Albertie: Yeah. You know, I think the research is still out on that, right? I mean, there's tons and tons of research articles about this as to why women think this way.
Marla J Albertie: A few things that I've known, I've read through research is, number one is I. Women, obviously we're the, you know, we are the child bearer, right? So it was kind of built in our culture, in our nature to take care of. We're the caretaker, we take care while the men go out and go do the work, right? It's kind of been like that for years.
Marla J Albertie: You know, we're moving forward, right? You know, we, we have a female vice president, we're getting better, right? But that culture, that mindset still carries on. So I think this all started back in the day. That's where it all started from. But as we continue to move forward with that same mindset, men, let's just take our wonderful men counterparts as example.
Marla J Albertie: Men, it's been studies shown that on a job application, the job description can have lists of things a man will apply for that job. If there's 20% items that he can complete, or a task he can do 20%. This is a study, 20%. And then a woman though will wait for 80%, if not a hundred. We gotta be perfect before we can apply for that job.
Marla J Albertie: We gotta be dead perfect. But guess what? The man who applies, and for that 20% that only has a 20% of tasks that he can do, he'll get the job because of his, his confidence, because of how he thinks about himself. Women will get the job and then get on there and like, oh, I can't do it. There's even studies done where we'll get on the job and we'll quit within the first six to 12 months, within the first year.
Marla J Albertie: It comes from that mindset, but then also too, I have to add this extra point to it, there's a, a philosophy called the superwoman schema, and this is put on African American women. So not only do African American women, Have this same mindset, right? Where we're the caretaker, we're doing this, we do that, we're strong, but now we gotta be on, on top of all.
Marla J Albertie: We, we, now we gotta be strong. We gotta be super, we gotta, you know, we got, we have to have a degree. You know, African American women are the highest educated group of individuals in the country, but yet we're lowest. We're at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to work and pay, right along with our other minorities, uh, Hispanics and Latinos, right?
Marla J Albertie: Latinx. So, with that being said, is it adds extra pressure. So all that extra pressure on top, why would I wanna brag on myself? I got too much going on. I don't have time to think about the good things I do. I'm too busy trying to make sure I get this degree. I make sure I get this certification so they see me at the table.
Marla J Albertie: So when I'm at the table, do they hear me? And when they hear me, am I speaking loud enough so they don't overtalk me? So it's, it's issues on top of issues. On top of issues. And again, it all stems back from just tradition, if that's my personal opinion of that. Wow.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. That's really a great explanation.
Amanda Berry: When thinking about the book, I would, I would highly encourage all of our listeners to read it, but what are some key takeaways you would want people to know before they, they purchase the book or
Marla J Albertie: open it up? Yeah. So like I said, it's a journal, so that's the best part about it. It's not a, it's not a lot to read.
Marla J Albertie: Literally you're reading the introduction, then you're gonna start this obviously a table of contents and you're gonna go through and answer the questions. What I recommend folks do is it's not one of those books, you just start question 1, 2, 3. I'd say what I do, I open the book, just open up randomly to a question and start filling out the answers.
Marla J Albertie: So I want folks to know that when you get this book, be prepared to have fun, be prepared to answer questions you never even thought about. Asking yourself 10 things you love about your body. When was the last time you wrote that down? Never forever ly ever. Yeah. What 10 companies could you run? Right. How dare you put Apple on that list?
Marla J Albertie: You better put Apple on that list. Oh, Marla,
Amanda Berry: I'm gonna call you every day. You're such an inspirational person and you give great pep talks.
Marla J Albertie: Yeah, I mean, so this is what I want folks to realize when they opened this book, I want to be a book I joy and fulfillment for that person. You know, it, it warmed my heart when I told you, when I heard that the co, the couples were doing it together.
Marla J Albertie: I'm like, oh, they're so cute. You know, they're waking up in the morning and doing one question a day, and that's what they're doing. Just open up the book and just doing a question. And they sit there and they talk about the question with each other, you know? So I'm like, this is wonderful. This is what I want.
Marla J Albertie: Even when mother and daughters are doing it, not saying men can do the book. I've had plenty of men buy the book as well. Right. Obviously, like I said, my artist is a nine to five working woman, but I've coached multiple people, many people. And so when you buy this book, I'm asking you questions. You bet you may not wanna answer.
Marla J Albertie: I'm having to dig deep. Everything I do is intertwined into my coaching. Right. So those questions are gonna be like, oh, I don't, I never thought about it. That's the dinging ding ding. That's the whole point. Well,
Amanda Berry: when you just said like 10 companies you could run. I was like, I've never even thought about that.
Amanda Berry: And you said Apple. And I was like, I could never, because I'm trying to find an answer. Right, exactly. And it just kind of makes you think like, yeah, I'm not, I know personally, maybe our listeners have a similar experience. Yeah. I start off being like, I couldn't because as opposed to of course I could because
Marla J Albertie: Exactly.
Marla J Albertie: Right. And we remove the can't we have coaches. Right. And I, and I say this phrase almost every interview that I have, but it just resonates with me so well, when she told me, she said, whatever you believe, you're 100% correct. So if you can't, if you can't run Apple, then you, then you won't run Apple. You can't run Apple.
Marla J Albertie: If you can't do something that you can't, no one's gonna argue with you and you and your can't. But if you say you can though, Now we're opening up a can of worms. Now we're gonna challenge yourself. You know, when you say can't. Oh, okay, sure. Yeah. Not a problem. No, you can't. Let's move on to somebody else.
Marla J Albertie: So think about it.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I love that mindset so much. I'm gonna start, I'm gonna put it on a note card somewhere where I can
Marla J Albertie: see it. I can, I will.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, exactly. Instead of I, I couldn't because, or
Marla J Albertie: whatever. Right, exactly.
Amanda Berry: Well, let's move into our segment story time.
Marla J Albertie: Welcome to story time, story time, story time.
Marla J Albertie: Lemme give you a story.
Amanda Berry: You've given a great introduction of yourself, you train, you teach, you educate the nine to five working woman who wants success. On their own terms. What inspired you to have that mindset?
Marla J Albertie: Oh gosh. You know, I think it starts back to when I was a little girl. I loved telling the story. So when I was a young girl, I just knew I was gonna be a teacher.
Marla J Albertie: So I would teach my baby dolls. I had twin beds, so I would line the baby dolls up on the twin beds, and I would literally teach them, I would get a roll book. Back then, the day people, we had roll books in school. I don't, I don't know if they have those anymore, but we had roll books, and so I would get a roll book from one of my teachers, and I would write down their names and I would check them off.
Marla J Albertie: They would do recess, they would do, I would make worksheets for them. It you got like Raggedy Ann in there getting married? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was, oh, they all had names. Like it was a serious thing. Amanda, like, it was really serious. They had recess, they would go, I would take them outside and let them play.
