If you’ve ever wondered what it really looks like to lead a fast-growing business or team with heart, humor, and humanity, today is your masterclass.
Annalee Hagood-Earl is the CEO and co-founder of Bash Creative Inc. Under her leadership, Bash has become a magnet for some of the biggest names in the world—not just because of its stunning creativity and flawless execution, but because people can feel the company’s values in every interaction.
Annalee’s not just talking about values—she lives them. She’s led her team through seasons of explosive growth and through moments when, as she puts it, “the bottom dropped out.” And she’s done it all while staying grounded in empathy, transparency, and joy.
In our conversation, we dig into building a thriving business while investing in your team’s self-development, what it looks like to lead through uncertainty, and how to redefine success by what your team feels while they’re producing, not just what they produce. We also dive into some golden leadership lessons: the difference between values and ideals, why Annalee insists on hiring people smarter than herself, what she learned from her worst managers, and why she and her business partner went through a kind of leadership couples counseling to make their company stronger.
It’s like she ticked every box in my Five Pillars of Effective Empathy, and the results on her culture, retention, and revenue speak for themselves.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- Why reinvesting a headcount into developing your team means they can grow instead of relying on past experiences and traumas
- Why you should consider counseling with your business partners, your C-Suite, and other leaders
- Ways you can walk the talk and model self-awareness, joy, and learning
- Why allowing your people to be who they are means they can get further, faster
- How communication and transparency will take you a long way on so many levels
“We take a lot of time to interview and recruit. We’re looking for aligned values, not aligned ideals. I want people with different perspectives on my team. I want to learn from them.” — Annalee Hagood-Earl
Episode References:
- Follow the Founder: https://followthefounder.co/
- The Empathy Edge podcast: Claude Silver: Leading with Heart at Vayner Media
About Annalee Hagood-Earl, Founder & CEO, Bash Creative, Inc.
Annalee Hagood-Earl is the CEO and co-founder of Bash Creative Inc., an agency known for designing world-class events and experiences for global brands. Guided by both her company and personal values, Annalee has led her team through seasons of explosive growth as well as times when the bottom dropped out. Under her leadership, Bash has attracted some of the largest companies in the world as clients — not just for its creativity and execution, but because its values-driven approach creates trust and a culture people can feel. This commitment to values has even inspired clients to reflect on their own, discovering alignment they hadn’t previously articulated. Annalee speaks internationally on values-based leadership and how aligning values with action inspires resilience, clarity, and lasting impact.
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Connect with Annalee:
Bash Creative: bash-creative.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hagood-earl-annalee-78848a6
Instagram: instagram.com/bashcreative
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Take the LinkedIn Learning Courses! Leading with Empathy and Balancing Empathy, Accountability, and Results as a Leader
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. If you’ve ever wondered what it really looks like to lead a fast growing business or team with heart, humor and humanity, today is your master class. My guest, Annalee Haygood Earl is the CEO and co founder of bash creative Inc, an agency known for designing world class events and experiences for global brands. Under her leadership, bash has become a magnet for some of the biggest names in the world, not just because of its stunning creativity and flawless execution, but because people can feel the company’s values in every interaction. AnneLise not just talking about values, she lives them. She’s led her team through seasons of explosive growth and through moments when, as she puts it, the bottom dropped out, and she’s done it all while staying grounded in empathy, transparency and joy. In fact, bash’s values driven approach has inspired clients to reflect on their own discovering alignment they hadn’t even articulated yet. Anneliese speaks internationally on values based leadership and how aligning values with action creates resilience, clarity and lasting impact. A woman after my own heart, and let me tell you, she’s got the receipts, her company has achieved double digit year over year growth by prioritizing people and purpose right alongside performance. Yes, you heard that right. An events company that lived and thrived through the pandemic, talk about the ROI of empathy in our conversation, we dug into questions every leader should be asking, how do you build a thriving business while deeply investing in your team’s self development? What does it look like to lead through uncertainty and high pressure seasons without losing your humanity or your humor? And how can you redefine success, not just by what your team produces, but by how they feel while doing it. We also dive into some golden leadership lessons, the difference between values and ideals, why Annelie insists on hiring people smarter than her, what she learned from her worst managers, and why she and her business partner actually went through a kind of leadership couples counseling to make their partnership and company stronger. It’s like she ticked every box in my five pillars of effective empathy, and the results on her culture, retention and revenue speak for themselves. This episode is living proof that empathy isn’t a nice to have, it’s a growth strategy. So grab a pen, grab a mug of coffee or a warm beverage, because you’re about to learn how empathy, when activated through values, can create unstoppable momentum for your people and your profits. Take a listen. Welcome Annalee to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today as a wonderful case study in building a business and in building a team that is empathy first and people first, and showing how it can be successful, talking about all the great ROI that I always talk about, but you’re actually living it. So welcome to the show.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 04:00
