Ep027: From Busboy to Big Kahuna: Leadership Lessons from Hilton’s CLO Kimo Kippen
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It’s not every day we get to learn about leadership from a man who started as a busboy and rose to the C-Suite of major hospitality brands like Hilton and Marriott. Today our guest is Kimo Kippen, chief learning officer, global talent development leader, and brand ambassador at Hilton Worldwide, who was awarded the prestigious 2015 CLO of the Year award by CLO Magazine. In our conversation, Kimo defines leadership and shares how to practice authentic leadership, ways to develop your self-awareness, and how to be a better coach to your team members. He suggests ways to navigate the complexity of today’s diverse workforce realities and specific questions you can put to use right away to help you build trust and invoke higher performance from your team. Plus, Kimo reveals the biggest mistake leaders make and suggestions for becoming a better leader (and even networker!).
What you’ll learn:
- Kimo says he’s a Citizen of the World – what does that mean?
- What is Kimo’s definition of leadership?
- Is leadership inborn or grown? Kimo gives his perspective on the ‘nurture vs nature’ debate
- What’s the most important skill to build as a leader?
- How can leaders develop an appreciation and respect for diverse perspectives?
- What’s the fun part of developing leaders for Kimo?
- Why is there no formula to being a good leader and why it’s incumbent upon us as a leader to be authentic
- What’s tricky about this advice to be an authentic leader? And how can we navigate that complexity?
- What’s the biggest caution about a common mistake Kimo has made and advises us to avoid?
- What’ are some simple questions that can yield very fruitful conversations with the people you’re leading and coaching?
- Kimo gives specific language you can use to create a new relationship or expand an existing one and build trust and higher levels of performance
- What past role do Halelly and Kimo have in common that led to our fortuitous meeting?
- Why does Kimo think that HR or Talent Development should stop bemoaning the whole ‘seat at the table’ thing. What are the two things that Kimo thinks it’s all about?
- Why your number one focus should be on how are you helping the mission advance – and that connection will help you succeed regardless of your role or industry
- What are the challenges and benefits of working for an organization that receives over 1 million resumes a year and hires more than 100,000 employees per year?
- Why are you truly only as good as your last performance and what lessons should all leaders take away from that?
- Kimo shares some exciting ways that new technologies are in the works at Hilton both for guests and employees
- What is Kimo’s suggested action for upgrading your leadership skills? He shares 4 questions that can help you gain better self-awareness to help you develop
- Check out Kimo’ bonus suggestion for upgrading how you network, too!
Resources
Kimo Kippen and Halelly azulay at one of the annual atd (formerly astd) international conferences
Connect with Kimo Kippen on LinkedIn (don't forget Kimo's suggestion for how to make this a purposeful and better-quality connection by mentioning the podcast and the value/context!)
Kimo works for Hilton Worldwide
We discussed authenticity, so you might enjoy reading my previous posts about it here and here.
You can learn more about the 70-20-10 rule we mention here and here.
Kimo mentions social learning, so you may enjoy my 8 tips for social learning success and this recording of a webcast I had done about social learning.
Kimo's 4 questions you should ask yourself to gain better self-awareness:
1. What about that project did you really enjoy, did you love, and did you feel like you excelled at?
2. What were challenges you had with that project and how did you solve them?
3a. What did you learn about the business?
3b. What did you learn about yourself?
4. Ask others what was their perception of you in that role during that project?
Download the 10 Mistakes Leaders Make and How to Avoid Them free tool!
Intro/outro music for The TalentGrow Show: "Why-Y" by Esta - a great band of exquisitely talented musicians, and good friends of mine.
About Kimo Kippen
Kimo Kippen is Chief Learning Officer, Global Talent Development Leader, and Brand Ambassador at Hilton Worldwide.
Known as a “Citizen of the World,” Kimo Kippen is an accomplished, visionary thought leader and sought-out international keynote speaker committed to making a difference in the world by inspiring business and civic leaders, as well as employees, to think outside the box and actualize what is truly possible.
