Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable and Leading with Strategic Speed

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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Leslie Vickrey: Okay, Lesly, I have something I wanna share with you as we kick off our next podcast featuring Ursula Williams.

Lesly Cardec: I know, I’m so excited to have her on. What you got?

Leslie Vickrey: Okay, so today, right after we recorded our podcast, I went up to Summit High School, so the high school here in Breck, and did, it’s my second year, doing it. I’m doing mock interviews with senior high school students. So if you remember, I went in earlier in the year because they were working on storytelling and how they could tell their stories during interviews. So it’s a course that they’ve taken throughout the year.

And they had vision boards created along with their resumes. It was really, really great.

In talking to the kids, a few things were standing out to me that I felt like you may be able to relate to. And I think the listeners, too. We talk about just how fast things go by. And, you know, talking to these two boys today, one is going off to college to play soccer. And he moved here from France and he moved here in 2020, so right when the pandemic hit.

And his mom and siblings and other family members weren’t able to come to the states, so he’s here with his dad. And he kept talking about how everything he’s doing is for his parents and he wants to make them proud. And he was talking about how he’s a, you know, hard worker and with soccer, he had a picture of Messi on his vision board and how he wants to be like Messi and all of these things.

And he was saying some a couple of things that stood out to me. One, he said, you know, when he’s older, he wants to be just like his dad. And he was saying that his dad is so kind and so nice and really funny. And that all of his friends look at him and say, how lucky you are to have such a fun, funny, nice, caring, you know, dad.

And it made me reflect again, like as parents, your kids, kids and your kids see you. And how are you, you know, when you when they’re reflecting back on their childhood and think, what was my household like and what were my parents like? What do you want them to say about you?

And he just kept gushing about his parents and I loved it. So I was like, I hope Grayson really feels that experience of being loved, being, you know, who your friends want to be around and to make proud. but it kept also reminding me of.

We talked about fear and my fear for him was more of letting the letdown, you know, the what if he doesn’t become the next Messi? And he’s so, you know, dead set on this is what’s happening. How do you handle when things don’t go well? And talking to him about different situations and scenarios of that, but focusing on, you know, bet on yourself first.

It’s great to do this for your parents and you know, want to make them proud and be able to financially support them. At the same time when you’re doing it for someone else, do you really love it? Do you, you know, how much of it is you? And what’s not? So those were just little a couple of little things that standing out to me just in talking to the next generation and thinking about like what what do they wish they would have done differently? What were their fears? What would teachers say about them?

Lesly Cardec: So, I mean, not to make light, ’cause that was a beautiful story, but I I love that he was gushing. I asked my daughter, for everyone listening, she’s eleven, going on about seventeen, and I asked her the other day, just to see, ’cause I I find myself doom scrolling and I get caught in these things that say, like, what are you creating the environment that you want with your and there’s so much pressure, right? And so I was like, her name’s Brooklyn and I was like, Brooklyn, what’s like the number one thing you’re gonna think about when when you know, when you’re older and and reflecting on your childhood? She’s like, mommy likes hand sanitizer spray.

Everyone else I’m a little bit of a germophobe, so…

Leslie Vickrey: Probably a good thing we don’t live near each other ’cause every time I get mine out, Grayson looks at me and says, Germophobe, germophobe And I say right back to him, Well, you’re on strep throat version number two right now.

speaker-0 (05:15.746) I know, she just came home with a with a sore throat yesterday and a part of me was looking like, God. Yeah.

But anyway, aside not to divert, but that is my legacy is hand sanitizer. But no, I love that story. I think listen, I think the work that you do is great. I think the job market is really challenging right now. It’s just a really challenging market for everyone. But I, I really feel for the new for new grads and and it was interesting because I was telling you earlier that you know, there’s so many different paths besides the traditional path of going to a four-year university plus plus plus whatever that looks like for you.

I think a lot of our generation was just programmed like this is what you do. You go to high school, then you go to college, and then you find a job. And but there’s just so much there’s so many more options.

