Balancing Head and Heart to Unlock Potential

Intro: Welcome to Honestly We’re Learning, a podcast from ClearEdge, the marketing agency that also helps marketers grow their careers.

Join Leslie Vickrey and Lesly Cardec as we explore the turning points that shape a person’s professional story, the highs, the stumbles, and everything in between. We’ll bring you candid conversations with leaders and rising talent, plus our own take on what’s changing in marketing and recruiting today. Because behind every success story is a few lessons learned the hard way. And honestly, we’re all still learning.

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Lesly Cardec: Hi Leslie!

Leslie Vickrey: Hi Lesly!

Lesly Cardec: Ready for another episode? I’m excited!

Leslie Vickrey: I am too. Love Jennie Dede and can’t wait to chat with her!

Lesly Cardec: I know she’s someone that has been on my list for quite some time. So I’m excited to jump in. I know you were out for a couple of days and we haven’t really had a chance to connect. And I was planning on sharing this with you via email, but I’m like, let’s bring it up here.

Leslie Vickrey: Let’s do it.

Lesly Cardec: I was thinking about this AI, surprise, surprise. But I was thinking about this article that I saw.

And it made me kind of pause, not just because there was hundreds of people reacting to it, but obviously because of that, it means that it resonates. And it was all about this concept of AI exhaustion loop and feeling that deeply. And I know a lot of us can relate. And if you can’t relate, I don’t believe you because I feel like everyone’s feeling that right now. And it was something that I shared with a few others on the team because I know we’re all feeling it too.

The post kind of goes into this whole concept of this gentleman who shared it, even his whole job, the entire job is AI. And he calls it like feeling the exhaustion loop. It’s the continuous switching of not just platforms and new tools that are coming out, but switching between different agents and things continuously being launched all the time. I know you and I feel that. It’s like, my gosh, what is this thing?

And it’s exciting and it’s almost like the squirrel effect that you talk about a lot and the point of the post that kind of hit me was when he said AI didn’t add more hours to your day and there’s so much opportunity so pick a couple things and get really good at it and that is a message that really resonates with me because even if I step back away from AI, you know, we’ll come back to that in a minute is…Just the whole concept of like strength finders, doubling down on what you’re really good at versus trying to be great at everything, which usually doesn’t end very well. And I know we, as a leadership team, just went through that exercise and taking the strength finders and figuring out, it was very eye-opening.

I’m not sure if it was shocking or not, but it was very eye-opening to see where everyone landed. And now that we know that when we go into meetings, it is so clear. It’s like, yes, that makes sense of why they asked that question. That makes sense of why this person is running full speed and saying, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. But I don’t know. I’m sure it resonates with you, Leslie, because it’s just a constant feeling of having to keep up with everything, right?

Leslie Vickrey: Well, I feel like every day I’m sending you and the leadership team links, different posts that will talk about this AI tool or that AI tool and always feeling like we’re chasing. And it’s interesting because we’ll talk about this even with our clients where yes, we want to do competitive reviews, but we shouldn’t be chasing and we should be leading. And that’s where I get so stressed out because it’s changing so fast AI is.

And so many new tools and technologies and it just gets better and better every week, the quality of what you can get out of things that it starts to really stress me out. So for us coming out of that leadership team meeting and really talking about focus, execution and accountability, so yes to strength finders, 100%, but also, you know, and our business coach was saying to our leadership team, when I start sending you those things, where I am panicking or stressed out that we need to do this and why aren’t we doing that and we should be moving faster at this, a reminder that chasing those squirrels, the AI squirrels, it’s not always the answer that we have to remain focused and accountable and on execution that that’s so key.

So I can appreciate what he’s saying because every day, every conference, every webinar, every article, almost every conversation and post is around something related to AI. So for us as an agency, especially with marketing, it’s changing so fast. I told you the other day, I had a client reach out saying, well, now that there’s AI, how does that change this of what we were talking about before? And people automatically go to, well, can it be faster and cheaper when we’re looking at it from a different lens? Yes, more efficient. And yes, it could be more cost effective in a certain degree. But how does that make you better?