Hailing originally from Hawaii, for the past 20 years, he has been on a lifetime journey to advance education, global labor force conditions, and economic empowerment internationally.
Joining Hilton Worldwide in 2010 as Chief Learning Officer, he transformed the learning and development culture, directly improving the company’s guest scores, brand loyalty and global market foothold.
As a result of his leadership contribution, Hilton Worldwide has won numerous awards and accolades from some of the most visible and prestigious organizations in the industry, while realizing a 27.05% increase in stock price following the company’s IPO in 2013, outperforming the S&P 500 by 18.37% as of June 29, 2015.
Serving on several boards, he has positively impacted corporate, academic and civic organizations’ abilities to drive progressive change; most recently supporting the success of Hilton’s “Travel with Purpose” initiative that educates and trains company team members on how to help stop child trafficking.
Recently, Kimo has been asked to serve on the Tysons Institute task force for Tysons Partnership; a “think tank” association of business and civic stakeholders focused on establishing a graduate-level center of learning, research and innovation in the applied sciences, engineering and mathematics, geographically anchored in Tysons, VA. He also won 2015 CLO of the Year by CLO Magazine. The judges, who included past winners of the CLO of the Year awards, recognized Kippen for his combination of strategic vision, focus on execution and ongoing commitment to the advancement of the industry.
Before joining Hilton Worldwide, Kimo held progressive leadership roles at Marriott International Inc., where he was promoted to lead the Learning Center of Excellence for all of Marriott International’s 2,800 operated and franchised properties in 68 countries.
Transcript
Announcer: Welcome to the TalentGrow Show, where you can get actionable results-oriented insight and advice on how to take your leadership, communication and people skills to the next level and become the kind of leader people want to follow. And now, your host and leadership development strategist, Halelly Azulay.
Halelly: Welcome back to another episode of the TalentGrow Show. This is Halelly Azulay, your leadership development strategist and this is episode 27. Today my guest is Kimo Kippen. It’s not everyday that you get to talk to someone who started as a busboy and made it all the way into the C Suite of major hospitality brands like Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International. But today we get to learn leadership lessons from Kimo that he learned along his way, ascending the leadership ladder, as well as a leader himself of others and as a person who is in charge of leadership development, among other kinds of employee development at these esteemed organizations. We talk about the definition of leadership, what is required to be an authentic leader in today’s complex world of work, and how you can coach your team members get better relationships, build trust and in the way of doing so, evoke higher performance from your team, as well as in your organization. Kimo talks about what he thinks is the biggest mistake that leaders make – that he also made – and how to avoid it, and he gives suggestions for real specific questions you can use right away to get yourself to upgrade your leadership skills to become a better leader. And he even suggests a way that you can become a better networker. That’s kind of a little bonus there. So I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the TalentGrow Show. As always, I do want your feedback, so don’t forget to hang out on the show notes page to give me feedback. But other than that, here we go, episode 27.
We’re back here, at the TalentGrow Show, with my guest Kimo Kippen. He is Chief Learning Officer, Global Talent Development, Leader and Brand Ambassador at Hilton Worldwide. Kimo is known as a ‘citizen of the world’. He’s an accomplished visionary thought leader and sought out international keynote speaker who is committed to making a difference in the world by inspiring business and civic leaders as well as employees to think outside the box and actualize what is truly possible. He won the 2015 Chief Learning Officer of the Year award by CLO – Chief Learning Officer Magazine – for his combination of strategic vision, focus on execution and ongoing commitment to the advancement of the industry. And before joining Hilton Worldwide, Kimo held progressive leadership roles at Marriott International, where he was promoted to lead the Learning Center for Excellence for all Marriott International’s 2,800 operated and franchised properties in 68 countries. Kimo, I’m so glad you’ve joined us on the TalentGrow Show, and welcome.
Kimo: My pleasure. Thanks Halelly.
