Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook. I have to tell you, I have been looking forward to this conversation with Julie Willoughby for quite some time with both our busy schedules. We've been trying to get together and do this, and we haven't had the time. Julie is an experienced CEO. She's a board member. She has her PhD in chemical engineering, and she's got years and years of experience of helping companies scale, helping them with innovation, thinking differently, developing multi-disciplinary I can't even say that, multi-uh level teams, getting them on the right path and positioning them for growth. And at the top of that, she's always thinking about people and talents. So with that, Julie, I welcome you to the show.

Julie Willoughby 0:42

Oh, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you.

Jason Taylor 0:46

Yeah, it's been busy. You travel a lot, I travel a lot and whatnot. And we keep on saying, you know what, we should get together, but then all of a sudden you're in the air or I'm in the air or somebody somewhere, right? So finally we get to have a coffee together and just talk about things that we love, like people.

Julie Willoughby 1:00

That's right. People is what it's all about. Yeah. You could be working on the coolest technology and thing, but if you don't have the people around you to help you bring it to life, I don't know what the point is.

Jason Taylor 1:10

Yeah. Yeah. I love that you started with that because when I talk to organizations and leaders, I actually say to you know, people leading organizations all the time, I say, every problem in your business is a people problem. Every problem's a people problem. And when you're losing sleep at night and you're thinking, why the heck am I not sleeping right now? Drill down. Drill down. Yeah. I promise you, it's either a person, a role, it's somebody that, you know, isn't catching on to, you know, what you're saying. They're not engaged in your team, or they're, you know, they're struggling in you or they're leaving or whatever. But it's always every problem in your business is a people problem. It's completely spot on.

Julie Willoughby 1:47

You're right, Jason.

Jason Taylor 1:48

Yeah. You spent your career building teams. Okay. So you work and and the the great part about having Julie on the show today is you have experience building teams, but in multi-level organizations, different sectors, different industry, and teams that are, you know, dealing with complex technical challenges along the way. What's the leadership philosophy, Julie, that you use and that's helped you bring different personalities and different disciplines all together?

Julie Willoughby 2:17

Yes. I mean, I think like any leader, your style evolves over time. You start as this individual contributor, especially as like a scientist and engineer, it's all about like what you've learned and how you can apply that discipline to your work. And then you're moved into a manager position and a leadership position. And what I've really learned that works is believing in people. Like people have insecurities. I think at a fundamental level, people aren't sure about what they're doing. And if you have someone that believes in you and is willing to take the time to work with you to understand, do you have what you need to be successful? Are you doing what makes you tick and makes you thrive? And are they your strengths? Or are you really just trying to manage someone's weaknesses, which you're never going to get the best out of that person? I think the believing is fundamental and making sure that people know that you have the time and patience for them.

Jason Taylor 3:12

Yeah. Do you remember the first leader that you dealt with that believed in you?

Julie Willoughby 3:16

Yes, very distinctly. So it was at Del Corning, and I was in a manufacturing position and I had evolved through a few different stages in this manufacturing group. And I had been offered the leadership, the they called it a manufacturing team leader, very original. And and I was not sure. I actually was pregnant with my son. And I remember telling David that, hey, I'm pregnant. He's like, well, that doesn't matter. And he's like, and that was back in the 90s, and I was really unsure. I was in my 20s. And I was like, I can do this. And he's just like, Yes, yes, of course you can do this. And so he was, he was always there for me, just on every level, from both being a new mom to being a new new leader over I was I was managing 20 some people of various walks of life, from union employees to engineers. And you were doing that in your 20s. Yes. Yes.

Jason Taylor 4:21

Wow, truly. That is, if you look back now, like in your 20s leading that kind of a team, that's that's a large team to manage when you're when you're that young at that time, right?

Julie Willoughby 4:30

Because we're still Yes, I felt very, very old at the time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's funny when I look back at that and I was like, I was only 27.

Jason Taylor 4:38

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it nice when we have a leader like that that actually believes in us and actually sees things a little differently and says, Yeah, I've taken a chance on you, and you know what, we're gonna we're gonna work around this. Yes. Figure it out. And I love the fact that he he thought, hey, yeah, you're pregnant. That's great. You're you're starting to fail me. Wicked, that's awesome. Right? But we can still have you as a leader in our organization and we can we can still absolutely tap into those values and those interests that you have and share them up with the team. The reason I say that is because you you talk about multiplying talent across the organization, right? And when you look at that, what does a leader need to do or make sure that they're absolutely laser-like focused on to help people reach their potential that oftentimes that person doesn't see they have themselves, right? They're not self-aware enough to know, hey, you know what, I'm good at this.

