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The Uncommon Communicator
The Uncommon communicator is the individual that has the enlightenment, to recognize in any situation, whether or not communication has occurred. This uncommon communicator takes ownership of the conversation and possess the skills to navigate and facilitate the conversation to mutual understanding. Taking on the experts as well as the Sophist of old to help bring clarity to the lost art of true communications.
The Uncommon Communicator
Building learning ecosystems that thrive with Dr Carrie Graham
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The fastest way to kill a good team is to train adults like they are kids and then act surprised when they tune out. I sit down with Dr. Carrie Graham, a leader in adult learning and workplace development, to unpack what actually drives retention and behavior change in real organizations. We get into how adults learn through meaning, prior experience, and emotion, plus why communication training sticks only when it connects to the learner’s world instead of a generic slide deck.
We also dig into “capacity” and why smart, capable people sometimes have nothing left for one more program. Carrie shares how seasons of life affect learning bandwidth, and we translate that into practical choices leaders can make: better formats, better timing, and clearer transfer from learning to the job. Then we go straight at a common failure pattern across industries, especially construction: promoting the best craft worker into a foreman or superintendent role without support. We talk about the real cost of poor communication, the risk of waiting for once-a-year external training, and why CEOs and executives need to be in the learning room too if they want true ROI.
The conversation closes with two modern leadership challenges: capturing tribal knowledge as seasoned pros retire, and using AI tools without losing authenticity. Carrie shares a candid AI “confession” from LinkedIn and the lesson it taught her about voice, connection, and how tools shape your audience. If you lead people, build training, or want a stronger learning culture, this one will give you clear next steps. Subscribe, share the show with a leader on your team, and leave a review with the most broken training habit you want to fix next.
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Welcome And Meet Dr. Carrie Graham
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Uncommon Communicator Podcast. I am your host, James Campbell, and that's where we bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. Are you ready to take ownership of your conversations? Are you looking to fantastic skills to navigate and facilitate conversations to a mutual understanding? Then grab your growth mindset and let's go. Welcome to the Uncommon Communicator Podcast. It is my pleasure today to have Dr. Carrie Graham with me. Carrie, I I'm gonna have you tell us a little bit about who you are and what do you do?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Oh, thank you so much, James, for having me. I am the connector between your operations and people challenges. And so I use a focus that um addresses learning as the linchpin between between the two.
SPEAKER_00Okay, linchpin. I like where you're going. You're a connector of people. I love that. Well, I'm I'm truly excited to have you on the podcast. There's so much uh interconnections that we've had and how we how we got to uh know each other a little bit, obviously through LinkedIn, as everyone would know, and uh through our friend Jesse Hernandez as well. Uh great podcast that you had with him. But seeing some of the stuff that you post on LinkedIn, you you're doing something truly unique. And I think when it comes down to uh communication, I'm a big big into communication, but also training is really uh it's not just talking, right?
Why Adult Learning Works Differently
SPEAKER_00It's not just giving information out, but what's the retainage that actually happens? And you really got something unique when it comes down to adult learning. Uh, is there something you can tell us like specifically? Why is adult learning so much different than the than the than the learning we we got when we were in school?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I want to be clear. Um, our scholars, um, Mesero, um, Malcolm Knowles, they are the grandfathers of adult learning. Um, but I want to say when we think about training in the workplace, it's often done based or facilitated in a way that people are familiar with. And that's how you train children, right? School, being in school where the teacher has all of the knowledge and the child is the empty vessel and they're pouring knowledge in. Well, as adults, we, you know, mid-20s to and odd, we've had rich life experiences, we've got our own unique mental models that we've constructed, our own meanings of things, and all of that development happens in the prefrontal cortex. So our executive level system of decision making, critical thinking, that's where we learn. We are matching a new experience or even a familiar experience to something that we already know, and we have to include emotion in that. So that's the key difference between um training, developing adults versus children. It makes a big difference, and communication is absolutely one of those skills.