Marla J Albertie: It was serious. Right. And so I always knew I wanted to teach. Train and educate. And then as I got a little older and I realized, okay, we have to work for money. We gotta actually become an adult and make money and pay bills. I said, okay, teachers don't make a lot of money. That's literally what I told my mom.
Marla J Albertie: I said, mom, they'll, they'll make a lot of money, so I'm gonna be an architect. I told, I said, I'm gonna be the first black female architect. So I've always had this mindset of doing grand things, but in the, also, while that was going on, while I wanna be a teacher architect, I also was. Always running some type of little business.
Marla J Albertie: So when I was in sixth grade, I started, I don't know if you remember, and I used to have, yes, have friendship bracelets. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: The the ones you would like make with like
Marla J Albertie: thread. Yeah. So back in the day when Kmart was open, I would save up my allowance. My mom would take me to Kmart around the corner, and I would buy yarn and I would sell for a dollar.
Marla J Albertie: And I made, I don't know, probably like 10, $11 a week selling these things. You know, that's a lot of money to a sixth grader. And so I would take that money and I would again put and reinvest it back into my business. Now, back then I didn't realize that was a business. I didn't realize that I was reinvesting.
Marla J Albertie: I didn't use the word reinvest back then. I'm like, I'm just gonna put it back in there and buy more yarn. Mom. Something else, me and mom and my girlfriends used to do, we used to color pictures. I think this when I was in fourth and fifth grade, this is when it was safe to be on the sidewalks. As kids I would, we would color pictures and I would sell the pictures for 10 cents.
Marla J Albertie: So I can go buy candy. So I've always had this drive inside of me that I can do whatever I wanted to do. Honestly. I mean, I don't know where that came from. I was
Amanda Berry: just gonna ask that Marla, like to hear you say, I'm gonna be the first black woman architect, like with such confidence. I was just gonna ask you like where does that confidence come from?
Amanda Berry: 'cause it sounds like you were really young when you were, you know, coming up and creating these bracelets
Marla J Albertie: and Yeah. Yeah. The bracelets were sixth grade. The pictures we were coloring, I was in fourth and fifth grade for that. Yeah. We would literally go knock on people's doors and go sell these pictures.
Marla J Albertie: Now they were just pictures out of a regular Dollar tree coloring book. Nothing special, but we just felt we had to sell 'em. 'cause we felt they were the best piece of artwork on the planet, you know? And I think I, I don't know if I had to guess where that drive maybe came from. My mom and dad, they worked right?
Marla J Albertie: They worked just like any other parents, right? They worked every day. And my mom was strict on me. She was really strict. She's like, do X, Y, Z, do this. And then I also had to. Have an allowance. So I had to work to get that allowance. So I understood the concept of work pretty early on. And my mom was one of those, my parents were both, were like, look, you're gonna at a 16 sister girl, you're gonna get a job.
Marla J Albertie: You know, whether you go to college, whether you, whatever you decide to do, you're gonna get a job. 'cause guess what? Nothing against parents who don't have their kids get dropped, nothing against that. But guess what? In the real world you gotta work. So I always had that concept of working and making my own, and having my own.
Marla J Albertie: So that kind of followed me on top of me being a Leo. So, you know, that's another thing too, right? So, you know, lions, you know, we're a little, you know, we're a little different, you know, so, so I think that just kind of followed me. And then, so to the architect piece, I took drafting in school, and so one of my drafting teacher came up to me and said, Marla, you're really good at this.
Marla J Albertie: Have you thought about being an architect? I said, no. But then he put the idea in my mind. So like, once the idea comes in my mind, I'm like, I Albert Einstein. Once I can imagine it, I can have it. In my mind, you know, and that's the type of person I am. I am not the type of person that is jealous because, or envious, because you have it.
Marla J Albertie: If anything, if you got on a night, that pretty pink shirt you got on there, Amanda, I'm gonna ask you, where'd you get it from? Because I like it. I like it. I'm not mad because you have it on, right? Because anything that someone else is doing, I can do too. That's the way I think. Now, do I wanna do it? Do I wanna go be LeBron James?
Marla J Albertie: No, I don't. But could I? If I wanted to, of course I could, but I don't want to do that. I don't. I'm not, I'm a basketball fan, but I don't wanna be basketball, you know? I'm just not good at that, you know? But again, so I think, again, it goes back to you thinking everything. And no one's perfect at this. Don't get me, don't get me wrong, Amanda, and no one's perfect at this, but I think everything goes back to mindset.
Marla J Albertie: That's why I'm really big on mindset. I don't know if you've read the book, uh, Carol, Dr. Carol Dweck, talking about mindset, your fixed mindset or your growth mindset. And fixes what we were talking about earlier. Can't, won't, will not. Growth is, well, maybe I can, well, let me try, let me, maybe I can do it. And that's what I challenge my clients to do when we're co, when I'm coaching them, I challenge them.
Marla J Albertie: I ask that challenging question. You wanna go exercise, right? You can't do 30 minutes. Okay. Can you do 10? Yeah, it's more than zero. Can you do 10? Can you, the question is, can you do 10? Right. And well, yes I can. Okay. When can you do it? Yeah. You know, so it's a matter of, again, thinking, thinking, what can you focus on?
Marla J Albertie: What can you do instead of focus on what you can't do? So I've always had that mindset, and like I said, I don't know where it came from, but it's kind of always been there. I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I think, like I said, maybe it's watching my parents how hard they worked. And I never wanted for anything, you know, I never wanted for anything growing up.
Marla J Albertie: And as a child, you know, I think I would hope maybe all children want to be able to take care of their parents and pay that forward so I could, my dad can say he's spoiled. He's a little spoiled, you know? So, but it, it's a joy of mine. I don't, I don't mind it at all. And let's not sit here and say I don't have any, I haven't had any heartaches, right?
Marla J Albertie: Yeah. We all have had heartaches and irritations in life and those, that's part of life. Life is a journey. It's a journey and a book. And you gotta be the, off of your book. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: I mean, I know I personally learned more from failures. You're learning. Yeah. I think that's a growth mindset. What did I do wrong?
Amanda Berry: How could I have improved? Yeah. And then I move on. I take that with me. Exactly. Yeah. Let's talk about, you're the owner of Truth Speaks Group. I wanna hear about that. So you coach women on Worklife harmony and integration. I know you said you didn't like work-life balance. So can you tell us about Truth Speaks Group and what women are taught when during these sessions?
Amanda Berry: Yes.
Marla J Albertie: The title is Truth Speaks Group, L L C, and what we do is we create solutions for the nine to five working women to have work-life integration and harmony. Why I chose work-life integration Harmony, because 99, I say 99. 99% of my clients I've walked in their shoes. Whether it's been a man, woman, or both, I've walked in their shoes or I'm walking in their shoes so I can relate with to them.