So instead of chasing that shiny object, how can we make it something that’s better?

Lesly Cardec: Yeah. I mean, it’s hard. It’s hard to resist that urge to jump in. I mean, it’s literally like you have to like, okay, wait a second. But especially when you’re trying to, it’s that change management piece that, you know, trying to get your team to embrace and, you know, and just dig in and experiment and try to see how to, you know, create those efficiencies. It’s keeping them focused too, not just this whole trickle down effect, is if we’re chasing every squirrel, what is that going to do to the team who is trying to get really, really good and perfect their craft in some of these incredible tools too?

Leslie Vickrey: Right. Well, and to have fun with it and use it as a learning experience even in your personal life. I think I had told you a story where, and I’ll share a quick example. So last night, Grayson and I, we got him tickets to go to VidCon. It’s like Comic-Con, but for video and creators, and it’s in California. And he loves creating videos and he’s super artsy and all of the things.

We surprised him for his birthday with that. And we asked him last night, I sat him down and I said, let’s create your itinerary and come up with a game plan for the trip. So when we get there, which it’s in June, and you meet these creators who you follow and you admire and you wanna learn from, let’s come up with questions together on what you’re gonna ask when you see them to kind of make the most out of the time, but also to get his brain thinking and you know, we use Gemini often and I had Gemini look at the VidCon website. We prioritized his top seven creators and we went through and talked about, you know, what Grayson likes and what the creators specialize in. And we used this conversation between us to also have a conversation with Gemini.

And basically it came back and created for us based on that input this super cool itinerary for us, which has, I don’t know if you can see it here, basically by each creator that he picked when they’re presenting what the schedule is. So it helped us create the schedule. And then it came up with, you know, well, how many followers do they have? What are they, you know, known for? And then based on our input and together coming up with questions that we’d want to ask. Cause you know, you have a second, so I’m like, Grayson, what would you want to know from J. Man Curly? Or what would you want to know from so and so? And we had this conversation, but we leveraged it to help us kind of organize conversation starters by creator. And now we have this two-page little cheat sheet that is designed, and the output took no time at all. And it was super fun. And we were able to do it together. We used our brains. We talked about it and talked through it first and we fed the information in and got back something super incredible. seeing that power and having fun with it in that way, it’s really impressive.

Lesly Cardec: That’s amazing. Was he blown away when it came, when it generated? Was he like, my gosh, this is, or we see…?

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah, and he was like, well, what about this picture and what about that and let’s ask that. Listen, I want to know this. So it was fun. We got to iterate on it. And in the end, you know, have something really useful for him because listen, on the site, he’s going to be so excited when he meets these people who he follows. And I don’t know, I probably would panic and forget what I was going to ask. You know, have him kind of prep and think about that something we could do together and iterate on. So it was a lot of fun.

Lesly Cardec: I have this idea now that maybe people are already using, but same concept. Like when you’re, you know, some people have a little bit of anxiety or they just need help preparation for conference season or things like that. You could use something like that, right? Creating, creating something like an agent to help you prepare for these big meetings where you’re jam packed in a very short amount of time and trying to make the most of it. So…

Leslie Vickrey: Lesly, people panic over, and I mean, I get it. It’s stressful walking into those situations. Even with the questions you get asked, how are you? What’s new? Yeah. Come up with new questions. What’s the most exciting thing you’re working on today? And if you ask that, how do you answer that? It could definitely prep you. I love that. We need to create that.

Lesly Cardec: Don’t steal our ideas, guys, whoever is listening.

Leslie Vickrey: Everyone steal it and do it and be prepared. You know what, take the anxiety off of those public situations and networking that most people…

Lesly Cardec: You’re walking in places where you know no one. It’s like, okay, look at the list. Who’s there? Who are you intentionally trying to like, you know, it could really help organize everyone’s thought and just better plan for those things. So I love that. That’s a great idea. I’m glad. Yeah, glad you guys do that. And he saw firsthand the power of a slice, the power of AI.