SPEAKER_00You know, what you talked about, I was thinking about this kind of my my journey. Like for some reason, I have ended up around a bunch of people that are really self-developers, always learning, always developing themselves. What book are you reading is a common thing? Like, what are you learning? And I that hasn't always been the case. And I was thinking, like, even like uh going through the apprenticeship, I went through a four-year apprenticeship, worked in the trades, you know, you're just you're absorbing stuff, you're learning, you know, from hands-on, it's all new stuff. Then I went into being a foreman, learning different things that way. And I wasn't reading books, I was raising my kids and playing Legos and doing Littless Pet Shop. And so I wasn't doing any developing into myself during that period of my life. And then I hit a point where it really, really came important when somebody wanted me to read the book. Uh, let's see, it was the um uh Stephen Covey book, Seven Habits. That was really my first step into my development journey. So, do you find that there are uh just adults that aren't into learning?
SPEAKER_03I, you know, I'm gonna push back on that, James, right? Like early in early in our conversation, right? I'm gonna push back.
SPEAKER_01Bring it.
SPEAKER_03So two things that you just mentioned. The first is you identified that you weren't you weren't learning. And I would I propose that you were actually learning, particularly in that time when you were raising your children. So you were learning and refining patients, different ways of communication. Um, you were learning how to mentor, right? So instead of parent, you were actually developing your skills and refining your skills and mentoring other human beings, inspiring and teaching other human beings. The challenge is that our society would lead us to believe that if we're not in our in the context, if we're not learning in the context of work, it's not learning. And that's not true. Really, what for you and for myself and others, the shift is how can I transfer this skill, this development, this growth back into my work. And and here's a prime example. So you mentioned Covey's seven habits. When I was in undergrad, I back in the early 90s, I took my only business course, and we were required to read Covey's Seven Habits. It was the first edition. You know, I did like most college students, I didn't read it word for word. I read what I thought was gonna be on the test, all the things, right? And I night at the end of the semester, I politely packed it in a box and went on about my life for the next five or six years. I landed in some part of the country, unpacked it, saw the book. I went back to it, like I flipped through, read some things, and it had a like I was learning something different. Oh, that's great. Packed it up, put it in a box, right? The cycle continued, and then the last time I used it, it was when I was a faculty member, a professor, and I was teaching a leadership course. And so because it had such an impact at different phases of my life, and I was able to transfer the knowledge, it's the same words on the page, but I was able to transfer them different at different stages. I thought this is a good one for these students, and so that's why I say I push back. I think we're as adults, we are in fact always learning. It's really around our perception of that learning that's happening and our ability to transfer it to something else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, push back all you want. I love this. Thank you. And I've become a feedback
You Are Always Learning Anyway
SPEAKER_00junkie, but you you said something that really got me thinking too. Like during those times, especially the apprenticeship, uh being a new dad, um, all of those things, you're you're absorbing so much uh and learning that uh yeah, I certainly was learning. I guess in my mind, I wasn't reading books and improving on things, which that book just really opened my eyes to a whole new world of things that could help me be better at what I was doing. But when you said that, one thing I work for a company called Co-Build, and we are big in talking about you know, creating environments for people to succeed. We talk about our capacities, uh, we talk about grit and resiliency a lot. And that's really led through our CEO, Stephanie Wood, has really just pioneered this concept of really developing uh not only our people, but we're gonna translate this over to our trades to build grit and resiliency. Now, all of that tied to what you just said is there there was a point in my life where when I think about capacity, like I don't think I had the capacity. I was learning, and and and you're right, I should not discount that. But I bet often you run into people who uh are at different stages in their life that don't that they're kind of at their capacity of learning. Like, how do you break through that capacity barrier?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a great question. And one of the things I encourage people to do is first take inventory of what does capacity mean and where are they, right? And so the reason I say that is I'll I'll use myself as an example and then I'll share a work-related example. When I was getting my doctorate, there was the amount of reading and learning that was happening, it was something I never would have imagined before, before that experience. And so when I was done, I because I literally was mentally at and intellectually at capacity, I didn't read anything. I mean, I didn't even want to read a menu for I would say a good three or four years, right? So, like no books, no papers, nothing because I I was tapped out and I knew what I knew, right? I I just kept saying, I don't want to learn anything new, I need to use what I've already had. And so, but that was at that season, and so now while I'm learning new things, my capacity for reading is fiction, totally unrelated. And and so for those individuals who are in the workplace or in the trades, you may find yourself or your team is at capacity where they're not growing within their skill set. And that's not to say that they hit a ceiling, but it's simply in that role, right? So they know the ins and outs of that very narrow role. It may be giving them, or or if you're the person, moving into a new position, right? Because there's the tension becomes the newness. And so you have to learn and understand the newness. You have to figure out how to transfer your existing skills to that new situation. So I would say that capacity is is really closely tied to the context when it relates when we're talking about employees and and and growth and learning at work.
