Episode #33: The Power of a Blended Marketing and Communications Approach with Special Guest Jason Teitler
In our first episode with a marketing Dad, Julia and Kelly talk to Jason Teitler, Special Olympics Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Brand. Jason talks about his career on both the agency and client-side and shares his perspective on the importance of alignment in marketing and communications.
The Power of a Blended Marketing and Communications Approach with Special Guest Jason Teitler Episode Recap
Jason Teitler, Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Brand at Special Olympics. In this episode, we dive into Jason’s journey, his agency experiences, and what qualities he looks for in an agency partner. Let’s learn from this marketing expert who has a wealth of experience in both the agency and client-side worlds.
Jason’s agency journey is quite diverse, starting from boutique shops to working with global PR firms. He handled marketing for various brands and even launched some iconic products. His experience encompasses working in multiple industries, which has shaped his expertise and insights. Moving to the client-side, Jason emphasizes the importance of focus. Unlike agency life, where he managed multiple clients across diverse industries, being client-side allows him to concentrate solely on the Special Olympics’ mission – to promote inclusion for individuals with intellectual disabilities.
To stay sharp and updated, Jason leverages social media channels like LinkedIn, engaging with thought leaders from various industries. However, he admits that the key to staying relevant lies in learning from the young talent on his communications team. They bring fresh perspectives and keep him well-informed about the latest trends. When selecting agency partners, Jason prioritizes true partnership. He seeks agencies that are willing to challenge his ideas and provide honest feedback. A partnership built on open communication and trust allows the Special Olympics to refine its marketing and communications to be more impactful.
In the dynamic world of marketing and communications, aligning these two functions is crucial for driving success and maximizing impact. Jason, an expert in the field, shares valuable insights from his experience working with Special Olympics, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and integration. Jason recalls his early days in an agency, where he encountered a significant disconnect between the Marketing and Communications departments of his main client. Both functions barely interacted, and sometimes even clashed. However, when a new PR lead joined, eager to align the teams, the results were remarkable.
According to Jason, collaboration is more than just a buzzword. It means working together to achieve shared business objectives and reaching common goals. The ultimate stakeholders and target audiences should be identified and agreed upon by both marketing and communications teams. When Marketing and Communications teams combine their efforts, the outcome is greater than the sum of its parts. They can magnify each other’s work and achieve a more potent response from their target audience. An integrated approach blurs the lines between the two functions, creating a seamless and powerful strategy.
When hiring new team members, Jason looks for individuals with high energy and genuine passion for the organization’s mission. Personal interests and preferences can provide valuable insights into an individual’s potential contribution to the team. Rather than an academic approach, Jason’s team immerses new members immediately into their roles. By encouraging them to contribute from day one, the team fosters a culture of collaboration and inclusion, crucial for tackling the challenges they face head-on. Jason draws parallels between parenting and business, highlighting the importance of acknowledging what one doesn’t know. Listening to and learning from younger team members or different generations can provide invaluable insights and guide decision-making effectively.
The power of aligning marketing and communications cannot be understated. Collaboration, integration, and a genuine understanding of each other’s roles lead to a more potent and impactful strategy. By embracing the insights of team members from various backgrounds, businesses can build a successful and inclusive culture that drives lasting results.
Episode Transcript:
Julia
Okay, welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast. Today we have a friend and colleague of mine joining us, Jason Teitler. He is the Special Olympics Senior Vice President of Global Communications and brand. So together we can be the brand police and market and communicate it. So, I got the pleasure of getting to know Jason through Special Olympics, and where we actually align marketing and communications. So that is why we are talking about, among other things, this topic.
Jason drives engagement with the movement among influencers, media, private sector leaders and policymakers share critical insights and stories designed to raise awareness of the Special Olympics movement and the important role and helping those with intellectual disabilities. And before joining the Special Olympics team, he worked at BCW, based in New York City as EVP managing director in the brand solution practice. And he has a couple of decades of experience, let’s say to at least, leading brand and comms, which makes you an expert on what we’re about to talk about. So welcome, Jason.