I feel like and maybe they existed before, but we weren’t, just we weren’t presented.

Leslie Vickrey: No. Well, and taking the time to be curious about what those are because if you don’t have access to it or don’t know what’s available. And, you know, the more people you talk to, you know, the more ideas you’ll, you’ll come across. But if you don’t have those parents or a network, that you don’t have that network or you don’t have that access, you can see how it’s much harder for them to have to visualize what those opportunities are.

That’s when you hope teachers, family, friends, coaches, you know, all the people.

And then the last thing I’ll leave you with, he asked me. I asked him what book he was reading. And we had this big conversation about different forms of media today that kids are using more than even reading books, but he loves watching documentaries. And I was talking to him about Radical Candor. And we talk about that a lot. We just talked about it on our last podcast a bit, about having those conversations and we were talking about like even for him being that leader for the classroom, leader for the team, leader for whatever it may be for his future, that you kind of you grow into that over time and you know, how that can really kind of help you, I guess, grow and evolve to think of those things.

But if you don’t have access to know what those resources are, it’s really, you know, really hard.

Lesly Cardec: Totally. I mean, I have that thought all the time, just as you get older and just, you know, seeing the opportunities for for my kids and like, you know, who knows what could have taken place if people were exposed to certain things early on in life. But

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah. That’s why we gotta do these volunteer times.

Lesly Cardec: I know, I love that you do that. Well I’m excited to to speak to Ursula, so let’s jump right in.

speaker-2 (08:13.794) Today I am so excited to welcome someone who holds a truly special place in my world, professionally and personally. Ursula Williams is the President of Staffing Industry Analysts, where she leads the company’s global strategy, operations, and growth. She has spent nearly three decades helping shape the staffing and workforce solutions ecosystem from strategy and marketing to product innovation, conferences, communications, technology, and community building.

But as impressive as her title and career are, that’s not really why I’m excited to have her here. Ursula and I are two-time co-authors, first in Together We Rise, and now in Rising with Courage, where her chapter, The Courage to Break Through, is such a powerful reflection of how she leads. And that’s with gratitude, honesty, courage, and heart. We first got to know each other well while judging the Bullhorn Awards program together with Robin Mee, who is also one of our co-authors.

And since then, Ursula has become one of those people in my life I can go to for anything and everything. And I know she’ll give it to me straight. That is one of the things I appreciate most about her. And this is not Ursula’s first time behind a ClearEdge mic. Years ago, she joined me on TheEdge, where we talked about career transitions, leadership, motherhood, and the idea of if you can see it, you can be it.

We also surprised her by bringing in her daughter, Dana, to share the daughter’s perspective on working moms. And it remains one of those conversations I will never forget, and probably one of the most quoted episodes I’ve ever recorded. That moment showed us so much of who Ursula is, a respected industry leader, yes, but a mom, a mentor, a friend, a truth teller, and a woman who continues to break through while helping others see what’s possible, and myself included. Ursula, welcome. I’m so happy you’re here.

Ursula Williams: Thank you, Leslie. That that’s that’s quite the introduction.

Leslie Vickrey: It’s easy to introduce someone when you know them so well and you are just in awe of them all the time.

Ursula Williams: Well, thank you. It’s definitely mutual. You know, you and Dana both have that media background. So, so you’re one of her greatest fans and she looks up to you. And Lesly and I have had a a great career background where we we crossed over and it’s fun to be able to work with professionals and who you have friendships with. So I’m excited today!

Leslie Vickrey: All right, well before we dive into questions, we’re gonna break the ice with you, Ursula, here and have a little fun to get started. It’s gonna be rapid fire format. Are you ready?

Ursula Williams: Yes! I’m ready!

Leslie Vickrey: Okay. We’ll take it easy on you. Easy. All right. Are you a morning bird or night owl? Ooh.

Ursula Williams: So I can be both, but my preference is morning. I love the morning.

Leslie Vickrey: Very good, very good. I am a night owl. I would love to be able to be both. I’m working on it.