Halelly: It’s my pleasure as well. And so we always start the podcast with a very brief introduction to your professional journey. Now with a journey like yours, it’s always hard to keep it short, but we would love to get an idea of where you started and how you got to where you are today.
Kimo: Sure. To make it really, really short, I’ll just say I’ve been very blessed. This whole notion you mentioned in the opening about being a citizen of the world, that’s something I aspired to be and just to be better at it and to be a good student of the world, to be constantly learning, and I just think we learn so much through having the opportunity to be exposed to all of the global cultures around the world and then the opportunity to work within those global cultures. So as part of that, I’m a boy that’s born in the state of Hawaii, the 50th state of Hawaii, and had the opportunity to do a lot of work globally around the world. Started in our business as a busboy and then moved up through many positions from the operations side and food and beverage and then over to the learning side and then did a lot of work on the international side. Had the opportunity to live abroad, working out of London and then had the opportunity to move to Rome and lived in Rome and then moved to Monte Carlo for seven years, then moved back to the States and now I reside between Washington, D.C. and Warsaw, Poland. And for that, I just the fact that the world is my oyster is how I feel, but there’s so many pearls, using that same analogy that I can take benefit from. And again, really about learning, more about myself, but learning around the world around us and then really how do we help people to get better.
Halelly: Amazing. Really an amazing journey. It’s not everyday that you get to meet someone who starts as a busboy and now is the Chief Learning Officer and Global Brand Ambassador of a huge organization. I mean, you’ve really had a remarkable career, and that’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show. Because as you know, the listeners of this show are people that are in all kinds of industry, all kinds of organizations, of all sizes, but the one thing that unites us is that we’re very interested in learning about leadership, and embodying leadership skills. So you are both yourself a successful and accomplished leader – you’ve been promoted over and over and really are leading a whole lot of people now – and as such, you’ve also been a developer of leaders, both as a person who is responsible for their performance as their own leader, but also in your role within learning function, always thinking about leadership development. So I think that you have this really exciting and valuable perspective about leadership. So I wanted to ask you something – do you think, when you think about leaders, do you think that there are certain attributes that predispose certain people to being good leaders? Or is this something that you think anyone can be successful developing through some kind of thoughtful, intentional development approach? I guess basically I’m asking, are leaders born or raised? What do you think?
Kimo: I think before maybe answering that question I would say let’s think really about what leadership is. There’s lots of different definitions for leadership. For me, the way I think about leadership in general is I think it’s my role as a servant leader to help people to be able to accomplish and go places they never thought were imaginable. So I see it as the role of the igniter, the catalyst, the coach, the mentor, you know, through that process to help people get to whatever their destination is, to actually help them in their self-actualization. So having said that, I would really fall more on the latter, which is I really do think leadership is a skill, and that it’s something that one can definitely learn. So that in fact, nurture versus nature, I think it’s more on the nurture category that we can actually build that skill. And I think the way to build that skill, one of the first and probably most important things about – and again, I say this from a very humble perspective as a practitioner – is the ability to have greater self awareness. To be on that journey of always being, wanting to greater self-discovery, to be able to learn more about myself and more importantly how can I become a better leader? And part of that, I think, is this whole desire to think of the world from a global perspective, to see things from the people that you’re influencing/impacting, if you will. Could be from your customer’s perspective, but walk a day in their shoes and have a great appreciation for diversity, inclusion and ultimately the respect for individuals that we come into contact with everyday.
So those would be some of the kind of key things that kind of come to mind, and I think it’s really about how do we, as leaders, really, and I think what also makes it hard, being a leader is not easy. And I think part of that has to do with, again, this humbleness, this appreciation, this respect for … notice these are all words of appreciation. And I think it’s also just being a great listener. And really trying to hear people and I think one of the things that we struggle with in leaders as a leader is really being present. So I try to do the best I can, being present and what I call present and attending, when spending time with, as I spend time coaching and developing leaders, preparing them for future, greater opportunities for the future. And that’s the fun part, is seeing that, being able to nurture people to see them actually achieve and accomplish things that they never thought were imaginable.
