In the latest episode of our podcast, we interview Lauren Dixon of Dixon Schwabl Advertising. The theme of our conversation is one of our Big Six Leadership Principles® — “When In Charge, Take Charge.” Along with that concept, we discuss making team members feel valued, personal accountability, when managers can become leaders, the importance of values, and more! You can listen below:
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Podcast Episode 7: Taking Charge – An Interview With Lauren Dixon of Dixon Schwabl Advertising
Robert Mixon:
Okay, well, welcome everyone to the Level Five podcast series … the leadership “Journey With No Summit.”
Today, we’re very privileged and fortunate to have our guest, Lauren Dixon, the CEO of Dixon Schwabl, one of the leading public affairs and promotional companies for messaging for organizations and companies here in Western New York.
And I’ve been fortunate to be following her thought leadership on the topic here in the local area and asked her if she would be willing to have an interview session today.
And Lauren, welcome. Glad to have you.
Lauren Dixon:
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Robert Mixon:
We wanted to start today’s conversation in the theme of the fifth principle, “when in charge, take charge.”
But really, we want to talk about your journey. And I’d like to ask you, what’s the most important aspect of being ‘in charge’ that you have observed throughout your journey of 30 years?
Lauren Dixon:
Well, I wish I could say there is one thing, but I think it’s kind of the whole package. It starts with being a great listener. I think that is one of the most important aspects, but also respecting all perspectives and opinions within your organization. Making certain that all of my team members feel valued and appreciated.
If someone has a big idea and a great idea, they’ll march themselves into my office and my promise back to them is: I’ll either make a decision on the spot, or I’ll make a decision within 48 hours. I think that’s incredibly important because it encourages people to bring in new thinking.
And as a leader, one has to be open, and not always think that they have all the big ideas.
When I was a ‘baby’ manager, I used to think that I had to have all the big ideas because I had the title and I had the salary and that was my responsibility. Since 25 years ago, or 30 years ago, I learned that that’s not what it takes to be a good leader at all.
It needs to be encouraging other big ideas to come to the table, and then making decisions and letting those with big ideas take the baton and go with them.
Because at the end of the day, I want my team members to love their jobs, and feel like their ideas matter and count. And the biggest litmus test for me, is when they go home at night to make certain that they feel like they’ve made huge contributions.
Robert Mixon:
That’s a great point. You know, the idea of being in charge, but allowing them, enabling them to bring in their ideas and see them come to life. That’s part of being in charge.
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely. When I drive to work in the morning, I think, how the heck am I going to make Dixon Schwabl irresistibly attractive to all of my team members? And I think long and hard about it.
And then at the end of the day, I say to myself, and I score myself — on a scale of 1 to 10, was I a 9 … or was I a 2? And why was I a 2, when I really wanted to be a 9 or a 10? It holds me accountable each and every day.
And I think that really matters.
Robert Mixon:
You know, that personal accountability. So you do a daily audit of yourself as a leader.
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely.
Robert Mixon:
That’s a great tool. Great tool. I think most folks in the audience here, we could all benefit from doing that daily audit versus just moving on and figuring, okay, well, “tomorrow will happen.”
Lauren Dixon:
“Will be a better day,” right? [Laughs]
Robert Mixon:
“It’ll be a better day. It’ll get better.” In your journey, what was your biggest mistake as a leader — when you should have taken charge, or you observe someone else who should have taken charge, and didn’t do so?
What did you learn from that?
Lauren Dixon:
Well, that’s a good question. There was a situation that my husband, Mike, who is the president of the organization, he had a gut instinct about an employee who, at the end of the day, after 10 years, was stealing from our company. And he would say to me, “Lauren, something just doesn’t feel right.”
His instinct was such that… he just knew.
And it was me who did not act upon it, did not dig down deep, did not do the necessary due diligence. And I should have.
And I learned a very important lesson that when someone does have a gut instinct to follow through, what’s the worst that can happen? You know, you prove that person wrong. But what’s the best thing that could have happened that his instinct was indeed correct?
But I, you know, I think I learned something every single day, Robert, which is, I think, the fun of leading, too. But that probably was the most significant thing for me as a leader to learn, but also for our company, because it had an incredible impact on our company financially.
Robert Mixon:
So it was a painful lesson.
Lauren Dixon:
It was a very painful lesson. And the proof was right in our own computer system. And if we had done a simple audit, we would have found it.
Robert Mixon:
Yeah. What did George Carlin say, the concept of “vuja de”..?