Julie Willoughby 5:29

Right. I think there's a few things. I mean, one of one of the things I've realized through leading and what worked and what didn't work is that people really need to understand what their priorities were. And you know, when you're you're in, when you're ambitious and when you're trying to get a lot done, especially in like the venture world that I've been in and over the last several years, there's a lot of pressure. And how can you, how can you take off that pressure and prioritize what's really needed to be done for the week and or the day and the communication? And so I recall putting someone, it was a new, a new role or a new kind of for myself. And it was, it was a startup company with and of textile recycling, and the company was Circ. And I was looking around one day. I was very new into the position. And as I kept going to this one person who seemed to have all the answers, but he was also like one of like the low, you know, I mean, he was he considered himself like the lowest level person. And I looked at him and I was like, Ethan, you you seem to be running the place here. And he just kind of like shrugged and he's like, Yeah, you know, very humble. And was like, yeah, well, maybe. And so I started really giving him responsibility and and put his position in in one where, hey, I think you can do this. You're gonna be the raw materials manager, you know, you're you're doing it anyway. So this is what you're going to do. And then one day he walked in, he's like, I'm really, I have my list is so long. I was like, just let's take the top three. Take the top three and focus on the first one and do that well and let everything else aside. And I think, you know, just being able to come to someone to say, I'm overwhelmed, and have that person still say, that's okay, that's because there's so much work to be done, and let's just, let's just divvy it up.

Jason Taylor 7:20

Yeah. Fantastic. You um specifically from all the guests that we've had on the pod, if you look at your resume, you've worked across so many organizations based on what you do in so many different industries, right? So you've had experience working in innovation, in manufacturing, in product development, right? How do you create alignment when teams are solving problems from completely different perspectives?

Julie Willoughby 7:47

Well, I think that's one of the strongest ways to solve a problem is to have multiple perspectives. I think in my early years, being a chemical engineer and working in the chemical industry and having, you know, everyone around me was a chemical engineer was not a it was not a unique thing. And so you're ending up solving it almost the same way in some ways. And so when you start pulling in different perspectives from backgrounds and from disciplines, you get different ideas and having people like understand that it's important to take the time to listen to those different perspectives and that they're all valued is what brings the magic out. And so what what I would, you know, I recall having a conversation, this was at Nike with a designer. And the the comment was that, hey, this person has never delivered on this and never made, never made a presentation. And I said, Well, maybe that's not that person's skill set, right? And that's yours. And so, you know, how do you work together in order to bring out, like, why does she need to be doing that presentation and putting together it if her ideas are feeding what you're creating? And so really just like kind of opening up that mindset of you don't have to do it the same way that it was done before, as long as the results and the answers get there eventually. And and that that acceptance of doing things differently really takes the time of the leader and the coworkers and the peers to just work with that and sit with it and realize that they're not going to be penalized for doing it a different way. Everyone learns different and everyone can do things differently. And now, like for safety and procedures are sometimes you cannot deviate and they need to be sure, they need to be followed. But I think when you're when you're looking at new projects and innovation and really achieving business results, pulling in those like different perspectives is the power. And so it it's not clear what your vision and mission is up front, then it's gonna be hard for the team to pull together and rally. Yeah.

Jason Taylor 9:57

I like the fact that you talked about clarity there, first and foremost. So we we have to be clear on what's the end goal. That's one. But the other thing you talked about is different perspectives actually help us get to a better place because the way I think about something may be totally different than the way you think about something. And that's okay. That's okay.

Julie Willoughby 10:13

Yes.

Jason Taylor 10:13

And as a leader, we should actually cherish that. Because if we hire like for like, or we all we, you know, we go down one road and everybody should be the same. We we don't make great decisions. We make decisions that need to be looked at a different way. And when I work with teams and whatnot, just like you, I I often talk about that. I say, listen, it's it's good to get everybody's perspective on this because that lady over there is thinking totally different than you right now, and she's not right or she's not wrong, right? She just has a different perspective, and we have to take that into account, right? Because we actually then we can then now to your point of who's making the presentation, I can actually assign that based on behavioral fit, and that person actually likes doing that as opposed to having to do that, right? They actually want to do that, and because they want to do that, they'll do an extent an outstanding job with it. And that in in my the way I think about things creates better work, better world, which simply means I actually like what I do. It doesn't feel like work for me right now, right?