Thank you so much, Maria. It’s really wonderful to be here, definitely preparing for this podcast. I was able to listen to a lot of episodes, and you’ve had some incredible interviews, and I feel like just in preparation to be here to talk about how we embrace empathy, I learned so much. So I really appreciate this podcast and having an opportunity to speak on it, and hopefully some of what I have to say resonates
Maria Ross 04:22
amazing, amazing. So we’re going to start where we always start. As you know, we’re going to start with your story. So right now, you know you are CEO and co founder of a creative agency that puts on World Class events and experiences. But how did you get here, and especially, how did you get to where you are in terms of your leadership and CEO philosophy around running the company the way you do
Annalee Hagood-Earl 04:45
so, I think to understand a little bit about the level of curiosity that I have about human beings is to just quickly go back to my upbringing. And I was raised by two parents. My father was a recruiter for. Are tech executives back in the 80s and 90s, and my mother is a psychologist and a family and marriage therapist. So right from the get, I had an opportunity to be curious about human beings and how they worked. So for me, it very much was, you know, my mom would love to dive into deep conversations about behavior, and then I think my dad just modeled and just offered the curiosity level that I had growing up, so that, I think was the base, because I’ve been obsessed with the way people work since the very beginning, and that parlays directly into the fact that I now own and run a company that is protecting and promoting human to human connection through events and experiences. So there’s some a bit in between, you know, the more technical bits as I’ve made my way from Southern California, where I was born, where I was admittedly very much in a bubble, so I didn’t have a lot of exposure to other types of people, people with other upbringings, people from other countries, like just differing perspectives. So I think I was seeking that kind of ever since I left home and I found a career in events, in recreation and hospitality, which just came out of wanting to go into business because I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I was actually pretty terrible student, to be very honest, but
Maria Ross 06:23
I made it, you’re proof they can succeed. Yeah, exactly. I’m proof that
Annalee Hagood-Earl 06:27
education isn’t necessarily for everybody, for like, a level of success. But I went to Cal Poly. Shout out to them. They do an amazing job, and most of their education is through learn by doing. So I had a lot of exposure there, and then I made my way to San Francisco, and I happened to be there for 16 years and through the tech boom. So like, oh yeah, being in a place where I got to watch, I mean, regular conversations on the bus were about starting companies, or, you know, start or creating a product. So like, just being in that space of curiosity just continued to allow myself to blossom, and so that’s essentially kind of how, like I personally, got to where I got but hospitality has always been a through thread. I worked in hotels for a long time. I, you know, plan events. I’ve been a part of communities, so on and so forth. So all of that together got me where I am. I am today,
Maria Ross 07:19
and now you’re running your business from Mexico City. So are you a remote first business?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 07:24
We’ve always been a remote first business. So working in hospitality, working in hotels, I mean, I had to show up in a suit and stockings. So like I when I left, and I left, definitely out of a moment of desperation. I was overworked, undervalued, and just really like, not feeling like I was a piece of myself. And I think, you know, your listeners can probably relate to that, whether they like, in any of their jobs, there are moments in which you like, don’t feel like you’re really representing yourself at all, or the person you would like to be. And I think that was the beginning of me really leaning more into empathy and like, How can I find that in my everyday when I’m stressed out of my mind and everybody is expecting everything from me, and because I’m a high performer, I kind of punished for it. So if that drove me out to start my own thing, both my parents were entrepreneurs at some point in their lives. Dad was quite successful in that, and so I always had it as an option. I don’t think a lot of people look at it as an option. And actually, I have a side passion project called Follow the founder, where I do actually share, like, Everyday Stories of founders. So like, Oh, I love it. Make it more accessible as an option if working for somebody else or working underneath an organization just isn’t for you. But all in all, whatever I have to say today can be applied towards you starting your own thing, or, like, as your own business, or you creating your own intrapreneurship within a larger organization.