Jason
Thank you for that. Really appreciate it. I feel a little bit grayer as you’re going through that that introduction, but I feel privileged to be joining the two of you on this podcast and hello to your audience.
Julia
Awesome. Well, you are our first marketing Dad to join us. So red carpet.
So okay, so before we launch in, because you’re a marketing Dad, you have to tell us about your kid who’s really not a kid, he’s a grown up now is he following in your marketing, communications footsteps.
Jason
It seems like he is, my son, Tristan. He’s fantastic. He’s one of my closest friends. He’s also a just tremendous son. He is right now working for an organization called click on and click on produces marketing based, digital oriented videos to support a variety of different brands. And he’s really enjoying what he’s doing with click on he is a graduate of UCLA, and also got his master’s from Syracuse in public relations. So, we definitely do have a lot to talk about while we’re around the dinner table. So very, very proud of them. Definitely, a proud dad. And again, I’m so happy to join the two of you, we could certainly talk about our kids and their aspirations and hope that they do use their powers of marketing and communications for good like we are doing right now. Julia.
Julia
Yeah, absolutely. And Kelly also works with a lot of nonprofits as well. So, the three of us combined have some good experience in the same industry. Well, that’s super cool about your son. But there’s so many games, like the logo game, like all these brand games that I bet you guys can play on, play together.
Jason
Yeah, except it you know, sometimes it’s not cool to be with them all the time.
Julia
I’m saying no, about that.
Jason
It’s like, I got to hang out with dad, I got to do something. I’m kidding. He and I get along really, really well. So, we’re always sharing insights, I learned a lot from him, he’s of a generation that has a lot to share. And that we as Special Olympics really want to begin doing more with because they are certainly a general generation of doers. incredible, incredibly smart generation, a lot of aspiration. And what I like about that particular generation, and of course, my son is he wants to walk the walk in and not just talk the talk. And that is so important when you start thinking about giving back and working for a cause. And Julia, as you know, the two of us have the great privilege to work with tremendous athletes across the globe, people with intellectual disabilities, and it’s so terrific to start to engage a younger audience, that’s the future of our movement, and know that they are very, very committed to those things that they’re very passionate about. And in this case, you know, propagating the message of inclusion all throughout the world through both marketing and communication, so purchased and earned media, which I know we’re going to talk a lot about. Yeah, he would be a great focus group, because he’s my ideal target in terms of market.
Julia
Getting ready for the revolution is inclusion. Okay, but we’re going to get there. But first I wanted to talk about agency experience because you know, US agency folks, we love talking about agency life. I have shared so many different funny Instagram accounts that I like, in my, in my monthly newsletter that talk about like, just making fun of agency life. So, tell us a little bit about your journey in agency life, what were like some of the obstacles, what are some of the things that you kind of can look back on and be like, oh, I learned some things.
Jason
So, my agency experience is a bit different than others that have been working within the public relations agency space. I was more marketing based public relations and what I did I started out with smaller firms boutique shops were called boutique shops and but that they are now and then I went into Omni comms Porter Novelli and Porter Novelli was at the time one of the biggest global PR firms in the world. And this is many, many years ago. I spent more than a decade at Porter Novelli, I started by developing their interactive practice globally. So, the Euro blogs and news groups and chat rooms and bulletin boards, which I know a lot of listeners are probably like, what is he talking about? Then I also handled marketing for Porter Novelli itself and then took my passion for sports and developed their first sports marketing practice globally. And I was at one point doing all three at the same time, but in my role there, as well as my role with BCW, which I’ll get to in a second. I worked across the client portfolio and this is where it gets a bit unique compared to others in the agency world. So, I was supporting brands and healthcare technology consumer business to business nonprofit by helping them maximize their presence not only in the digital space, but also with within the culture of sports and entertainment. Sometimes together. Fortunately, I was responsible for and participated in some of the bigger marketing lead public relations initiatives I was able to launch Gillette Mach Three and Venus. I worked with M&M Mars to run the global color vote. And purple one that’s why there’s purple in the pack. Now we did one of the first virtual experiences ever, as well as engaging with digital influencers, which is what they’re called now. They