Halelly: Amazing. And I totally, first of all, yay! I agree with you on the nature versus nurture thing – I’m not surprised that we agree. And I think that what you describe, you said it’s fun. I think that’s true for many people. And I also know that many people feel like it makes it so much harder when it isn’t some kind of a recipe. Because what I hear in your words, and I know to be true from my work as well, is that it’s always very tailored to –
Kimo: The individual.
Halelly: Yeah, the unique individual that you’re leading, but also to yourself as a leader. Because if anyone can be a leader, and we’re all different, then that mean there are a lot of ways to be a good leader. That there isn’t really one way.
Kimo: There isn’t one formula. Yeah, that’s why I think there’s so many books on this topic. I think it goes back to really at its core, it’s about authentic. And you know, people have bull detectors – you can smell it way off in the distance of when you know when you’re getting worked or you know it’s not being sincere, that you’re being played in some way and perhaps not respected. So I think it’s incumbent upon us as leaders to really focus on being authentic, and that’s, again, that’s not always easy. Because within the context of you have your own character style as a leader, in addition to the context for which you are working with that other individual, not to mention the context of perhaps the environment that you are either working in and/or living in, the country you’re living in – there’s so many what I would call levels of complexity that are at play in any exchange or dialogue that you’re having with another individual. And those are all of course influences on that dynamic of that conversation, which again, it’s up to us, the leader, to be very in tune with being able to peel back and better understand all of the context that’s at play when working with a particular leader.
Halelly: Wow. And then you can just add onto that the layers of the things that you’re working on.
Kimo: Then there’s the work!
Halelly: So you’re kind of not 100 percent authentic to your own style, because you’re trying on a new way of being, so it’s sort of like a dance between am I being authentic plus I’m kind of in the discomfort zone of trying to grow, or am I being fake or am I trying to be someone I’m not?
Kimo: So I think the thing, and again, it’s not easy, and I think this is one thing I really try to encourage and I try to do it more myself, but is how, again, in that whole notion of being authentic, being genuine, being one present attending in the moment, it’s also, first you’ve got to be there, as a leader. And then it’s about engaging with the person you’re working with, and then of course that implies all those good communication skills, good coaching skills as a mentor/leader person. Again, that’s all at play within the context, all those multiple levels of complexity that we talked about. And that’s always working.
Halelly: So thank you for sharing that. And you know, we are not perfect, right? So mistakes, all leaders make mistakes on our paths, our journey. Are there, is there like a common mistake that either maybe you yourself have made or that you’ve seen many other leaders make that you figured out by now how to sidestep?
Kimo: I think, again, a lot of it comes through experience. And boy have we had a lot of them! But I would just say it’s never to assume. So what you think or what you see in front of you is what you think you see, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much you just don’t know. So I think if I were to say my biggest cautionary, what would be a mistake, is making assumptions. So don’t make them, and if you have, in Gestalt terms, if you have a projection about an assumption that you have, then you can explore that. But don’t just assume anything about the people that you’re working with or the situation just because you just don’t know. But, what’s the cool thing about this is, if you do that in a way that you do that with respect and integrity and look to discover that, with the person that you’re working with, they can be a very fruitful conversation, just by asking a simple question. Like, “Why is that important to you? Or what is it that you really want? What is your goal? What are you trying to achieve?” You notice they’re all open-ended questions. More importantly, they’re giving the opportunity for them to speak, not you. For them to speak. And that you can just really do good listening.
Halelly: Oh great. That ties really well in with your previous suggestions. I was just going to ask you, so what do you actually do if you’re trying not to make assumptions? So I’m hearing you say that we need to be more curious, rather than judging, and we need to ask more open-ended questions?