Maria Ross 08:51
Okay, so much in there that I love No, don’t be sorry. It’s amazing. First of all, we’re going to put a link to follow the founder in your show notes so people can check that out, but I think you know this theme of what you’re talking about is exactly why I do the work I do, and it’s we’ve got all these people with potential, all these human beings that because of their work environment, because of the way their leader is leading in a negative way, we don’t get the benefit of their innovation, of their passion, of their engagement. And I often cite this study by catalyst, which was a study done a few years ago where they interviewed 1000s of employees and they separated them into the employees that said they had an empathetic leader and those that said they didn’t. And my listeners may have heard me talk about this study before, but it’s related to your point, because they asked them the same questions about work life integration, about could they be innovative at work? Did they feel like their environment was inclusive? And the deltas between the group that had an empathetic leader and didn’t are startling, and the one that always gets me from a very pragmatic point of view. Do is that I can be innovative at work was about it was over 60% for the people that were in the team that had an empathetic leader, for those that didn’t have an empathetic leader, it was 13% and I’m thinking, what capital asset would any shrewd investor only want to be getting 13% of the value out of right? So like when we talk about empathy, having an ROI and empathy, having a bottom line, your story exemplifies that because you are a high performer, you’re now, you now run your own company, and you left an environment because you were overworked and undervalued. And so culture matters and leadership matters. And I’m getting on my soapbox with you, even though I’m preaching at the choir. So tell me a little bit about I know. How do you How have you intentionally built your business? Given that philosophy, can you give us a few strategies or even tactics you’ve put in place in your business model and how you run the company because of that philosophy of putting people first.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 11:06
Yeah, I absolutely can, you know, I’m a firm believer in seeing in the everything trickles down. Like, regardless of if you want to have a flat organization, it’s still just, like, never flat. So what I both my business partner and I actually had really not great examples of leadership or mentorship or management prior to starting this company together, and so our motivation initially was to just build somewhere we want to work
Maria Ross 11:38
that wasn’t what they did. Was not what they did.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 11:41
So my first tactic was to take everything that I didn’t like and figure out what the opposite and or what the counter was to that. And I mean, it sounds simple,
Maria Ross 11:53
no, but like, what are some examples of that? Yeah,
Annalee Hagood-Earl 11:56
in that, you know, no idea is a bad idea. And I’m always open and willing to listen. You know, I can be sold. My mind can be changed. I am not rooted only in what I believe is best, because I’m a huge believer in hiring people that are smarter than me. So, you know, people that can influence me. I you know, once you get to a certain level of leadership, you don’t have as much time for your continuing education or learning on the job like it is, you’re learning from other people, so making sure that I’m always I always admire the people that I bring on to my team additionally. And that was when we started expanding. I think initially what we did when it was just the two of us, and even adding a third and a fourth was my business partner and I, we set up counseling in the beginning, like it was marriage, like we we had a life coach that was quite transformative for both of us, that we shared, and we decided to do sessions together so that we could better understand, like, what are each other’s triggers? Where do we both feel insecure? So, you know, and it was uncomfortable, but I had to say we were the type of life coaching we work with. There’s a little bit of, like, a trance aspect to it, and like, I had to really say, the deepest, darkest fears I had in front of my business partner. And some of it was maybe not even complimentary, but at least it was out in the air. So, you know, starting with a transparency to a degree, I think honesty and honesty is more what I mean when I say transparency. There’s definitely a level of transparency that you need to like not do at work, but that was huge in the beginning, and then we took that care and understanding and empathy for each other, and then had that for each of our employees as they joined us and as well as our contractors, as well as our vendors, as well as our clients, like we don’t treat anybody differently, like you’re not on the inside necessarily of bash creative. We’re all in this together, and that’s what allows it all to seep out. I love it. So those are kind of the beginning. I’d say currently, to ensure that we do bring in the right people, we go through inter we take a lot of time to interview and recruit great we’re looking for aligned values, not aligned ideals, if that makes sense. I want people with different perspectives on my team. I want to learn from them, and that was early, because I know I don’t know what I don’t know, right?
Maria Ross 14:29
And that’s what makes you an empathetic leader. This is speaking exactly to the first two pillars of my five pillar framework in my last book, which is self awareness and self care. And the self awareness part, I mean verbatim, you were talking about what you went through with your your counseling experience with your partner, which I think is genius, because it’s a relationship. You might need relationship counseling, but this idea of being aware of what not just your strengths and your weaknesses, but what are your emotional triggers, and what are the things that. You need to recognize are coming like be able to have that moment of pause and that moment of response to say I’m I now know what that insecurity or that emotional trigger feels like in my body, and I’m feeling it coming up. So I can stop myself, I can pause myself. That’s so important for understanding what we bring to the interaction. You know, when people complain about their teams, it’s like, okay, well, the common denominator there is that you are leading the team and you’re interacting with everybody. And could, is it really possible that they’re all bad workers? You know, is that really reality? No, there’s probably something there, and the fact that you are open and curious, and you do the perfect thing that I talk about all the time, which is you have to put ego aside to embrace empathy. And show me a leader who thinks they have all the answers, and I’ll show you a leader who’s irrelevant, because to your point, there’s always something new to learn. And the fact that you you know so much of your foundation, of your company, this is why I love this story is rooted in how the two of you were interacting with each other first, before you brought on a team, before you expanded, before you you started hiring people. And I know not everyone’s in a position like they might think, Oh, it’s too late, but it’s not. You can take the time to do that for your team, for your business partner, if you’re in business with someone, if you’re an executive, maybe the C suite team needs to go to a little counseling together to figure out how they complement each other.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 16:32
So it would be so helpful to do that. I mean, seriously, we got to talk about each other as people. And yeah, you know what? Your relationship with money, your relationship with your family, your relationship with conflict, like all these things are real in your entire life, and they are amplified in business. So like, if you don’t have if you have insecurities, or you’re coming from a place of scarcity in any of those areas, it’s just gonna seep into all of your conversations, the way you show up, like what your trauma responses are. And I think what’s so interesting that I learned a long time ago, but was recently reminded of, is that honestly, in leadership, there’s a lot of fight or flight moments like I don’t know what I’m doing all the time, and especially being a founder, this I’ve never done. Almost every day I’m doing something I’ve never done before, and when you freak out and you go into fight or flight, you lose 70% of the ability to use your brain. Yeah? So like, you only have 30% left, and that 30% is very concentrated on getting rid of danger in any way. It’s concentrated on survival, yeah, yeah. And it’s not the best route. Usually, that’s not usually you don’t show up your best self in that. And so learning what that looks like and what those triggers look like, especially in the people that are leading with you, or the closest in in your organization, is, I think, such an advantage, because then you can show up for each other. Yeah, we’re all gonna get there. We’re all gonna have these moments.
