🎙️ 20 Quotes to Inspire Your Career in 2024
And Be My Guest at "Define Your Values" Workshop on Jan. 18th
Happy New Year! To start 2024, I’d like to invite you to our Define Your Values Workshop with
.Explore the ideals that matter to you and why while setting your professional direction for 2024 and beyond. In this interactive workshop, learn to identify, define and share your top 5 values that will travel with you throughout your career. You’ll meet a community of professionals and engage in meaningful conversations with each other. Register below as my guest.
To inspire the start of 2024, I compiled my favorite quotes from last year’s stories, from dream job titles and community building to leadership communications and career inspiration. Take a look at the 20 quotes below.
What quote resonates with you? Reply to let me know or comment below. You have a great title. Are there others like you?
Anyone can be a Chief Heart Officer! If you have the heart to help and really know how to put your judgment aside, show up for someone and hold space for them, then I encourage you to make it happen. -Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia
What sparked your path into Communications?
One of the memorable [internship] experiences was helping manage fan emails to the NHL Commissioner. -Jesse Tron, Head of External Communications at JLL
How do you approach building community?
It’s about building leadership — your community is not going to grow if you are not building leaders and fostering their development by creating the container for people to raise their hands and bring them into deeper engagement. -Roseli Ilano, Head of Community at Eventbrite
For me, community is not just a passive project of having people in the same room, it's really about how you get them in the same room, connecting them with each other and elevating the interaction. The intent is to raise the value of the industry and those who work in it. That’s my Northstar of bringing people together. -Sean Garrett, Founder and Convener at
Empathy and kindness to start. When you're interfacing with people who are so passionate and engaged with what you're doing, sometimes there are challenges or disappointments that arise. It makes a huge difference in how you handle these situations with empathy and kindness. -Ben Lang, Head of Community at Notion
You need to have initiative —working in community at many companies is either a solitary or a small team endeavor so you usually need to be able to think at both a strategic high level, but also be able to execute on the ground. -Brooke Parrott, Head of Community at Sofar Sounds
How do you approach communicating internally?
We strive to share outcomes, celebrate new initiatives, and discuss research on our learnings with our team. By discussing this internally, we keep people engaged, excited, informed, and proud. -Sherrie Westin, President of Sesame Workshop
Your employees really are the most important ambassadors. They should be empowered, comfortable and happy talking about what your organization is doing. Because I've always worked at purpose-driven places, there's an appetite for people to be around the table and be excited as part of the process. -Jenny Mayfield, Vice President of Communications at Zum
I share my review with my team every single year for a couple of reasons. I want them to know what a review in a leadership setting looks like and it's one of those things you just don't know if you don't see it — I want to help reduce the mystery behind the review process. I also do it because I want my team to hold me accountable and give me the feedback I need to continue to improve. -Laura Mesa, Vice President of Marketing & Community at Product Hunt
In our culture, there’s a lot of emphasis on our one-on-ones with managers and direct reports. We have a very extensive document that team members prepare before these meetings. It includes a career development roadmap for each person where they can look back to the beginning of the quarter and see tangible progress. -Kevin Lee, Co-Founder at immi
What is your communications style as a leader?
Even though I resisted it at the time, my stint in investment banking had an imprint on me — it trained me to be a self-starter. Everyone in that world was smart and ambitious, however, there was a real lack of culture. When I started Sprinkles, I knew I wanted to approach my company's culture differently and instill a sense of camaraderie and caring among my team. -Candace Nelson, former CEO and Founder of Sprinkles
At the end of the day, it’s really important to be authentic to your strengths and lean into them. I’m a compassionate and collaborative leader. I’ve been described as the team “Christmas tree,” and I think being authentic and open really helps the team have crucial conversations, which are critical to making or breaking the success of any endeavor. -Victoria Young Idol, COO and Co-Founder at Outpace
By spending a few minutes upfront to frame your ideas and empathize with your reader, you can be much more persuasive and advocate for your ideas more effectively. For example, try reducing cognitive load for your reader. Don’t make them decipher what you mean. I keep this top of mind at all times. And most importantly, make your pitch 90% about the other person. Why does it benefit them? -Wes Kao, Co-founder at Maven and Author of
How does Internal Communications and Culture Intersect with other fields, including:
Marketing?
