The cavnessHR podcast – A talk with Jacqueline Ledgister-Bethell (Jacky)
Resources
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Zoom - it's the easiest video and web conferencing experience for your team! Zoom has been a great tool for cavnessHR. It has helped us produce high-quality content for the cavnessHR podcast. It has also been a great tool to conduct meetings for cavnessHR. Use the link below for more information on Zoom.
Audible: For you, the listeners of the cavnessHR podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a free 30-day trial to give you the opportunity to check out their service
All your favorite books are available on Audible!!! To download your free audiobook today go to www.audibletrial.com/cavnessHR
Namecheap: is what cavnessHR uses for all our domain and hosting needs. Our experience with Namecheap has been outstanding. Click the below link for more information on Namecheap
http://namecheap.pxf.io/c/1221401/386170/5618
Note: cavnessHR receives a commission for any sales from the above affiliate links.
The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places or you can just type in cavnessHR on the respective app.
iTunes: https://cavnesshr.co/itunesPodcast
Stitcher: https://cavnesshr.co/stitcherCurrentPodcast
Soundcloud: https://cavnesshr.co/thecab431c
Anchor: https://cavnesshr.co/thecabe398
Google Play: https://cavnesshr.co/19078
Pocket Casts: http://pca.st/4R0v
Social Media links for Jacky below!!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-jacky-ledgister-bethell-m-ed-028798bb/
Below is Jacky’s book recommendation:
“One Thousand and One Ways to Take Initiative at Work” by Bob Nelson
Click on the link below to purchase the book from Amazon.
Jacky is a wife, mother, sister and friend. When she is not busy fulfilling those roles, she is deeply immersed in her passion for human capital development as a learning leader. Jacky’s career spans the fields of Education, Human Resources Management, Tourism Management, and Marketing. Her roles have included: Director of Recruitment for the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas; Director of Development and Vice Principal for a leading K-12 school; adjunct faculty at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and UWI's Project Liaison for HR.com's Inspired Leadership simulcast.
She currently shares her talent for people development through her role as Training Manager for the AML Group in The Bahamas, where she has oversight for the design and facilitation of the Group’s leader development programme. AML Foods Limited, with some 1,000 employees is the parent company for the chain of Fresh Market and Solomon’s grocery stores, the Cost Right club stores, as well as the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Jacky is a native of Jamaica and has lived in The Bahamas for over 20 years. She is an avid reader, a fan of international cultural expressions through travel …and a certified choc-o-holic.
Jason: Hello, and welcome to the cavnessHR Podcast. Our guest today is Jacqueline Ledgister-Bethell. Jacky, are you ready to be great today?
Jacqueline: I am ready, Jason. Yes I am.
Jason: Jacky is a wife, mother, sister and friend. When she is not busy fulfilling those roles, she is deeply immersed in her passion for Human Capital Development as a learning leader. Jacky’s career spans the fields of Education, Human Resources Management, Tourism Management, and Marketing. Her roles have included: Director of Recruitment for the Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas; Director of Development and Vice Principal for a leading K-12 school; Adjunct Faculty at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and UWI's Project Liaison for HR.com's Inspired Leadership simulcast.
She currently shares her talent for people development through her role as Training Manager for the AML Group in The Bahamas. Where she has oversight for the design and facilitation of the Group’s leader development programme. AML Foods Limited, with some 1,000 employees is the parent company for the chain of Fresh Market and Solomon’s grocery stores, the Cost Right club stores, as well as the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Jacky is a native of Jamaica and has lived in The Bahamas for over 20 years. She is an avid reader, a fan of international cultural expressions through travel …and a certified choc-o-holic. Jacky, I’m a choc-o-holic as well.
Jacqueline: Oh, great. I feel at home then, Jason.
Jason: Yes. How are you doing today, Jacky?
Jacqueline: I am excellent. I am fully recovered from the flu and I'm ready to go. And I thank you for this opportunity as well.
Jason: I thank you, too. So what's keeping you busy?
Jacqueline: Well, we're going into the second cohort of the leadership development program that you mentioned in my biography. We are beginning the second group of leaders going through this program and so I'm very busy with that now. I'm very proud of that program, by the way.
Jason: Yes. So, Jacky, for the leadership program, is it based on a certain industry that you bring in or a certain level of leadership in that industry?