Ursula Williams: Sleep faster, Leslie, that’s all. You just gotta sleep faster.

Leslie Vickrey: So many things to work on. Physical notebook or digital notes?

Ursula Williams: It depends. A physical notebook when I’m really in my creative sense and I’m trying to grab something and on Zoom and digital notes, I’ve got a really cool AI recorder that I can talk to that ties into my GPT that knows my background and what I do. So I’ll use that when I’m on the move.

Leslie Vickrey: All right, most I love this question. Most used emoji in Slack or text messages?

Ursula Williams: I’m more of a texter than I am a Slacker, but I, I’m not a Slacker, but I, I like Slack. My most, you know, it’s probably the red heart. You know, yeah, they just change it and so it’s like the pink heart. And I’m like, I gotta scroll to the red heart. so it it’s a lot of hearts and exclamation marks sometimes ’cause, cause we get a lot of like great news over it. And definitely a lot of laughing.

And you know, when I’m, I’m pulling in the favor or I’m sending someone’s good news, right? We’ll we’ll get our praying hands. Those are probably the most uses.

Leslie Vickrey: Okay, really important question. Are you coffee, tea, or something else?

Ursula Williams: I am coffee and not past eight AM.

Leslie Vickrey: Oh interesting!

Ursula Williams: Yeah. Hard, hard rule. Yeah. On the coffee. Yeah. And I like unless, you know, I I guess if it’s some special occasion and, you know, we’re out somewhere and someone’s like, Hey, you wanna grab a, I, I might, but no, it’s a pretty hard rule. I’m, I’m caffeine sensitive. I’ve got a lot of energy already. And and so, yeah, if I go if I have it too late, it doesn’t matter what time I’m gonna go to sleep, like I’ll definitely, I could feel it. But I love a just a really bold cup of coffee super early in the morning.

Leslie Vickrey: Nice. I am a tea person. I’m drinking tea right now. I d I don’t know why both my husband and I, we do not drink coffee, but I’ll tell you what I do love, and that’s something else category. A good espresso martini. And depending on where you are, they do make them decaf, just so you know. So you can you can try the all the all the…

Ursula Williams: Never had one. It’s like too strong on a drink, I think.

Lesly Cardec: Not before eight AM though.

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah, yeah. That’s just something later too later in the thing. But I do have to time it, you know, it can’t be too late. All right. If you could have a superpower for one work week. So a superpower for one work week, would you choose reading people’s minds or super speed?

Ursula Williams: Oh, Super speed.

Leslie Vickrey: You’re already fast.

Ursula Williams: Yeah, like, like it’s just like nothing’s fast enough. Like I I you know, and I I don’t mean that in a reckless way. I just think that the world with technology and all the things that you can get done is moving so fast. And fast doesn’t mean hard. I see people just work so hard often because they don’t really understand the ways that they can channel what they do through more productivity, to be faster at it and just to give yourself more thinking time.

But yeah, no, we were just la I was just laughing with someone like my car has a turbo. My blow driver has a turbo. My blender has a turbo. Like and so by the way, all of yours do too, probably. You just gotta use them.

So you know, I j I just think it’s you can unlock your creative sense, your productive sense, just different levels of probably strength if you’re physically training in something, right?

But yeah, definitely speed. Yeah, I think people’s thoughts I’ve got a pretty high IQ and emotional quotient, like so I can kinda pick up things, but their thoughts are to them. I would never want to read people can own their own thoughts.

Lesly Cardec: Awesome. Well, I know you have quite the background here. So three decades in the industry is pretty remarkable. I know you and I have had the opportunity to work together for some time. and we we know a lot of the same people, but what’s more interesting to me is how you’ve helped shape it. And so one thing I’d want to cover is is there a moment, big or small, that shaped the way that you lead today?

Ursula William: Yeah. I mean, I I think the last thing I’ve shared this before, I think my entire childhood and upbringing has definitely shaped who I am. My parents were immigrants to this country, their families were immigrants to this country. Most of my family, they are entrepreneurs. They went into business for themselves. They took really big risks and were very bold. We were all raised to be bold and to always take that risk and take that next step with pretty high, but reasonable expectations.