Lauren Dixon:
Yeah… [Laughs]
Robert Mixon:
You know, where some of the most obvious things are right in front of us, and we don’t see them? I know he made a whole comedy routine out of that.
Lauren Dixon:
… But that’s where, you know, trust, you know, we’re a trusting organization. And there’s a fine line between trust and really digging down deep and understanding what is really, really going on. And our whole organization is built on trust, trusting every single team member.
And for me, not to trust a managing partner violated everything that I believe in.
Robert Mixon:
Right.
Lauren Dixon:
So this particular situation was really tough. And I don’t know if I’ve ever been so betrayed in my life. I’ve never felt that feeling.
And it truly was a devastating time for us personally.
Robert Mixon:
Well, thanks for sharing that story, because I think a lot of us have been through painful experiences. But the hard part is to share it … and, you know, come out and say, OK, this is what happened. You know, this is what I learned.
You recently wrote an article in the Rochester Business Journal. And of course, you’re a regular contributor there. And I’m a fan.
But anyway, you talked about turning managers into leaders. And I’d like to ask you, Lauren, how do you identify which managers can be leaders? Because as we know, some will never be successful in making that transition.
Lauren Mixon:
No. And they don’t all have to be leaders either.
Understanding one’s gift as a manager is wonderful.
And sometimes it starts and stops there. And then other times, when you identify the things for us anyway, we have five, we have six core values, excuse me, they are:
… respect, integrity, teamwork, community, fun and innovation.
And so and so for us, all of our leaders have to have all of those things and then have the ability to demonstrate and show up every single day as a servant leader.
So, my favorite expression that my chief creative officer uses all of the time, he says, “my number one job is to remove all of the obstacles for my team members, so they can do their best work,” which is perfect, right?
And that’s what it’s all about. And I’m really thinking about people, not only our team, but our team’s families, because that’s part of who they are, too.
If a family is struggling, how do we as leaders jump in and help? How do we do that? And we have to think about that every single day, because if we don’t, it’s going to affect every single team member.
And if there are struggles there, it will affect the work. So it’s a holistic kind of leadership philosophy, if you will.
One of my favorite examples, excuse me, is my CFO called me late one Friday afternoon and said, “oh, my goodness, Lauren, I messed up.”
I love it when people do that.
I love it when that’s how they start out their conversation, because I jump into problem-solving mode.
I’m like, “not a problem. Tell me what’s going on.”
And he said, “I called the merry maids to try to get them in tomorrow, Saturday, to do all of the cleaning at the agency, because our maintenance director, his birthday is tomorrow.”
Well, we give everybody’s birthdays off.
And so here we have a maintenance guy who has a birthday, and now we have no one to clean the office. And David said, “can’t get anybody… I’m coming in at seven.”
I said, “okay, Mike and I will come in at seven, too. We’ll kind of divide and conquer, and it will be great.”
So we divided up all of the responsibilities. My responsibility was tackling the bathrooms.
And so, you know, I have my little plastic gloves, and I’m cleaning the toilets.
And you know when you know someone’s looking at you, you know, you have that feeling?
And I turned around, and sure enough, it was one of our brand new employees with his little girl. And he was a vice president of our research department.
And he looked at me like, oh, my goodness, don’t they have enough money for janitorial services? What is the CEO doing cleaning toilets?
And so I jumped up, and I said, “well, it’s our maintenance director’s birthday, and we all came in and dove in, and we’re going to be out of here in two hours.”
Well, the reason he came in, he wanted to allow his four-year-old daughter to take the slide. We have a slide in our lobby. And so that’s a big deal, right?
And so he stumbled upon his new CEO cleaning toilets...!
But I think the reason I’m sharing that is because we just dig in. We don’t think about our titles.
We first and foremost think about the team. And so, no, we couldn’t get somebody to come in and clean the building, but that’s not a problem. Everybody just dives in and does the work.
Robert Mixon:
So you’re looking for managers to become leaders who are willing to ‘get their fingernails dirty,’ so to speak, right?
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely, absolutely. No job is beneath any one of us. We feel strongly about that.
Robert Mixon:
That’s a great lesson, you know, because, again, you know, leadership is an art.
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely.
Robert Mixon:
And some people may be effective managers, but they don’t have that ‘special sauce’, if you will.
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely.
Robert Mixon:
To lead.
Lauren Dixon:
Yeah.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. Well, thanks a lot.
… In your view, what are the characteristics of a world-class culture?
You know, I’m sort of passionate about this culture deal. I know you are too.
