LIZ LATHAN

Full Transcript



Karen Holst:

And we're live. Hi there. I'm Karen Holst.



Liz Lathan:

Hello.



Karen Holst:

Yeah. I'm Karen Holst, co-author of Start Within. A book all about empowering doers on how to innovate within their companies, whether that's a small company to a large company. And Liz, it is so great to have you. I was introduced to you via my co-author Douglas Ferguson, who couldn't make it this week. And I, just in learning your background was so excited to have you on, and I want to give you the floor to share more about your background and what you do.



Liz Lathan:

Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about this. I haven't done a LinkedIn live or any of these things before. This is so much fun. So my name is Liz Lathan, I'm CEO and co-founder of a company called Haute Dokimazo. We run spontaneous think tanks, which is basically peer-to-peer conversations, where we crowdsource what the conversation is going to be, onsite with the participants in the room. And prior to COVID, we were 100% in-person, technology-free, sticky notes and Sharpie markers and hugs. And as of South by Southwest, which was supposed to be our last in-person event, we are now a hundred percent virtual and we honestly didn't think it was going to work because we are tech-free. And now I feel like it's worked better than anything ever could because people need human connection now more than ever. And that's what we bring. So we've learned a lot and we'd love to share it with other people.



Karen Holst:

Yes. And I think one of the highlights of this pivot that you guys have made is you're calling from your vacation, right?



Liz Lathan:

I am. But you know what? Digital nomadism was a thing before and now it's really, no one cares where you are except the WiFi, which we're learning.



Karen Holst:

Yes. Exactly. Well, I would love to dive right in. For people that are tuning in and thinking about this moment, it does feel like what we're doing is taking the old model of how we ran meetings and conversations and just using technology to do more of the same, but there's real opportunities to think about it differently. And I would love to just peel back maybe a couple of ways that people can be thinking about that.



Liz Lathan:

Yeah. I think that's actually the problem, is that a lot of people are just saying, "Let's take those things we did in person and let's flip them." Because if you think about all the bad events you've ever been to. The bad events are you're sitting in a keynote room all day long in the dark, listening to someone talk from stage. Or you're sitting in breakout rooms and you just go room to room, listening to someone talk at you, when you look side to side and think, "My God, these people around me are the ones I really need to network with and talk to." So when you go to the good events, they're the ones that give you that space, that time to meet the people around you, to solve problems together, to collaborate and to make real connections.



Liz Lathan:

And online is the same thing. So we like to say that there's kind of four levels of your virtual event maturity. And I think level one is pivot to webinar. Great. Take that content that was a breakout session, put it in a webinar, people can chat and that's how we'll do that. But very quickly you learn that you lose your audience. You're not getting the engagement you want. And so I think level two is when people start saying, "Hey, let's do smaller groups and let's do engagements." We'll do the bourbon tasting, the wine tasting, we'll send out the kit in advance and we'll try to engage people, and make it feel like it was before as much as we can. And then I think that level three is when you realize, "Well, that was cool too, but people still aren't talking to each other. They're still watching something and then consuming something."



Liz Lathan:

So now level three is conversation. So this is where you get your Zoom breakout rooms and your opportunity for people to actually talk to each other, have round table discussions, really solve problems and converse. And then I think level four is where everyone wants to be, and that is the balance portfolio of all three of them. Because they all three have their purpose. Just like a real event. "Real." You need a breakout, you need a keynote, you need networking time. It's balancing it appropriately. And that's what we want to help people do.



Karen Holst:

So if you're within a company and maybe you're not the CEO or of leadership where you can control all the different moving pieces to make change, what are some small things that you can do in the meetings that you're joining either, it's a meeting that you're running and you've created, so you have a little bit of authority over how it goes, or you aren't in your participant and you can show up differently. What advice would you share?



Liz Lathan:

Oh, it's a really great question. And that's something no one really digs into enough. And that is be an active participant. If you're going to register for a webinar, join the darn thing. I mean, online webinar statistics, it's 80% attrition. Because people are registering for it, and then they're planning on watching it later on demand when they get the recording. But for an event organizer, my gosh, the stress around that, it's worse than an in-person event. Because you saw that you had 500 people register and then 20 show up, it's heartbreaking. Even though you know they're going to watch it later, but be the participant that can come to the event. And then when you're at the event, ask questions in chat, ask questions in the Q&A, pay attention.



Liz Lathan:

It's not just a podcast or a video you're watching on demand. You are there for the live event, so be a part of it. And then as the organizers, I think even if you're not in charge of the content, help. Help with the chat, help engage people. When people join, one of our simple, simple secrets is to just drop the question in the chat of, "where are you dialing in from today?" Or just a simple question to get people used to the fact that you want them to engage.



