We sat down with AchieveUnite’s CEO, Theresa Caragol, and Masterclass’s Isobel Rimmer to examine Collaboration in Action within a virtual world.
Watch the full interview below:
Direct video transcription below:
Theresa: Hello, it’s nice to see you, Isobel Rimmer.
Isobel: And you, Miss Caragol.
Theresa: It’s wonderful to be together. I wish we could be together face to face but this will be a fun a session.
Isobel: It will, and I was just thinking about how many years now have we been working like this on either side of the pond.
Theresa: We have been working over the pond for probably 4 years and we met through Rod Baptie through the Women’s Leadership Council and he said there’s a person you have to know. You’ve been a great friend and adviser and hopefully I’ve done the same for you.
Isobel: But it was funny, wasn’t it? Because Rod said to me you must meet Theresa and he said to you…
Theresa: He is a very good. We always say about Rod he’s a very meaningful connector. You know because the connections are always very valuable, which is a great skill.
Isobel: And I guess I mean, and that’s really what this whole collaboration piece has been about.
Theresa: Good lead into our discussion!
Isobel: Indeed. And how we develop that thing called STOIC, which we can talk about as well which I’d love to share with people.
Theresa: Absolutely.
Isobel: If you think about collaboration for you, Theresa, what does collaboration kind of mean to you?
Theresa: You know collaboration: I’m going talk about it on a couple of levels. One, is collaboration at the individual level, and you know there is research that shows that high collaborators are some of the most successful and influential leaders or followers in an organization. You know emotional intelligence, by the way, is associated with that. So, we should probably talk a little bit about emotional intelligence. And then there’s collaboration at the organizational level you know companies that are highly collaborative are also perceived to be more trustworthy. Often times highly collaborative organizations are associated with partnering and partnerships. So we have to sort of look at collaboration at both levels and we’ll talk about trust at the same as well.
Isobel: No, I think totally, and I know when we first started looking at this, we’re thinking well, how that plays out and then from our side when we’re running training and coaching and development and you’re running your programs and consulting, it’s all-around trust and collaboration.
Theresa: That’s right.
Isobel: All the clients that we work with and the associates that we have, and we’ve got about 65-70 around the world now, so there has to be trust and collaboration. You can’t force it.
Theresa: You can’t force it and trust & collaboration go hand in hand, they build over time. We talk about in a number of our programs; trust is gained and drops and lost in buckets. Right? And collaboration is an essential ingredient too, and there’s levels of collaboration right. There’s professional collaboration. There’s foundational personal collaboration.
Isobel: Well, I was doing a session the other week and I was using Charles Green’s Trust equation and you know I think it’s brilliant.
Theresa: You love his equation. I remember us talking about that equation a long time ago. Yeah. Why don’t you want to run through it for the audience?
Isobel: Well and I was talking about it and his principle is that when we build trust, it’s like a mathematical equation so “trust =…” And above the line, you’ve got credibility. So, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. Reliability – You have done what you say you will do. And they talked about intimacy and I was having this with a group, and they were saying, “Well that’s a bit weird in business.” I said, “Well, intimacy in the sense that if you’ll feel safe with somebody, then trust will grow in drops like you say. And they’re all above the line. And then, and this is why I think it’s brilliant, below the line – the denominator – he talks about self- orientation. What he says is that if self-orientation is high then you’ve got your own best interests at heart. If self-orientation is low, then I’ve got your best interests at heart. I was working with this group and somebody said, “Oh, that is so true. I’ve just been in this meeting and the guy the meeting was with really knows his stuff. Very credible. Turns up on time, absolutely reliable. Sort of feel that intimacy, but all the way through the meeting, I just felt he had his interests at heart, not mine”. There you go. So true, so true.
Theresa: And you know I think you’re a great role model of building trust and building intimacy. One of the things we’ve learned after doing business in this industry for a long time is relationships and trust for past companies and business and often times, we don’t we think about it in the transaction or the work that has to be done but the depth of relationships when you get past that and you form it at a different level, more business happens, more innovation happens, more collaboration. Deeper levels of the research shows that deeper levels of collaboration actually drive higher rates of innovation and so we do programs – you know both training programs and partner engagement programs. We really focus on how we get that magic happening both inside of organizations but between companies and because that will form the deepest level of partnerships. How do you align interest, which is a critical part of collaboration?
Isobel: And I think over the last year and we’ve seen this, you know we’ve not had, and I know we’re thousands of miles away, but we’ve not had the opportunity to get face to face with really anyone you’ve got to be able to build that trust and build that collaboration virtually on things like that.