were called bloggers and they’re still called bloggers, but there were only bloggers. And then I did some tremendous and really rewarding work on the health care front, working with GlaxoSmithKline to help them launch their committee quitters program, which is a program that supports the brand’s Nicorette NicoDerm. And we worked with NASCAR talent for that too. It was sort of like the pit crew to help you stop smoking and you know, get off that nicotine. So, there was that and then I had a few stops in between and then I went to Burson-Marsteller and Burson-Marsteller, owned by WPP was also at the time one of the biggest PR firms in the world. They’ve since merged with Conan Wolf and now it’s called Burson Cohn & Wolfe, but Harold Burson before he passed, was a tremendous mentor of mine. He is largely considered the founder of modern-day PR. He is a legend among legends. I remember bringing in a lot of entertainment, celebrities, sports celebrities, to do media tours, and they all wanted to meet Harold because he is a legend, as I mentioned, but also somebody who really was a pioneer, and at ECW had the great pleasure of setting up and growing the global sports marketing practice, we launched MetLife Stadium we helped Oakley formulate and launch its new branding called Beyond Reason that was performed Luxottica bought them. I had the great pleasure of working on a variety of different emerging brands, one called next VR, which was one of the early Virtual Reality companies which since got bought by Apple, but we did some great things both on the sports side and on the entertainment side that had never been done before. We pioneered being very active in the Super Bowl media environment, which of course we also do right now for Special Olympics. In fact, we just competed our ninth media tour at the Super Bowl. In this case, it was virtual, but you know, to take advantage of the media environment. So that’s my agency background. We still work with agencies quite a bit. And I still work with my friends over at ECW, as well as Allison and partners and gentlemen.
Kelly
You’ve had a wide range of experience. We just did a podcast on client side versus agency side. And I know, you don’t necessarily want to pick a favorite, but how would you compare the two, client side versus agency – positive and negative?
Jason
So I’d say that the biggest difference, especially considering what my roles were working horizontally across the organizations, the agencies that I supported at that time, that I worked at the biggest difference is focus, right, because in this case, where we have one primary mission, which is to help people with intellectual disabilities, recognize and establish inclusion, and to very much well beyond being accepted, but being included in a community, whether that communities in the workplace, whether it’s in the classroom, whether it’s your neighborhood, is really talking about the importance of embracing and helping to propagate inclusion. Whereas on the agency side, I mean, I could be working healthcare one hour, I could be working technology the next hour, it could be handling an issue or crisis, the third hour, or all those things at the same time, which was certainly not boring. But it did, it did become a bit of taking your breath away type of moment, not necessarily always in a good way. It’s just you’re out of breath. So, working on the brand side also has a lot of other intricate differences. Some of those nuances are well timesheets, I don’t have to fill out 30 Different timesheets for 30 different clients I’m supporting on the agency side. So that was refreshing.
I’m sure all our friends who are listening in who have agency background, we’re like, yeah, if only I can get away from the timesheets, right? So, so there’s that the pitching process, Kelly is something that certainly I do miss from time to time, but I really don’t have to go through the pain of preparing presentations and rehearsals and, and just being on the front lines in front of 20-30 people, including procurement, who are judging everything that you’re saying.
I was so used to that for so many years, decades. In fact, as Julia pointed out, and that’s something I really don’t have to do as much as we have a different type of pitch, which is certainly, of course to media, but also to brands that are considering partnering up with Special Olympics. And that’s one of the reasons why we pride ourselves on earned media and the ability to play stories about our athletes and our programming units and our programs all over the world, as you probably know, where nearly 200 different countries and territories. So, there is a little bit of a sales of salesy approach to what we do on the communications front. But it’s not necessarily as dedicated a sales role, as you know, being on the agency side where you almost feel like a used car salesman some times.
Kelly
You’re definitely showing a little bit of preference towards client side Correct.
Jason
Perhaps, I do enjoy my role, had Special Olympics, which of course is on the brand side.
Kelly
How do you stay sharp? I mean, I think the good thing about being on the agency side is you continuously have to make sure that you’re on the cutting edge. And you know what the latest
media sources are and the latest news and how do you keep yourself sharp?