Marla J Albertie: You know, I have a coaching philosophy, S E U Q, social Strategic. I'm very strategic with the questions I ask you. Empathy. Which is the e I'm walking in your shoes unscripted. I don't have a script in front of me. I'm feeding off of what you're saying. I've been trained to listen to what you're saying and what you're not saying, and of course the queue was questioning.
Marla J Albertie: So I take that philosophy and I apply that to each one of my clients, and every client is different. So with me, I, I offer three coaching packages throughout on the, out on the website. But also with that coaching. Then there's some companies who want consulting. So I'll offer, also offer IO consulting, which is an industrial organizational psychologies con consulting.
Marla J Albertie: And that is basically the study of workplace behavior or human workplace behavior. And I'm currently in school with my PhD in IO psychology, which is how I founded my nonprofit IO for Teens, which were teaching teenagers those skill sets. 'cause everyone needs those skill sets. Also, when my coaching, I offer training, so I have a, it's a list of training classes out there.
Marla J Albertie: I can speak a lot of my leadership assertiveness, a lot of that. I can do all types of training courses. I've done plenty of those. I've done a lot of workshops, webinars, seminars, stuff like that. So what the women are learning is they're learning how to really move forward and love on themselves because they don't realize how much they don't do that.
Marla J Albertie: And the reason I say I call myself a work-life harmonizer is because like I said, there's no such thing as balance. Right. You are never gonna be perfect. So you gotta learn to harmonize. I'm, I hate when I hear people say, oh, you're at work. Leave that at home. Well Marla, the same person that lost scrappy last night, I had to lay my dog down.
Marla J Albertie: Scrappy. It's the same. Marla's gonna come to work. Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Can't something like that, you can't really check at the door.
Marla J Albertie: Yeah. Even when we have bereave, which I don't understand bereavement days, but 'cause why is the company telling me how long I can grieve? Right. So, but I get it. We can't, you can't take 18 months off 'cause someone passed away.
Marla J Albertie: I understand that. Right. So, but we have, we give them five days bereavement. Okay. Example, we'll give them five days for a mother, father, sister, daughter's child. Right. But then we'll give them two days for grandmamma. 'cause grandmamma wasn't as important as mom and dad. Who, why are we making that decision?
Marla J Albertie: I don't understand companies. But with that being said, though, They come back to work just because they're back to work, they're still grieving, right? So you gotta think about these things in terms of the person and what are they really dealing with and how can they move forward? And I just don't like that separation.
Marla J Albertie: So I say you have to integrate work and life. 'cause guess what? It is your life work is a part of your life. It's not separate. It is a part of what you do. Being a parent is a part of what you do. And one thing I start off in my coaching sessions is, remember you're not a woman or male or they, or whatever you identify as.
Marla J Albertie: You are a human being first. That's what you are. First, you're a human being. Let's start there. Then we can talk about being a spouse, parent, mother, all those roles come later. You gotta first realize you're a human being. And I try to remember that every time I'm dealing with workers or dealing with people in the workplace, because so many times, leaders is what I try to teach leaders all the time.
Marla J Albertie: Leaders don't realize they're dealing with human beings. They think they're numbers, the machines, and they're gonna spit out this widget every 15 minutes. 'cause I told 'em to, even though they just came back from burying their grandmother, but they, they had two days off. So they should be good. They should be good to go now.
Marla J Albertie: So let's get back to work. And that's not how you harmonize your life. Leadership plays a huge part in that. And, and being able to harmonize your life, you gotta say, okay, it's about boundaries. Really, that's what harmonization is. It's about boundaries. Where can you say no? Where can you block? And I always tell folks on their phones, where are you on your calendar?
Marla J Albertie: Where are you at? Where are you on the calendar? A lot of folks don't schedule time for themselves on the calendar. It's the kids, it's the spouse, it's the family, it's the, it's work, it's all this stuff on your outlook. Well, okay, you are legally allowed to take a 15, 2 15 minute breaks a day, and you're legally allowed to take at least a, a minimum 30 minute lunch a day.
Marla J Albertie: But how many of us do that? Right? Not many. Not many, but you're legally allowed to do that. And you cannot be yelled at or reprimanded for doing that. But again, we feel we owe the workplace something, which we don't, right? Because we're literally exchanging hours for dollars, hours for dollars, hours for dollars.
Marla J Albertie: And I was talking to another podcaster about this the other day, about the quiet quitting, right? Well, that's not new. That's been going on a long time. They just put a name to it, right? But when you start doing that, exchanging hours for dollars, and you start realizing that you're replaceable. 'cause you are replaceable, then you start saying, okay, wait a minute here, I do have value.
Marla J Albertie: Where's my value at? So this is how I can harmonize these things together. I can leave work today at five o'clock. Not every day. You may not be able to, but I can leave work today at five o'clock and I can go to my son's baseball game. I don't have to do that report. That report. The building is not gonna burn down if I don't do that report.
Marla J Albertie: So that's an example of harmonizing your life. You know what? I do have an appointment to get my nails done today at six 30. I'm not gonna call her and reschedule. I'm going to my appointment today at six 30. That's harmonizing your life. It's putting you on your calendar.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I love that. I feel like something you said a little bit ago that I wanna call out.
Amanda Berry: 'cause I think one of a really key component here. Is, you mentioned the IO for Teens. Right. And instilling this in people at a very young age. 'cause I hear time and time again when as I meet professionals, it's talking about their first job after college. They kind of like toxic bad behavior that they just, you know, kind of stay quiet 'cause it's their first job.
Amanda Berry: They didn't know what to do. They don't know how to set those boundaries. They don't know how to harmonize their life and they don't wanna make a wave, they don't wanna get fired, they wanna build their career. So I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about this IO for Teens, because I think that's such a critical component in because they're, you're preparing them for the world of work, you know, building their confidence, building skills, helping set boundaries.
Amanda Berry: I'm wondering if you could just tell us about that program and just, you know, how it's going, what teens are learning.
Marla J Albertie: Yes. Oh my gosh. So, so I like to tell the story. I love telling the story. So one day I'm driving down the road and I said, how will teenagers. Learn the concept of IO psychology. So I went home and I Googled it.
Marla J Albertie: I Googled teenagers in IO psychology. I literally put it in the search bar. Only thing that came up was college programs. Well, I said, teenagers aren't in college, right? So I said, okay, awa, I gotta create it. Right? That's what entrepreneurs do. So we have four objectives. My first objective is to create a curriculum for eighth through 12th grade.
