In this episode of frankly…
Rachel and Dan sit down with Jan Griffiths, founder of Gravitas Detroit, to talk about breaking the mold of traditional corporate leadership in the automotive industry. After rising to the top as a supply chain executive, Jan took a leap of faith to pursue something more meaningful.
She shares how that decision led to launching Gravitas Detroit, starting her own podcast, writing “AutoCulture 2.0” and pioneering internal podcasting as a powerful way to connect with employees in manufacturing.
From storytelling to shifting outdated leadership models, this discussion is about reimagining success and building workplaces that truly work for people.
Let us know what you took away from this week’s conversation, and, as always, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe!
Tune in every other Wednesday and subscribe to where you listen to podcasts (Spotify | Apple Podcasts).
The transcript below is AI-generated and may contain minor inaccuracies. Tune in to the episode audio to hear the full conversation!
Transcript
Dan
Hello, welcome to frankly.
Rachel
Hello. Hello.
Dan
So today on the podcast we talked with Jan Griffiths, who is the founder of Gravitas Detroit, which encompasses quite a bit. So Jan spent most of her career. In purchasing supply chain with auto suppliers.
Rachel
All across the globe.
Dan
Yeah, starting in Wales before coming over to the US. And now kind of after reaching the peak of that, you’ll hear her talk about kind of wanting to branch out and find something new. So now she is an author. She is a podcaster in several different formats, but also runs workshops, speaker, so many different things use everywhere.
Rachel
She is jack of all trades. Yeah. And she’s very passionate about podcasting. She hosts automotive leaders podcasts.
Dan
Yes.
Rachel
Where she has talked with some really, really great automotive leaders and she’s turned that into her book, which she’ll talk about. So, yeah, just really touching all of the facets of storytelling.
Dan
Yeah. And it and it all centers around this kind of core theme of the need for a change in culture in the automotive industry to really thrive in kind of this new future mobility, whatever that will look like or the industry is changing and so too companies need to kind of change how they approach leadership.
Rachel
Yeah. So enjoy all of the great Nuggets from Jan.
Dan
Yes
Rachel
Her accent is just fabulous, too.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
I could listen to it all day. So with that, here’s Jan.
Dan
Hi Jan, welcome to frankly.
Jan
It is great to be here. Thank you for having me.
Dan
Yeah, thanks so much for coming in. We’re excited to talk with you. So kicking off tell us a little bit about your career. I know you’ve kind of spanned a lot of different automotive suppliers, some other industries and then now to your work with Gravitas Detroit and your kind of multimedia empire here.
Rachel
Ohh I like this multimedia empire.
Jan
I definitely yeah.
Rachel
We could start using that.
Jan
Yeah, I definitely do with my PR. Yeah, that’s for sure. Yes, yes.
Dan
So tell us how you got to this.
Jan
Oh, well, that’s that might take a little while, but as you know from the beginning of my podcast, I am indeed that passionate, rebellious farmer’s daughter from Wales and I started in the auto industry in the early 80s in Wales and I started with BorgWarner and then they sent me to Muncie, Indiana.
Rachel
What a change.
Jan
Right. It was more of a shock for Muncie Indiana than it was for me tell you that.
Rachel
I love that.
Dan
Fair enough.
Jan
But it was it was a lot of yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about living in a different country, learned a lot about different cultures. And then I worked for a number of different tier ones after that. Always focused on my career and wanting the next job, the next role, right? Wanted the promotion, more responsibility, more power and more money. And I moved and moved and moved and moved and I got to my dream job which was head of purchasing and supply chain for a major tier one, at the time it was a $3 billion company.
Dan
Wow.
Jan
And I thought finally, you know, it’s taken a long time to get there.
Rachel
How old were you if you don’t mind me asking?
Jan
When I got to that role, mid to late 40s.
Rachel
OK.
Jan
Yeah, spent lot of time.
Rachel
So about 20 years.
Jan
It took a long time.
Rachel
Yeah, well, that’s a big job.
Dan
It does, yeah.