SPEAKER_00You you're the second person this week that talked about fiction being
Capacity Burnout And Seasonality
SPEAKER_00that capacity to um to read, because I I'm a big this sounds stupid. I love textbooks, like I love bullet points, I love technical uh data, and I I don't love fiction. There's a couple of books, uh, even in the lean world, uh, and Patrick Lencioni as well too has uh what I call um fables. I don't think they like that word, but they they basically tell a story, you know, kind of a fake story of the energy bus, one of my favorite books. Are you familiar with uh so it's another one of those type fables, but I love the work that came out of it, but it was in the fable form. And with uh with that, I love reading that textbook, but that this was uh and this was my boss's like his thing was like I don't have at the end of the day, his thing is to dive into fiction because that's where it allows his mind to um grow, but it's you know, he's not gonna go and read a technical uh novel um at the end of the day, which is for me, I'm like, all right, bullet points. Let's like we're we're really learning now. Um but if if we want to sidebar on the energy bus really quick, I mean this is but was really a life-altering uh book for me. Uh, and it's really all about the energy that we bring into the people that we work with in our own life. And it kind of goes to this whole story where a gentleman is really he he's he's working with a team, and that team is uh failing, and he's worried about getting fired. And you know, his attitude was really bad. It goes to this whole story where he ended up getting a flat tire, and so he had to take a bus and he gets on the bus, and that's where the fictional story of the of the energy bus is. And then that bus driver shares just how basically positivity and changing your mindset can really change and alter the direction of your life, but also change and alter the direction of other people's lives and those that are in the room with you. Uh, it was just it was it was a again fable book, but the storyline was incredible. And for me, as a leader, I think it's really important that we come in with the right uh energy uh for that. So this is not about the energy bus, this is about the program.
Reading Styles And Energy Mindset
SPEAKER_00But had uh, but that was such a such a good um, I think topic in regards to as much training as uh as you do. And you don't you you train the trainers basically, is that right?
SPEAKER_03I do, I do. I train, I I would say that's sort of the middlework that I do is training the trainers, and really the the broader visionary type work that I do is working with organizational leaders who who are they don't only have the vision, but they actually have capacity to enact the vision of the organization. And so it's it's helping them again change the perspective that this isn't simply training check the box type of thing, but how do the how is how are we empowering the people to function within the operations and the link is often the training as the way to empower them?
SPEAKER_00Let's dive into that because I do a fair amount of uh training myself. I do a lot of speaking, and so I'm I'm really I'm at the point now in my speaking career where I can really engage and know the audience. Like you see, everybody starts with, here's my stuff, and then you it moves into really wanting to connect. And then finally, like I want to now I want people to leave with the message that I'm leaving them. That's the most important. How do I serve my audience? That's what I look to do. And in doing that, so I I'm able to kind of scan, look at the rooms that I'm in and
Building Training Systems With ROI
SPEAKER_00see who's disengaged, who's on their phone, who, you know, who isn't, who isn't receiving it. And that's why I wanted to dive into that capacity thing. But also, like I'm sure that that's I think the biggest hurdle in any type of training. I think every company should train. We're on the same page with that. If you're not training your individuals on your team, then you're failing your company. And so, but who's doing it, right? Are they professional trainers, people like myself that are just learning? But in addition, you have to have an audience that is receptive. And that's it's a it's a science in there. Do you is that what you do is help create like the the science or the system that helps translate this information in that adult learning fashion?