So that pretty much, you know, shaped to I earlier we were talking about kids and the confidence that they have. I was raised with a lot of confidence. And so I that just shapes who you are and what you’re you’re gonna do. I think at the same time, incredible self-awareness. we were, we were raised with confidence, but also like to be humble and to be self-aware and to have a lot of gratitude.

So those things you bring onto your, you know, your adult life and into your career life. I also like to build and I like to grow. Like I was raised in a family and in a community that was all about building and growing and changing and and being innovative. And so and all those things I carried with me and they really did change how I approached every single career change, every role.

Being in the staffing industry, I was with a lot of companies that went through a lot of M&A activity. We’ve acquired, we were acquired. And that requires you to dig into different parts of who you are and what you do.

And I think that all helped shaped who I am and who I hope I help shape with their careers, right? Because I I can look back and kind of, you know, or look across and go, look, look, I know where you want to be, or or sometimes where they don’t want to be and help them as well. But I would say that it stems from pretty early on of who I am.

Leslie Vickrey: I could see that for sure. And we’ve talked a lot about that. And over time, Urs, just learning and leaning into your your background and your upbringing and seeing, you know, how you carry that forward with Dana and your now son-in-law and you know, just the family in general. But also I think those people who you surround yourself work-wise also feel like your family and get the benefit of of that kind of upbringing that you offer to that.

And I know just when I think of your chapter in Rising with Courage, you called it The Courage to Break Through. And we all picked a courage, but yours was the courage to break through.

And Urs, I know we we go through a process writing books together. And, you know, it’s I sometimes will say it’s only a chapter. It’,s a chapter is a big deal. And it takes a lot of honesty to write the words that we’re putting out there. And this podcast is all about what we’re learning in real time.

So I’d love to go there with you and ask you a little bit about that courage to break through. Perhaps what’s a misstep or mistake that you’re willing to admit? And what came what came from that? So again, a mistake or misstep.

Ursula Williams: In people’s careers, I I think like in life, each decade brings something different, and what you’re dealing with and where you’re at. And earlier, you know, in my career, there are these moments as much as like, look, I was raised to be bold, I was raised to take risk, I was raised that, you know, you can do anything that you want to do. You find yourself in this corporate environment that a lot of things are out of your control.

And you just don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring. You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And in today’s world, that’s even more, right? Whether it’s work, whether it’s life, whether it’s, you know, things that we absolutely the, you know, the macroeconomic situation, political situations, right? So you, you just have to really get comfortable being uncomfortable.

And then when you can embrace that and really tie into that, I think that’s where the breakthrough moments really begin to occur. You know, for me, you know, what I would want for everybody else is to be able to realize that sooner, be able to go, be able to be bold sooner. I don’t know though, because it was the set of experiences that I had that were like, okay, yeah. And then you just trust yourself and you know, like let’s go. Like it really means something and you really can do it.

And there’s the only thing holding you back often is just yourself or the decisions you made or didn’t make.

In the staffing industry, there’s just so much M&A and so much that goes on. I was traveling internationally a lot. I was put in really incredible opportunities to run worldwide groups as probably the most junior, actually, when I looked back, there was a time that I was part of a company that had 200 companies, right? It was Select that became VDR and there were multiple finance and accounting companies.

And I was the lead of the finance and accounting company in the US. And so I was chosen to be the international lead of the finance and the companies worldwide. And I remember being in there and it was like it was just going okay. There were a lot of different international leaders that were much beyond my senior, and many of them owned their companies. And then one pulled me aside one night and and he said, Look, you know, you’re American, you’re a woman.

You don’t own this. It isn’t your own money, but we really like you and we like what you stand for and we like the way you think. Bring it in even harder tomorrow, basically.

And I was like, wow, like, you know, that that that was really great. Like I’ve I’ve won this committee over and now we can go and do what we, what we need to do. And I had someone to help me kind of unlock that.