Maria Ross 17:57
It’s funny because I, I worked in in Silicon Valley during the first tech boom and bust and then the second bust. And it’s just so funny, because the way that people try to solve problems of performance is, you know, throw more sales people at it, or introduce a new product, or, you know, spend more money on advertising. And I’m not saying in all cases that some of that is not valid, but the first place we should be looking is culture and leadership, like what’s going on in the company. And I feel like boards of directors miss that opportunity, and they’re looking for a quick operational fix. Oh, if, if that, if we do this, then sales should go up next quarter. If we do this, then we’ll cut our costs next quarter. But sometimes it’s just a leadership problem, sometimes it’s just a culture problem,
Annalee Hagood-Earl 18:49
or the team needs a little reset, and instead of investing in a new person, invest in someone coming and doing a sound bath, like, give your team some rest, exactly. That’s so much cheaper than an additional headcount, and you know, giving giving your team tools to manage their stress, giving your team tools to communicate more effectively, giving your team training and tools and investing back in them. Take that one headcount and invest back into your team, and like they you are now allowing them to actually grow, instead of just rely on their past experiences and traumas well, and
Maria Ross 19:25
that was actually the next question I was going to ask you, is, how have you built the thriving business? And you know, you You’ve talked a lot about deeply investing in your team, so it sounds like those are some of the ways that you think about it. Do you invest in continuous learning? Do you invest in, like, what kinds of, what kinds of benefits, or great benefits that your team appreciates for their own mental health and their own, their own, I guess, just desire to be seen and heard. What can you give us some examples?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 19:55
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we so. I. My company has gone through some serious peaks and valleys in the last couple years, considering the pandemic many have but as an example, just for like context, we plan events that are 400 to 5000 people, and in for a year and a half, over 500 people was illegal in most of the United States for gathering. So we had, we had to figure out ways to just keep our team sane and busy, regardless of the work and, of course, the stress that was going on. And so we actually started introducing the first thing that we did was we introduced crappy Hour, which was during the like heat of the pandemic, and it was a safe space outside of their current like surroundings that they could come, let let go, get things off their chest, no judgment. We could just, you know, talk about the things we were worried about. Talk about things like it was just a safe space event. It turned into doing silly things together. I think doing silly stuff together in any capacity is super important. People need moments of levity and work, regardless of the work. You can be a scientist. You could be a salesperson, like you need moments of levity. And so being silly with your team and letting that wall down and not worrying about how you show up makes you more human, makes them respect you more. So we infuse, at least once a month, a virtual because we’re completely distributed team. We’ve never worked in the same office or together, and we do virtual now. We do team time, and depending on what’s going on, because our businesses can be very seasonal, we will bring in either we will use that team time to be applicable to what the team or the majority of the team is going through. Can’t meet everybody’s needs all the time, of course, majority right? Yeah. So you know, in moments where they’re working insane hours, we will do, as I mentioned, a sound bath like, because they’re probably not going to take that time for themselves, like, they’ve got other people to take care of. They’ve got other things on a long list that they’ve been ignoring. So like, forced time, not forced, but
Maria Ross 22:12
encourage, very encouraged, very
Annalee Hagood-Earl 22:15
accessible time. Yeah, that’s to take and just relax. Or we brought in, we’ve brought in a hypnotherapist to talk about self soothing techniques and moment of stress. Or we bought, we brought in somebody to talk about resilience, and what are some, some characteristics of that, and then also ways that you can practice it in your everyday life. And then sometimes we’ve done like a murder mystery, where we’re all assigned characters
Maria Ross 22:42
and oh my gosh, I love it.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 22:46
And sometimes we just get on and have no plans, and we talk about our favorite things from Trader Joe’s so like, it’s the but it is a time that everybody can come together and drop everything. And I think that’s probably the easiest thing you can do. But especially in this increasingly digitized world, increasingly dispersed. You know, teams, there is nothing more important than coming together in real life, and you can do that virtually, but I really highly recommend together in person. So you can actually, like, use all of the senses of a human right, and connect with people and do silly thing, yeah,
Maria Ross 23:29
and you can be strategic, like, status meetings. Don’t need to be in person every week, but, but this is, this is a whole other rant I have about the the art, you know, return to work mandates. And I get it. I am an extrovert. I get the need to be around people, but let’s be intentional about it. We can be strategic. So it sounds like your company is very strategic about when you bring everyone together. Is that true? Is it yearly? Absolutely every quarter. What’s your cadence?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 23:54
We we do a year. So because a lot of our team does get to work together per project when we’re on site for an event, yeah, they do have inter, like inter personal interaction, for sure, but what we want is a time that’s dedicated to giving them learnings, as well as giving them respite as well as giving them some levity. So we do that at least once a year, and we’ve done that. I mean, even when you know cash flow wasn’t necessarily there, we prioritized it, because immediately you can see the results. I mean, immediately people step higher into leadership positions, immediately they use the relationships that they’ve created. And if we also incorporate some workshopping of, you know, working on the company versus in the company, they feel a sense of of ownership and accountability, of the trajectory of this team, of this company, of the success,
Maria Ross 24:50