Leslie Vickrey: And the benefit of, you know, we’re not having it come up with those things for him. It’s him feeding it with his ideas and us having that conversation together. it’s managed curation, so to speak, which I think is important for him.

Lesly Cardec: Love it. You’ll have to share that internally. think the team would really love to see that in use. Well, good. Well, let’s get going with Jennie.

Leslie Vickrey: Today, we’re thrilled to welcome Jennie Dede, Head of Sales for Search and Staffing in North America at LinkedIn, where she helps staffing and recruiting firms growth, modernize how they find talent, and adapt to a hiring landscape that seems to reinvent itself every few months. I was first introduced to Jennie in March of 2023 at Executive Forum in Miami when our mutual good friend, Eric Gregg, with ClearlyRated, up a lunch with Jennie, Delibra Wesley, and me.

He knew all of us shared a similar mission, helping create change and advancement for women in the staffing industry. And like so many great industry connections, it became one of those, how did we not know each other already moments? Since then, Jennie and her team have graciously invited ClearEdge three years running to help plan and moderate LinkedIn’s Women in North America recruitment session at Talent Connect. And if you’ve ever been in that room, you know the energy is hard to match.

And in a funny small world twist, Jennie and I later realized we actually had been neighbors in Chicago, living less than half a mile from each other and somehow never crossed paths. And Jennie, I wish we had known each other at the time because I have a feeling we would have been hanging out a lot sooner.

Jennie Dede: I could not agree more and I used have a lot of good parties, so you really missed out.

Leslie Vickrey: Just rubbing it in! Well, Jennie, what I love about your story is really the arc of it. Before your decade at LinkedIn, you spent 15 years actually inside the talent industry, helping organizations build hiring strategies that could actually keep up with their growth. And you’ve been on both sides of the table, which I think gives you really interesting perspective that really shapes, I would imagine, how you lead today.

And it doesn’t stop at the office. Jennie, your background is truly incredible. I love reading your LinkedIn posts about all of your coaching and the lessons that come with it. You’ve spent 20 years coaching youth athletes, bringing that same energy you bring to sales leadership and to helping the young people build confidence and resilience and a competitive mindset. Jennie also serves on the board of the Neighborhood Boys and Girls Club in Chicago, where she lives with her husband and two boys.

And I love this about you. You have a tagline and it is, in it to unlock potential. And honestly, I think that says everything. So again, Jennie, welcome to Honestly Word Learning.

Jennie Dede: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a great intro.

Leslie Vickrey: When you know someone personally, it makes it a lot easier.

Lesly Cardec: I forgot about the connection that you all lived near each other.

Leslie Vickrey: I know. Literally right, like if you mapped it, it’s think 0.7 miles because I did map it to see how…

Lesly Cardec: That’s crazy. There’s probably so many times you all have walked by each other or driven by each other. Well, thank you for joining us, Jenni. We’re so excited to have you. We wanted to start off with a fun little icebreaker, something a little unexpected before we dive into the heart of it. So tell me a useless skill or a random hobby that you’re proud of. We know we all have one.

Jennie Dede: It’s so funny, I was gonna talk about my random hobby of coaching cheerleading, but Leslie’s already commented on that. I feel like that really takes up a lot of my time and is like a real big passion of mine. My kids have won the city championship past two years. So like, really love that. So if I have to go to useless skill, you know, I’m 12,000 levels into Candy Crush. How about that for useless talent? I really love solving puzzles. So every morning, it’s like, don’t meditate. I don’t like yoga. I don’t like to be quiet.

so I think Candy Crush allows me to like focus on like a puzzle and makes me happy.

Lesly Cardec: Okay, so how long did it take you to get to this?

Jennie Dede: I mean, too long. I’ve been playing for a really long time. But I’m talking my daily, like I don’t drink coffee. I drink this other like drink. And so like I have my drink and it’s called Spark. I drink that. I play Candy Crush for a little bit and then I move on with my day.

