Adam Jolley, Leadership and Personal Growth | Ep. 176

Welcome to the Data Gurus podcast! Sima has curated a series of interesting and informative past episodes of the podcast for August. She will be back again in September with new guests, fresh content, and a few surprises!

Today’s episode is a replay of episode 170 with Adam Jolley, the EVP and General Manager of Americas for Paradigm Sample.

In this episode, Adam talks to Sima about how leadership has had to change over the last two years as a result of how the world has changed since the pandemic.

Adam’s background

It was a shock for everyone when the pandemic hit. It was also a big shock to Adam’s career because he had quit his thirteen-year job as President of a stable company a few months before. At the time, he was navigating what to do for a career. He was also considering whether to get into leadership or be an individual contributor.

Having to change

If Adam had started with Paradigm immediately after quitting his old job, nothing would have changed, and he would not have gotten any better at what he did. Due to all the changes, including the influence of the change in the mindset of the employees, he had to change how he did everything.

A routine

Adam feels that before the pandemic, most people were in a routine. They were doing the same job repetitively, so they started getting lazy. People started becoming replaceable, and products became widgets and started becoming commoditized.

Competition for your people

Before, people had to think about competition in terms of market and product. Now, there is competition for people.

Sales

It is no longer possible to have a playbook for sales. Currently, there is no one way to manage, sell, or communicate with everybody because that would be limiting.

An opportunity for leaders

All the changes have created an opportunity for leaders to personalize their message and motivate their people to show up for work.

Customizing leadership

People learned more about each other when everyone started working remotely and communicating via Zoom. That helped Adam customize his approach to leadership.

How Adam changed personally after the pandemic

When making decisions, Adam stopped looking at what had happened and what was happening that day. He was forced to think differently about his goals, so he developed an emotional attachment to his job beyond the paycheck, insurance, and other benefits.

Teamwork

Adam was never a big believer in teamwork before. That has changed because everyone has gone through a hard time and a change together, and everyone needs acceptance.

Branding

With the change in leadership, there is more emphasis on branding. There is also more emphasis on companies because so much has changed.

Personal branding

Many leaders focus on their personal brand outside of the company. However, personal branding is just as important internally as it is externally.

Have your house in order

The most important part of a business is ensuring you have your own house in order before putting anything out there.

Leadership and embracing innovation

It is scary for people to innovate and have foresight, especially when things are going well. However, to move forward, innovation needs to be company-wide. Everyone, including the sales team, has to think about where things are going and what comes next.

A tough balance

Even though it is tough to balance, leaders must bring their people along throughout the innovation process.

A fine line

There is a fine line between taking market feedback, input from sales, input from marketing, and input from people building products,