SPEAKER_03I do, I do. That is the the part that I am most passionate about, and that actually helps organizations see or the leadership see the greatest ROI is they've insist and instituted a system. You know, one of the things that you you mentioned is is the the word around training. And so often when people mention training teams, they are often referencing the the workforce, those individuals who manual laborers, customer service, you know, public-facing individuals. And that's that is falling short. If that is your sole focus, you're falling short. Um, the the training, effective training systems include managers, leadership, and and dare I say, everybody lean in, please. Dare I say the CEO, the founder, and the executive director, you need to be in those rooms as well. Granted, there's a level of skill that has to happen, right? Like skill development to dig the ditch, let's just say that that requires a technical skill that we need to teach and they need to learn. However, when you're looking at leadership, does your do your leaders have the skills to give the instruction that inspires and empowers the ditch digger?
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03And and you can't simply rely on, well, they've been digging ditches for 40 years, so they'll make a good leader at communicating that. I'm gonna say no. I want to call BS on that, right? But um, and the same holds true with having the CEOs, founders, and executive directors. You also need to be in the room. If you're wondering why you're not getting a return on your development programs, that is one of the ways to do it. Because what the message that you are putting forth within your organization is that you are not above learning. And that while your need, like the specific skill set that you need may be different, you still have an opportunity to learn something. And even for you as the as the head of the company, the learning for you might be how how are the individuals within my organization interacting with one another? How are they actually inspired by bringing in someone to conduct a development, right? So you're seeing it with your own eyes, you're experiencing it firsthand as opposed to relying on a report.
Leadership Training And The Promotion Trap
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and what you just pointed out, I think is the single biggest gap in construction, uh, in the ability for construction to move forward. Because what I have seen, and I think you called it the leadership the learning gap, maybe, but we what you when you talked about the when you talked about the ditch digger, specifically, like we'll take, and I have a very specific story. You took the best drywall finisher, and it was a big job. So they brought in you know 20, 30 finishers and made him foreman, right? Because he could talk. And so they made him the foreman. He was not a foreman at all, had no leadership skills, no foreman, and leadership is is different than just being a foreman for a trade. I mean, he was a great finisher, level five, like the top of the top-notch finisher, took him off the tools and said, now go have everyone else uh put some work in place. And in addition, they gave uh him on that individual team people like right off the street that never touched a trowel before either. So there was a huge skills gap as well as he was now a foreman, as well as having to lead. And then from the general contractor perspective, you know, I'm I'm creating flow through the project, got a lot of resistance from him. He didn't understand it, you know, he didn't want to be told what to do. And so this was a complete skills gap of leadership and foreman training because it happens all the time. Took the best person off their tools, put them up there, and assume that they can just do the thing.
SPEAKER_03Well, James, you know, I have to say yes to that happening in construction, but the truth of the matter is it happens across all industries. You know, construction is not alone on that island. This is the way in which people are are promoted, they are moved up. And that's like it is fine. Let me just say this if you see someone, they've been here or been doing the job for numbers of years, and you want that is that is your choice and your decision as the head of the organization. However, promotion, it shouldn't stop at promotion. You need to be very clear about why you're promoting them, why you're moving them up, and your expectations of them, but then it is your responsibility to develop them. You have to develop them. And you know, that statement has been around for at least 10 years. You know, good people don't leave an organization, they leave a bad manager, or something to that effect. It is because those people, those managers are not skilled at community communication. They're not skilled at a lot of things, but effective communication is the sole common skill set that they need and they're not getting. So you promote whoever you want, but you need to skill them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's it's timing as well, too. Like as having gone through an apprenticeship. It was a four-year apprenticeship, first year apprentices. You're lucky for you to carry the tools around of your journeyman, right? And then they send you on to go get the bucket of steam and all the non-existent tools, and you guys you learn, right? And then you kind of go through that level to where when you're in that fourth year, you're maybe uh, you know, get up a couple more apprentices and you guys go take care of a task and you know you're you're starting to teach, which I'm such a huge fan of. If you don't know teach, don't know. Maybe you would disagree with that, but I have learned so much from studying and teaching more than I did from just the doing. But they but what we do in construction is uh there's no apprenticeship performance level stuff. Uh my friend Justine Hernandez, he has a great program where he's out working with trades right now to help develop the foreman skills in people. Um we as an organization, co-build, we're looking at how can we, in the short term, like have expectations and and help our foreman uh on our, you know, and from our trades do better because they're basically not even giving an apprenticeship that's like now you're the leader. Uh, we'll train you at some point. This one in particular, this this person was made uh superintendent, uh roofing company. And in like three months, they're gonna send them to their uh supervisor academy um in like three months because they do it once a year. And so here he is running a job with no skill uh set in actually running the job. And he is again their best roofer. And so those are those are gaps that we have to find out a way to solve um quickly. Yeah, it's not, I think we know it. Here's the problem, right? This would be my question to you. We know this. Why do we not do what we know?