Karen Holst:

I love that. I even think about how in meetings in general and showing up, the people that I most respected really leaned in with questions and were actively listening and not just waiting to respond with their ideas, and how that spurs among other people, that same behavior. It's planting the seed. So you don't have to be a leader to behave that way. You can just be a participant and just highlighting that as a person showing up to an online event, whether that's a meeting or a conference, or as we're calling it now, an unconference, it's taking that same behavior of having a beginner's mindset, being active and present.



Liz Lathan:

Right. Well, it's a broadcast or it's an event. Take your pick. If it's just a broadcast, then fine, watch it like you watch Netflix. But if you're at an event, be at the event.



Karen Holst:

Yes. Douglas and I led a workshop within a conference that was probably more skewed to be a broadcast. And we didn't know that. What we came with was a workshop and as soon as we broke the rooms out to get to work, and roll up our sleeves, went down to 20 people. And we got past that very quickly and moved on, but in reflection, setting that up, I think to your point, people were there to just observe and kind of be working in the background. And once they realized there was actually going to be an opportunity to work, it was maybe not the right alignment. So setting that up front would have been helpful. But I will say those 20 that stayed, got so much out of it and we did too. So it was a way of weeding out people that weren't meant to be there anyways.



Liz Lathan:

I had a similar experience. We run these Haute Dokimazo events with the intent and the pre-warning of, "You are a participant. You are an active participant. Come in with your camera on, be ready to converse, ready to talk, ready to unmute." And we did one event where the participants did not get that upfront overview. And unfortunately about half of them came in without their camera on. They're the ones that, to your point, when we broke out into breakout rooms, they're like, "Nah. Okay, I've heard what this is now I'm dropping off." But then the 15, 20 people that stayed created follow-up meetings, created action plans, really went somewhere with it. So pay attention to that format that you're joining I think.



Karen Holst:

Yes. Another place that I've seen an opportunity for people to step up and lead teams in this moment is in reflecting on how the meetings are going down, sharing back with the teams in a safe way. So it's not pointing fingers and saying so-and-so you're doing this or XYZ, but it's distracting when you're looking at a different screen. So perhaps share with the team that you're looking at a different screen because you're taking notes, not because you're working. Or some of the normalties that you would have within a meeting, you might continue to behave that way, but we don't have the benefit of understanding what's going on in the room. And that feedback is required for people to learn and grow rather than continuing to reinforce bad behaviors.



Liz Lathan:

I think that's true. I also want to say if you're running round tables, if you're trying to bring people together for conversation, but your leadership team or people are trying to get more ROI out of those, and you're finding that conversation is not driving ROI because you don't know what to do with it or where to go. Have someone on your team plan to basically create an engagement report. So if you've got breakout sessions, put someone in your team in each of those rooms. Keep tabs on who's in the breakout session and Mark who's speaking, and what they're asking about, and those are the people your sales teams can follow up with, and you can create real connections out of that conversation in a non salesy way. So that during that round table, the conversation's real and it's flowing and it's natural. And then the followup happens afterwards.



Karen Holst:

Yes. I love that. It's so interesting when I think about this moment that we're in, and creating virtual cultures and ways of doing things in the norms that we used to have in person, it really feels like a great place for people that have ideas and want to get... They have an idea for making their organization better and wanting to lean in on that, but also feeling a little hesitant because we're juggling a lot, family and homeschooling or whatever world looks like right now, there's a lot more going on. And so the idea of taking on a new project, a new idea, and trying to see it through can feel overwhelming. And this seems to be like an amazing place for people to start diving into that because who doesn't look around the organization and say, "We could be doing things more efficiently or more creatively to keep things going. It's not more of the same, but it's different." And I just love this as being a place that people can really lean in to tune in on creativity.



Liz Lathan:

Well, I feel like now more than ever, we have permission to try things and permission for things to fail. Everyone is in a place where their WiFi could go down. Their child could walk in the room. You have no idea what's going to happen now. And not that in a professional environment you want that, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Just get things done and try it out. Dokimazo is actually the Greek word for to try or prove that something is genuine. And we're trying to encourage everyone. Now's your time to Dokimazo. There will come a time, and it's probably coming in the next 30 days or so, that we're tired of seeing people's bedrooms behind them. But create your own little in-home studio, but don't let that stop you from just trying these things. Get a small group of 10 customers together and do a wine tasting.



Liz Lathan:

Maybe you don't even send them the wine. Maybe you just say, "Bring whatever Chardonnay you want. And we're going to have a sommelier talk you through the different types of Chardonnays. You can just try these little moments and then start to scale them and have fun with it. Honestly, we're having a really good time. We run a series of events now called Unrestrictive Hotness that are site visits of international locations. Because we're supposed to be site visiting right now, but we can't leave our country. So we're doing these trips where our friends in these countries are setting up visits. We went to a pizza shop today in Italy, and then we were on the top of a mountain near the isle of Capri. And we're just exploring the world the best we can. It's more about creating the human connection than anything else at this time.