Jacqueline: Well, our industry is a retail industry; you mentioned that the AML group is a parent company for a chain of retail stores – Fresh Market stores. Which is similar to Whole Foods – and then there's the regular supermarket chain, regular industry. Then we have the Cost Right brand that is a club store similar to Sam's Club Store and it would have been the senior leaders. So the district managers and the store leaders were a part of the program. It lasted for six months. So the program I called Excel – the acronym is Ex.C.E.L.!. The acronym embodies the philosophy of the program, Jason. So we want to approach our leaders to exceed expectations – so that's where the “Ex” comes from (exceed expectations). Then, we want them to champion core values, and the focus on core values was an important aspect of the program. Then, we want them to elevate others. They are responsible for nurturing other leaders in their care. We want them to elevate others and then we want them to lead courageously. We have seen a transformation in the organization since these persons have passed through the program. Persons have commented on how changed the leaders are – they are more approachable, they are more concerned with generating this partnership with their teams as opposed to this top-down; persons, even the leaders themselves, see that they're more self-aware.
Jason: Yes. People don't realize how much the leaders have to be approachable sometimes.
Jacqueline: Correct. Yes, yes. There was a focus on helping their team members understand the purpose for their jobs. So, I built into the program, back in the operations exercises. So after a session or so, they would have to go back and execute certain things over two or three weeks, or even a month or two. One of the activities was where they had to have conversations with members of their team where they say, “what is your purpose, or tell me what you do day-to-day” and then connect the real purpose of that task with the purpose of the broader organization. The overall organization's mission. That caused a lot of lightbulb moments in the organization. People talked about that tremendously.
Jason: That’s great. So when the program starts, I'm sure different leaders are at different levels of leadership, some have it already, some need a lot of help. How do you work around that?
Jacqueline: Yes, some have it already and it became reinforcement and a revisiting. Then they, then, the very senior persons who, I guess, had it already, became my champions. They were advocating and they would make sure their team members were actually doing what the exercises required. So, you are correct. They were, basically, two levels – some who had it before and they were going through this as a reminder and then some who were hearing this for the first time.
Jason: Yes. So, Jacky, you’re doing HR for different industries. Have you experienced different ways you have to do HR based on the industry? Or is HR, HR wherever you go to?
Jacqueline: I believe it might be based on the industry from if I could go off the top of my head because the approach you would take for recruiting, say, at Atlantis is a different approach that you would take for the educational industry. As a school leader, we would have taken a different approach to competence and experience was far more important when I was hiring a teacher as opposed to maybe when I was looking for a bartender or the lifeguard. Because we could have taught the lifeguards what to do. But you need to have a competent teacher walk into the classroom on day one. So the approaches were different.
Jason: So, Jackie, let's suppose someone’s graduating from college this summer and they want to be an HR professional. What advice would you have for this person that’s just starting out in HR?
Jacqueline: They need to find a mentor; they need to find somebody who has been there and done that. I guess, depending on their location as well. The industry may be different from state to state, I'm not sure. So number one is to find a mentor and number two is to make sure they're reading widely in their field.
Jason: Yes. Jacky, next, can you talk about a time you were successful in the past, what you learned from the success and what we can learn from this?
Jacqueline: I would have to go back to the time when I was Director of Development for the k–12 school and I was responsible for spearheading and leading the school’s 50th anniversary celebrations. So I was leading a large committee that comprised of board members of the school faculty, teachers, students and parents. What I learned was that as a leader of that committee I had to have a very clear vision that I was able to articulate in a number of ways. What I did was I distilled what I wanted to accomplish for that year into three words. I coined this theme for the 50th anniversary celebrations and the three words were spirit, scholarship and service. That became our mantra. That vision, that mantra, that philosophy guided all of our activities for that entire year. When we got side-tracked, when we went back to that. So that is what persons can take away – you must have a clear vision that you can articulate as a leader. It was very successful. There was a culminating event, a banquet, and it reminded me of the Academy Awards.
Jason: I bet that was a great event. And that’s great advice, Jacky. Jacky, next, talk about a time that you failed, what you learned from this failure and what we can learn from this.