Theresa: Yeah. And so, you know what’s interesting about that is we’ve seen connections deepen in a virtual world and relationships, and even though people aren’t face to face and so what are the ingredients that are mixing that and making that happen? You know clearly video matters. Video is a great source, the social media channels, right the LinkedIn, here we are on stream yard, the social media channels and that consistency of presence you know that matters right. What other ingredients do you see that play into the successful trust and collaboration of virtual world?
Isobel: It’s this fine balance and I suppose it’s the self-orientation piece, this fine balance of helping others whilst, of course having to promote yourself and I think for a lot of people that’s really quite hard. I mean neither of us are out there doing you know YouTube videos about ourselves or being influences in that way. And yet we have a story to tell, so as long as the story is relevant and practical and people can learn from it, then we have to get out there and do more of it. and I know a lot of life people are very uncomfortable. They don’t like doing video they don’t like doing stream yard. They don’t like putting stuff out on LinkedIn. I go, “Look that’s the way it is because it’s the equivalent of meeting up and networking physically at a conference or an event and you’re going to do it too”. But I think it’s lovely that we can connect the way we do, and it’s been quite inspiring to me.
Theresa: You know many of you know we started AchieveUnite several years ago and you know we have a consulting and an education practice, and our company is a different company over the last year from where we were to who we are now. You know the offerings and the depth of engagements we have with our clients and our partners. It’s amazing and I’m so grateful and I feel so blessed that that’s what’s happened. During covid, but I agree with you if you serve and you help and you really bring value and care magic happens and good things happen, you know we call it the universe. Whatever you believe there’s a there’s a force that happens when you know, put that out into the universe and I’II see it all the time you’re one of those happy accidents right in our relationship and our partnership as well. So, if you’re yeah, I mean it also has a bit.
Isobel: I think yeah, they, they say I don’t know that is it really serendipity or actually you know, is it the gods have made that decision for us. I don’t know, but I mean I don’t know about you but it’s almost a year now since we went into lockdown so middle of March, we went into lockdown here it is and here we are you know a year. Unbelievable but I was thinking this time last year. We’re going, Oh, you know, maybe we have to you know, use our elbows to shake hands and you know a bit more spray and I don’t think any of us really believed what would go on the time and yet, of course, from a collaboration point of view, I mean we went from doing probably 60% of our training and development face to face 40% of its online with our global clients to overnight everything virtually.
Theresa: And you’ve transformed your business into a virtual environment. Because I remember having a conversation with you and you know, sort of like wow, you know we weren’t sure how we’re going do this and you know what’s so neat is so many small and medium businesses have done that around the world, and it is it’s inspiring. You know to see how companies have changed their business models and I know you know I was teaching a class of about 85 people virtually last night and most people said, I don’t think it’s going back to that way. You know it’s going to this education and engagement space is going to stay in a hybrid world.
Isobel: You know for sure for sure I think it’s going to stay hybrid. You know we’re going to have maybe a little bit of face to face coming in, but I mean if you think about what we can achieve now in a virtual digital, Oh, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. But you’ve also got to put your heart into it, and you’ve got to put you know your personality into it. I mean I know, and I’ve seen that with my trainers. You know the way that they kind of bring themselves to or a webinar or whatever or a coaching session that energy and that enthusiasm is really so important.
Theresa: So important and the energy the enthusiasm and the other thing that we learned and teach in several of our programs is ‘your why’ you know and there’s a personal why and there’s a professional why and it’s your vision. It’s your mission. Being very clear about what that is because that also when that is aligned magic happens. So that’s also a very important ingredient of all of this.
Isobel: I’m thinking about when we came up with the concept of the STOIC approach to collaboration and a little bit like the Greek gods. But you know how we align strategically, tactically and in terms of the operational things that we do and the interpersonal relationships and of course that culture side of it and when you bring all those things together, Yeah, the magic happens.
Theresa: It really is the magic happens You have a book that you have written and I’m so proud of you and I completely endorse this book. I talk about it. I am very proud of Isobel that she did this her concept really works. So, I encourage you to take a look at her book, this natural business development and relationship – She lives it. She is it and so yeah anyway, I want to just commend you. I’m very proud of you and it’s doing fantastic in the market.
Isobel: I’ll tell you there is a book in everybody. Yeah. There is a book in it.
Theresa: We are underway with some creative things which we’ll we won’t give away today. But yes, there is absolutely, and I will highlight our ACE Leadership Program. It is probably one of the things that I’m most proud of in my career and the impact that it’s having on first women but now men and women and its profound experience and so ACE stands for Authentic leadership Collaboration and Empowerment, and it was a program modeled after something that a number of us did at Georgetown years ago. But we were aiming to get it out to many more people at you know not $100,000 cost point and so yeah, it’s been really transformational in the tech industry and we’re doing a lot more with that this year. So come talk to me at AchieveUnite on ACE if you’re interested.