Marla J Albertie: I said eighth grade, because that's that timeframe they're getting out of the middle school. They're heading into high school. So it's time to get serious about life a little bit, right? So I said eighth through 12th grade, I wanna, we wanna create a curriculum based off of these principles. Right now we have 11th and 12th grade built out because as you know, it takes time to build out curriculum.
Marla J Albertie: We just started back in August of 2022 and I mean, we are rolling. It's crazy right now. We have a contract with one, a local organization here in Jacksonville, team Leaders of America. We're teaching their summer program and we're gonna be going into the schools through Team Leaders of America teaching in two schools over this upcoming school year 23 and 24.
Marla J Albertie: So, super excited about that. The next objective is we're a small group, right? So we can't teach this all the time, so we need to create some type of teacher certification or facilitation certification where. People can go out and be a certified IO for Teens facilitator. So we gotta work on that. That's on the docket for 2024.
Marla J Albertie: Then we have two funds. We have our scholarship fund and our community fund scholarship fund is, is just that for those who wanna go to school, get some type of scholarship and community fund are, 'cause we're not here. We're not here to force kids to go to school. That's not where, we're not here to make you go to college.
Marla J Albertie: That's not what we're here to do. We're here to hear what you want. Right. And how to help you get there. 'cause regardless of whatever you wanna do, you still gotta work with people. That's the whole concept. You still have to work with people whether you go to college or not. So an example of something we did with the community fund was we had a young lady.
Marla J Albertie: We were able to adopt, quote unquote adopt last December for Christmas. And we were able to raise enough money to buy her iPad, 'cause she wants to do some type of digital work, drawing and artwork. So that's where the community fund will come into place with the actual curriculum. So the curriculum is broken down to five classifications.
Marla J Albertie: Those are chasing your dream, discover your dream, living up to your potential. Don't get caught up in different places, different faces. And within those five you, we have a breakdown for each. So basically we can go teach the whole thing, the whole shabam, or we can teach 'em in those classification blocks.
Marla J Albertie: So right now it's, we're moving along. We, like I said, we just started working it out, getting everything done. And so far the kids are loving it. We teach every Wednesday. Oh my God. The kids are, I think they're loving it so much, Amanda, because we're asking them what they want. In school, they're not asked that question in school.
Marla J Albertie: They're told they gotta learn science, biology, astronomy, whatever. Right? We're asking them to, again, using that coaching, we're asking them to think about the future, think about their careers, think about what it takes or what they need to do to get to where they need to go. Entry points, what entry points does it take to get to this career?
Marla J Albertie: What do you have to do? Who do you have to talk to? These are skills that they need to have now, not when they graduate college. It's too late. Well, it's not too late. But they need 'em now. They need 'em now.
Amanda Berry: I love that program of like sitting down and talking to teens and saying, well, I mean the whole program's fantastic.
Amanda Berry: 'cause you're right. I mean, you found this huge gap of when they're young and you know, right at that perfect age. You know, you're eighth grade, you're a kid, but you're not so little. You're not gonna start to like really find passion in this. And like you said, if it's. Blue collar, white collar. If you're working on a fishing vessel, if you wanna go to the Navy, whatever you wanna do.
Amanda Berry: These skills seem really transferrable. I I, again, taking care of yourself, setting boundaries, all of that. That's awesome. I'm gonna move us into our next segment, getting tactical.
Producer 1: I'm
Marla J Albertie: trying to figure out tactics, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't have to worry about tactics too much. Here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics, tactics, T.
Amanda Berry: I wanna talk about culture and leadership. So let's just, I mean, we're kind of taking a different direction on this, but I wanna talk about, because you're very in tune to what's happening in the workplace. Just looking at where we're at post pandemic and all this stuff has happened like in the past few years.
Amanda Berry: What are we doing wrong when it comes to establishing a good culture of work? Because I think that really feeds into that whole like harmonizing your work life harmony. So what are we doing wrong that when it comes to establishing a good culture of work? Yeah.
Marla J Albertie: Oh my gosh. So I know we don't have a lot of time here, Amanda, so I could talk about this all day long.
Marla J Albertie: So culture starts with leadership, right? It starts at the top, right? So whatever that leader, that C E O C O O, whomever, c F O, whomever, whatever they are doing is going to trickle down. It's gonna trick. That's where it starts at, right? So I don't like when I hear what we're trying to make sure they fit into our culture well, let's look at the root word of culture cult.
Marla J Albertie: Right. So I mean, it is, that's, I mean, I didn't, yeah, no, you're not
Amanda Berry: wrong. I just had never thought about it that way. Yeah. What you're
Marla J Albertie: trying to do is you're trying to get people to understand your way of doing something, right? So when people come in and shake that up, sometimes there's a problem with that.
Marla J Albertie: But a true and good leader will look at that and say, well, maybe we do to shake it up a little bit. Maybe we do need to change. Maybe these people that we're bringing in, this is a new generation. Maybe we need to think a little bit differently. We didn't work from home all the time. Now we're working from home.
Marla J Albertie: We need to adopt that. We need to keep up with the trends, so what's going on. So true leaders gonna pay attention to that, and they will shift the culture. They will change the culture if need be. But culture is all about folks watching. 'cause someone's always watching you. I tell people this all the time.
Marla J Albertie: Someone's always watching you. They're always paying attention to you. Those worker bees, those frontline leaders, those frontline supervisors, the even the directors or whomever, They're watching what those leaders are doing. So if you have a leader that's coming to work, a chief that's coming to work with their hair back, or, you know, suit and tie every day on a Zoom call, then guess what?
Marla J Albertie: That's gonna, the, the culture's gonna, it's gonna feel like I gotta do that too. They're gonna feel like they have to do it too. But if you have, where you have a culture where they can wear the, the c e o gets on a call and he has on a t-shirt and, you know, he has on and, and some jeans, it's okay because that's the culture that he's leading.
Marla J Albertie: So you have to set that example up front. And either one is fine, right? But you have to think about what is it your company is doing, right? What is a product that your company is selling? What is a problem your company is solving, whether it's a healthcare, whether it's coaching, whether it's training and development, whatever.
Marla J Albertie: And, and how does what you're doing fit into that realm, right? Instead of you trying to make someone fit into your culture, right? Because, 'cause all the time. Just because you don't have that culture fit. What, what is that? I don't know what that culture fit is. If you're looking for someone to come in and change something and make things happen for you.
Marla J Albertie: 'cause that's what, that's why people hire people is because they have a problem, right? You're there to solve a problem. And if you want 'em to solve a problem, are you worried about them solving the problem? Or are you worried about them fitting your culture? Which one is which? Because I, they might not be able to do both.