So, you know, I guess a misstep could have been like I could come in a lot more confident to that, but I kind of had to read the room and figure out how to do it. Had I not had that ally in the room, I don’t know how that would have ended because it was really a great part of my career that unlocked future really big change. so I’m, I’m grateful to that individual and I’m grateful to that moment. But I would just say when you’re given those moments, you really gotta go. You just gotta lean in and you have to make it just happen, right?

Lesly Cardec: Ursula, as president of SIA, you kind of have this amazing seat where you kind of are the center of this industry that we’re all in and it’s changing all the time. We all know that. So you have visibility into trends and data, all the things that are flying in and out at at any given time. So what’s the part of your job that keeps you up at night? And it doesn’t mean in a bad way, it could be a good way!

Ursula Williams: Yeah, yeah, no, thanks. Like, look who how many people get a 30 year career and then they get to actually pivot into research advisory that is helping everybody in the career. Right? It that is is just such an incredible opportunity. And I every single, you know, it’s been 10 years and every day I look back and I think, what a great opportunity.

There’s so much that’s changing in staffing and workforce solutions. And at the same time, there’s a lot that’s staying the same. So what probably keeps me up at night is ensuring that we’re able to get to whatever company leader, whether it’s in the staffing or it’s in the enterprise, right, the program managers.

We have, we have the entire end-to-end staffing firms to enterprise buyers, right? Your fortune, you know, 2000s and all the supply chain in between. So what we see are vantage point, and we’re independent, right? So we don’t, these aren’t you know, we don’t we we have to keep up that independent and neutral wall. So whether it’s an editorial and they’re writing a story that’s that’s truly journalistic, you know, has all the journalistic principles in it, or it’s research that has all the research rigor in it.

We really are exposed to so much information. And meeting the customers where they are today and what they need, but pushing them forward is big. And again, think about it, all the different staffing segments, even in healthcare, there’s four segments. All the regions of the world, our work is global and we do reach all the major countries where the work exists. We have the you know, there’s 224 companies over a hundred million dollars in the US, and 70% of them work with SIA. They’re our members.

So that’s from a hundred million to a 25 billion to a 25 million to a 10 million. They’re all really different. And that’s not the suppliers. And I haven’t even started on the enterprise side. So you know, I think that the what we have is something for all of them to make better business decisions, to have better programs, to really help drive their businesses.

Access to that isn’t always easy. So what keeps me up at night is just ensuring that they know where it is, how to find it, when to come to us, how to get it. And something we’re constantly working on internally, our webinars, our conferences, our research bulletins, our, you know, there’s ways that we bring that forward and we push it out to our customers, but that’s what keeps me up at night, is, you know, how do our customers know that the if they have something they’re trying to solve in their business, it’s highly likely we have the information on it. And the they have to remember to come.

I mean, you know, you all know our what we have, but you know, ranging from like an internal compensation estimator, we have a lot of companies like I don’t know what should pay. But well we, we have that.

To mergers and acquisitions, like multiples and deals that have occurred in similar type companies. We have a database over 15 years of data on that, to the more recent what’s happening in this segments. Like right now, what we’re seeing in industrial staffing is pretty exciting, right? And and I think five years ago, people would have like, is that gonna go to robotics and automation and that type of thing? Well, that’s been driven by probably data centers, right? Which is emergence of AI, which some people are like, is AI gonna ruin the industry? Right. There’s a yin yin and yang to everything.

So I just think opportunity keeps me up at night. Like the things that we choose to do to be able to get to our various customers along the supply chain to truly help power their businesses and just make them better and deliver those business insights so they can make good informed decisions on.

Leslie Vickrey: Urs, gonna switch gears on you for a second here because we talk a lot in this podcast about leadership as a very human experience, not just a professional one. And where today the two are one. It’s all in one. It should be of how we, how we bring ourselves. And you have modeled that just so naturally. And again, when we recorded our other podcast, which seems like a lifetime ago, we surprised you by bringing Dana in.