Leslie Vickrey: There you go. The secret to your success. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure others can relate as well. It’ll become something that people mention to you randomly, “Yes, I play Candy Crush too!” Jennie, let’s talk a little bit about your story. Most people pick a lane and stay in it. But when I look at your career from leading global customer success to now running North American Staffing Sales at LinkedIn. I see someone who’s been willing to follow the opportunity, take a risk here or there, and really evolve as a leader. So from the outside, it might have looked like a little bit of a pivot, but my guess, there were moments along the way where you had to make a decision before the path was perfectly clear.

So can you take us back in those moments again, looking back at where you’ve come from? A lot of the industries, really large companies, you had some big roles within those companies and moved over to LinkedIn on the tech side, but still on the talent side. So my guess is, again, if you look at one of those moments, a specific decision or risk or turning point that maybe didn’t feel obvious at the time, but ultimately changed the direction of your career.

Jennie Dede: Yeah, it’s so interesting. I think early in my career, so many of my decisions were driven by who I wanted to work for. So like one pivotal moment was choosing to move to CareerBuilder. So like I was living in North Carolina, had only been there a year and a half, never thought I would leave Rochester. So moving to North Carolina was a big deal to begin with.

And then I met Mary Delaney, who changed my entire life. My perspective of what leadership was, like just how she pushed me, the opportunities she saw in me. And so it was the first time I had left like a traditional staffing company to go to a tech company. But CareerBuilder had wanted to join or to wanted to build an RPO business.

Very quickly realized that they did not want to do that, it didn’t make sense for the investment that needed to happen, so we created a new offering, which was Source and Screen. But the learning there was, if you work for somebody that you believe in, that sees the best in you, and pushes you beyond what you think is possible, big things happen.

And so in the downturn of 2008, we build a $10 million business, which was amazing, right, inside of CareerBuilder. So that was early in my career. My decisions were made off of that. And then…I went back to RPO, I found my way back to RPO, loved it. And somebody who worked for me was working at LinkedIn and said, hey, like, I think you need to come and be my boss again at LinkedIn. And at that point, I was running a large portfolio at Cielo. I loved my job, loved my team. Most of my team had worked for me at multiple companies, but knew that, that moment in time in RPO in particular was going to continue to be very challenging. And so like thought it might be time to go, you know, you know, try tech, try SaaS. So one over to customer success, which I had no experience in and ended up, you know, obviously loving it being here 10 years.

I think now all decisions are made based on the things that matter most to me. Like every year I do like a reinvestment of like, what’s the thing that matter most. And then I make my job decision based off of like that central foundation.

Leslie Vickrey: Jennie, I love that you mentioned going and moving to be with someone who was your leader in the past. What was interesting is the people who recruited you over, you were actually their leader. So they were still wanting you as their leader. That’s a huge testament to what you bring to the table. And I can only imagine the value, again, because you’ve been at the likes of Cielo’s and others and CareerBuilder and…

The people who you’re working with day in and day out today probably really appreciate the fact that you actually get and understand their business deeply to the core and have actually built businesses. So kudos to you on that too.

Jennie Dede: This career pivot was probably the, not maybe not the hardest, like in customer success, it moved into a different function. And I realized that I really wanted to be accountable to revenue. I had really missed that from staffing. And so like a pivot to sales really made a lot of sense. And to be able to do it in running the staffing vertical was such a gift because to your point, it’s where I grew up and I love it.

Lesly Cardec: So you’ve obviously have made really intentional pivots, sounds, but also, you know, have also led really big teams as well. You’ve come from big companies, really successful companies. You’ve also coached athletes and you’ve navigated the kind of organizational scale that would probably make a lot of people’s heads spin. So how is your approach to communicating or influencing others, you know, how has that shift as you’ve grown as a leader?

And then are there things, I’m sure there are, that you’ve had to unlearn as you’ve grown into your leadership?