Marla J Albertie: They can probably solve the problem, but they may wanna have their hair locked up. Is it a problem? Is it a problem? Right? Or they may want to have the nose ring right here. Is that a problem? Is that a culture problem? Is that gonna rock your cultural world? Or are they really good at what they need to do and they can solve the problem?
Marla J Albertie: Right? So, so leaders need to think differently. I think it's about thinking differently and, and stop looking at the nose rings. I get it. Trust me. Some areas you gotta be, I. Truly professional and not have this, and not have that. Not saying the nose ring's not professional, whatever. I want one. Right. You know, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying I, I want people, I want leaders to start thinking differently.
Marla J Albertie: Start looking at the outside of people and what can they bring to the table.
Amanda Berry: It feels like a part of that comes from like de and I, right? Like. So I'd love to talk to you about that because I feel like it's not a trend, right? I mean, what you're saying is that it has to be super integrated into every piece.
Amanda Berry: Society of Diversity, having all kinds of people at the table, all different kinds of opinion, equity, same access, the whole deal. But it, it feels like, you know, I had a big push for a while and it feels like it's really starting to sort of like die off again. Like we've just sort of forgotten the importance of it.
Amanda Berry: And I'm wonder if you could talk about what the holdup is or why you think it's slowing down. Oh
Marla J Albertie: gosh. Another conversation we can talk about. So you just said it. You just hit it dead on the nail there. De and I is not a trend. Diversity, equity inclusion is not a trend. It's been around for years, you know, when certain things happen.
Marla J Albertie: Events happened back in 2020 and 2021. Those events weren't new. Those type things have been going on for years, but it sparked, I think people are like, you know what, I'm tired of this bss. I'm tired of it. So some people said, you know what, I'm gonna do something. Some companies went out and hired Chief Diversity Officers.
Marla J Albertie: Some companies developed d e and I departments, or if they had D e I apart department, they put more money into it. They made announcements, they did this and they did that. Which is fine, which is good, right? But there has to be action behind it. There has to be value put into it. You mentioned something very key there, Amanda.
Marla J Albertie: I think it has fallen off because people don't wanna change. People think DE and I means color of skin. People think de and I means degree. The amount of smarts you have, de and I, diversity, equity, and inclusion is about. All of that. Yes, it is about color skin, it is about the degree, but not only those things, those are just two small aspects of diversity.
Marla J Albertie: Right? We talked about this in our, one of our sessions that we did for the io, for teens. We do video sessions and it's out there on, on our YouTube channel. Go subscribe. So you could have four people, or five, five people that went to Harvard and one can be African American, one can be Latinx, one can be well Caucasian, and one can be Asian.
Marla J Albertie: Okay. You said, well, I'm diverse. Are you? Y'all went to Harvard. Harvard, y'all know the same thing. So again, someone, a company will say, well, well, we just hired all four of them. They're diverse. We've checked that off the box. No, y'all went to Harvard because if they all went to Harvard, we're gonna go ahead and assume that they had a great life growing up and they were good.
Marla J Albertie: You know? What about the Caucasian kid that grew up in the trailer park? But he's smart as hell and he was a great football player. What about his perspective or what about the African American that grew up in a middle class neighborhood and went to a middle class school and a middle class college, but is now the tech genius?
Marla J Albertie: What about that person? Well, so again, it's all about the perspective and bringing all of that in the mindset of thinking differently. That's what in inclusion is. Inclusion is how can I be at the table? And you hear me, we talked about this earlier, right? How can I be at the table and you hear me? I wanna be included, right?
Marla J Albertie: Here's an example I use for equity. Oh my gosh. So here in Jacksonville, we're split up. We're north side, east side, west side, south side. And one thing I've noticed, and people can agree with me on this, one thing I noticed here on the south side, I noticed a pothole will get filled really quickly when I go to the north side.
Marla J Albertie: A pothole will not, I can go to north side three times in a year. That same pothole will be there. That's not equity. That's not equity and diversity, what we just talked about. Diversity is a mired of different things. A mired of religion, a mired of color of skin, a mi of degrees, a mired of background.
Marla J Albertie: Right. Just because you have the black person on your team and he's a, and he's a male of, of all females, that doesn't mean you're diverse. That's what you call tokenism.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Do you think it would help if organizations defined what that, what de and I meant to them, and outline a real strategic plan, like, you're gonna create all this programming and do certain things, you're gonna do these two things, but what does that actual outcome, 'cause it feels like you're right, there's a bit of a disconnect.
Amanda Berry: Is it just mean you're gonna bring in speakers of Right, you know, people of color who will then, right. You know, like help people understand their experience? Like what does that look like? What is the solution for right in your mind to help the actual problem that exists
Marla J Albertie: change? Yeah. So I think the solution is, it starts with find the people who are skilled in it and who are passionate.
Marla J Albertie: The reason I say skilled and passion is because a lot of times we'll throw people into something and say, oh, I'm real passionate about that. I really wanna do that, but they have no idea, you know, what's going on, right? So it's kind of like an insult to the folks who are the skilled people you have, you have skilled d and i professionals out there that you can hire to bring in, right?
Marla J Albertie: So, so make sure the person is skilled in that they understand they, they've done the study, they've done the research behind it, but then also make sure their passion, I think has to be both. It can't just be one, one, uh, the other, right? Also, on top of the skill and the passion, make sure that leadership is supporting them, because if leadership, again, hate to go back to forth with leadership, but if leadership is not supporting these changes, the leader has to want to see change.
Marla J Albertie: Leader has to want to say, you know what, it's all white males at this table. They have to say it out loud. They'll say it. There's all white males that are over 50 at this table. There's all white females that are over 50 at this table. There's all black females over 50 at this table, right? You have to be bold enough, like, like, like our wonderful Brene Brown says, where's your courage?
Marla J Albertie: Where's your courage to sat? Something's not right here. Be able to stand up and say, I'm, you're a leader. I don't like this. Let's shake this up. Let's have a conversation. Don't be afraid to have the conversations. Don't be afraid to have the conversations, and I think that's where it starts, that you have to, nothing happens outside of a conversation.
Marla J Albertie: Nothing happens outside of talking if you don't have the conversation. And please don't ask black people, or don't ask Asian people, or don't ask LGBTQIA plus, don't ask them what can we, how can we help you? Who said, You have to accept them. They have to accept you. They've already accepted you, right?
Marla J Albertie: They've already accepted they're working there, right? You have to say, okay, you know what? I can work with them. That person's funny. They're happy. They're a great person. I see their skin color, but I don't judge them by their skin color, which is again, one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my life.
Marla J Albertie: But it is sad that we've had to deal with this in 2023. You know, Mark Martin Luther King is probably turning over in his grave because we're still dealing with this mess, right? But I think it starts with leadership, being compassionate about it, getting this right, skilled people in there. Don't just make up an initiative and just say, Hey, this is a DDE and I initiative, and throw people in there that wanna volunteer.