SPEAKER_03Uh, that's the million-dollar question, actually. My my take on it is that one, it's multifaceted, but given what you've shared, one is I'm working, we're we're promoting this person, but we're functioning from an external governance, right? They hold, they offer the training once a year. We've permit you know, in June, we've promoted the person in April. So we're working within that context. That's fine. However, you still have a responsibility to do some level of training, some level of development you can you can facilitate some level of development in-house until they get to that point. Um, the other part of it, it you know, another question that I I would offer back is have the leadership explored with that person who's been promoted, what are their goals? What are their ambitions? What do they want to learn? Because if you can identify that early on, you're gonna get the best out of that individual. They they are motivated when you provide people with the thing that they want, the level of motivation to grow, even if there's some tension, even if I have to do the job, not knowing all the skills, but nevertheless, my employer is gonna give me this little bit to grow, it it's there. The caution that I I want leadership to take a moment, press pause on our conversation right now. Um, not you, James, but whoever's listening. I I want you to press pause after this question. If you have someone that you've promoted and their external regulatory training doesn't start for a couple weeks, a couple months, what is the cost of them making a mistake? What is the cost of their poor communication skills contributing to skilled laborers walking off the job because they're pissed off? So I want you to, if you are listening, I want you to press pause and really give thought to the financial cost. And are and can you afford that cost per week or per month until this individual goes to a training?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's 100% agree. And that's I think part of the problem. I can I can list you half a dozen people, six people who became foreman when they they told me, Hey, go cover that job, you're the foreman. Like there was no expectations of do is this the development that you want. A lot of times it involves another buck and a quarter an hour or whatever. That was the money back in the 90s when I was looking for probably more than that now. But but that's uh uh you know, there's not those questions that are asked. And that's why I think as a general contractor, uh we're looking at taking that responsibility to see that we can see that because you're more there's a cost to it. The cost isn't just in their own uh, you know, their own people not respecting them or working for them. It's in response to, you know, as a general contractor who hires uh trades, you know, the you're only as good as that last crew that was on your job. Like it doesn't matter how good the pre-con department was, it doesn't matter how great the CEO is, it matters how was my last experience. And that that that is that last experience that we get. That's how valuable it is. And that's why we think we can recognize that and then help support that in an industry where it's just truly just shorthanded.
Capturing Tribal Knowledge Through Mentorship
SPEAKER_00And I say that for construction specifically because that's my world, but I think if you look across uh, I mean, just population-wise, there's a gap in there between people my age and people that are in this Gen Z X, I forget what letter they're at. There's a gap in there. There just wasn't as many of us as there were. So there's this gap in there, and we just we don't have people to fill the jobs.
SPEAKER_03Right. And you know, one of you bring up such an excellent point of having people who are professionals who are mid-career and late career, right? So in construction or other industries as well, but in construction, you have individuals retiring or leaving the leaving the profession, and they're taking their knowledge with them. And one of the dangerous things that you have is when you have the shift in generation, right? So you have a wave of retirees, a wave of young people entering or unskilled people entering, there is a learning curve and a loss of information. And if you are trying to reach with this new generation, reach that place where the where professionals have retired without sharing that information, it takes another 10, 15 years for that entering generation. Hopefully they stay, hopefully they have great learning or work experiences, and so they have that body of knowledge. And so when you think about looking at your workforce from a generational perspective, another part of training and development is in fact by creating a system that captures the information from those seasoned professionals. It doesn't always mean that you promote all of them. It may simply mean, hey, we have Carrie, who's been a Mason, you know, um hands-on masonry work. You know, she's not, you know, in a leadership capacity, but she's got that knowledge. And she's here in retirement. Let's sit down, let's capture some information from her. Let's just record her talking, sharing some insights and wisdom that she has so that we've captured the information and share it with our entering um future masons. Now I will say, anyone listening who's in construction and I use the word Mason wrong, please extend me some grace.