Kimo: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s just I’m curious about or I would like to learn more about. Those are all good lead in questions. “You know, when you said that, I wondered, what made me, or I was thinking … it makes me wonder about this.” And I think, again, what we’re trying to do I think in sort of this dyad that we’re talking about is creating a new space. Creating a new relationship or expanding an existing one, giving it more texture or more ground through that mutual discovery. Because then you build ground, and ultimately what all this leads to of course is the whole notion of how do we build greater trust? And you know, it is through the building of that trust, which then it also is implied that you actually have a relationship with someone, you know something about them, that there is so much that can happen when there is a high level of trust. So how do we create organizations that have higher levels of performance because there’s a deep and trusting relationship there?
Halelly: And it’s really important, and hard work. So one other thing I wanted to ask you about, specific to I would say your vantage, let me briefly mention – the reason why we met is because we are both in the same field, in the same industry of talent development, and I was very fortunate to encounter you when you were just coming off of the board of directors of the chapter of our professional organization in the Metro D.C. area, and you were the President of the chapter for a while and then you moved on to chair the international organization’s board of directors, when I was sort of stepping into being the President of that same chapter. So I’m so very fortunate that I was able to meet you there. So in our industry, so this was known as ASTD and now it’s known as the Association for Talent Development. But in our industry, I would say in talent development, organization development, human resources, human capital, a lot of people bemoan what they perceive as not being invited to the table. So that the top leaders of the organizations that are in charge of the people of the organization are sometimes not invited to conversations about strategy, about budget, about planning and so on. And it’s something that we’ve all been working on, and I think that people like you are just trailblazing to create opportunities to be heard and to be partnered with, and I think we’ve come a long way. But what is your perspective on that, in terms of this need to be influential and this concern about being left out?
Kimo: And Halelly, just to be kind of truthful, I’m not a big fan of the whole “seat at the table” thing, and so just the fact that if you don’t have a seat at the table, that already sends a huge message, or if you have to ask to have a seat at the table, that implies a whole other message as well. So I think to kind of cut to the chase, for me – and again, it’s all about earning the right to advance in a relationship – and then I think it’s all really about being a great business partner. So again, the thing that’s specific to our space, be it learning or be it human capital and/or talent management, and that’s a pretty broad domain, but I think we enable the business, bottom line. And we support the business. And so I think if you’re not supporting the business, you’re not being a great business partner. So I try to think of myself first of how do I be a really great business partner and then my craft is talent management. Or my craft is learning. But, I’m still, I know our business and I think that’s important to really know your business, so that you can speak the language of the business. Again, fortunate for me, started as a busboy. I understand this from a very deep perspective, for which I feel blessed and honored because I have a great deal of respect and appreciation and admiration for all of those that do this on a daily basis, because in our industry, it’s hard work. And given that, how do I help the business advance or whatever it may be? And we’re talking, this is obvious where a hospitality company, but for any business or industry or for not-for-profit or government agency that you may be working with, it’s how are you helping the mission advance? And I think so it’s understanding the business. It’s being literate in the business. It’s having those critical business skills, those problem solving skills. And then through your craft – whatever it may be, your domain – how are you helping the organization advance? And I think that’s where we continually just need to be, it’s about helping it make it easier, better, faster, less resource intensive, simpler, so that people can focus on what’s really important, which is the mission of their business.
And so for us here at Hilton, we’re hiring almost 100,000 people a year. So when you think about that, that means we have a lot of upward mobility opportunities to give many of our employees, which we’re very proud of. And at the same time, we’re looking if we’re going to hire 100,000 people a year, that means we have to receive almost a million resumes a year. And we’re growing at breakneck speed. We open a hotel every 1.7 days, so you can imagine the opportunities that abound just within our company, but hospitality in general is such a dynamic and vivacious industry. And you know, it’s targeted really to 2050 to be one of the top leading, growing industries globally in the world. So the whole notion of global tourism, ecotourism, medical tourism, as GDPs and countries around the world continue to expand and they have more discretionary dollars to spend – and I’m making specific reference in this case as an example to China – as those 1.2 million people, as their GDP continues to improve hopefully, those people will all be traveling, many of them of course inbound within China, but also outbound out of China for example. And looking to coming to many of our gateway cities that we have around the world. And again, that requires a whole other set of skills for how do we make sure that we’re sensitive to the needs of that traveler and we’re able to accommodate them, away from their home and what they’re used to. How do we help them to feel comfortable wherever it may be, wherever they’re staying globally around the world with us, because they’re staying with Hilton?