The purpose of internal communications isn’t to send messages to a company’s employees, it’s to move them. To drive alignment, inspiration, and clarity. It’s tempting for internal comms to lean heavily on long-form and frequent messaging, but external communications has uncovered a host of other methods that seem to work at least as well, so why not put that to practice internally, too? -Caleb Bushner, Vice President of Marketing at Unusual Ventures
Chiefs of Staff?
Like Switchboard Operators, Chiefs of Staff are the conduits for their companies — translating the leadership’s strategy into execution. That means talking to department heads, managers and individual contributors and turning vision into milestones and metrics. -Clara Ma, Founder and CEO at Ask a Chief of Staff
Executive Coaching?
Work is about relationships and a lot of what taxes people at work is the drama that gets created in those relationships. That drama creates an open loop in your head and distracts you from the important work you need to be doing. Coaching provides a space where people can process drama and actually do something about it. -Nick deWilde, Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer at Exec and Author of
Baseball via The Savannah Bananas?
We are there for each other's big moments in life and we're there to support each other through the hard times. We’re also there for the fun times — we go on vacation together! Having that love for each other can help strengthen an organization and that's one of the things that I believe really helps our culture. We call ourselves a work family because we truly treat each other that way. -Emily Cole, Co-Owner and Director of Fun at Savannah Bananas
Hospitality?
My time in hospitality was a lesson in the profound impact of intentional moments. Every interaction was a chance to leave an imprint while serving others. Drawing from that, I've centered Mixbook's culture around intentionality, ensuring every aspect is well-thought-out and feels special. -Kim Colucci, Culture & Growth Director at Mixbook
Can you tell us about the culture course you teach?
The class is built on two fundamental concepts: that culture can be designed like a product, and culture interventions can take many forms, including artifacts, rituals, habits, and policies…Here’s a look at 2023 with many links to read more about the topics that interest me. -Kursat Ozenc, Designer and Lecturer at Stanford’s d.school
What’s an important skill to learn?
I think most internal communicators would agree that data is one of our biggest challenges. Often there is limited data or we don’t have sufficient analysis to be able to draw conclusions or make recommendations….One of the best investments I made in professional development was taking a people data and analytics course. This has helped me better understand the uniqueness of different types of talent and the best ways to engage with them. -Michael Maney, Head of Internal Communications, The Home Depot
2023 Interviews*
Here’s a look at all the interviews from last year:
🌞 Sherrie Westin: President of Sesame Workshop
🏢 Jesse Tron: Head of Communications, Americas at JLL
🕯️Roseli Ilano: Head of Community at Eventbrite
🧁 Candace Nelson: Founder, Sprinkles and Pizzana | Author, Sweet Success
💿 Sean Garrett: Founder and Convener at Mixing Board
⚡️Victoria Young Idol: COO and Co-Founder at Outpace
🪐 Caleb Bushner: Vice President of Marketing at Unusual Ventures
🏛️ Wes Kao: Co-founder at Maven
🚀 Laura Mesa: Vice President of Marketing & Community at Product Hunt
❤️ Claude Silver: Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia
💼 Clara Ma: Founder and CEO at Ask a Chief of Staff
🚌 Jenny Mayfield: Vice President of Communications at Zum
💼 Clara Ma: Founder, Ask a Chief of Staff
🪀 Michelle Lee: Partner & Managing Director, Play Lab at IDEO
🛠️ Michael Maney: Head of Internal Communications, The Home Depot
🗝 Nick deWilde: Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer at Exec
⚡Ben Lang: Head of Community at Notion
🏢 Ryan Anderson: Vice President of Global Research and Insights at MillerKnoll
📸 Kim Colucci: Culture & Growth Director at Mixbook
🍌 Emily Cole: Owner and Director of Fun at Savannah Bananas
🎹 Brooke Parrott: Head of Community at Sofar Sounds
🍜 Kevin Lee: Co-Founder at immi
*Note the titles reflect the roles of leaders at the time of publication.
🙏 Thank you for being part of The Switchboard's community. I have a start of the year request — if you appreciate The Switchboard, would you share it with a friend, post your favorite edition on social media or reply to let me know what resonates? It’s my hope to support more people with stories, interviews and best practices I curate, and it’s only possible because of your kindness that I can reach others. Thank you and Happy 2024. 🙏Inviting Your Feedback
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What a body of work! Happy New Year! 🎊 ❤️
What you’ve created is so impressive, Julia! Wishing you the best of everything in 2024!🤗