SPEAKER_00You get all the grace in the world, and you're doing great. You're you're you uh yeah, you you are a construction expert now. Uh but what one thing you you do mention in regards to kind of that um transfer of knowledge. Uh I am involved in a group called the old dogs. So that group, that's exactly what we want to do because and the these numbers are probably five or seven to one. People are leaving the trades, either retiring or getting out of it uh with that gap. And so we're not getting seven in at the same time. We're that's the gap that we're getting. So we are doing what we can to uh canonize and make sure that we're passing that information on because there is gonna be that learning gap curve where all the mistakes that we made, now we want to be able to share. And when I'm finding those, my generation is now wanting to share that. I would say the generation ahead of me, they kept that stuff secret, locked up tight, like that was they were gonna lose their job. And I remember I had specifically had a superintendent who did not duplicate himself. And in my and he's one of the best Millwright superintendents I'd ever known, mind-wise, skill set-wise, but I think he failed the industry because he wasn't he didn't duplicate himself, and that's what we're trying to do is doing that.
SPEAKER_03Um I love this conversation, and you raised such a great point as it relates to mentorship. Um, you know, I I wrote a book chapter years ago on mentoring, and one of the challenges that happens in in the professional environment is so often an end a seasoned professional will identify someone who holds personal characteristics similar to yourself, and those are the people that they choose to mentor, right? And so you end up duplicating people like you, right? So it's the same thought, same beliefs, same, in some cases, physical attributes, and so I challenge people to look for individuals who have a different belief system, have a definite, a different level of identity from yourself and pour into them because that's how you expand your reach. If you are simply making carbon copies of yourself, your industry, your organization is only gonna get the same thing. Yeah, and it really speaks a lot about your core your organizational culture. And you will struggle to attract new people when what they see is that those individuals that are being promoted, they all look the same.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's a great point. That is a great point. I like that. I like being intuitive uh to your point about purposing that to kind of veer away from that because you're right. That is pretty common. Uh, it's like because I I've seen that. That's like they're no leader. I'm like, what are you missing? Right. Like I can see it in them. Uh why don't you see it? Because they don't see it from their from their lens. And that that's important, um, especially as we move into the next into the future, because we have to identify that. Uh, that's a that's a great point.
The AI Content Confession And Authenticity
SPEAKER_00I wanted to dive into something uh that this will be kind of our last topic. Uh it was it was in your blog, which you call CAM, which I love, uh, your Calm blog acronym. Um you talked about an AI confession that you had because that's something I've been talking about recently. And again, learning to say, hey, I messed up, you know, that's you I love that you were so would you be willing to kind of talk a little bit about that? Because I've got some questions in regards to that uh specific one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So let me uh I'm gonna say thank you in advance, James, for asking me about that, even though I was not wanting to, but I'm I'm just gonna say thank you. Um, so I, you know, full context, I was a late, I am, I guess, a late adopter of AI. And the reason is because I I really struggled from a um moral and ethical perspective of where is this going? How is bias going to um impact the output? Where is the information being taken from? And so I struggled with that. A couple months in I I looked for the right one, and so um I have never used Chat GT GPT. I can honestly say I've never used that brand or model, but I've used Claude, right? So they're all the same different names, and I chose them because of their mission. So I started playing around, and a couple months in, I'm like, well, this is helping me flush through some ideas. Claude's able to create um some very small pieces of content for LinkedIn. Well, we are getting closer to the holidays, and I typically take December off, and I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna take a weekend and Claude, these are my words. This is the you know, I did what I was supposed to do. I pre-like I read it, proofread it, all the things, put it out there and on LinkedIn, and what I found was there was engagement. I will say that there was engagement, and over over about a month, month and a half, the engagement started to change. So there were people that I I didn't anticipate being attracted to the content, and they were commenting and engaging and such. And at one point I read a comment and I thought, I don't know how I got here. And the comment wasn't bad. I will say, like, it wasn't bad or anything, but I was reading it and I thought that yes, this is this idea of the post is mine, but I don't know how how did I how did this person find me? How they're in a different industry, all the things, and that's when I pulled back and I was reflective of all the posts that I had pre-scheduled using a my AI, and I thought, oh no, I fell for the thing that I was afraid of. I want to swear right now, but I don't know who listen. And so, you know, I extend myself grace and said it was a great learning lesson. It was a great learning lesson, and I sat on that for a couple weeks, like, I really want to share this with people. It doesn't make me look like it's not glowing, but it's true, right? I'm human, it is true. I was doing something that I I made, I chose to make a decision, and in the moment, it seems like the best decision, and it was okay to a point, but I realized it put distance between me and my audience, my desired audience. And that's the part that really bothered me. Um, and so that's the story for those of you that didn't read, that didn't read the vlog.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's the story.