Jennie Dede: Yeah, I think I was lucky to learn at a very early age that I couldn’t inspire or motivate based on what inspired me, that I really had to understand uniquely what, especially for my direct reports, because everybody’s motivated by something different. And then like setting like really clear priorities of like, us as a large team, here’s what we’re trying to do. But then for my directs understanding their personal motivators. I think so often leaders think that everybody has to, to like operate just like they did because that’s how they became successful and that’s just really not true.

And so I’m really big on caring about who the person is, who the people are and what matters most to them because I think that’s how you get the most out of whether it’s an athlete or a direct report or just the organization overall like deeply caring about their success really matters.

Something I think I’m continuing to unlearn is or trying to balance is that like human connection and human advocacy with like what’s needed for the business. Because sometimes what’s right for the business feels very hard for the teams, if that makes sense. And so like balancing the why any type of big organizational change is happening with the emotional needs of the people really matter. It’s like that you are constantly balancing head and heart. And if you only lead with your emotional first, like if you can’t get over your emotional first reaction, you end up really, it’s distracting. Like you really have to get to productivity as quickly as possible.

Lesly Cardec: Do you feel like, because I know you mentioned the leader earlier on, but do you feel like the leaders early in your career that you followed had a nice balance? Did you learn from them? Did they have that balance of head and heart at that point? Or is it something you’ve learned through just hands-on practice as well?

Jennie Dede: I think with the exception of Mary, because I think like Mary’s who I mentioned, I think she had a great balance of head and heart. And it’s interesting, like she was a mom too. working for her, became a mom twice. And so I just looked up to her as like, this is who I want to be. But before that, the leaders that I had had, I felt like they really gave, like they cared about me. Like they took an active interest in me.

And I think that gives me really hard challenges. At what was Spherion, now Randstad, every time we were about to be fired, that was the job I got. I got to go save those accounts because I really loved it. I found a lot of energy out of that. And so I think people understood, I had leaders who understood what lane I played best in and put me in that spot. And I think that’s actually become my superpower of really understanding where somebody should play, like what job they should have, even when that wasn’t on their radar. And I think that like, again, applies in athletics and all of that. Like when you can see, that’s one of my taglines, in it to unlock potential. Like when you can see like the long-term trajectory for somebody before they can, like that’s, that’s like magical.

Lesly Cardec: That is a superpower.

Jennie Dede: I feel like people demonstrated that for me.

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah, I love that superpower. One of the things I struggle with, Jennie, and we can talk about this another time is when you see that in someone and that superpower, but they don’t see it in themselves. And sometimes you want it more than they want it for themselves. And that can be really tricky as a leader to navigate. And I have to say something. Do all roads lead to Spherion on this call? Yeah. Were you at Spherion?

Jennie Dede: I never worked for the company when it was called Randstad. I left before then. So I worked at Spherion in their RPO group. Yeah, all those leave back. I worked at a Adecco too. You either are in one those paths.

Leslie Vickrey: Well, I’m happy we all three have that in common. Well, today you’re really sitting at a unique intersection of staffing and technology and workforce strategy. All three things are really shifting quite a bit simultaneously right now. So when you think about the future of our industry, and I have loved seeing LinkedIn when you look at AI stats, we talk to our clients all the time about this with executive social presence, company social presence, where LinkedIn is showing up on searches. There’s so much excitement in the products you all have been rolling out and what you’re doing for the industry.

So I’m genuinely excited about what I’m reading and seeing and experiencing, but what genuinely excites you? And on the flip side of that, what keeps you up at night?

Jennie Dede: Yeah, so it is an exciting time. Like I started at Allegis literally with a fax machine. Like anytime I’m talking to somebody, like, I am so old. Like I can remember, right? We had to cut the top of the resume off and then put it and then fax it…so, and look at where we’ve come. And I think there is, I think there’s a bit of a resistance on changing workflows, or they’ll be like, okay, I’ll just use AI on the side as a tool, as opposed to really integrating it into workflows.

So what keeps me up at night is the change management and the willingness to do something different. But I think that’s such an exciting time. Never before have we made it easier for recruiters to do what they do best, which is influence and communicate, sell opportunity, match opportunity.