Jason
Well, your kind to, to suggest that I’m sharp in the first place, I really do appreciate that. There’s a variety of different ways I am constantly absorbing information through my LinkedIn engagement. I think LinkedIn is one of the least talked about yet most powerful social media channels. We have very much amplified our existence on LinkedIn and have gotten heavily involved in engagement. But there are some just great points of views shared by leaders all across the globe in all different industries. And I’m able to get that really directly from them as opposed to a conduit like only media, but there’s also media monitoring and other social media channels. But I think the most appropriate way for me to stay sharp and current modern, if you will, is to really be in tune with our younger employees and members of the communications team. I learned so much from them every day. And as Julia knows, we have quite a few superstars on the communication side, including young talent that are just bringing tremendous insights and understanding of a particular generation’s behavior. And I love learning from them. They teach me all the time, they teach me about ways to be more effective from a digital perspective, more effective from pure social media perspective, and even on the traditional side when it comes to event marketing. So, learning and teaching is certainly a big part of how I try to stay sharp. And then we’ve got some great agency partners that are always, you know, sharing information with us. And I never lose touch with my agency friends, because deep down is a big part of me, that’s still and always will be an agency guys. So, I hope that helps.
Julia
Yeah, for sure. I thought you were going to say that you got you get most of your news from Tick Tock, Jason?
Jason
Yeah, I don’t even have wit for that one.
Julia
Well, I don’t know, we came up with a pretty good idea for using tick tock this summer.
Jason
We did thanks to you, and, you know, are colleagues and marketing. So, thank you, Julia.
Julia
Yeah, I totally agree with you, Jason about like, the young talent. Like my, my mentor always told me, the best time of the year was when interns were around during the summer, because they would come and they would bring these, like, you know, what’s new and hot and fresh, and what’s the buzz on campus and like, those were the things that were up and coming that we really needed to pay attention to. Because you know, a couple years down the road, that was going to be where it’s at. And so, she kind of taught me like, you always got to listen to the, to the younger people, they have so much insight.
Kelly
I agree. They do.
Jason
And my son is not shy about saying, Dad, you silly man. Why don’t you think about this? And, and that’s important. You got to keep grounded, know what you don’t know until you know it based on your experience with a younger generation, but all generations have tremendous learnings to share. And I pride myself on being able to very easily admit, hey, I don’t know that, can you please, you know, give me a little bit of a primer on that and give me some guidance. There are quite a few worlds, if you will, that I can be much more in tune with. And I think many of us also share that opinion. And, you know, by learning, you’re going to be able to help advance the brand amongst the audience’s you’re trying to influence.
Julia
Absolutely. So okay, so now that you are client side, Jason, talk about the qualities that you look for from an agency partner, like what are those things that you know, you appreciate most, or that stand out when you’re talking to a new agency? I mean, you get more emails and pitches, than like anyone I’ve ever known.
You only forward me a tiny smidgen of them.
Jason
Ha-ha. Yeah, you’re welcome for me, shielding you from all that. You’re also welcome for all the stuff that I do share with you. From an agency perspective, what I look for is true partnership. And I think the word partner is tossed around too cavalierly. People use the word partner and, and really are thinking about vendor and brand. But I don’t think about it that way. Partnership is a true partnership where both parties should feel very, very comfortable in saying, you know what, that’s not right. Let me explain why. And here are the adjustments you need to make.
The agencies that we partner with are very comfortable in saying that’s wrong, and here’s why. And here’s how you can course correct. And that, to me is the most important thing, is that the dynamic of a true partnership. And because if we had agency folks that were supporting us that were just like yes, yes, yes, all the time. We wouldn’t be really able to refine our marketing, our communications, social media, which of course is underneath communications at Special Olympics, and so on. To be the most effective brand we can be around the world, the nuances that many of our agencies are able to share with us are actually not nuances when they come to when we come to applying them in reaching certain stakeholders. And if I’m wrong, I want to know that I don’t want people to, to just, you know, be afraid to say, yeah, that’s not going to fly, because it can get us into some very serious issue. And considering our work, which in many cases is life or death type of work, considering the seriousness that many with intellectual disabilities are in the middle of, you know, we need to be as crisp as possible with our message and with our delivery.