Isobel: Oh absolutely. Absolutely and I think that this is it just to hearing you talking about that. Theresa, I know, of course I want to talk about my book, but you know when people genuinely want to make a difference. That’s right through ACE – you want to make a difference through natural business development. I want to make a difference and I know that when you give people the tools and the techniques to do some of these things, you know one area I just love working with is people who say “Well, I’m not in sales. I’m not a seller. you know I don’t do sales and actually. They are subject matter experts, right? Lawyers and consultants, tech people or whatever, they’re the ones that the customers want to talk to because they’re the same and they are not themselves not myself and it just shows them how they can connect with people and discover the world, share their services, their experiences and know-how and then they can collaborate
Theresa: That’s exactly right.
Isobel: There’s not one way to get there right. So, you know it’s a journey, not a destination and I always often refer to it as an onion and there’s multiple levels of the onion and you just keep peeling away the onion and working through this and progress happens and you’ll see an impact you’ll see, but the point is to recognize you really want to develop these skills and then go buy Isobel’s book. Join an ACE program. You know whatever it is to really to hone your skills and make a commitment to developing, get a coach. You know whatever your way is in order that you can build this. It’s like a muscle right you have to build the muscle well.
Theresa: I mean I know over the last year, people have said to you, you know what’s been happening in terms of customers and clients and you know are people still doing training and development and I say the enlightened ones are. Oh, yeah, you can absolutely do it in lockdown. You can absolutely do it digitally, virtually and the ones that are going, “Oh, no, we can’t” they’re the ones who are not missing out. Yeah, I agree with you because there’s a lot of you and the investment in people right now is really important. It’s really, really important and companies have an opportunity to show they care. They have an opportunity to you know, help people get out of the monotony of the day to day right. The research is showing that you know women are, it’s taking a huge impact on women in the technology industry right now and we’re losing people in the industry and so if you can invest in people – Totally – critical.
Isobel: Of course, I was running a session today. It’s called Speak Up Speak Out and it’s basically how if you are someone who has to not necessarily present, but you have to talk or speak at meetings, but you’re not necessarily a presenter – You don’t do sales pitch. you know you might be a project manager or something – It’s all about how we give them the confidence and the skills the confidence to be able to do it well and you can make a massive difference in 60 minutes – 90 minutes. You know they can go from being really nervous, not sure what to say to you know what? I’m clear on my message. I can handle my nerves. I can get my voice ready. I can do it with poise and done. But you need support. You can’t just watch a video. You can’t just read a book. You need that support.
Theresa: We’re running a number of webinars for International Women’s Day, but they will be on our website after about getting your voice heard in a virtual world and your point around concise communication and how you communicate in the video virtual world is more important than ever. So, I think it’s great that you’re also doing that kind of work.
Isobel: I was doing the session. I’m doing today. I said that I want you to take away the two or three things and one of the things that we worked on which was great fun. If you think about it when you’re at your laptop or your computer, whether you’re working from home working from anywhere, you probably have what I call your resting face. Yeah, resting face. And then suddenly you’ve got to go into your speaking or your presenting face.
Theresa: That’s right. That’s true. That’s true.
Isobel: They just go. And they don’t make that difference and be deliberate.
Theresa: That’s a great point right being deliberate about changing that face. Good very good.
Isobel: Where the camera is where your camera is right matters that it’s even and centered and the lighting is right.
Theresa: That’s great, little things. I mean those are all things that we do in our sessions.
Theresa: The thing that encourages me is that. Through this, the authentic self and you know if I have a Virginia Tech football in the background or pictures of my children or my Spanish dolls above from my grandmother, that’s great because it shows who we are. You know you’re in France right now right and you’re yes there you go. You got your picture in the background and those things are more personal and it also builds to the trust and you can get to know people at a different level. Sometimes my children come in and so we that has played in and I think we need to be very accepting of that. You know we need to embrace that because that’s people’s reality right now.
Isobel: It’s that sort of intimacy. We we’ve been invited into people’s homes. Yes, right, that’s exactly right. I love that you think about to be the last 20 years of work you know, when did I ever get into a client’s home? I mean, have you ever and now I’m we’re all there.
Theresa: I’ll finish on this note, Izzy: The last time I traveled was doing one of your presentation programs into New York. It’s on a Tuesday and then New York shut down on a Friday and so I love our partnership and I love working with you and I highly recommend Masterclass and Izzy in particular, and it was fun to be with you today.
Isobel: Oh, absolutely and those of you who are reading about Theresa being nominated for an award, those of us who know you, Theresa, none of us are surprised.
Theresa: Well, Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Isobel: Deserved, much deserved.
Theresa: Thank you. This has been a pleasure.
Isobel: Practice what you preach and that’s what it’s all about.
Theresa: That’s right practice what you preach and build partnerships and good things happen.
Isobel: Exactly.
Both: Awesome.