And Dana at the time was still in college. Now she’s married and has a super successful broadcast job. And I’m just so proud of watching, you know, where she is. I can only imagine how you must feel seeing her on TV and the wonderful work she’s doing, bringing really important stories to to people. But I still think about what that conversation meant. And I want the listeners here today to meet that version of you.

And I think sometimes because you are in this really, you know, important role in the industry, people put you on a pedestal and they’ll say to me, I I would never reach out to Ursula or I could not reach out to her. And I find you so approachable and have learned so much from you over time. So to lead at the level that you do and that you have over all of these years, you know, what did the, and I I really appreciated this because Grayson was really little when we first talked about this. And I was struggling with it.

You know, what does the architecture of your life look like? And it may be different today than it was when Dana was growing up, but the routines and I know you have such a strong support system and the people who really are with you who allow you to show up fully without burning out.

Ursula Williams: Yeah. Look, I do. I you know, I have a lot of emotional support, like, you know, from my entire family, my mediate, you know, my husband and my daughter. I mean, they’re incredibly supportive. We all in some ways ended up in these roles in our life that force us to be independent, on the road a lot, working strange hours. And, you know, on Mother’s Day I got the NBC7 shout out on TV.

Cause Dana was at we’re anchoring down in San Diego, I’m up here in the Bay Area. And I’m really happy I watched a show that morning, but although I, I watch most of our shows on the weekend. But but that’s just the way it is. And we don’t ever have regrets on that, right? We’re we’re not the type of family, it’s too bad. We’re like, yeah, you go. There’s too you know what? It’s okay. We were together last week. We, we did this.

So just having that emotional support is really important and then just people that believe in you is real I think that’s really important. My friend group, you know, it’s not as big as it once was in the people I get to hang out with when I do have time. but they’re all right there, which is so great. And they accept, you know, they I accept them for who they are. They accept me if we can get time together, it’s great. But look, I am definitely a person of routines. So because again in our work life it’s, it can get a little unpredictable with the travel we have, especially around the six conferences that we have in in a year and all the other work that we have to do.

So, you know, I’m I’m a big believer in like, you know, early morning as we talked about, I’m out on a walk most mornings, it’s when I’m doing my greatest thinking. Leslie and I have talked about this, but I think every morning brings a reset.

Stacy Lane just did a post on how like she loves Mondays because Mondays allow for this like reset of the week. And I was so excited because I’m like somebody else who loves Mondays.

You know, and and I love mornings. Like I just every day you get an opportunity to reflect, think different. Mornings hit differently when you’re out, and it’s fresh and just everything’s just kind of there’s a little bit more peace at at things. I love that. So that’s part of my routine, staying really close to the people that support me, part of my routine.

Good self-awareness. I think you just have to be extremely self-aware. you know, and and you have to give yourself and others grace. Like, you know, I really, I really give myself grace because with a mind like mine, I’m like, I want to always go faster and I wanna always get more done. And, you know, I’m seeing opportunity all the time. It it’s gonna be hard to actually chase that end of that rainbow.

Because it it’s sort of like it just keeps it it it moves and I love that. But on the days that maybe I can’t get there fast enough, or more importantly, the team, because I’ve got an incredible SIA team. The leaders at SIA are amazing and they are a big part of this, you know, like there’s the personal support team, but you have to have a professional support team and then you know the Lady Leaders like I I just think that that team just shows up for us all the time and all my professional contacts.

So you know the architect of who I am today is changing. It does change, but it’s what you find is you have to have these these hubs of community that are there for you and working for you.

And you’ve got to return that.

You know, it kills me to hear that someone might think that they can’t reach out to me because I’m like, my gosh, just they can just text me.

Like LinkedIn message with me, right? Like that’s probably one of the areas I’m not great at is like having those kinds of boundaries. And I’m having conversations on LinkedIn and then I’m like, hey, let’s move this to email. Like like let’s get to meet. And I there’s just not enough time in the day probably to do all that I want to do. But those are some of my proudest moments.