Julia
Well said, okay, let’s move on to our topic, which is aligning marketing and communications. And from like, an inside perspective, right, and like, if you’re working in an agency, it’s also really important to understand that when I was new on the scene to an agency, I really didn’t understand what that concept was, like, my main client had a Marketing and Communications Department, you know, very similar to Special Olympics, but they were so separate, like they, they barely talked.
And sometimes they would quarrel, almost, um, and then we got like a new a new person came aboard who was in charge of PR, and was really interested in aligning. And it was, it was so wonderful those couple years when we were just online. So, what is the magic, Jason, that comes from a true marc com partnership?
Jason
So certainly, collaboration is another word that’s been tossed around quite often. And I think people don’t necessarily practice collaboration, but rather use the word collaboration to put the smokescreen up that they are actually integrating with, with their colleagues. But collaboration, if you dig deep into what it means, it means more than just simply dictating what you’re doing in a particular category, it means working together to reach the same goals to reach the business objectives, which should be shared. So ultimately, it’s bringing Marketing and Communications together and other departments, frankly, and we can go into that in a moment. And all make sure to align on who the ultimate stakeholders are, who are the primary and secondary audiences. And within the primary audiences, who are the consumers that you need to reach, who are the business decision makers, you need to reach the same thing for the secondary audiences. And if the budget exists, you can go to the secondary audiences and even deeper into audiences below that. But I think that that’s a blueprint that needs to be shared by both marketing and communications, knowing that they both have the same goal, which is to help the organization whatever that organization is, whatever the brand is, really reach what it is aspiring to do short term and long term from a business perspective, as well as an internal culture building perspective. And I’ve been in so many situations, in fact, more often than not, where communications and marketing have never met. And they actually didn’t even know each other. And that is a sin in my opinion. Yeah. Not only is it a sin simply because you know, you could be tripping over each other, which is horrible in a variety of different ways. It’s disastrous in many ways. But the one plus one equals three, approach is very, very true. You can magnify each other’s work, you could multiply what the dollars are really equating to, you know, from a resource versus value perspective. And Marketing and Communications do have an ultimate goal is to influence the attitudes and behaviors of certain audiences, right. So those audiences are likely the same audience is knowing full well, that there are conduits that may be a little bit different, because from a communications perspective, there are conduits called Media, there are conduits called influencers. And from a marketing perspective, there are certainly conduits called, you know, outlets and publications and channels that you’re paying to have a particular message told, but if you combine the two, and you’re able to parlay for one with the other, man, you’re just going to get a much more potent response, a much more potent product at the end of it, which is what we do Julia, we do it all the time, you and I are not strangers to one another. And that is something that is brilliant about the dynamic of, of our master group is that we work hand in hand, on a lot of these initiatives in some occasions, it’s very hard to tell where communications stops and where marketing starts. Right. And that’s by design. Because if you’re not able to differentiate completely, what is pure communications, and what is pure marketing, you succeeded, in my opinion, because you’re integrated, you shouldn’t have to be able to say, oh, yeah, well, that’s purely communications, or that’s purely marketing. No, we’re working together, right? The earned media that we produce on the communication side, helps to amplify whatever you’re doing from a content developers’ perspective and placement perspective, the content that you’re developing, I’m going to use to send out to media and influencers to say, look at this great stuff that we’re doing. Look at these mission moments that we’ve got in place, look how important inclusion is. And you’ll see us everywhere, including within an article that may be written by an editor talking about the great event that maybe you have put together in the digital environment. So, to me, not differentiating means you’ve succeeded. Of course, there are things that are very distinctly communications and distinctly marketing, but they’re not in a silo, they definitely do have that they’re getting the halo effect for marketing and vice versa.