Jacqueline: So I'm going to take the position, Jason, that, in my career, I don't think I've had any failures. If something did not go right at work, it’s because it was a mismatch between, say, expectations and maybe the resources. So, I cannot identify a time in my career when I beat myself up. So, in order to find you this example, I have to go back to my college days. This is where I felt like I had completely missed the mark, and I'm going to share that with you. My first year university, I had to do supplemental exams. Supplemental exams means that the University is not convinced that you know what you said you put on the exam script.
So they give you an opportunity to take exams for a second time after you’ve gone through maybe six weeks of remedial studies. So I did the remedial studies and went back and took the exams and I passed with flying colors. Here's what I learned, Jason, and that I used in my career later on is that I was ill-prepared. So you would fail if you're not prepared – that was the lesson. I was ill-prepared. I use skills in University that I thought I had from high school. High school is a different thing from university, and I needed to step up my game and I did not do that. I learned that I had to connect with people who knew what would be on the exam, what were the possibilities. I had to find past papers, I had to find the right tutorial to gather my remedial studies. That's what I learned – I was ill-prepared and you cannot rest on past achievement. I was an A-student in high school, won awards every year, and I thought that, “okay, first year of university, I use the same skills.” I needed to widen my scope a little bit and that's what I took away from that failure. I really beat myself up that year.
Jason: It's amazing how many students are ‘A’s in high school and then they’re just totally unprepared for college.
Jacqueline: Completely. I was completely unprepared. It's a different set of skills, different set of interactions that you need there.
Jason: And, Jackie, just so our guests would know, where you're located at?
Jacqueline: I am in the beautiful Bahamas. It’s 700 islands but I live in the capital, New Providence, Nassau. And our business, that is, the AML Group, extends from Nassau to the other island, Grand Bahama as well.
Jason: Okay. Jacky, next, talk about someone who's helped you in the past and how they helped you.
Jacqueline: Okay, that is easy. I would have to speak about my mentor. When I was still in university, he gave me an opportunity to work at the Bahamas’ largest Public Relations and Communications firm as an intern. The skills he taught me I am still using that to this day. He taught me about writing press releases and I still do that. So even in my program, I write press releases to advertise what we're doing with the AML company. He taught me how to distill information to be on radio and television. So I had to do a lot of television interviews and every role I had, Jason, I had drawn on those skills.
So we had the graduation exercise for the first cohort of leaders in the program and I did a video reflection. I had them record it, and I edited it with someone on an iPad. The same thing I did for the 50th anniversary celebration when I was at the school. I actually wrote a tribute to him on LinkedIn. So if persons want to go to find out about Mr Basil Smith (I’m not sure if I’m supposed to mention his name). I owe him a lot and the title of the article is a gift that kept on giving because that was twenty years ago and I'm still using the skills that I learned under him, specifically. I can credit him, Jason, for sharing those skills with me.
Jason: Yes. People often underestimate what a great impact a great boss can have in what happens in your career.
Jacqueline: Oh, my goodness. Oh, I can’t tell you. It's immeasurable.
Jason: Yes it is. Jacky, next, tell us something about yourself most you don't know. Like your close family knows, close friends, but most people who just know you day-to-day don't know this about you.
Jacqueline: They may not know that I'm from a large family. I am the ninth of ten kids. So they're five boys and five girls, and I'm number nine. So it means that I had to learn, very early, to speak up, Jason. You don’t want to get drowned out.
Jason: That's a big family.
Jacqueline: Yes, I'm a large family. And I grew up on a farm, which was fantastic.
Jason: That's great. So, Jacky, I understand you have a book to recommend to our listeners.
Jacqueline: Yes. About ten years ago, maybe even more, fifteen years ago, I found this book called One Thousand and One Ways to Take Initiative at Work by Bob Nelson. It is a toolbox of ideas about how to take charge of your job and your career. So you create opportunities; there are many, many success stories in there. In fact, one thousand and one success stories in there about ways to create opportunities. And it's about self-leadership.
There's an example in here about the engineer that came up with post-it note, Jason. He got tired of the bookmark in his hymnal because it kept falling out. So he came up with the idea of a post-it note. Another example, really quickly, a young lady who was a waitress at a very swanky restaurant in California and persons kept asking her about t-shirts and memorabilia that would have the restaurant’s name on it. She got the financial information, promoted it to her boss, and the next thing you know, they are creating these t-shirts, cups and so on – souvenir items that were added so the restaurant, and they credit her with that idea. This is a fantastic book for anybody to buy.