When I’m in Europe and all of a sudden I get a text from, you know, one of the CEOs of the other company or just someone that used to work for me, and they’re like, I’m in the audience and you’re here and what a connection. And I’m like, meet in the lobby in five minutes! Because I I just love I love that. But I I think it’s like just a lot of elements, a lot of different people.

And you have to be there for yourself, right? You have to treat yourself in the right way and stay sharp and stay strong. And just, you know, know what drives you, know when you need to rest, know when you need to power forward, but I think routine helps a lot in what we all do.

Ursula Williams:

Before we go, you know, there’s just one thing. I think about what you do. and you all you all do so much, right? But just if you want to hone in on the marketing aspect of the support that you give to the community. And, you know, marketing’s, it’s such a difficult word to use today because really now it’s engineering and it’s technology and it’s so many other things.

And I think it just depends on what it is to that company, but you know, notoriously it’s an area where the staffing industry has underspent.

We have our SIBC benchmarking, and you know, we look at how much spend is put there. and yet today, I felt this way for a long time, marketing, it really is at the top of everything. You know, we say top of funnel, right? In marketing and sales, but like it is not just, it’s it is way down with all the automation.

Like you can bring customers and information and the companies that you power so far down in the funnel. And it’s exciting to see what what you’re doing. And more now than ever, I think companies are understanding that they have to differentiate themselves that with automation and marketing automation, they reach their customers, they can understand how they’re engaging, they can build their own communities, you know, even just on social.

I think just so important that companies are showing up in different ways because people are actually experiencing who they are that way. And so you know, I just want to say thank you because you make the industry better as well. That’s what what we’re here to do is really just make the industry better. It’s what I’ve given my entire career to. And it’s really great to have you in the industry and companies like yours and just supporting empowering the organizations. So so I love this. Thanks, you know, for the opportunity and your friendship and your support and for just driving the industry forward.

Lesly Cardec: Thank you!

Leslie Vickrey: That clip’s coming out as a highlight reel, Lesly.

Ursula Williams: Yeah, no, like it’s really like we, you know, we see it in The Pulse. We see it in a lot of the work we do. We, you know, we obviously provide a lot of solutions to companies to get in front of, you know, the two ends. And there’s so many cool companies also, like on the supply side, and they’re just like, we just want to we wanna get our story out. We just want to be known. And that powers a lot of these organizations and how they can build themselves differently for the generation of staffing to work for solutions that we’re going into.

And it doesn’t mean changing who they are and their identity, right? It just powers them. We had a research piece that said the companies that have a platform, they’re, you know, they can yield 10% greater of their growth and the future. And, you know, integrating it into their existing operations doesn’t mean changing it completely. and I just think that there’s just so much opportunity.

But there’s also a lot of confusion because there is so much opportunity. Companies standing apart and you know, knowing like for consumers, like who are they, what do they do, the words all sound the same. So, so it’s just great to have resources like ClearEdge to for companies to be able to utilize. There’s so much that that the companies have to do. And again, by our research and knowing what happens.

And even this, like I’ve seen a lot of the leaders that you’ve had, you know, on the show and it’s just fun to bring them forward and for people to learn from what they do. So keep up the good work!

Lesly Cardec: Thank, Urs. Thanks for joining us. This was so fun. We’ll have to have you back another time and we have a lot a lot more mileage to cover, I think. So thank you again. And where can everyone follow you?

Ursula Williams: LinkedIn. LinkedIn is is the best place to to follow and of course live, come to a conference. Like that’s the best place. Okay, thank you!

Lesly Cardec: Thank you!

Leslie Vickrey: Well, Lesly, what a conversation with Urs. And before we wrap, we’ve got to do our take three. And that’s the parts of the conversation we’ll be thinking about long after the mics are off. I’m gonna go ahead and go first. And one of the comments that Ursula shared in a story that she shared with her career trajectory was really the gift you can give others and don’t even realize the impact at that time. And in her case, it was she got a promotion into an international role and she was feeling like it was going okay, but not necessarily great.