And so…I think that’s been bogged down throughout the years with the amount of resumes. It’s so easy to apply for a job now. So you get so much more typically, right? Depending on job, you get so much more volume. So you can really get weighed down in these operational things that don’t really require the talents of a recruiter. Like a recruiter’s talents are meant to be in influencing and communicating, and now they’ll have time to do that.

But a recruiter has to be willing to…to make the change, right? Because if you’re successful doing what you’re doing, something has to like, you need a tipping point to want to do something different when you’re doing well. And so that’s like really where we’re trying to spend our energy. It’s not like the technology works, like we’re launching or we’ve launched a new product, which I can tell you about, but what really is, takes the most effort is change management and saying like, I know you’re the best of the best. Try something different because somebody is gonna surpass you if you do not change your game.

Leslie Vickrey: It’s a saying that we’ve heard quite a bit and I know a lot of our friends in the industry say this, it’s not AI that’ll replace you, it’s the recruiter who understands AI. And we face the same thing, Jenny and marketing. mean, that’s completely the way people go to market, but also the job of a writer or designer or someone in social.

There are so many things that we even as an agency are having to look at and adjust and adapt to. So it’s here. It’s not just coming. It’s here. those who kind of accept it and go through the change management are the ones who will greatly succeed.

Jennie Ded: For sure. But it’s hard. Like it’s just hard. But it’s been hard. And if you’ve been in this industry for any amount of time, you didn’t want to use an ATS, right? And now you do. It’s like commonplace. You didn’t want to do automated video or any type of like automation in your process. You do now. And they work. So it’s just going to take a minute.

Lesly Cardec: Just going in there and just experimenting too is like part of it. Like you don’t need to fully be trained to just play around with it and start to embrace all of this new technology. But I want to flip it back to the fax machine conversation. Sort of going hand in hand with going back to the human side of growth. And we talk a lot about on the podcast about the people behind the leaders. And I know you’ve referenced a couple of leaders in your past, but whose voice or presence has shaped you the most, either professionally, personally, and helps you in ways that you show up for your actual people.

Jennie Dede: I think my parents, like that might sound cheesy, but my dad, like I grew up watching my dad. He owns his own, he owns like a food distribution business. And so his work ethic was out of control. Meaning like, if someone didn’t show up like a driver, right, he’d have to get up at four in the morning, drive to Buffalo, I’m from Rochester, New York. And like, so I watched the amount of effort that went into him being successful or him running a business. And so, so there’s that. So he modeled it.

And then I think the expectations of me were always so high. So like, I can remember like having two jobs. I mean, I coached cheerleading since I was like in college and I was like home on a Sunday afternoon and my dad’s like, what are you doing home? You should be doing something. Why are you relaxing? So like now as an adult, I never relax. Like I’m just not wired really in that way because I think like my expectations were never there, but it was never acceptable to say you can’t do something.

And so like, think I have this ability to take a risk. My voice was always heard at my house. Like my mom was like, always, I was a dancer, competitive dancer, and my mom was always in the front row. Like I always felt seen. I always felt like really, like, I think my confidence comes from having these great parents. I think I had the very best parents growing up.

And I think confidence, while we had a person influencing your life, like if you can have confidence and build confidence into your life, you…I think that’s the foundation to take big risks. So I feel like I got that from my parents. So their voice is probably the loudest or their influence is the biggest on me.

Lesly Cardec: Yeah, I can relate to not being able to relax. I’m very jealous of people that are able to do that. But I love that the hardworking and the instilling confidence in you is something that obviously has has moved forward. And these are conversations that I have all the time, both in my personal life and also with Lousy all the time when we chat about our kids and just I’ll often say, Can they move in with you for a little bit just so I can make sure that I’m raising them correctly and they’re off to do big and great things?

So it’s a work in progress, but I think having good parents is something that is just instilled with you and there’s this foundation for you to then carry it on for generations to come.