Jason: You still use the book every day, pretty much, don’t you?
Jacqueline: Absolutely! It's bookmarked.
Jason: Jacky, we've come to the end of our talk. Can you provide any last words of wisdom or advice to our listeners, on any subject you want to?
Jacqueline: Since I’m responsible for the leadership program here, Jason, I would say that I would want to share just some quick tips from Indra Nooyi https://www.linkedin.com/in/indranooyi/ – she is the CEO of Pepsi Co. Everybody’s familiar with the five Cs of selecting a diamond – there's the clarity, the color, the cut, and the confidence in the certificate. She talks about, if you want to be an effective leader, you should have five Cs. I’ll just list them really quickly. First of all, you need to be competent. You need to have hip-pocket skills that you can offer. You need to be the go-to person that persons identify and, in order to be competent, you always need to be a constant student. Then she talks about having courage and confidence.
So you can be competent but if you're not courageous about what you believe and about the knowledge that you have, then what is the point? That was a pair of them. Then, thirdly, communication skills; always invest in communication skills – that’s the third C. As a leader, you're always going to have to rally the troops and you're always going to have to distill complex subjects into simple material. So you must be able to have written and oral communication. Then the fourth C is consistency; you must be steady and reliable as an effective leader – you can’t be flip-flopping. The fifth and finally, you need to be directed by a compass. You must have a true north which is your integrity. That I gathered from Indra Nooyi, the CEO of Pepsi Co. She gave a talk at a conference in 2011 and that is what I would like to offer to my listeners today, Jason.
Jason: Thank you, that’s great advice. I especially try to get people to get started doing public speaking; I try to tell everyone, “hey, you’ve got to be able to get in front of people and talk and convince them to do what you want them to do.”
Jacqueline: Yes, absolutely, correct. Absolutely correct, you're correct.
Jason: Jacky, thank you for being our guest on our podcast, we really appreciate your time. You gave us a lot of knowledge and we really appreciate it.
Jacqueline: Jason, thank you so much for having me and we will be in touch. And I look forward to hearing this online.
Jason: Yes. To our guests, thank you for your time as well, and remember to be great every day.
Resources
Live Leap - Automatically share Facebook Live Video to multiple platforms at once. Simply go Live on Facebook and Live Leap shares to multiple Facebook pages and groups. Not only that, Live Leap notifies your audience on Twitter, LinkedIn, Email, SMS (text) and your website. See why Social Media influences love Live Leap. Live Leap has been a great tool for cavnessHR. Use the link below for your free trial
https://imon.live/bkjTdSC
Zoom - it's the easiest video and web conferencing experience for your team! Zoom has been a great tool for cavnessHR. It has helped us produce high-quality content for the cavnessHR podcast. It has also been a great tool to conduct meetings for cavnessHR. Use the link below for more information on Zoom.
http://bit.ly/2DTaole
Audible: For you, the listeners of the cavnessHR podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a free 30-day trial to give you the opportunity to check out their service
All your favorite books are available on Audible!!! To download your free audiobook today go to www.audibletrial.com/cavnessHR
Namecheap: is what cavnessHR uses for all our domain and hosting needs. Our experience with Namecheap has been outstanding. Click the below link for more information on Namecheap
http://namecheap.pxf.io/c/1221401/386170/5618
Note: cavnessHR receives a commission for any sales from the above affiliate links.
The cavnessHR Podcast can be found at the following places or you can just type in cavnessHR on the respective app.
iTunes: https://cavnesshr.co/itunesPodcast
Stitcher: https://cavnesshr.co/stitcherCurrentPodcast
Soundcloud: https://cavnesshr.co/thecab431c
Anchor: https://cavnesshr.co/thecabe398
Google Play: https://cavnesshr.co/19078
Pocket Casts: http://pca.st/4R0v
Social Media links for Jacky below!!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-jacky-ledgister-bethell-m-ed-028798bb/
Below is Jacky’s book recommendation:
“One Thousand and One Ways to Take Initiative at Work” by Bob Nelson
Click on the link below to purchase the book from Amazon.
CavnessHR: Focus on your business, we've got your HR
Be Great Every Day!