Jan
It’s a big job and it took a long time. But I loved it. I loved the auto industry. And I always loved assimilating into different cultures. Some people don’t like that they don’t like to change, but I loved it. Yeah, to be able to come into a new environment and figure out how work got done. Yeah, how things, how you influence decisions, how decisions are made, how are you successful in company A versus company B, and they’re all different. And so I learned different leadership styles by watching different people doing different things. And I would think ohh that’s that’s good, I. Like the way I did that, I’m. Gonna I’m Gonna do that? Yeah. And then I finally get to my dream job and. It’s it’s great. It’s a good company. My colleagues are wonderful. I had a great team. I had a global team, loved tearing around the globe again, understanding all these different cultures and how they work and how to make them work together. It was great. And then I I don’t know what it was. I felt felt the life force just draining out of me in these executive staff meetings. Because they were all day on a Monday, every Monday, all day.
Rachel
Who decided that?
Dan
Yeah, that exhausting.
Jan
Well, they came from a large OEM who may or may not be residing in the same building that you are
Dan
Ok.
Rachel
Ok.
Jan
Was the original influence of of this kind of culture, but not unusual. Traditional OE M command and control type culture, but this is this is the way we do things and don’t rock the boat.
Dan
Yes.
Jan
You know, the idea of disruption wasn’t wasn’t around them. So it was all about follow the rules. Don’t don’t change things up. And I thought, oh, and these meetings were PowerPoint after PowerPoint, maybe one number had changed from month to month, and we weren’t really encouraged to have a lot of discussion or debate about it. It was more the organization presenting to us and I thought really this is what I’ve worked all my career for. I have never had so much responsibility. It’s the biggest job I’ve had for sure the biggest paycheck I’ve ever had. But yet the life force just drained out of me in these meetings.
Dan
Yeah, that, I mean, that’s so easy to have happen when it is that reporting too rather than talking. Especially with like your top leadership group, you would expect more of that kind of back and forth, something to keep you engaged.
Jan
Yes. Yes, and it wasn’t like that.
Dan
Yeah.
Jan
When I was working with my team, loved it.
Rachel
Yeah
Jan
It’s totally different.
Dan
Of course, yeah.
Jan
And so I said to myself, you know what you have a choice here. And I did. I celebrated my 50th birthday there. So I was probably 51. I think at the time maybe 52. And I remember thinking, you know, you can stay here and coast to coast is the wrong word. But you can you can get to retirement from here.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
With a with a good job. Great. Great package. You’re as safe as, but as safe as anybody can be an auto.
Dan
Sure.
Jan
You have a good reputation in the industry. It’s all good, right? Or this is where that rebellious Welsh spirit comes out
Rachel
I love this.
Jan
There’s a reason why there’s a dragon on my arm. The Welsh Dragons on my arm because we are rebellious type of people and I thought well you know, you could start your own business and try and change the culture in the auto industry.
Dan
There you go.
Jan
But then the common sense and tells you and all the people around you and society tells you that’s ridiculous. You don’t walk away from a job like that in your 50s.
Rachel
Well, it’s risk aversion, right? I mean you have to decide what, how much risk you’re willing to take because like you said you’re 50, so there’s a way for you to say, like, I could do this forever. It’s the job. I mean, I feel like we hear some new stories, you know, around the world of you get to what you think is your dream job. Then you go, this is what I’ve dreamed of. Like, I’ve just worked an entire career to get to. Just. Like. I I take it back, right? Like I don’t know what my dream is because I’ve never lived it.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
It’s all about risks and you jumping around your whole career when you were taking risks, right? They were good risks to take because it came with more responsibility, which is also a risk in itself, more power, more money like you said so they looked pretty good, but once you get to that point where it’s like, what is my next move? There was no more forward movement. You had to create it, which I think is for you, that rebellious spirit and actually more aligned with your career than you think because it was always going to the next thing. It just wasn’t obvious what it was you had to create it.
Jan
Wow, look at that. Do you wanna be my coach?
Dan
Yeah, that’s a good analysis, right there.
Jan
I mean that’s pretty good. Yes, yes.
Rachel
But that’s what I’m hearing you like as you’re talking. That’s kind of my thought of like it was positioned out for you and it was easy to follow you. It was easy to take. Until it wasn’t, and it was like I gotta make that move. No one’s gonna put it in front of me and you did it.