Jennie Dede: I think, you like you obviously get to pick who you are as an adult, but so much of who you are comes from how you were raised. And so like, not only did I have these amazing parents, I had this dance teacher who was so strict, so competitive, like it was unacceptable to ever fail. That probably makes it sound worse than it was, but like in my seventh grade year, I danced like 30 hours a week. And so like her influence on me was, like very large as well.

I, I know that’s why coaching cheerleading, much beyond the sport, matters to me because if you can teach a young girl, boy, whatever, how to win and want to win and realize the correlation between effort and outcomes, that is a gift you have forever. And so that’s why I coach. I like to win. I want to win all the championships, but that is really the magic.

Lesly Cardec: I couldn’t tell.

Leslie Vickrey: Have you done Strength Finders as competitive? It is in my top five. I’m curious if you’ve ever done it.

Jennie Dede: It is in my top five. Yes. Three. Yes, I think it is. Woo is right up there too.

Lesly Cardec: I’ll also add that I keep on getting in my feed that I think it’s something like 93% of kids who are former athletes become leaders. So kudos to you to instilling that in.

Jennie Dede: Thanks.

Leslie Vickrey: I always say the best gift you can give your children, I think, is that gift of confidence. That’s something that they can with them for a lifetime. Jennie, before we bring it home, I’m sure that crushing, no pun intended, candy crush, to new levels will apply on your list. But what is something you’re actively trying to create right now? Whether that’s at work and life or, I don’t know, somewhere in between.

Jennie Dede: Yeah, I think I need to start talking about something other than Candy Crush, because that seems like so low. I also like a lot of crafts. I want to do crafting.

That’s so funny. I would say what I’m working on or what I’m most excited about now is these new products that we’re launching at LinkedIn. So we are really moving forward with an AI solution like everybody else. But within LinkedIn, what’s really magical is that it is based on this foundation of our member network. And so we just have so much information and so much ability to reach a broad network.

And then these tools are just going to enable recruiters and leaders to just be better, grow their revenue, like all the things we’re trying to do in staffing. So bringing that to market, again, like helping customers with change management, helping them understand that you can’t just like dip your toe in and you can’t just like, well, pass the trial. Like you really have to like dive in deep and figure this out. And so working alongside with customers on that, and then obviously learning from them on how we need to continue to iterate. We’re, you know, we’re in September, it’ll be a year of these new products. that’s really what’s energizing right now.

Lesly Cardec: Fantastic. Well, that was a fast, almost 30 minutes.

Jennie Dede: How is it over?!

Lesly Cardec: Where can people follow you?

Jennie Dede: They can follow me on LinkedIn. So Jennie Dede, my name is J-E-N-N-I-E D-E-D-E. So like that’s a great place to follow me. I don’t think anybody wants to follow me on Instagram, but they’re more than welcome to do that too.

Leslie Vickrey: Jennie, well, thank you again for being with us. And what really stands out from this conversation is a thread that I feel like runs through everything you do. And that’s the belief that potential is something you unlock in others and not necessarily something you hoard for yourself. And you’ve done that. You talked about your sales teams. Listen, when your sales teams are recruiting you to come into companies and lead them, that says something, the youth athletes you get to work with, what a gift for them. And clients across North America.

Quite frankly, you’ve done that with us here today. So thank you for being so honest about what it really takes, really the pivots and learning, the relationships that you carry forward. That’s exactly what this podcast is built for. We’re grateful you’re here. Thank you for spending this time with us today, Jennie.

Jennie Dede: Thank you. This was lovely.

Lesly Cardec: So fun. Thank you, Jenny. That was such a great conversation. I know I say that all the time, but I learned so much from every single conversation we have with all of these leaders. And Jennie, as you know, has been someone on our list that we’ve wanted to connect with and spend some time learning more about. How we end these episodes is the same each time we have a recap of some of the takeaways. And I know there were so many. Leslie, what stood out to you?

Leslie Vickrey: Oh, goodness. All right, well, one of the things that Jenny actually, she talks about early on in the episode is the idea that communication is something you have to keep learning. And quite frankly, how do we unlearn certain things in communication? And one example she shared was the emotional first reaction. And you know, I lead with my heart as well. And a lot of times when I’m working on communications, it comes from the heart. And it’s really that balance between the head and the heart. It’s not easy.