And it took a leader really stepping up and being her ally and saying, you know, basically we believe in you. You’ve got this. I really like what I’m seeing. But it took that person taking that small moment that they probably didn’t even realize in that moment what an impact it would make all of these years later, probably twenty years later, she’s sharing that story from that moment in her career that really helped put that spark in her to become really successful in that role, which then led to a lot of her future success.

So my takeaway there is a reminder that sometimes our small acts that we don’t even realize we’re doing, but we really have to be intentional, I think, in doing it. More intentional so we do realize what we’re doing is to give that gift to people.

So when you see something, you say something, you know, to them to really help them see in themselves what we see in them, which sometimes they don’t always, they don’t always see. So think of small acts of kindness that you can do for leaders, future leaders, members of your team, where just giving them that one piece of feedback can really make a huge difference, you know, long term in their career.

It could be anything, saying hi to someone at a conference who maybe looks up to you and introducing them to people, offering people opportunities to speak when maybe they didn’t know that they wanted to even be on panels, you know, whatever that is, those small gestures can go really long.

Lesly Cardec: Yeah. You know how I feel about that topic. So I agree. I think a lot of the times people notice things about you before you notice them in yourself. And so that nudge and that confidence that they have in you can go a really long way and actually change the trajectory of you know your career. So I applaud that for sure.

One of the things that stood out on my end was and, this actually is a theme we’ve been hearing about is just the impact of being raised by confident parents and the permission to be bold and how that has an impact. And I feel like with a lot of the leaders, we’re hearing that theme. and that, you know, really gives people permission to take risks and to make bold moves and and all that comes along with that.

So I know I talked about it before of just, you know, what you learn and and how what you’re exposed to carries carries on with you as you get older. And I am a firm believer in that. Now, obviously things can, you know, you can change and evolve as a person, but it’s, it’s the lessons that you unlearn. I know the the episode we just launched ourselves, it’s not easy to unlearn, but if you’re in, you know, that that confidence is instilled from the get-go.

It really, really kinda gives you that that stance, that stance that you need to to move forward.

Leslie Vickrey: Yeah. We talked about it being the greatest gift you can give your kids is a gift of confidence. So yeah, don’t want to take that away from them. And it’s easy to do. It’s really easy to take it away. All right. The last one. Do you mind if I do the third? All right. The third, it’s Ursula did not prep this when we prepped with her. Her kudos to our agency really meant a lot.

On top of that, at every conference, they talk about statistics, marketing, and marketing spend. And year over year, they talk about how our industry underinvests in marketing. And we’ve had some recent conversations about that.

So one, thank you, Urs, for that. But for me, it really stood out because it’s like we keep saying this, and people keep not doing it. But those who are doing it and are doing it really well, we see huge results coming out of that for them, like really good results.

And other companies will ask, well, how much did they invest? And, you know, they’ll ask some disclaimer questions, which are, you know, good questions, but even answering them, they still, you know, hesitate on that.

So I would like to just say I appreciated the fact that she recognizes that and recognizes that the role of marketing, especially in our industry today with the insurgence of AI, so many new tools and technologies, the ability for technologies to connect that couldn’t before, and the fact that marketing, and we saw it with Leslie Snavely’s conversation, We’ve seen it in a lot of the conversations we’ve had, you know, Leslie being the CEO at CHG Healthcare, the fact that she started in marketing and now is the CEO of this huge company.

So marketing, you know, taking a seat at the table and really playing that growth driver, obviously, stood out to me, for kinda selfish reasons, but an important message to hear. And, you know, hopefully people listen, you know, even more with that.

Lesly Cardec: And it was also nice to have us all together because I know we, we come from similar paths and similar companies. So it was almost like a little, a little mini reunion of sorts.

Leslie Vickrey: All roads lead back to Randstad…

Lesly Cardec: Exactly. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone. We hope that you enjoyed this as much as we did. And we look forward to the next episodes coming up. Honestly, We’re Learning. Thanks for joining us!

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