Lauren Dixon:
Yes, I am. You know, I think my dad probably believed in this as much as you and I do. And he said when I was starting the company,…
“All you have to do is two things, Lauren. Motivate and inspire people to want to come to work every single day. And then number two, hire people smarter than you.”
That was the easy part, Robert. [Laughs]
Robert Mixon:
Me too.
Yeah, that’s the part I can figure out real quick.
Lauren Dixon:
But I do think that a world-class culture begins with a leadership, with every decision that you make… whether you’re hiring people, to make certain that they share your core values, and also the companies you choose to do business with, right?
Clients, do they share your core values as well? And what about the vendors you select?
It could be a really easy day if all of those people have the same core values, or it could be miserable if you’re butting heads all the time. So, it’s so much easier to do business and operate in, that kind of situation when everybody shares core values. So I think that’s job number one.
Robert Mixon:
And every day your culture is alive.
Lauren Dizon:
Yeah, and you know, we’ve been identified as an organization that is ‘a great place to work’ by the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco, California. And you know, some folks believe that once you’ve got a great culture, it’s always a great culture, and that’s not the case.
You have to constantly re-energize it, reinvigorate it.
It’s a work in progress, and it’s work.
If it was that easy, everybody would be a great place to work, right? But it’s not.
But it starts by interviewing and identifying team members who have core values like yours. Because if you don’t, it’ll show up three weeks, three months, a year down the road. It will.
We’ve been there before.
Robert Mixon:
Yeah, there’s nothing like a bad hire for making an imprint on you in terms of, well, “I was in a hurry. I needed someone. You know, I didn’t do the diligence or check references two levels down,” that kind of thing.
So great advice, Laura.
Who’s your hero or heroine and why?
Lauren Dixon:
Oh boy, I have a lot of them. But I just mentioned my dad, and by a huge measure, he has been hands down the guy who has been there… with all of the smart, street smart advice.
He didn’t go to college.
He owned a trucking business for 40 plus years. And he just was a guy who had so much common sense. And, you know, he drove trucks every day.
He came home… We did not have dinner at 5:01 or 5:02 or 4:49. We had dinner at 5 p.m. every single night… what I love so much about his style was he was punctual. You could count on him. He had dinner with his family every single night.
But he was the dad who you could count on to do the kickball games, to take us to the lake every day after dinner in the back of his truck. And I remember him pulling out the card table every single night doing his bills. And I was his kind of wing person.
And I licked the envelopes and put the stamps on. And we did this day in and day out. And I learned discipline from him.
And I will never… he’s no longer with us… I could never repay him for the lessons that I learned from that guy.
But there are others too.
I drive by the Ontario County Courthouse every single morning. And I don’t know if there’s a day that goes by that I don’t think about Susan B., you know, and her tenacity and ability to drive things and make things happen. Her birthday is next year.
She’ll be 200. It’ll also be the year where women got to vote 100th anniversary of that. It’s kind of cool.
So that doesn’t get lost on me either. So I have a whole slew of folks I love and admire and have learned so many great lessons from.
Robert Mixon:
And so tenacity, in her case, you think was one of her great skills?
Lauren Dixon:
There was no more, no more of a tenacious woman than that woman — for sure.
Yeah, I really admire and respect all of what she did and how she did it. You know, she was kind of a tough cookie, no doubt about it.
Robert Mixon:
But I think this mental, physical, emotional toughness that really describes a leader like Susan B Anthony … is more a sense of presence from my amateur perspective here. Lauren, you agree with that?
Lauren Dixon:
I do agree with that 110%. All of the things that you read about her, her determination and her toughness and her ‘take no prisoners’ kind of attitude, I love.
But then there’s something that I loved about what my father represented, which was his positivity.
It’s so funny because, you know, when it would rain in the morning, I’d be, “oh, darn, it’s raining.” My father would be so excited.
And he’d say, “Lauren, we need the rain. How are the crops going to grow if it doesn’t rain?”
So he saw every bit of positivity in what could have been a negative situation. And I loved that about that man.
He could talk to anybody. And my mom used to say all the time, oh, my goodness, I’m going to have to send your father to Wegmans. It’s going to be another two and a half hours before we get X, Y, Z.
Because he was a guy who would talk to anyone and everyone, and just brighten everybody’s day. So leaders need to have that attribute as well, I think.
Robert Mixon:
Yes, I’m with you. I think positivity is a great strength. And you can combine tenacity, presence, positivity…
I think you’ve got a lot of key ingredients that people want to respect and admire.