Marla J Albertie: Where's the experts? Bring in the experts. Hire them if you need to. If you need to bring in a C D O, a Chief Diversity officer, then dad, go ahead. Bring one in and make sure they have the autonomy. I'm studying this in my research. Have the autonomy to do so. If you're gonna drive them and make them do everything that you want 'em to do, then what's the purpose?
Marla J Albertie: What is the purpose? If you're gonna put these numbers out here and say you're gonna do this, and say you're gonna do that, then stand behind us. Stand behind your leaders. Yeah. Stand behind your people.
Amanda Berry: I feel like we've heard that a lot that, you know, from companies saying diversity, equity, inclusion are our top priority over the past couple years, but then, you know, they don't really progress.
Amanda Berry: Right.
Marla J Albertie: What does that mean? I mean, and it may be their top priority. I'm not saying that it isn't. I, I can't speak for every organization in the world, obviously, you know, but I think it's really, to me, Amanda, diversity, equity, inclusion, de and i is about putting your mouth where your money is. Right?
Marla J Albertie: Seriously. You say you wanna do it, let's get down to it. Let's have the ongoing training. Let's understand what really is a microaggression. Right? Well, what is that? Because microaggressions are subtle. You can't really get arrested for 'em. You can't get in trouble for 'em, you know, but they're, they hap they happen every day, all day long, and people get exhausted from that mess.
Marla J Albertie: So why, why are we allowing it? Let's have the conversation be bold enough and courageous enough to have the conversation. But after you have the conversation, do something and continue to do something. It's not a trend. Continue to do something. Continue to grow that department. Continue to have people speak out, right, and learn and develop.
Marla J Albertie: Stop saying you're gonna throw money at it. No. Do something about it. Yeah. We continue to do something
Amanda Berry: fundamentally make a change. Yep. Make I get it. Yeah. I honestly was gonna say, well, it's not rocket science. And then I remembered you have a new book that you're working
Marla J Albertie: on. Oh my gosh, yes. My new book I'm working on is Leadership is Not Rocket Science.
Marla J Albertie: 10 Strategies to Be the Best Leader You Can Be. And I'm actually just did the outline for it the other day. I'm like, oh my God, this is gonna be so juicy. You know? I'm so excited. You know? But leadership is not rocket science. Lemme tell you the number one component for leadership, Amanda. Number one component for leadership.
Marla J Albertie: I don't care if you wanna be a C E O to climb a corporate ladder, the number one component for leadership is people. You have to like them. I know it sounds like, you know, rocket science, right? It it sounds like it's something that NASA should be working on. Right? But no, it's, you gotta like people, you don't have to be bubbly like me.
Marla J Albertie: You don't have to. You don't have to. You know, it's okay, but you gotta like people, yeah, you're gonna lead them because you're not a leader unless someone's following you. If no one's following you, if no one's listening to you, who are you leading? And I talked about this the other day on the podcast. If I come in in the morning and I'm on my Zoom calls, one thing I used to do with my team every morning without fail, I emailed them good morning, or I sent them a funny meme or a funny little thingy just to say, good morning.
Marla J Albertie: Just show them I'm a human being. Now. Am I telling them my life story? No, we're not saying you have to do that. I mean, come on. There's HR guidelines here. You can't dig in to tell everything going on in your life. Come on. People use common sense, right? But it doesn't hurt to say good morning. It doesn't hurt to say when they got back from that vacation, hi, did it go?
Marla J Albertie: Tell me about it. Did you guys go camping? What happened? It's okay to ask these questions. How many leaders do not do that? I've interviewed quite a few of them and I've coached some of them. They're like, I've never asked my team. How they're doing. Well, why not? Why haven't you ask your team that? Right?
Marla J Albertie: Leadership is about the people. It is not about you getting your title, which is cute. It's cute to put on your CV and your resume. That's nice, but it means nothing if no one is following you. If no one's listening to you. Leadership again is not rocket science. It is not, but we make it so hard. We make it so hard, and we make it about numbers, and I get it.
Marla J Albertie: I get it. I've been an entrepreneur a long time. I understand businesses need to make money, but guess what? A business can't make money without who? People dinging, dinging, dinging, dinging, dinging, right? Yeah. They can't make money about other people, so it matters how you treat them. That's why I'm so passionate about workplace behavior.
Marla J Albertie: That's why IO psychologists is why we study this because people behave how they're treated. Right. So if you treat them a certain way, they're gonna behave a certain way. I gave this example the other day about Amazon. I did some training for Amazon a few years, a couple years back, but like three, four years back.
Marla J Albertie: And they have these programs where, for the warehouse workers, those who are putting together those boxes that we order every 15 minutes, right? They have these programs where they can go be a IT person, they can go do all types of other type trades. Now you're thinking, why would Amazon pay for employees who work in a warehouse to go learn about it and all these other things?
Marla J Albertie: Aren't they afraid that they would leave? Amazon says, you know what, if we can invest in our employees, And give them another skill that only not helps them as Amazon. Number one, those employees might stay, which is, which the research has shown that they have stayed. You know, most of them stay, and if they do leave, they leave.
Marla J Albertie: But Amazon is like, you know what, it's okay if they leave. It's okay. At least we, we've taught them something. We can't be afraid to invest in our employees. We can't be afraid to help them and develop them. That's what leaders are supposed to do. Now, is it our responsibility to make sure that they do it, do what they have to do?
Marla J Albertie: You have to create your own career. Now, I tell everyone this, you have to create your own career. Don't wait for your manager or your boss to, to coach you if you want coach, and ask them, right? But as, but then that leader has to come back and say, yeah, okay, let's set it up, set up the times on my calendar.
Marla J Albertie: Let's get these coaching sessions going. Let's do it. You know? Now if the co now if the leader says, no, they never have a problem. Right? But I said, I use that Amazon example as a, as a key as. How are you leader of organization? How are you investing in your employees? Are you afraid if you invest this, they're gonna leave?
Marla J Albertie: So what?
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I've always said I wanna invest as a, in a place as an employee that would invest in me as an employee.
Marla J Albertie: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. They're investing already in you. Yeah, right. So why don't you employee, employer invest in them and if they leave, they're gonna leave anyway. Most companies are at will companies, I don't know any companies that are not at will, meaning you can up and leave when you want to.
Marla J Albertie: Right? So what's the problem? Right? But this, the results have been shown is these employees say, you know what? Wow. You know what? I can go be in, I can go get this it. I can go from the warehouse to it and still, and guess what? Amazon needs it workers. So that's what they go do, right? So it's about thinking differently, and I am one of those type, I'm not the traditional leader.