Julia
I mean, I love that one plus one equals three, totally the truth when you’re in alignment. You know, and we see this in our campaigns, I can only do so much as marketing alone. Just true. But when we’re working, and everyone is on the same page, it you know, it’s definitely more than double. You know, it’s just marketing magic, like I like to say, and Julia, you’ve had experiences. And Kelly, I’m not sure maybe in your background, you have to. But wow, how crazy of an idea is it that we actually share budgets from time to time?
Jason
Right, Julia, I have some extra money. Would you like to use it?
Julia
I mean, you have gifted me money before.
Jason
Right? And why not? Because we’re one team with one mission reaching audiences all over the world. And the power of a combined effort is so much more powerful than the power of siloed efforts that are not in concert with one another.
Kelly
I think that’s something that you learn over time in your career, as you know, how do you subjugate your own ego, and make sure that you’re focused completely on the mission together, and when you’re focused completely on the mission, then you can make decisions so much easier. That’s why I love what we do and focusing on nonprofits.
Julia
Yeah, you picked you picked a good one to go client side, Jason.
I mean, considering you’ve had so many other cool for-profit brands that you’ve worked with, right? And Special Olympics is certainly special.
Jason
Yeah, I became part of the Special Olympics family when I was on the agency side. So, I handled Special Olympics as an account over at ECW. So, it was a pretty easy transition for me being that I knew not only the mission, but it helped to share the inclusion revolution with so many around the world already. That it wasn’t really, you know, a shock to the system. Yeah. And I knew a lot of the players meaning I knew a lot of the folks that were becoming part of my team. So yeah, which is awesome.
Julia
So, when you’re looking for new team members, um, what are you looking for?
Jason
I mean, let’s not talk about marketing alignment, right? Like, let’s just talk about like, what are you looking for in these new young fresh people or even an experienced person like what, what are the things that stand out? Energy incredibly important. We, definitely look for individuals that are not only passionate about the mission, and passionate about doing something to benefit others to help elevate others and obviously to, to share the goodness of inclusion. So, there’s more of it around the world, but high energy so that we know that even during the toughest of times and communications can get pretty tough especially considering that we’re on the frontlines dealing with opportunities, of course, but also some of the challenges issues and, and so on. We need individuals that are really aspiring to do good through thick and thin and we’ll keep that energy level up because they are the voice of our movement from a communications perspective. And if you don’t have energy, then you’re not going to be able to transfer energy to the individuals you’re trying to influence the behaviors of.
And that’s really, really important. So, when you’re pitching media, for instance, we can have folks that are pitching in a very monotone, you’re like, type of style, we want folks that are really into the movement and want to share that, that joy and that passion and that, you know, that go get ’em attitude with, with media so that it becomes contagious.
Julia
Well, you have a lot of you have a lot of energy on your team, Jason.
Jason
I love my team out there listening. I love my team. I hope they’re listening to.
Julia
So, here’s an interesting one, especially when it comes to alignment, like, do you ask, like, how do you differentiate when you’re talking to someone like their marketing experiences versus their comms experience? Like are you looking for obviously, like, when you’re hiring someone for social, you want to get someone who’s deep into social, if you want, like a pure communications person, they need to understand how to write a press release, they need to understand how to manage media and things like that. But like, a lot of people aren’t just so focused like that, right? Like they have lots of different things that they’ve done in the past. So, like, how do you what do you really look for?
Jason
I look for, of course, the things that you would expect anybody who’s hiring to look for, but I also look for our individual passions, and understanding what they may engage in, on their personal time, because that tells me a lot about the character of an individual. And it tells me a lot about their preferences for seeking out and consuming content. And especially if I’m looking for somebody who’s really strong from a social media perspective, usually their personal passions are chock full of some really interesting behaviors, that we’ll probably want to
embrace as a part of the movement. Same thing from a pure media relations standpoint. I always asked you know, what are what are your preferred channels for gathering information?
Are you a consumer of podcasts? Are you consumer of traditional media? Are you a consumer of more traditional digital media, which I know sounds weird, but you know, traditional digital is basically a website verge version of an outlet or digitally native outlet?
So, when we start digging into that, and pulling back those layers of the onion, it really does tell me the type of individual that we’re, we’re, we’re considering, and helps me differentiate the ones that maybe are in sales mode versus the ones that are very much authentically interested in the movement.