Karen Holst:

Yes. That idea of perfectionism, I think is what holds so many people back on testing new things and trying new things. Either it's waiting for the perfect moment. So it's not that the idea isn't ready, it's at the moment isn't ready. Or it's the idea isn't ready and I need to get it closer to perfect. But in both scenarios, there's prototyping and opportunities to do small experiments to lean forward. I think that is what as humans, holds us back and, "I want to wait until this is ready, or I have my better video camera in place before I start doing my live videos." There's a million things that will hold you from actually learning. And I think that's to the detriment of the end idea because the more formed it is, the first time people see it, the less feedback they have to give it as growing and helping it collaborate to become the thing it is meant to be.



Liz Lathan:

I think that's also important to put feedback in whatever you're trying. At the end of every experience, ask the people that were there, "How did it go?" Ask them for one thing that they loved about what you just did, and one thing you should change for next time. Make it open and honest. Don't just send a post event survey. No one fills those out anyway. Do it before you close your event. Even if you're doing a webinar where it's just chat. Ask people to put it in there and just tell you how it went, how it felt, how it sounded. And then use that feedback, of course, that's the most important part. Use it to change and adjust and scientific method, right? You theorize, you test, you then do it again.



Karen Holst:

Yes. I would like to add one more layer to that, which is being humble and open to the feedback and not ready to disclaim. "Just so you know, I didn't have a lot of time." There's a million disclaimers for that feedback that you could give, but if you're just open and allow it to come to you, then it really can truly evolve into something that has meaning versus you have a wall up and you have an excuse to ping back every single piece of information that you share. I love that. Absorbing the feedback is really important.



Liz Lathan:

I agree. A hundred percent. Yeah, don't have ego. You got to not have ego in any of this. You throw a [Reg 00:13:16] site out, and the Reg link's broken. Just go oops sorry, fixed now. It's fine.



Karen Holst:

Yes. Yes. And I do think, because we're popping between our lives and our work in this moment of working from home, there's a bit more of humility and humbleness that's being presented by people than was there prior, when you're in your suit and tie and you're ready to go all day long, and you're just back to back meetings. You've got a way to do it. Now you have these moments of popping up and grabbing coffee in your own kitchen. It's hard to be business as usual when you're bumping into a partner or a family member, your dog. So I think that's also something to embrace in this moment.



Liz Lathan:

And it doesn't mean don't prepare. At home when I'm not in some random rental house. I have my little studio set up with my selfie cam and I have the whole thing. So Nicole, my co-founder and I we ran this event from here, the WiFi in this beach house wasn't amazing. So we drove out to another little town to get a WiFi hotspot. She is on the house WiFi, I'm on the hotspot WiFi. We're practicing, we're testing. If it goes down, it goes down. We've done everything we could to get it right, to get prepped in the beginning. Don't stress over it, we're not saving babies. But do your work, try to make it look professional. People are going to come along for the ride with you. And that again, have fun with it. I think that's what people aren't doing right now. There's so much stress and undeniable stress and frustration in the world. But try to just let go a little.



Karen Holst:

Yes. Yes. I love that. As we wrap up, I would just love to hear a little bit more about in this moment and what we're thinking about how to make change within our organizations. Is there any tip or something that you're inspired by or a quote? Anything that you could share with our viewers that can just help them think about moving forward and taking action to make some changes.



Liz Lathan:

I think getting your group of people together, internally, your team or customers or advocates or communities or whatever it is, and actually getting them in a culture of playing together, like you're in a sandbox. Like you're playing and trying, and bring them into an advisory council where you can practice things and try things so that as you go into your more professional, buttoned up, ROI driven marketing campaigns, again, they've kind of come along this ride with you and they're invested in you as a human. And therefore they're going to be more connected with your company. You bring your executives along with it too. I mean, I don't know how many executives I've coached over the last couple of months that are amazing on stage, but horrible online. And so just again, bringing their audience together with them and getting them used to having good lighting and good sound and just preparing their presentation differently. There's no teleprompter. Don't look like you're reading. You got to be a human again. I think that's my advice and guidance is to play more together.



Karen Holst:

Yes. I love that. We actually had a guest lead [Duncan 00:16:11]. He's a enterprise designer within IBM, share a notion that has really stuck with me, that we know the idea of IQ and EQ, and right now we're building and developing our VQ. And I think that's so relevant and both how you present yourself, but also how you're reading others in the work that you do. So yes.



Liz Lathan:

I agree.



Karen Holst:

Thank you so much for joining us this week. It was amazing to have you. I think that there's so much to learn here. If people want to reach out to you, they can find you on LinkedIn, through this video, we'll share the link to your profile. I'm Karen Holst, I'm co-author of Start Within. A book all about empowering doers to launch new ideas within their company, their organization. You can find it on Amazon or you can find myself on LinkedIn as well. Thank you again Liz.



Liz Lathan:

Thank you so much. We'll see you soon.