of course, yeah, well, that’s how you get the buy in, is if they’re part of it, that transparency, transparency of decision making. You know, decisiveness is one of my pillars in the. Model, and that doesn’t mean you’re a dictator, it just means you’re transparent about how decisions are made, and you’re open to input, and even if you end up making a decision that not everybody likes, because there is no decision that will please everybody. Can you explain it in an empathetic way? Can you say, you know, Annalee, we really liked your idea. Here’s why we couldn’t go with it. But please keep those ideas coming, because it sparked a really great conversation for us to think about. Now at least you’re in a position to disagree, but commit, because you know your opinion was fairly factored into that decision. So I love that, and thank you for validating the fifth pillar of joy, which was one of the pillars of empathetic and effective leadership, because that was the secret sauce. When I was writing this, the second empathy book, that I was like, what’s missing? I had four pillars initially, and I was like, no interviewing all these people and trying to deconstruct the recipe. Something was missing, and it was levity. And that’s when I say joy. It doesn’t mean you’re the funniest team on the planet. It just means there’s camaraderie, there’s levity to your point, our brains operate better when they’re not under stress and fear and anxiety. And so back to the point I made earlier about do you want people operating on all cylinders, to come up with creative solutions and to come up with innovative products and services? Yes. And so some some some leaders who have thought that that’s a waste of time. You know, that’s nonsense. That’s actually where the magic happens, and that’s where you get the creativity and you get the competitive edge. It solves so
Annalee Hagood-Earl 26:32
many problems, honestly, also helps with just communication in general, across teams, yeah, the more opportunities they have practice get to practice get to practice that in a really respectful and safe environment, the more they’re going to take it upon themselves. So yeah, I mean, we practice brainstorming for our work together a lot collaboratively, and I think that sets the stage also for like, no idea is a bad idea. We can all. We all have a voice. We can all come to stage. I think another big piece as a leader, though, is that I’m in it with them. If we’re learning something I’m at the training I’m learning too. I’m allowing, not allowing, I’m encouraging the facilitator to pick on me. You know, in front of them, I don’t mind not knowing something I don’t right. In fact, I want to learn alongside of them. I share my failures often, and I talk a lot about how what I learned from them, and I also participate in all the brainstorming, like, there’s no piece of the work that’s below me in any way. There’s there are pieces of the work that I am more valuable at right, of course, but I still participate wherever I can. I think it’s important because, yeah, you know, a bad idea can or a non useful idea can spark a great one.
Maria Ross 27:47
That’s sometimes where the epiphanies happen, right? It’s the like, this is crazy, but I’m going to throw it out there, right? Or you get the person who’s really skeptical. This used to happen in my brand strategy workshops all the time. The person that didn’t actually want to be there was the person that ultimately had the big idea, right? So, but what you’re seeing is so valuable for and I really want listeners to pay attention to this, because you can talk about all these things all you want, but if you don’t walk the talk and you don’t model it for your people, it doesn’t matter what you say. And we’re talking about everything from it’s okay to make mistakes to you really need to take care of yourself and take your time off. But if you’re a leader who’s working 80 hours a week that doesn’t give anyone permission to say, I can take my time off, you have to model that for people. And another beautiful thing you’re modeling for your people is that self awareness piece around. I need to do some work on myself and see how I show up. You’re encouraging them because you’re showing them a model of, oh, this is how you find success here. And they have permission. So instead of you just saying, you know, you should go to the leadership training, or you should go take your time off, or you should, you should attend that fun event. When you’re there with them, it speaks volumes. You have to show up.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 29:07
Yeah, you have to show up. There’s so many organizations, so we plan events, you know, internal organization for internally for them, and, well, I can’t name drop many of them. You can go to our website and see many of them, but you know, we’re talking about global organizations with 180,000 people cover 36 countries like, you know, we work with some of the biggest names, and one of the biggest challenges they have is getting leadership to the events. And so these companies are spending conservatively, millions of dollars on the events, yeah, and all the people really want is an opportunity to, like, shake the hand of the VP, or to be able to see the VP look like a human and acting like a human. And I understand that it might feel like a waste of time, but like. Just them seeing you in the space has a ripple effect. And if I could encourage every single one of the clients that we work with in any of the future clients we work with, to be able to do that, you know, you’re going to see so much more loyalty, so much more buy in. And so just showing up is really important. Yeah, I do want to go back to really quick when you talked about working so many hours, because I actually think this is a really big challenge for leaders. And I do agree in modeling behavior, but I think some of the modeling can be just self awareness, because your job is different than everybody else’s, and it’s interesting because me and my business partner, we’re opposites, which is wonderful and then also difficult at the same time, but overwhelmingly wonderful, and she has to work a lot in what she has to do. She likes to work a lot, although that’s getting a little bit better with the longer that we’re in this, in these roles. And I don’t like I tap out. I know for myself that you give me eight hours in the day like my brain. I’m not giving you valuable work in return after that, right? She can be on hour 16 and just nailing it. So we’re just very different in this way. And it was something that we had to come to terms with when we became partners was that look, it’s not going to look the same on each of us. What that translates to to my team is that we we model two different approaches to working, right? And I think if you’re that person, because I’ve also met plenty of entrepreneurs or plenty of executives that they actually really enjoy work, like, work is literally their hobby. Yeah, yeah. I personally do not understand this, but you know, it is for many and and who am I to cheat them of like, doing the thing they like to do? Yeah? So I think you, just as a leader, need to explain to your team, to give them the knowledge, the insight, show them that you’re self aware. Saying, hey, you know you may see me sending emails in the middle of the night, but like that works for me, and I want you to also have the autonomy to do what works for you. So while what I’m doing specifically may not work for you, you can also find your own path to like where your zones of genius are when you’re you know your peaks of energy are and as a leader, you not only have to do the work to lead the team, but you have so many other responsibilities. You’re wearing many hats, so it’s understandable that you would have to work a lot of hours. I think that’s a really hard thing for leaders to come to terms with. Is that it’s okay that you’re working a lot. You just need to make sure your team understands what your expectation is.