Jan
So, so true, so true. So I made the move, took my salary to 0 overnight because I couldn’t. Everybody tells you to do a side hustle. Yeah, I couldn’t do it because I had an employment contract that wouldn’t allow me to do that.
Dan
Oh yeah, yeah.
Jan
So either you were in or out. So I said I am out. And they wouldn’t believe me, they said. Ohh, you’re going to show up at another tier one company? I said no, I’m not. I’m starting my own business.
Rachel
And then he stuck it to him, which I love to see.
Dan
There you go.
Jan
And so I started my own business and I came up with the name Gravitas Detroit. And people always say, OK, well. How did you come up with Gravitas Detroit? I was presenting at MEMA event. It was OESA back then, and it was their annual supplier conference. And somebody on my team was in the audience and I came off the stage and she said, you know what she goes I know that something that you said up there wasn’t 100% right on, but she goes it doesn’t matter. Because whatever you say, she goes. I’m all in. You have gravitas.
Rachel
Ohh.
Jan
And I thought, and that’s stuck with me and I thought. Yeah, that’s interesting. So then I did some research on the word and of course it comes from the word gravity. So gravity is a force that pulls you somewhere. And if you think about leadership, great leaders pull you in towards them.
Rachel
Mhmm
Dan
Yeah.
Jan
You just feel drawn to them. It’s a force. It’s a feeling.
Dan
Yeah.
Jan
It’s very hard to describe. So gravitas technically is a slightly different meaning, but I choose to define it the way I want to because it’s my business and I can do whatever that I want to do, it’s very true.
Dan
Like they said, if you say it, they’re all in, so.
Jan
There it is. There it is. So it’s gravitas. And then I picked Detroit because I lived in the city in my early years in my 20s. Thank God Facebook and smartphones were not around back then. There would be way too much evidence floating around up there. Yeah, but I’ve always loved Detroit and cared for Detroit. And Detroit is known for grit, for hustle and muscle. And I thought, you know what? We need more gravitas in this city, so therefore, Gravitas Detroit.
Dan
Yeah.
Jan
And then I I started my business not knowing what I what I was doing, learned how to be an entrepreneur because they tell you it’s a roller coaster and you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. But somehow you think you’re going to be different, right? And that you’re going to match your corporate salary within a year.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Yeah, it’s a roller coaster for everybody. Else not to be, it couldn’t be, yeah.
Rachel
And you get tossed around.
Jan
And let me tell you, that’s not happening. OK, that’s not happening.
Dan
So. So there’s a lot that falls under Gravitas Detroit. Tell us a little bit about kind of what all that encompasses, what are all the channels you’re working through there.
Jan
well, if you had told me that gravitas Detroit would essentially be two different businesses four or five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I wouldn’t have understood. But as you know, my mission is to change the culture in the auto industry. It is to drive a more authentic leadership.
Rachel
It needs it.
Jan
Yes, exactly, exactly. And one of the tag lines in the book in Auto Culture 2.0 is you wouldn’t run a 4K video on a 95 Windows operating system. So what makes you think that can you can evolve this industry in terms of its technology using the same operating system, the same culture, the same leadership model that we had, I mean really hasn’t changed in decades and decades. Yeah, that’s right.
Dan
Right.
Jan
So you can’t guess the answer, so you’ve got to change it so the business naturally went into the mode of workshops
Dan
OK.
Jan
So running culture workshops, working with teams, getting them aligned.
Rachel
I want you to define culture because I think culture and we do this a lot. It’s not like. The Donuts on a Tuesday. It’s not the celebrating birthdays. What? How do you define culture?
Jan
It’s the glue that holds everything together. It’s the how you get things done.
Rachel
OK,
Jan
There’s a lot to culture, but without a good, strong culture, you can have the smartest group of people doing amazing tasks, but if the culture isn’t there that glue that holds it all together and moves it forward, it will fall apart.
Dan
Yeah, all in kind of isolation without that.
Jan
Yeah.
Rachel
Well, then you need buy into the culture too, right? Because if they’re just doing tasks but they don’t know why or how, or understand the larger picture, you don’t have very motivated employees. So OK, continue. I just wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page when we talk about culture.