Robert Mixon:
And follow, right?
Lauren Dixon:
And follow. Absolutely.
Robert Mixon:
That’s wonderful.
Thanks.
So, Lauren, what advice would you give aspiring leaders to learn how to ‘take charge,’ in this positive, empowering way? How do you get there?
Lauren Dixon:
Yeah. Never believing that you have to have the big idea. Always engage others and understand what they think.
And press the pause button and don’t be afraid to take somebody else’s big idea for fear that it’s not yours, you know? And I think I alluded to it earlier. As a ‘baby’ manager, that’s what I did.
That’s what I did. And I think it was one of the mistakes that I made early on. But if you can take a step back, great things will happen.
Bigger ideas will transpire and your team members will feel better at the end of the day and feel like they accomplished a whole lot more.
Robert Mixon:
But do you think young leaders sometimes struggle with wanting to be the one who has the big idea?
Lauren Dixon:
Absolutely. They do. And they like the gratification that — they own that.
But, it’s a manager going into a leader that has the courage and the ability to say, doesn’t have to be about me. Has to be about everybody else.
Because that’s when you’re going to get the best from all of your team members.
So it doesn’t have to be about them. That’s hard to do as a ‘baby’ manager.
Robert Mixon:
Yeah, I agree. I think the tendency as a young manager is to want to control and want to have the idea and be the one that has a solution. You go in, as you were talking earlier, the problem solving mode.
As a young leader, I think if I didn’t have a problem to solve, I’d make one up. Go find something, a problem to solve. Yeah.
Lauren Dixon:
But I also think that as a young leader, it’s incumbent upon them not to feel that they have to have all of the answers. Yeah, they immediately gravitate to reading leadership books. That’s a good thing.
That’s a wonderful thing.
But… I guess I would encourage people to reach out into the community and meet and understand what other leaders believe, kind of like this conversation. What was your journey?
What did you learn?
And my favorite question is, what are the three best things you’ve ever done as a leader? And what were the three biggest faux pas?
And from that, the three faux pas are the things that I think I learned the most from every single day, because I don’t want to replicate that.
Robert Mixon:
Yes, absolutely. The biggest things you’ve messed up, right? Okay.
Well, and if I asked you for one big idea, Lauren, you know, for this particular podcast opportunity we have to talk together, what would that big idea be, that our leaders can take away?
Lauren Dixon:
I think if they thought about the accountability piece each and every day.
You know, I shared that I go through this exercise every day of driving to work and saying to myself, “how am I going to make Dixon Schwabl irresistibly attractive to all of my team members?”
And then come up with real tangible things that I’m going to try to affect that day.
And then on my way home, score myself. And I think that has been really important for me to keep me on track. And more importantly, keep me accountable for doing something every single day, doing something, to try to advance the company and our people.
Robert Mixon:
Okay. So that would be personal accountability.
Lauren Dixon:
Yes, absolutely.
Robert Mixon:
Well, that certainly is a great takeaway, Lauren. I’ll tell you. So what else would you like to share with our readers, our audience while we have a few minutes?
Lauren Dixon:
Oh my goodness. I think leadership is probably the most exciting and challenging and rewarding thing a person can do.
You always learn every single day.
And I think the biggest mistake a leader could make is thinking that they know it all, or can’t learn something each and every day.
And podcasts like this are amazing, and so fun and so exciting. And who knew 25 years ago that this opportunity would be available.
And the information available about this topic or a myriad of others is just a click away. And so shame on any manager and or leader who is not listening to a podcast or two or three every single day.
Robert Mixon:
Wonderful. Yeah. The Level Five podcast… I highly recommend, right? [Laughs]
Lauren Dixon:
Yes, absolutely! [Laughs]
Robert Mixon:
Well, thanks so much, Lauren. It really was wonderful to have the opportunity to talk with you for a few minutes today and learn from you about your leadership journey. I think you’re an inspiration to a lot of young leaders in this community.
I certainly hear your name mentioned in many circles as someone that they admire and respect.
And as you know, and made it clear today, you know, you’ve got to earn it and you’ve got to bring it every day. You can’t ever take it for granted.
And our young leaders out there, you know, the message would be, don’t ever take it for granted. Go out there every day and bring it.
Well, I look forward to another opportunity in our podcast series on the leadership “Journey With No Summit.”
But thanks again, Lauren, for being part of our experience and really enjoyed it.
Lauren Dixon:
Thank you. My pleasure.
Robert Mixon:
All right. Take care.
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