Maria Ross 32:39
You need to communicate. Yeah, I’m really glad you brought that up, because that is true, and I think it’s about transparency and communication. And you’re absolutely right. This is where the self awareness pillar comes in. What works for you, and let’s have a conversation about it versus assumptions, right? I’m going to assume you’re not working eight hours, Anna Lee, because you’re lazy, because you haven’t told me whatever you know, whatever script or narrative you tell yourself, or I’m going to assume I’m not allowed to take a weekend off to be with my kids, because the CEO is working straight through the weekend, and I’m getting all these emails at all hours. There’s so many things that just communication and clarity, another pillar can solve for us, and you’re making me think, and I’m going to put a link in the show notes. A year or so ago, I got the opportunity to interview Claude Silver, who is the Chief Heart Officer at Vayner Media, and she is actually coming out with a book called Be yourself at work, which I’m very excited. I’m going to be interviewing her again about that, but she talked about, you know, the fact that their CEO, Gary Vaynerchuk, who people may know from the internet and know from his media companies, he is a workaholic. And she mentioned this in the interview. She said he loves the work like he’s doing it all the time. And she has had, you know, sessions with employees who are killing themselves to try to be like Gary. And she always tells them you don’t have to be like Gary. Like we didn’t hire you to be Gary. We hired you to be you. So what works for you if leaving you know, to go coach your kids soccer game at 4pm two days a week is what you need to do. All you need to do is communicate that to us, right? And so it’s not about modeling, but they’re very open about that, and they’re very emphatic about making sure that people understand there’s more than one way to show up and that you have to do what works for you. So thank you for reminding us of that again, because, you know, sometimes I use that example as a blanket example, but I think it has to do with being able to communicate and not assuming people know that that they can be who they are. It’s being emphatic and being deliberate about letting people know they have permission to do those things. So thank you for bringing. That up. That’s awesome. Absolutely Okay. I want to get to brass tacks for a second, because, not for a second, for a couple minutes here, because we’re talking about all these wonderful things and all these amazing things you do, and you’re describing a workplace that everybody wants to work in. Let’s talk about the actual ripple effects on performance, on bottom line, and how you measure it. So you’ve been leading the company in this way it is, you know, it sounds like a it’s a very entrenched philosophy. What is that meant to your company, in terms of performance, in terms of, you know, whatever revenue percentages you want to share with us, and in terms of retention and engagement, can you share anything about that with us?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 35:38
Yeah, I definitely can. And I would say about ROI in a smaller company, we are less I mean, we are data driven, but we don’t have to prove ourselves as often. You’re not reporting to the street, yeah, I’m not reporting to the street. Yeah. I mean, I can see it in our bottom line, in the sense that, you know, our team outside of outside factors, completely taken control of maybe a moment in time for us, but not forever. Our team has been able to double our revenue year over year every year. That’s great, if not more. So do we get some more team members in there? Absolutely. But you know, for the most part, my team is only 11 people, and we handle massive books of business. We do about 20 engagements a year, and like I said, with that team, we’ve been able to grow it year over year. So bottom line wise, it’s a pretty simple answer. We keep going up. And it is not because I’ve had the one same one salesperson the entire time. So yeah, it’s not like my sales team is getting much bigger. In fact, it used to be mostly me selling, again as a small company, but now my salesperson has over 80% of the book of business, which is insane, amazing. It’s really good for me. She’s had an empathetic leader, so it’s really helped her grow. Yeah, things off. But, you know, I actually went back to my team yesterday to ask them, because while I have no problem representing what we’ve done, you know, I want to know from them what they see empathy as, and what they feel is there is the output in relation to that. I love this because to me, empathy shows up in two ways. Is kindness and curiosity really, like, that’s the way I display empathy. I think you can display it in a lot of different ways, but that’s how I do it. So curiosity is really, really part of it. It’s the
Maria Ross 37:36
number one trait of empathic people. Just so, you know, great. So so somebody don’t guess what someone’s thinking, you ask. And, you know, and, yeah, curious, right?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 37:49