Jan
Yeah, it’s a it’s it’s a really good question because I think when I talk to people, sometimes I tend to assume that people have the same understanding that I do and I’m I’m dead wrong.
Dan
Yeah, I think in some, I mean you can go to five different companies and there are five different answers to that question in a lot of places. So I think that is helpful though.
Jan
Yes. And it’s not a poster on the wall with five things that define our culture. And then you realize that nobody really understands it. They’ve never even read it. It’s just been a poster on the wall for the last 10 years and they for sure don’t practice it
Dan
Right. Right.
Jan
And it starts with the leader. Obviously, it starts with the leader at the top. What sort of culture they want for the business and so well, right when I started the business, then of course we had COVID came along so that was great. You walk away from your corporate salary right before COVID so went on unemployment and said that was a nice humbling experience. Yeah, it was great. That’s great. So I learned a lot, learned how to live on a lot less, yeah.
Dan
I can imagine.
Rachel
You and everybody else at that time, at least, at least you weren’t alone in that.
Jan
So as you can imagine, there wasn’t a lot of call for workshops or speakers to talk about authentic leadership.
Dan
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah.
Rachel
Well, did it force you to shift and start to think about a virtual culture? Because I know people started kind of floundering during that when you everybody was, especially in auto, where nobody was working remote, right? I mean in the plants you can’t.
Jan
Yeah,
Rachel
But in corporate there there was no culture of like we can work from home and still get things done right. It was like everybody is here every day. 9:00 to 5:00. Did it make you think about that differently where you did, you kind of have to shift what you were thinking about? Doing and how you were going to talk about this to your clients?
Jan
Maybe I I I mean, I certainly. What the one thing COVID did you write the the the the forced work from home? It made people who were strong command and control and micromanagers totally lose it because they couldn’t. They couldn’t see their people, they didn’t have that control anymore. Yeah. So they freaked out. So they needed something else. And it was like, well, here it is, authenticate leadership.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
Let me help you with that, here we go.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
But I I leaned into the podcast because right before COVID in fact, I think I launched the podcast in the January and in the March, that’s right with that March. We went into lockdown.
Dan
Yeah.
And so people were more available at home. So I was able to get some pretty interesting guests and start to hone my skills on podcasting because I started knowing nothing.
Dan
Right, yeah.
Jan
And you know, here we are now with the podcasting business, but in the beginning, I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything, but I learned the hard way and I loved it. And then I started to think about the power of podcasting. It’s it’s the vehicle for authentic leadership because podcasting is all about humans being human being vulnerable. Talking about their stories being transparent and we need more of that in our corporate cultures because our corporate cultures are very corporate speak and sanitized. And I remember so many times in my corporate career, it would be well, you know we got to wait until we get the messaging out of communications.
Dan
Yeah. Right.
Jan
And you have to communicate this to your people and some of the leaders would read the exact communication. I never did that. I would read it, get the key points, throw it in the trash and then talk.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Right.
Rachel
Yeah, like an actual person, right? Not a robot.
Jan
Like a natural person, right? Because people we need to communicate with each other as people. And then so I I love podcasting and I see the intersection between podcasting as a communication tool to fill a huge void, particularly in automotive right now, and that is the largest population of your employees are on the shop floor, the biggest number. It’s on the shop floor. And you can’t reach them, right? Corporate you can’t, because they don’t have a corporate email.
Dan
Yep.
Jan
So you’re relying on supervisors who, by the way, your your requirements as a communications team, it’s not the priority, not by a long shot.
Dan
Right. Yeah. I mean, best case scenario, maybe you have a cell phone number for everyone that you are not everyone, but for most that you can do it a blast.
Jan
Yes. Maybe, maybe so I thought, well, how can you? How can we do this? How can we fill this gap? How can we really start to to to bring this authentic leadership culture to life? And so I figured out how to create a private podcast for a company so that it it basically doesn’t go to iTunes or Spotify and it’s all about focusing on their communications, whether it’s top down or bottom up. So I have one client where I just came back from that plant in Louisiana and interviewed people on the shop floor and these are some of the most powerful podcast episodes.
Dan
MHM.
Rachel
Oh, I believe that, yeah.
Jan
So it’s they’re really heartfelt and they get into some raw really raw issues.