SPEAKER_00I really, really appreciate you. You me asking, I didn't prep you on that. You didn't know I was gonna ask that question, but uh it really is important, and I think for even myself to talk about the things that I've learned, uh, I mean that's that's another journey we can talk about where I'm able to accept the fact that I can talk about mistakes because that was not something that uh I was accustomed to even within like eight years ago, right? We didn't make mistakes, uh and that wasn't a mistake, but it's just sharing really a learning that's important for people to know because what connected with me on that one is specifically in the social media, uh, I'm seeing it now on LinkedIn, like I can see the pattern because I will say this I've used Chat GPT, I've used them all, I've I've messed with all of them and studying other things. I probably don't go as deep as some people go into it and creating uh specific things, but I study in it and I do that. But you start seeing its voice a little bit, and specifically with chat GPT, I embraced it because the minute I the day I used it, it sent me bullet points. Like they have this clear, it brings clarity to topics. There's a lot of value to that. So I'm starting to see this pattern in LinkedIn posts, specifically that I can tell somebody said, Hey, uh Claudner or whatever, give me give me a post about this and put it in my voice or whatever it is. And it's not, I can tell, I can hear, I can see it, and it bothered. I I skim past them. So there is a disconnect now that I'm having when I'm seeing how they're written, because it's a pattern across it's the best part, is because I see a lot of different content that it's it's the same words with uh different people, and so I don't like it. And from a communication uh perspective, I think if that's you know, if we really think like I'm not gonna put any effort into share my heart, I'm just gonna go ahead and and have the robot do it, as I like to call it. Um pretty much the robot and then is gonna talk to the other robot, and we're losing that connection, that true meaning of what we're trying to post uh and connect with. And that's why I appreciated when I read that from you on it, because I I I haven't I haven't gone to the point where I've actually done it, but I've thought about it because it's easy. Like I've got somebody on my team right now that is using Claude and uh Co-Pilot to generate some documents for us that are on the learning and development side on the performance evaluation side that he did it in, I would say a week's time, which would have taken me never. Like I'll tell you right now, I would not have got it done. Uh he had he had a special skill set to do it, but he also uh put out a great product utilizing it for the right purpose, but being able to communicate uh human to human uh that AI is not the way to do it. And I really appreciated you sharing this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, it's the one of the, and this is in no way to to justify, but I want to I want to add some, or excuse, I want to add some context and and guidance as well. And so while I take typically take December's off from social media and from all the things, I wanted there to still be a pattern there. Right. And my capacity, I have ideas all the time, all day long, right? I just wish ideas would stop coming. And so I wanted to capture the ideas that I had, plan them out so that my audience, my community was able to still follow and not beyond my personal schedule. And so there's there's opportunity there, but I really encourage people not only with AI, but with anything that you're using in terms of tools, is to really think about how, in fact, you're using it, right? And so we have, if we think about a bowl or a with a wicker basket, you know, one person would say, Oh, the wicker basket is only to be used to carry vegetables and produce. Okay, well, if it's only used to carry vegetables and produce, the only people that will be attracted to that is those who have produce vegetables and fruit. But if you say that same wicker basket can be used as a hat to shade you from the sun, those people that will use that basket as a shade, those that live in you know hot, sunny climates. And so think about how you want to use the tool and recognize that you may alienate if some people, if you're using the tool in one regard. The same holds true with training, but if you you within your organization, if you use training solely reactively to penalize people that have made mistakes, the culture then becomes whenever we have a training, someone screwed up and we all gotta pay the price for it, right? But if you create a culture where, hey, from CEO to the newest intern or apprentice that joins the organization, we're all gonna sit through the we're all gonna engage with training and we're all gonna be active participants, and we're all gonna walk away with at least one lesson learned that we can institute right away. Yeah, that becomes the culture. And so the same holds true with you know using technology, any resource that you choose to use, I really employ people to think about it differently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. That's a great analogy. I love that because that that is so true. Like creating that um basically that bucket can be used in a bunch of different ways. Uh I have been part of those cultures where the forklift incident, we have mandatory training and it was not engagement. You had to sit through it, you had to sign the paper that said you're never going to do it again. And that is reactive. And to your point, like being proactive with it, having a company or an organization that does it uh purposefully ahead of that to save those opportunities, I think are things that you do. You create those structures, which I really appreciate how you do that.