Companies go through twists and turns and downturns, you know, great times. And we need to be ready as leaders for just about everything and anything and how you communicate to your teams, to companies, to the industry, to partners and clients. It really has to be that fine balance between coming from your head and the heart.

That’s something the only way you can learn it is going through it. Yes, you can learn by watching other leaders, but until you as the leader go through it, it’s something you have to keep practicing, keep doing, and in some cases unlearning.

Lesly Cardec: Yeah, I like that as well. And she also talked about how everyone has different motivators. So you can have a team full of people with different motivations. That’s where I feel like the human side of her leadership skill really shines is just being aware of that and taking that into account when tough decisions have to be made. So I like that as well.

The other thing that stood out to me was we talked about mentors and the importance of that. Jennie talked a lot about Mary, someone in her life who had a big impact on her. But it’s the belief that, I love this, that sometimes leaders in your life or people, it doesn’t have to be work or later or not, they often see potential in you that maybe you don’t see for yourself. And sometimes people need those people to clear your view and so then you can step into that power.

And so the fact that her former team also, she was recruited into her company to be a leader again, just shows you how powerful her leadership style is because that’s really very telling, right? When someone recruits you to want to be their leader again and follow you, it’s such a clear sign that you’ve done great work and people want to genuinely be around you.

So that really stood out to me too, just the fact that because it’s happened to me personally where, you know, it’s you have that self doubt and whatever you’re thinking that you’re not capable of doing, you could be a room full of people and leaders that have no doubt that you could step into that and really excel. It’s just so powerful.

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah, and the gift, I think, of Jennie’s and other leaders we know to unlock that potential in people so we can see, we see it in them, but helping them see it in themselves. I have to say, you know, a lot of times you hear people following leaders from job to job and the leader recruiting you, the fact that her team recruited her to come back as their leader, to me, that’s a, hey, you know you’ve made it as a leader when moment for sure.

Lesly Cardec: Yeah, yeah, super powerful. The other thing too that stood out was she was never afraid to say yes to opportunities. And I think, I know, a lot of that comes from the confidence that sounds like it was instilled with her through her own parents. And so it’s this whole notion of, you know, you are what you know.

And I think it’s really powerful because I saw this saying recently that was all about your foundation was built for you but not by you. And so the beliefs and the habits and the values that are instilled with you as a child aren’t really by choice. You’re born into that. They’re inherited. But just because they’re inherited doesn’t mean they’re permanent. So you have the ability to not be hardwired forever. And it sounds like her wiring was very strong and she’s very fortunate for that.

So that really is something I truly believe is that you kind of are what you know, but when you know better, you can do better type of situation. And unlearning is hard. Unlearning is a really hard skill and got to give her kudos. She shared some examples of that as well. And it’s hard to replace old knowledge and what you grew up kind of being surrounded by. It takes really intentional effort to do that. And that’s a lot of the work that I think quite frankly, a lot of people avoid.

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah, I loved her story of the work ethic, the hardworking competitive spirit, and it’s a gift that her parents really gave her. And it’s not something that everyone has growing up from their parents. And we talk about this a lot, like one of the greatest gifts I think we, you and I, and all the other parents we know can give our kids is that gift of confidence because it will be a gift that gives for them their entire lives. And it’s hard to do. It can be stripped away in an instant.

I know I talk about that a lot with imposter syndrome and different things, but I loved that about the conversation. Listen, I know this is one of those conversations that’s going to stick with us for a while. 30 minutes with Jennie Dede was a gift for me today. And being here with you, Lesly, always a gift. Hosting the show with you.

Lesly Cardec: Yeah, it’s been great. again, I hope that the audience is a lot of reflection that takes place, a lot of learning, and just things that you can carry on with you to live more in a learning stance throughout all facets of your career. I know it’s something that I bring along with me coming away from these shows. So thank you for being here. We’re excited to share this with all of you, and looking forward to the next time!

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