Halelly: I think you’ve demonstrated really well how well you understand the business that you’re in, and I think that the lesson here, again, my reason for asking is whenever people are in a leadership position and are aspiring to move up in the organization, or even you’re just trying to get a project approved or have buy-in to an idea that you have, what’s really important is do you speak the language of the people you’re trying to convince, and do they see you as a partner? Do they see you as someone who is knowledgeable about challenges? And if you can make that clear, you will have the credibility that you need and you will then be able to be more influential. So awesome.
Kimo: Absolutely. And I think the other thing, so let’s assume then that we got that right to advance. We were able to make that first step. Then I think the next critical piece is performing. So then the proof is in the pudding and you have to do well and you have to deliver and you have to execute and you have to … your word becomes your bond and you’re being evaluated. There’s some truth to it. It sounds a little brutal, but you’re only as good as your last performance – there’s some truth in that. That people are assessing you, basically in every opportunity there is, or being able to see how really you’re performing in that particular case or that particular project.
Halelly: You can’t just talk a big game.
Kimo: The other thing I would say with this, so that’s part of me, that’s the assessing side. I think there’s also the appreciation for how we can also be great coaches. So that’s the other part of leadership for me. I think it’s being able to assess and to see, really, what is the performance, and then I think it’s also that opportunity to coach, nurture, develop, grow to get to that level of better performance.
Halelly: Yeah. Very, very smart. I agree with you, and I appreciate that you shared it. So Kimo, we’re heading into the final part of our talk here, and this is where I’m going to ask you in a minute to share one specific action that people can take to up their leadership skills. But before we do that, what is exciting and new on your horizon? A new project or a new discover that has your attention and excitement now?
Kimo: I think, and this is really coming more from our guest’s perspective – so again, we’re all focused on our customers – and I’m just thrilled to say we have about 49 million Hilton Honors members, so all the listeners out there, for those that are our Hilton customers, thank you for your business! We truly appreciate that. I truly appreciate it. And with that, I would just say what we see changing of course as the demographics continue to shift, but the influence that technology has to play on our world, in the business world of course is significant and then more importantly in the guest experience, so we’re very focused on how do we make the guest experience easier, faster, less encumbered, direct, straight to your room, not having to go to the front desk is one of the big projects we’re working on specifically to make the guest experience, again, less encumbered, so that they can do what they need to do for whatever reason they’re there visiting our hotels. So I continue to be intrigued and where we’re trying to really spend a lot of time innovating, particularly in the learning space, is on that technology front on how we can use particularly Androids and iPhones, Apple devices, to really how we deliver learning in that way in bite sized pieces. And I think that’s really shifting and changing, and I think there’s no better time to be particularly in a learning space than right now, just because it’s so dynamic and what’s happening, technology is really changing the table stakes for how people learn and how people access content and how content is created.
So you just look at You Tube as just one small example. You can go to You Tube for just about … “I wonder how to do something.”
Halelly: Yesterday I shared with a friend how to peel a pomelo fruit!
Kimo: Yeah, exactly! But it’s all there and it’s done rather nicely of all this user-generated content, which is just fabulous. So, again, and technology is to enable us in this case to be better learners and to performer better in our jobs. So again, we’re not servants to technology, but technology helps to enable us to be better. So I would say the whole thing, what’s the biggest focus, would be around the focus of technology, innovation and with that comes this whole aspect of social learning, and you know you’ve heard the proverbial 70/20/10, but it’s really through that on-the-job experience that’s attached and how we attach social learning opportunities to that, which I think makes it again very dynamic and a great time to be in a learning space.