Resources Final Questions And Takeaway
SPEAKER_00Uh, we're so to wrap it up, uh, I've got a couple of questions, but while uh before while I craft them in my head, uh actually I have them. Um how can how can people get a hold? What's the best way to get a hold of Dr. Graham?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would love for you to visit my website, drygraham, my full name dot com. And there's all sorts of resources there, but the thing that will be most beneficial to you and worth your while for visiting is to take the free assessment. So there's a 10 question assessment, and it helps you identify where you stand between the link or disconnect between your people and your operations and how much time and money you're spending when that gap exists. And James, I believe you took the test. I'm not gonna tell them what your score was. I was pretty proud, I was actually really impressed. I'm not gonna tell them. I'm not I was I was proud of you in in the position that you're in and where you are within your organization from you know starting to build. But that's where people can visit me. Um social media, always LinkedIn, but my website's the best play and and take that take that 10 10 question quiz.
SPEAKER_00Yep, I love that. I took the quiz. Uh, the website is a depth of knowledge too, especially your blog and a lot of other lead uh leads that to other podcasts that you've been on. So there's a lot of wealth of information that you can get from Dr. Graham. So I encourage everybody to do that. We'll throw those into the into the notes, uh, into the uh notes at the end. So I've got two questions. The first question is this What does the world get wrong about Dr. Graham?
SPEAKER_03Oh, oh um, I think the world has gotten wrong and um in the past that I am coldly quiet. Coldly quiet, so that um and and I say used to be um the the impression is oh she's standoffish or she's just really quiet or you know, whatever the case may be, whatever the narrative is. And I will say I am a true introvert, right? So even after this conversation here, I'll need a nap. Um alone, you know, alone. Um, but you know, with age, with age, I'm on the other side, I'm 53, it's on the other side of 50. You start to recognize like people are gonna say what they want, but who am I as a a war, a warm, calming presence as opposed to a chilly, a chilly one?
SPEAKER_00I love that. I've I've been told that that exact word standoffish has been used for me as well, too. And I'm like, that's I've told that to other people that are that's not you. I appreciate you sharing that. And then the last question I ask all of our guests this look, we've spent 40 over 40 minutes here talking, right? What if we can walk away with one thing from today's conversation, what's the what's the one thing our listeners could really walk away with in just a couple of sentences?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the the one thing that my prayer is that listeners walk away with is that your employees are so much more than just your employees. If you want to motivate them and inspire them, you have to see them as more than that. You have to engage with them, you have to develop them, not simply train them, meaning giving them a skill set. You have to view them as the human beings that they are. You will be better for it, they will be better for it, and your organization will be better for it.
SPEAKER_00That's the way work with humans. I love that. Well, that is all we got for this episode of the Uncommon Communicator, and we will see you everybody next time. See you bye. Congratulations. You made it all the way to the end. You're officially a one percenter. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Uncommon Communicator with me, your host, James Cable. Make sure you like and share this episode. Let's help spread the message of communication to the world. Check out our website, the Uncommon Communicator, for more and connect with me on LinkedIn to keep building those communications.com next time.