Kelly
I think that’s really important. I have teenagers, so to think about, what they’re putting out there on social media themselves, to make sure that that it’s, going to be potential content that is going to be consumed by a potential employer. And is it something that that they’re proud of putting out there?
Julia
Oh, my gosh, if I had to go back to the content I would have posted as a teenager, I would…
Kelly
Oh, my gosh, well, that’s why we’re happy it wasn’t around when we were younger, we got to get out of jail free card on social media.
Julia
We really did and video and everything else. Thank goodness. Yeah, that’s a whole for different podcasts. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Okay, so just two more questions for you, Jason. Let’s just talk about like a new person on your team, like how do you expect them to live and breathe this like alignment, this marketing and communications like you said, it’s like about culture. So, like, how do you onboard them to this, you know, internal concept.
Jason
So, it’s definitely not an academic process alone. What I mean by that is where we’re not going to have somebody sit in a room for or virtually a room for four days going through dads and dads of information. Sure, we expect people to know about our organization by doing their own homework. But the best way to get acquainted with an organization into start contributing to an organization is to start on day one being put into those situations. We don’t have the luxury as an organization, to have a ton of time to sort of do some scrimmages, so to speak, right, we’re instantly put in the game. And we’ve got to help our athletes all across the globe immediately. And I think that’s actually the best approach. Is it a little bit uncomfortable? Yes. But I guess intentionally it is. Because fighting for inclusion is, is an uncomfortable process with some people, we’ve got to let them experience being uncomfortable so that they can make the notion of inclusion comfortable for them, right.
We don’t want to intentionally make things awkward, but we want people to really dive in and contribute asap. Don’t be shy, be bold. Don’t be too bold. I mean, certainly, we want to make sure that you’re feeling confident about the recommendations you’re giving. But let’s share right away, let’s understand that there’ll be some victories and some mistakes, and, and the mistakes teach us as much as the victories do. And that’s okay. Right, because we, we again, don’t have that luxury of just putting months and months and months of preparation together to, to help defend athletes all over the world, who some of them are very, very tough situations from a health perspective, from an education perspective, from a leadership perspective. I mean, and considering what’s happening in the world right now, with a pandemic and a war. There are athletes that that are struggling and people with intellectual disabilities in general that are struggling, so we don’t have the luxury of just waiting and going to school first, before we go out there to the workforce, if you catch where, you know, what I’m what I’m mentioning there, so I think right away, you know, dive right in, at first. Be collaborative, really work with those around you?
Julia
Absolutely. All right. Well, last but not least, Jason, we want to know, how being a parent helps you being better at business?
Jason
Well, I think it’s, it goes back to what I mentioned first, which is very quickly, coming to the realization that I need to know what I don’t know. And that is I don’t know about a lot about the behaviors of a particular generation simply because I’m not that generation. I’m not of that generation, right. So, I don’t want to pretend, I think it’s hard for somebody who is of a different generation to say, I’m an expert on Centennials. Okay, you’re out your window shopping, you’re not actually, you know, in the store.
So, in order to be in the store, you’ve got to be with Centennials, who can help guide you. And that’s just one example. So, I think that’s, that’s something I’ve very much learned from my son is you could absorb as much as you’d like just being on the outside looking in. But really trust those folks that are actually on the inside and take those learnings and apply them appropriately and use the insights of that particular audience to tell you whether it’s going to fly or not the best test group for you, my son is certainly not shy about telling me whether I’m on target or whether I’m not. And I love him for that. You know, I may not love him in that moment. But I do long term when I realize Yeah, I got to listen to my son because he’s living and breathing.
Julia
Well, hopefully your son listens to this podcast, too.
Well, thanks, Jason, so much for spending time with us and giving us so many good things for our listeners to take away and apply to their careers.
Kelly
Thank you so much, Jason.
Jason
Well, I’m just grateful to have you, Julia Kelly, thank you for having me on your show. And very much thank you to your audience for listening to my banter and continue doing good things on the podcast.