Marla J Albertie: I do think differently. I put my people first. I think about rules and the guidelines and regulations. I think about all that. However, I also think about. It's people that make these rules and guidelines, regulations. So if you have a HR guideline or rule who made it? Can you change it? No, no. I'm not talking about state laws.
Marla J Albertie: We do have to follow state laws with certain things. That's common sense. But if you made the policy of wearing a tie every Zoom meeting, can you change that policy? Yeah, you can. It's not rocket science. We make things so much harder than what they have to be.
Amanda Berry: So I wanna move to our next summit called Rip from the headlines.
Amanda Berry: You hear the news actually, xray read all about it. Our
Marla J Albertie: stories ripped from
Producer 2: the headlines,
Marla J Albertie: ripped from the headlines from.
Amanda Berry: So I, I wanna continue talking about this, you know, the way we treat employees, because I think that's super duper important. One of the things we haven't touched on really yet is the notion of returning to work for people who are able to work from home during the pandemic.
Amanda Berry: Now we know that was, you know, mostly like white collar knowledge workers and you know, if you work, you know, blue collar, you weren't able to. But I wanna focus just on that. When you're able to work from home during the pandemic and this notion of returning to work for the sake of our culture, what is your response to that
Marla J Albertie: trend?
Marla J Albertie: Yeah, so it is hard for some folks, a lot of people when they quote unquote, return to work, right? You. I think you have to think it's two parts, right? The first part is you gotta think about the aspect of returning to work, right? How are we doing this? Are we doing this every day? You, are you expecting these folks to come in every single day like they were before?
Marla J Albertie: Or are we kind of easing them in? That's the second part. I think it's better for people, for leaders to ease these folks in. Because you gotta remember, we shook their world up, right? By sending them home. Now they have to work with kids. They got pets. The dogs are looking at 'em like, wait a minute, here you're, you're home again.
Marla J Albertie: You're home again. You're home. I've seen cats walking across Zoom calls. Yeah. So they're like, why are you here? So we shake it up, we send them home to deal with all this stuff to teach the kids, right? They gotta become teachers, right? And then now, oh, come on back in guys. Well, let's pause for a moment.
Marla J Albertie: And I suggest asking, what do they want? Is it mandatory that they be in there in the office? Does the job really require that? Now some jobs do, obviously warehouse. I get it right? Some jobs do require that. And I understand some companies have buildings that they're renting space from or that they own.
Marla J Albertie: And I get that. I understand that. But how can, so let's think outside the box. How can that building be repurposed? How can that build? Can you sell the building and take that money and put it back into your employees, right? And leave and send them equipment to work from home, to work better from home.
Marla J Albertie: Send those some ergonomic chairs. If you're renting a place, can the lease be broken? Is it worth you spending the waste? You know, you may lose some money if you break the lease, but how is it gonna help your employees in the long you think long haul, long time, long in, in the future, right? Oh, well, we'll, you know, us breaking that lease as an organization, you know, we'll lose a hundred thousand dollars or millions, I don't know.
Marla J Albertie: But what are you gonna lose in the long run if people quit? Because they gotta come back in the office every day and now they gotta find daycare and they gotta put the dogs up and all this stuff. Yeah. And
Amanda Berry: there's a whole cost of getting, you know, hiring new people. And
Marla J Albertie: we all know there's, read the reports, right, Amanda?
Marla J Albertie: There's thousands of reports out there, how much it costs to onboard somebody and bring a new employee on, right? So I think I'd rather take 200, 300,000 cut on this building that I gotta give up and then rehire a whole department because people have, companies have lost whole departments because guess what?
Marla J Albertie: This generation here, this post covid folks, I don't have to go, why am I, I can go work from home and make more money. Why do I gotta come in there? Why do I gotta work in there? I don't wanna do that. So, so now you're, you're gonna lose these folks, which is happening. And guess what? You may have a lot of people waiting to get in, right?
Marla J Albertie: Which is fine if you do great. However, they're gonna look for the same benefits. They're gonna look for the same thing, right? Generation Z I was talking about this the other day. This is what, this is why it's so important to keep up with the trends. Generation Z says, look, Going on the days where you're gonna have one job on the resume, generation Z is gonna have 15 jobs on the resumes, you're gonna hire me and guess what?
Marla J Albertie: And you're gonna give me a stipend for my plants. You are gonna help me with my dogs and my cats. And you're gonna care about world peace. Right. And if you don't, I won't work for you companies. How are you keeping up? What are you doing? Read the reports. It's out there. I'm not making this stuff up. No,
Amanda Berry: I've seen that too.
Amanda Berry: And it's like they really care about companies, like how they react to societal and environmental issues. Yeah. Sustainability.
Marla J Albertie: What are you doing? And these. And these are brains. These are brains. These are the teenagers we're teaching now in our curriculum. Yeah. These kids, well,
Amanda Berry: you're teaching them, you're teaching them in that IO for
Marla J Albertie: teens.
Marla J Albertie: Exactly. These kids are like, mm I, I wouldn't work for that company. I wouldn't work for them. Some big they, they don't do the X, Y, Z. They don't do this. They don't do that. Okay. So that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, thinking about changing. Do you need to have a culture shift? Do you need to change your culture leader?
Marla J Albertie: Think about, okay, well maybe I do need to do this. I think about the impact. What is the, again, the long-term impact, not the current impact, the long-term impact of what we're trying to do. How's this gonna change? Keeping up with society, technology, ai, keeping up with all this stuff, what's going on in the world right now?
Marla J Albertie: What's going on over in Ukraine, keeping up with these things. That's culture stuff. Caring about the people, that that's where it starts. It starts there. So I think, again, going back to the question, I think again, it starts with where are we at, right? Where are we at and how can we assess this? This coming back in the office thing, is it mandatory?
Marla J Albertie: Simon Sinek says, why? What is our why for sending these people home? And what is our why for, obviously why 'cause of Covid 19, but what is our why for having them come back in the office five days a week and they can do their job just as good at home now? I like it where some companies have gotten really smart.
Marla J Albertie: Some companies said, we're gonna give you the option guys, we're gonna keep our building, give you the option. We just ask that you come in twice a week. Right. You pick the days. Okay. Give them autonomy. I like that option. Right. Give them autonomy. So if they, if they come in two days a week, Monday and Wednesday, then let 'em come in those two days.
Marla J Albertie: Or if there's a day that you'll have a, have a team meeting, okay guys come in Wednesday morning from 10 to one, guys can go home. You know, give them some flexibility. People, adults like to be treated like
Amanda Berry: adults. Yeah, exactly. Make, makes decisions. Especially, you know, what days you come in generally isn't a big deal.
Amanda Berry: It shouldn't be, you know, unless you get like a full staff meeting. But like, if it's nothing, if it doesn't matter, giving them matter, the ability doesn't matter. Yeah. To make that decision is super important.