I used to make a lot the me who loved analyzing people previously used to make a lot of assumptions. And it wasn’t actually, really, until the pandemic and where everything became quite polar that I realized that, wait a second, I don’t know anything. So now I so I went and side Tanner became a digital nomad for three years to gain more perspective. And that it came was driven from my curiosity. So, you know, kind of the key call outs that the team came back to me with which, thank goodness they they validated a lot of what I already think, but yeah, is that having curiosity for different perspectives allows them to be more creative, so they aren’t just finding, like, you know, what is the quickest route to the deliverable or the outcome, but what is the most effective? What’s the most efficient, what’s the most fun, what’s gonna you know, what they’re looking at from different perspectives. And because we do events, you know, we have a very wide variety of people that are attending these and it’s absolutely necessary for us to consider what’s every type of person’s experience will be there, so that we can anticipate for them. So this curiosity of learning is really important to them, and so they really just expand their minds and are more accepting people. Each person is allowed to be who they are and show up their own way. And we do things like disc assessments or we used insights previously to try to understand people more at a core, but we also allow them to talk about, you know, what they resonate with that and what they don’t, because at the end of the day, it’s just a test. But you know, everyone being able to show up in their own way means that they don’t have to try to be me, they don’t have to try to be my business partner. They just need to try to be themselves. And we just give them. We’re a sounding board. We are the bumper lanes. We give them opportunities and options, but we’re not dictating like you must show up this one way, and so I think that gets them further faster, because they’re not they’re not fighting against who they I
Maria Ross 39:56
was just gonna say, yeah, they’re not fighting against a way that’s constricting. Them, they’re going with their flow, in other words, right?
Annalee Hagood-Earl 40:02
Yeah, and they’re learning self awareness. And so with self awareness comes into play and communication with others. It comes into play with understanding, what are your superpowers and what are your areas of opportunity? In fact, at our last retreat, our last two retreats, we’ve done full sessions on your superpowers and your areas of opportunity, not only from what you think, but from the team observes. And so, you know, working on self awareness, you know, it allows for them to seek continuing education. We don’t have to mandate it. So that’s really great. You know, they’re looking to build the holes of knowledge or experience or skill set, and then bringing it to the table to us. So that saves me literal time and literal money on making the wrong decisions and then building trust. We not only can build trust internally, but we have to build trust with people immediately, yes, often, because, you know, one one show can be 100 new vendors. So and they and we are actually just very experienced project managers. At the end of the day, we are not delivering literally anything except when we are managing all the deliverables. So we have to have these people trust us and want, yeah, for us, and so teaching our team how to build trust and what trust really looks like to them, allows them to then have effective and efficient relationships that are in delivering our end product. So that’s massive, and that translates in actual negotiated savings for our clients, so much so that we often, we often are able to cover all of the cost of us by negotiated savings, because these vendors and venues love working with us, even if it’s a brand new city we’ve never been to, never worked with them before. That’s amazing. And so you know, the ripples go out so far. That’s why I think they’re so incredibly difficult to measure. Yeah, in a in a way that’s holistic. I can only really talk about how it’s affected our finances. But when we’re able to send 10 save 10% off the top of the line of a multi million dollar show, that’s not small amount of money. No, you know, no. So that’s phenomenal ways in which it works, for the most part, for us. I mean, I could give you many other examples, I
Maria Ross 42:25
know, but I’m so glad, yeah, I’m so glad you asked your team that question, and this is directly from them, and what enables them to do what they do and work their magic. And some of that is, you know, numerical, but some of that is anecdotal, and some of it is, is knock on effect as well. And that’s why, you know when, when I talk to companies and I speak to audiences, you know, one of the questions, one of the most popular questions I get is, well, how do we measure empathy? And I say, Well, you actually shouldn’t be measuring empathy for empathy sake. You should be adding empathy as an ingredient to increase the KPIs you’re already tracking. That’s actually what it’s about. You still have to you still have to grow, you still have to deliver, you still have to make money. In the end, that’s your organization, unless you’re a nonprofit, right? But measure the things you’re already measuring, and add empathy, as you know, light lighting fuel like ignite it, and see what happens, and then do your before and after and see if there’s a difference, if that’s really what you care about. Yes, you can measure in pulse surveys and engagement surveys. You know, do I feel seen, heard and valued? Do I feel like this is a welcoming, inclusive environment? Those are all important to the empathy equation, but it doesn’t mean you throw your KPIs out the window, or
Annalee Hagood-Earl 43:41
your bottom line? Yeah, not at all. And I think the what, how it affects the KPIs more so is that if you create the safe environment in which communication is open because empathy has been used, then your team’s likely going to flag much sooner, when you’re not going to make your goals. And so you have the ability to pivot, or you know, or correct. So that’s massive, you know, and, and, and these teams like the retention too. I mean, shout out definitely to my team who has been through it with us. I mean, we’ve hit the bottom twice in the last five years and then reinvented ourselves so but, like, we needed a lot out of them. And I will say that, like, although I’m sure plenty of people use pandemic stories, but this is, like, very special is that when we lost all of our revenue in one day, and we had just hired a few people, this is May of 2020, oh God, and we were just, you know, quite honest, and they showed that, you know what we were going through, and that’s where the empathy was was, I didn’t try to placate them and tell them everything’s gonna be fine, like, I was like, Right Stuff is bad right now. It’s not great. And here are the things that we’re doing to try to fix it. Yeah, here’s how we’re correcting as leadership. But we just need. Need you to be kind back to us, because we’re figuring this out. And like this is, you know, 100% we don’t want to say it unprecedented. So there’s, I know that word, but