Dan
I just wish they didn’t have to be private.
Jan
Yeah, I know, I know. But they’re they’re private for the company. And then I QR code the access to it so everybody can reach can access it. I worked with the client once when we we decided to put the QR code in the buses, taking the workers to the plant in Mexico because everybody’s got a smartphone.
Dan
Right, yeah.
Rachel
And they’ve got time. If you’re sitting sitting on the bus getting to work.
Dan
Everybody’s headphones are already in as well, yeah.
Jan
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But you gotta keep it short. You know, you can’t have big, long, lengthy podcasts. It’s got to be something that’s relevant. You gotta have a strategy behind it.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
But I really see this as a as a way forward to help close that communication gap that we know exists.
Dan
Yeah, it’s been. I mean, for as long as we’ve worked in the auto industry. It’s been a problem to like try to reach and find a way to get into plants like that. That’s such a such an interesting idea, such a cool idea.
Jan
Yeah, yeah. And then when I came along, I thought, ohh, we’ll have a have a little play around with this and see what this can do because I love playing with new technology.
Rachel
Well, you have to, otherwise you fall behind. It’s so true.
Jan
But I love just sitting there finding seeing something that comes through on social media and just playing around with the cloud.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
And then I started playing around with this AI software that takes the actual voice recording from the podcasts, which your original voice, and then it flips it into another language. And then I realized that it was garbage because AI doesn’t get it right. So I worked on a process to to get it about 98% right. And I I, to me, that’s the future of communications for internal communications.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
Well that’s access. Being able to translate it allows you to reach even more people, yes, because. I think a lot of the times internal communications can fall short for a multitude of reasons. But like, yeah, like you said, it’s an Internet, it’s on the Internet. OK, but they don’t have access to that. It’s, you know, in a text message. OK, but you don’t even speak their language. It’s in the access is gonna be a roadblock, so. 9 times out of 10, and so if you can remove that barrier like you’ve done and being able to do this by using the technology, you’re going to be able to transform internal communications, which is a struggle that so and and you’ve seen it from the inside, right?
Jan
Yeah.
Rachel
I mean, you know this because you’ve worked inside so many Tier 1 suppliers, you know exactly the issues that you want to help them solve, right?
Jan
Yes.
Rachel
So what better person to do it I think. I want you to talk about your book. You’ve mentioned it, but Auto Culture 2.0. I mean, Dan did say a multimedia empire, so. the next the next piece of multimedia. Yeah. Talk about your book a little bit. Why did you write it? What was that process like? Just kind of give me down low.
Jan
Well as you know people consume media in different forms. They consume content different ways, so some people like to read. I’m more of an audio person, but some people like to read. So there was that in the back of my mind. But if I’m brutally honest, when I when I get booked for speaking gigs, they say where’s your book? And I say I don’t have a book, but I have a podcast. And they go. No. Sorry. You gotta have a book. What do you mean you gotta have a book?
Rachel
That’s interesting.
Dan
Yeah, that is.
Jan
Well I thought, oh okay I’ll write a bloody book then.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
Another stick it to a moment.
Dan
And here we are.
Jan
I am not a writer and I know, and this is a trait of, of leaders, good leaders. I I believe too you. You’re not. You’re not good at everything. You gotta know what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, what you’re not good at. You bring people in with the right skill set.
Rachel
You find the right partners.
Jan
Right. So I hired and I’m not. I’m not afraid to say it. I hired a great ghost writer. She was awesome, Audrey. And there’s a whole section of first page in the book where she talks about her background and most people, when they hire a ghostwriter, they’re literally that. They’re a ghost. They put them in the background. That didn’t feel authentic to me.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
I here I am talking about authentic leadership. I use a ghost writer and I try to hide it in the background. That’s not very transparent no. So I said no, I hired a ghostwriter. She’s awesome. Her name is Audrey. And there’s a whole page dedicated to her in the book. She was brilliant.
Dan
Perfect.
Jan
She was able to take my voice and make it flow better on paper.
Dan
Yeah.
Rachel
Which means it’s a better book which people want to read about. I’d rather read a good book that has your ideas than a poorly written book just because you had to write it and you know you’re not good.