Halelly: Awesome. And I’ll link in the show notes to some resources about that, in case some people are not familiar with 70/20/10. We’re not going to get into that here, but it is in the first chapter of my book. I’ve written about it so I’ll definitely link to it, to make it clear. So all right, Kimo, we’re almost out of time – what’s one specific action that listeners can take today or this week that will upgrade their leadership skills?
Kimo: Thank you for asking. I think, I tell you, we kind of touched on it before is this “how do I show up authentically?” would be my short answer. What that requires in advance – and again, I’m a student of this – is that greater self-awareness. What we continually know about leadership are those leaders that have a greater, better understanding of themselves, for whatever tool that you decide to help you to get there, as long as they’re healthy, will I think allow you to excel in the future because you have a clear awareness around what you’re good at and where you can need help, and how others can help you, and how you can help others.
Halelly: Great. So can you drill it down to maybe one kind of an example of how you would coach a leader to do this? Like how can, what would be a way to get better self-awareness?
Kimo: I think there’s lots of … ask for feedback is the simplest one. Spending time, so anytime you finish … these are the things I try to think about, and I do this with our team. So when you’re working on a project, for example, and you think about that whole project in its totality, here’s some simple questions. So, what about that project did you really enjoy, did you love and what did you feel that you excelled at in doing that project? That’s question one. Question two would be what were challenges that you had about that project? How did you solve those challenges? Question three would be both with what you just loved and enjoyed and were passionate and motivated to do, and then the second question linking it to the challenges and how you solved it, what did you learn about the business? This is question 3A and then question 3B would be what did you learn about yourself? And I think you can kind of use that as a rhythm about any, you can relate that to any experience. Notice the 3B was the real important question, like, “So what did you learn about yourself?” And yet you’ve got to ask that question. And then ask for feedback based on that’s your perception of yourself, but what was the perception that others had of you in that role doing that?
Halelly: Fabulous. Perfect. Thank you, that is exactly what I wanted. So actionable and so clear, and I’m definitely going to include those questions in the show notes as well, so that people can take them forward. Kimo, I so appreciate that you took the time from your globetrotting daily life to spend some time sharing your knowledge.
Kimo: My pleasure, thank you.
Halelly: How can people learn more about you and stay in touch?
Kimo: I think all the proverbial LinkedIn, happy to have people connect. My coaching on the LinkedIn piece is rather than saying I’d like to connect with you is reach out, make a statement in what’s the value in connecting with you? Obviously we all get lots of these requests, but people want to know what’s the connection. And so I would just ask, I’m happy to connect with people on LinkedIn, but make reference to they were listening to a podcast that Halelly had done and they found it a bit provocative and therefore they want to connect. And that creates, again, a link to build a relationship.
Halelly: Amen! I believe that will take everybody’s networking to the next level if they did that. Okay, great. Kimo, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for being on the TalentGrow Show. Everyone listening, I hope you go take that suggestion that Kimo made and let’s make today great. Thanks again.
Kimo: Thanks again. Aloha!
Halelly: So as you can hear, asking the right questions in the right way, from the right people and of yourself, can help you upgrade your own leadership so I hope that you’ll take to heart Kimo’s suggestion and go ask some really important questions as you ascend your own leadership ladder and emulate the kind of success that Kimo has experienced. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode and that you’ll check out the show notes at www.talentgrow.com/podcast/episode27, as well as download our free tool that will help you not only recognize what are the 10 common mistakes that leaders make, but also learn how to avoid them. It’s been really popular. Lots of people have been downloading it, so I hope that you have grabbed your copy. It’s free, so go get that. Leave me feedback, leave me a review on iTunes, let me know what you’d like to hear about or whom you’d like to have me interview next. And always make today great.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to the TalentGrow Show, where we help you develop your talent to become the kind of leader that people want to follow. For more information, visit TalentGrow.com.
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