Marla J Albertie: Right. But a lot of times these leaders are dictators and they wanna dictate when you, you gotta come in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from eight to five and Okay.
Marla J Albertie: What again? Simon Sinek. What is the why? Yeah.
Amanda Berry: It takes you back to that you have to care about people. So let's move into our last segment, asking for a friend who's destined for a friend.
Marla J Albertie: Hey. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend.
Amanda Berry: I like to ask those people who, like you have like great ideas, like big ideas, lots to say. If you had every, let's say, every HR leader listening to this podcast, like everyone in every company and across the country, what would you say to them to get them to improve the employee experience at their organization?
Marla J Albertie: Oh my gosh. Lead by example. Lead by example. You have to first know the craft. I, I am, I'm not a fan of someone leading a organization that doesn't know anything about the organization. If you're gonna lead a department, Respect the employees and know a little bit about the department. If you're a HR leader, you should know a little bit about hr, right?
Marla J Albertie: If you are a legal leader, you should know a little bit about legal. I'm not saying being a legal expert. I'm not saying being hr, but you know, you should respect the employees enough. You know something about the work that they do. And if you don't spend time with each employee, I've read plenty of books.
Marla J Albertie: Plenty of books. I think it was Jack Welch spent time with every single employee. He didn't care. That's how long. If it took him years, he met with every employee. I'm not saying for you to do that, but it would be nice to do so. Yeah, right. Take time to get to know your employees. They have ideas, right?
Marla J Albertie: They're, they're not running little work worker box, right? Little machines, they have ideas. They are the ones that know the stuff. I understand being in the chief's position, there's different aspects of that. I understand. I've worked with all levels of leadership. I understand that. Right? But the number one factor, it never changes whether you're a chief or whether you're a frontline manager.
Marla J Albertie: The number one factor is who the people. So how much time, if you wanna improve your employee experience, if you wanna implo improve what's best for the employees, ask them. And not just a focus group of them. Ask all of them. Don't pick the people you want to be in the focus group and, and go ask them. No.
Marla J Albertie: Ask all 1000 or 2000 or whatever of your department or however people are in there, whatever, ask them, what do you want? Now? Come on now, I get it. They can if they, well, I want, I want every holiday off. I want unlimited P T o. I want a 15% raise. Okay, we get it. Some people will ask some great, say some crazy things, but those crazy ideas, put 'em in the back of your mind.
Marla J Albertie: Make it a goal. Can you have unlimited P t O? A lot of companies do. Can you have every holiday off? A lot of companies do. Can you give 'em a 15% raise? Is it really a crazy idea? Is it really? Can you think about it? Can you think outside the box? If you can't give 'em 15% raise, can you give 'em 10? Can you give 'em a bonus structure?
Marla J Albertie: What are the pros and cons of the bonus structure? What are the pros and cons of getting them the 10%? Again, ask them. From what I've seen with coaching, I think sometimes leaders think they know what's best for their people without asking the people.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I get, I could say that, I hate to use this as kind of a metaphor for someone's like a parent.
Amanda Berry: They see themselves as like the parent child. Yeah.
Marla J Albertie: I know what's best for you. You know? Did you ask, do you, did you ask? Because they're adults. Again, we forget that these people are adults. Right? And that, that's the one piece of advice I could have you walk away with, please, is engage. Talk to your people.
Marla J Albertie: Don't be so up here, up here. Right. And you can't talk. You'd only talk to your direct reports, but you can't talk to everyone else. What type of example are you setting? Well, that leads to the quiet, quitting the, the chief doesn't care, so why should I care? Well, that the employee has a point. Do you care? I don't know.
Marla J Albertie: I don't know if you care or not. I have no idea. I have no idea. So I think it's, again, and a lot of people may listen to this like, well, Marl, that's fufu. That's not how business runs. Okay. Talk to some other companies. Some other companies out here are thriving. Okay? Some other companies are thriving. I've done the research.
Marla J Albertie: This is not poof. Poof. This is not fluff. Fluff. Any organization can run this way. Any organization can put their people first. Any organization. And guess, when you put your people first, go look at the profits. Go look at the profits. You worry about money. Business is business. You gotta run a business.
Marla J Albertie: You're not a business unless you're making money. Right? I get that. But the people are the ones gonna make you the money if you can't invest in them. And just go to the training course. Okay? What can you do? Remember we talked about what we can do versus what we can do? Yeah. Mm-hmm. What can you do, right?
Marla J Albertie: If you can give them a license to a Coursera. Don't give 500 a license. Give all of them a license to Coursera. If you can't send 'em to the conference, what are you doing? How are you investing in them? If you want 'em to be loyal, you gotta be loyal to them. But companies nowadays are not loyal to their co, to employees, so therefore employees have to be loyal to, especially Generation Z.
Marla J Albertie: Get your, get yourselves ready, gener. They're coming. We're coming. I'm telling you, these kids are smart. They are coming and are you ready? Because guess what, these baby boomers are leaving my generation, generation X we're, we're leaving too. So, You all you got left is these generation, these millennials and these generation Zs.
Marla J Albertie: What are y'all gonna do if y'all can, if you can't give them money to water their plants? Whatcha are you gonna do?
Amanda Berry: Yeah, it's gonna turn everything on its head. Well, Marla, this has been so much fun. I love talking to you, your energy, your idea. You're just, you're just a fun, interesting, smart, intelligent person.
Amanda Berry: So thank you so much. I, I just really enjoyed our time together as I have. The times we've met. Before I let you go, remind our listeners where they can find you, maybe their web address or LinkedIn, anything
Marla J Albertie: like that. Yes, please. On LinkedIn, I'm Marla J. Albertie. I'm the only one out there. Please follow us on my website, www.truthspeakscoaching.com.
Marla J Albertie: If you need a a I do free consultations for coaching, go out there and check me out. I have free packages out there. I'm worth every penny of those packages. If you need IO Consulting, if you need some type of training and development, check me out. Watch the website and please, if you are led, please go to our website, www.ioforteens.org and check us out.
Marla J Albertie: If you're led to give. Please give any donation amount helps. Please follow us on our social media channels IO for Teens on YouTube io. Teens on Instagram. Same thing for myself, tspeaksgroup on Instagram. I'm out there. I'm out there. So just please reach out to me. Send me an email contact@truthspeakscoaching.com.
Marla J Albertie: I would more than happy to talk to you and let's change this world one person at a time. It can happen. It can happen.
Amanda Berry: And I think if anyone can do it, Marla, it is definitely you.
Marla J Albertie: With help.
Amanda Berry: Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been great.
Marla J Albertie: Thank you so much, Amanda. This has been amazing. I appreciate you so much.