Jan
At it. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. I’m so glad. I wish you I wish. You were there when I made. That decision, it would help. But it was great. She was great and she had also written most of the show notes for the podcast episode for the podcast for automotive leaders up to that point. So we selected the episodes. We worked on a framework, and then I wanted to take it a step further and I wanted it to be a tool for leaders in the auto industry to use to open up dialogue and have conversation about culture with their teams. So there’s a little call to action at the end of each chapter to help leaders open up that dialogue. And then there’s a QR code that will take you to the full episode if you like it. And if you don’t move on to the next one, it’s OK.
Dan
Yeah, that’s great. And and that to speak like the different forms of learning are the different forms of taking in media that’s so perfect, because if somebody is a reader, they can find it in the book. You know, if they tend to be more audio but want to pick something up sometimes to read that you can, you can find them both in there. I like that idea of having kind of both options right there in front of you.
Jan
Yeah, yeah, it was it was great. So then of course we we had the launch party for the book because anytime I do something, I’m going to have a party.
Rachel
Oo, as you should.
Jan
So we had a launch party for the podcast celebrating and people would say to me what’s a, what’s a launch party for a podcast. And I would laugh like I don’t know.
Rachel
But there’s an open bar and good food, come hang out.
Dan
Just to party.
Jan
Exactly It’s a good excuse to get together and talk about this thing called the podcast.
Rachel
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.
Jan
Same thing with the book. Big old party. It was. It was fun. I don’t know what’s next though. I don’t know. I mean, we got the podcast, we got the book. I don’t know had any ideas for me.
Rachel
Doodle on that there’s got to be another multimedia we can get into.
Dan
Get a TV show or some maybe a culture change movie then.
Jan
I’m already on TV already on the TV.
Dan
- Did you have a party for that?
Rachel
YouTube series?
Jan
That no. Sometimes I’m a guest on group on. Fox 2 Detroit.
Rachel
Ohh.
Dan
Oh.
Jan
On the pulse with Roop Raj. He’s a good. He’s a great, great guy. Yes. Yeah. I really like working with him. So sometimes I’m on TV with him.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
I have a YouTube channel. It’s we’re filling it up with videos from the podcast, but maybe, maybe, maybe you’re on to something.
Rachel
I think there’s. I’ve got some ideas. I think we could talk here. I’m seeing a YouTube. I’m seeing a newsletter. I’m seeing a couple different things that could go together. And you could read we’re all big on like not using one piece of content for just one thing and you’re doing that with your podcast. But I think there might be some other options.
Jan
Yes, the Gary Vaynerchuk triple head approach. I listened to a lot of the Gary Vaynerchuk stuff. Yeah, before I started the podcast. And I do. I mean, it is.
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Jan
I produce so much content from the podcast, yeah. Because the the show notes, obviously there’s social media around. You know that there’s sometimes, if it it depends on the subject sometimes there’s a LinkedIn article, Yep. And then there’s there is a newsletter. I have a newsletter. I don’t. I don’t promote it as much as I should probably. And then I take snippets from the for the newsletter. So there are, I mean, it’s an incredible source of content, isn’t it.
Rachel
Yeah, I mean.
Dan
And plus.
Rachel
Content we always like never let it die right, like call back to it after a year. It’s still if it’s still relevant, go back. I mean, there’s so many. You’ve found yourself in communications. I don’t think you ever meant to do necessarily.
Dan
Yeah, yeah.
Rachel
No, but you found yourself here and you’re it sounds like you’re doing really well at it.
Dan
Kind of fun, right? Yeah.
Jan
I love it. I love it. But who coming from where I came from in the corporate world supply chain in automotive, in the Tier 1 space, I never appreciated the communications team, I just didn’t.
Dan
It’s so far removed.
Jan
They just send out updates.
Dan
Yeah.
Jan
And then if we’re shutting a plant or we’re buying somebody, you know, they put that communication together to make sure we don’t say something stupid. That’s what I thought.
Rachel
I thought I wonder if that’s also a result of the culture though.
Speaker
Yeah, right.