Maria Ross 45:13
take another word we can use, yeah.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 45:17
And in return, what was most beautiful was we had a good handful of people that work for us that came and said, I could, I can afford to volunteer for you for the next couple months. I can afford to work full time at half pay. I can afford to go on unemployment and still do projects for you, like, right? We had people trying to help solve the problem with us when, right? You know, I mean, I was in fight or flight, I was probably less of my brain available at the moment, yeah, and that was massive for us, but that’s what happens made us want to fight
Maria Ross 45:53
for them, yeah, and that’s what happens when you build that foundation. I spoke to a C suite leader for the book who talked about the fact that, you know, he spends the time, and he’s a very analytical, data driven guy. He’s worked for CIOs, he’s, you know, been in programming, and he worked his way up to the C suite, and he said, I spend the time on on the joy, on the camaraderie, on the how’s it going? What do you need? On the clarity, on the communication he goes because then when I make a big ask, they know I’m asking for a reason. They can trust me. And that’s when you get loyalty like what you experienced, because it’s not something you don’t add the empathy in the crisis. You build the foundation of it. You build that kind of culture so it can be resilient to the crisis. So what a powerful story to share that, because that’s the kind of thing you get, you know, and we can talk about like the research studies that show that people would, you know, work more hours for less pay if it was for an empathetic leader. Not that we want that to be the ongoing norm, but the fact that they will what you know, if, if you’re in a crunch time, if you really need them, that’s where people will go into battle for you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I love it. I love it. Well, do you have a final parting thought for maybe, maybe what you’ve done that you wish other people would do within their organizations, big or small.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 47:24
I I mean, it’s hard to get it all into one. I think the thing that resonates with me the most is to just drop the ego. It’s so it’s so much easier. And on the other side of letting go of the ego. I mean, look, I think that a little bit of my imposter syndrome has done me real good on showing up as a whole human and not been able to let go the ego, because I don’t have it. But get rid of that. Because if you can lead like as your whole human self, and you know that’s the practicing what you preach, like really believing in what you’re bringing to the team. Like, start with yourself, work on yourself, do what you need to be better at home, better at work, go to therapy, like, whatever it is that will all I mean, I don’t, I don’t work by frameworks. I don’t work by I don’t think, I mean it’s nice to have as, like, an anchoring point, but I don’t think it’s necessary personally. Like, if you can just continue to try to make yourself a better person, it’ll just, it’ll show up everywhere, you know, and you’re going to mess up, and it’s okay, and, you know, tell people hey, I messed up. Like, just have accountability to it. It’s people are very, very forgiving and they want to work for people that feel like them.
Maria Ross 48:49
I love it. What a great way to end this. This has been so good to just hear this. You know, case study in action about, thank you, about the ROI of empathy and how you know, effective leadership leads to good things. It will lead to all the things that you want if you can embrace human, centered leadership. That’s what that’s what my work is all about. So I appreciate having you here and sharing your story. We’re going to have all your links in the show notes, but for anyone that’s on the go, where’s the best place they can find out more about you and your company’s work.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 49:21
So I think both going to follow the founder, because that’s a lot about who I am as a person. My you know, who I am out of our company for bash creative, often for much more than just me, but or, you know, find me on LinkedIn. I would say it really helps to put a little note in there, because I do get solicited a whole heck of a lot. So like, just say, Hey, I heard you somewhere. You know what I mean, like, just something, I heard you on the empathy edge, and I will absolutely connect
Maria Ross 49:50
with you. You stole my PSA, because that’s always my PSA. When people give their LinkedIn, I say, send her a note about where you heard her so that she doesn’t think you’re trying to sell her something.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 49:59
So I mean. When you have founder and CEO and your title, you are just a Yeah, yeah. But I would love to connect with people absolutely
Maria Ross 50:09
right, right? And I will just give the company a shout out, bash, hyphen, creative.com, and again, we’ll have the all the links in the show notes for you, if you didn’t get a chance to write them down. Annalee, it was such a pleasure to have you on today and have this conversation and hear about all the great work you’re doing. I really appreciate it.
Annalee Hagood-Earl 50:27
It’s wonderful. This is something I’m passionate and I really appreciate being able to talk about it and share a bit more of what we do.
Maria Ross 50:33
And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge calm there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