Rachel
And not changing in so many years, right? So this is kind of. More abstract, but I think about from a communication standpoint at the OEMs and think about old auto shows, right, they were unveiling cars and there were press conferences and everyone was kind of following that mold. You were using these auto shows to unveil vehicles and get people talking. Then social media came out and it was like, OK, we’re doing this auto shows. Then we’re gonna live. We’re gonna do a live on this, right? And so you kind of evolve it and then it evolves again where they’re like, we don’t even need these auto shows. We’re spending how much money guess. What we can do on our own and we don’t need you to do it. And so then they evolved again, right?
Jan
So true.
Rachel
So I think there’s. With all of these different like vehicles that have come out, they’ve done it externally, right? They’ve externally changed how they’re doing things for consumers. But I don’t feel like that’s happened as much on the internal side in the way that it should.
Jan
You’re exactly right. You are exactly right. Yeah. The the internal piece. And if you take it back to in the Tier 1 space, we love metrics, right? We want numbers. We want to bring it back to a number. Yeah, look at an employee engagement survey. What is always in the top three of an employee communication survey of an employee engagement survey? It’s communications.
Rachel
I was going to say the fact that they don’t feel like they have. Yeah.
Jan
Communicate always. It’s always up there and then you know, what do we do about it? Because I’ve sat in those meetings when an executive team looks at the summary of those employee engagement surveys and you’re like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. What do you do to improve communication? Oh, I don’t know.
Rachel
Yeah, yeah.
Jan
Have more town halls. Oh, yeah. OK, that’s a good idea. Let’s have more town halls.
Rachel
Real effective,.
Jan
I mean, town halls are great. Don’t get me wrong. Right, but think about it. They gotta be scheduled. Yeah, people have to be at a certain place at a certain time. They have to have access to the technology. So again, you’re missing your shop floor. People with a podcast people get to listen to it on their terms on their time.
Dan
Right. And I think I mean that’s the biggest part is just the availability to get there and the availability or the interest in watching a recap.
Jan
Yeah.
Dan
Like you know you’re going to grab everyone’s attention, even if you have a recorded link that they can go back to later, you’re not going to always grab everyone’s attention to kind of come back around to that. But giving them the option.
Rachel
Yeah. But those are also they’re also scripted town halls. You think about it like you come back to that. You’re still regurgitating this boring message that doesn’t, right versus like what we’re doing right now and sitting, it’s a big piece of why we started this podcast, too, is that you might see people at networking events or wherever you’re out and about. You’re not having these kinds of conversations.
Dan
Right, you get 5 minutes tops.
Rachel
It’s just, yeah, it’s not the time and place. You’re not actually being able to tell their story or giving them a platform to do that. So I feel like it’s kind of the same thing in a town hall. You’re talking at them. The questions aren’t there. People are like, OK, this sucks. I don’t want to be here. Yeah, you could have sent me an e-mail versus a podcast. It’s conversational. Like, let’s talk about it. Let’s have a little bit more two way. It’s not so it shouldn’t be scripted in my opinion. But people let their guard down a little bit to be able to have more real conversation, too. Yeah, versus something.
Jan
Yes, they do. And you gotta love the Q&A and those in own halls, right?
Rachel
Oh my gosh.
Jan
Any questions? Cricket. Yeah, yeah. And then something as well. I have a few advanced questions here that we desperately tried to pull together right.
Rachel
Right.
Dan
Yeah, they’re always there just in case.
Jan
There in fact, I did something a little different just a few weeks ago, I was at at Tier 1 and I was there to record the CEO for the Automotive Leaders Podcast, and we looked at the room and and I was recording at their location. So we looked at the room and it wasn’t great in terms of sound dampening.
Rachel
MHM.
Jan
So then I said, well, you know what? Why don’t we just? Fill it with people. Why don’t you invite? Employees to come and actually be the audience in this live this little live podcast. Right, so we did it for the first time and we actually added video in and we didn’t have to worry about questions. The questions were flowing and the people, the employees loved it.
Rachel
Oh, how cool.
Dan
Really. That’s great.
Jan
So we created like a talk show environment, right, because first of all, they they had, it was an auditorium so they had tables set up.
Rachel
Yep.
Jan
And I was like tables and barriers I don’t want. I don’t want tables. I don’t want this to feel like a classroom training. This isn’t a training.
Rachel
Yeah.
Dan
Right, right.
Jan
We need more of a talk show vibe, so I don’t think the facilities guy was very happy with me. Well, I know he was not happy with me clearly by the look on his face and the tone of his voice, but we said please, let’s just move all the tables out and create a talk show vibe so you know how sometimes when they start a talk show people, they get people up dancing?
Dan
Right
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
I got a speaker and got people up dancing to get their energy level up.
Rachel
Oh my gosh.
Jan
Right. And then I interviewed the CEO and then we opened it up for questions. And the CEO actually divulged something that people don’t really know much about him, that he really had long, long hair when he was a teenager and that came out, and it was just all kinds of fun.
Rachel
More personal things, but yeah.
Jan
Much more personal. I mean, of course I’m going to talk to him about leadership. Of course. I’m going to talk to him about turning around a legacy auto company. Those are the key tenets of the podcast, right? But then it’s like, OK, who are you, as a human being, you know, what do you like to do? What are your habits in the morning? What do you binge watch? And they, the people absolutely loved it. So I think more of that for me because I, I I am kind of a little mini Oprah at times.
Dan
Yeah, such a good format.
Rachel
Maybe that’s maybe that’s what’s next for you.
Jan
Talk, talk show oooooo, a talk show.
Dan
So you’ve done TV now, next step, talk show.
Jan
A talk show. Oh, I like that. I wanna do a talk show.
Rachel
Alright, OK, alright. Deal. Yeah. Yeah.
Jan
Yes. So when you listen to this podcast that hook me up with the right people so I can do a talk show, I am in.
Rachel
I love it. One final question, Jan.
Jan
Yeah.
Rachel
Kind of a fun closing question. We ask everybody, what advice would you give your 21 year old self?
Jan
What advice do you give my 21 year old self? Get over yourself. People are not paying as much attention to you. What you look like, what you wear, what you’re thinking, what you’re saying as you think, and if I could have gotten over that a lot earlier and not worried so much about things I said in meetings or how I looked. And ruminating, you know, wasting that time ruminating instead of being authentic, right. Being authentic doesn’t mean coming into a room and spilling your guts saying whatever is on your mind. That’s not what being authentic is being authentic means contributing to the conversation. Really, with your heart and your soul and your mind. And then let the chips fall where they may not everybody in that room’s going to love what you say.
Rachel
Yeah.
Jan
And it’s OK. If you try, if you think that everybody’s going to love you, forget it. It’s not going to happen/ And if you could, if I could have just convinced myself of that a long time ago, I think it would have saved a lot of heartache and pain.
Rachel
Yeah, well, you add value that no one else can add. Yeah. And you have to remember that and people like you said they might not like it, but it is an added value that you’re sitting in that room. So.
Dan
Yeah. And the flip side is, I mean, there’s just so much anxiety that comes with trying to cover that up or trying to fit that mold that you think people are looking for.
Jan
Exactly.
Dan
You’re never going to do good work in that position. You’re going to be, you know, spinning in your head 24/7. Nobody wants that.
Jan
I spent a lot in my life fitting the mold of what I thought that particular tier one wanted me to be, and I was good at it. It was good at assimilating into culture. And really, it’s not about fitting the mold, right? You need to break that mold and just show up as you are.
Dan
Bringing your perspective and your ideas.
Jan
Bringing your perspective and life would be so much easier, yeah.
Rachel
Thank you. Jan, that’s fabulous. It’s nice. Happy to have you.
Dan
Thanks so much for joining. Yeah.
Rachel
And I feel like I mean, we could do this again at a whole other time too.
Jan
I was just going to say that can I come back. I I love being on the other side of the mic. So yeah. Can I come back, please?
Rachel Absolutely. We’ll put it on the calendar. Thank you. Thanks for. Coming.
Jan
Thank you.
Rachel
Alright, thanks Jan again for joining us today. We’ve got a lot of stuff kind of linked in the description where really her website’s got a lot of the information on it. So check that out. You can find all about her services that she offers, the kind of internal podcast that she started doing all sorts of good stuff there. Follow along with what she’s what she’s up to. I think it’ll be beneficial so.
Dan
Yeah, a lot of good stuff. Well, thank you for listening. And as always, we’ll see you next time.
Rachel
See you next time.