Julie Willoughby 11:11

That's right.

Jason Taylor 11:12

When you get into that place in your life where you're you're in better work, better world, where you know, like I didn't get up this morning and I say, Wow, I have to talk to Julie today, what a drag. I got up and thought, okay, recording a podcast today. Julie's on the podcast today. I can't wait to talk to her, right? It's this this right here doesn't feel like work for me.

Julie Willoughby 11:29

Right.

Jason Taylor 11:29

Right. Because it's a conversation with somebody I want to talk to.

Julie Willoughby 11:32

Yeah. Right? Which is great. Yes. Yes. And that's that's the magic that can come. When you create teams that are gelling with each other, it is like not work. You want to be there. You want to work with each other and and figure out how to do things. And you know, along with that is really watching the like setting a culture that doesn't have criticism in it. It's fine to critique, but to criticize people is to attack people.

Jason Taylor 11:58

Yeah. Yeah. And I find that that's one of the hardest things for leaders to grasp onto sometimes. Because they want to just sometimes they want to criticize because it's not done exactly how they would have done it. And I often say to leaders, like, it's okay if they didn't do it 100% the way you want to do it. Because then you're actually it creates if you actually start giving trust to that team or that member of the team, it actually frees you up. And if they do something 85% the way you would do it, and you know it's 15% not the way you do it, okay. That's all right. It doesn't have to be the 100% the way you would do it. It's let's get it, you know, 75, 85% the way you do it, so you can work on other aspects of the business and actually grow the company and grow the culture.

Julie Willoughby 12:40

That's right.

Jason Taylor 12:40

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You talked about teams and you talked about teams, some teams are performing great and teams working together. What's your opinion on teams? And what I mean by that is I'm gonna get a little more specific than that. So why do some teams thrive and some teams not thrive? And they could be doing the exact same kind of function. What makes that difference based on your kind of leadership uh experience?

Julie Willoughby 13:04

I think first and foremost, it's that everyone feels that they have a role and that they're valued for their contribution, that they're being heard, that they're being seen and heard. And so if there is confusion, I'm certainly I've created chaos in my past and there is been conf in confusing organizations or not having a clear mandate. And when people come and are frustrated, it's fine to hear them out being frustrated, even in a temp team environment. But it's really critical to like pivot and make sure that it's just not complaining, that it is understanding, okay, what do we know? What can we control? What can't we control? And just like bucketing it out in that manner allows you to control what you can and let go of the rest. And if you really don't know, then what's the one thing that you can create? And I, you know, an example was this, it was last fall, September of 2025, and we had a very short deadline to create a bunch of prototypes for show. And it almost seemed like we didn't have enough time to do it.

Jason Taylor 14:11

We never have enough time.

Julie Willoughby 14:13

No, never enough time. I mean, it was a little bit uh crazy. And I was watching The Bear at the time. I don't know if you ever saw that show where every second, yes, every second counts. You know, I didn't even watch it from you know start to end, but I pulled out enough of the really good things that I ended up what we did as a team is we just we to we're like shorter order cooks in doing design and engineering where we just put the task and some people call it scrum, but we put it on post post-it notes and everyone grabbed what they could do and went and did it. And when we were done, we went completely analog. We my husband had built us like a piece of wood with a nail on it, and we would slam the just like you would take a recipe or you know, a shorter order cook would slam it down, and it was so satisfying to be complete. So there was this, this like camaraderie that we all had and getting it done. And at the end, I was just like, I never I I wasn't even sure we would pull it off and ended up coming up with just like this great display for for a show that we were doing during climate week last last year. So I mean, that that was one where there was a lot of skepticism going into even that task. And I had some doubt like from my my peers that we could get it done and we did it. And so that that's like getting in there with the team, having them set up what needs to be done versus hey, if you come in like as a leader with a bad attitude and be like, I don't know what's going on, or just I mean, that that trickles down. It really does come from the top. Yeah. And so if you if you can't, you know, I think when teams don't perform well, and I've I've been on teams that aren't gelling, and I'm likely because I had switched from an individual contributor to a leader, was like in that mode of I have to do do do versus really pulling the team along and so and and growing the team and gelling the team. And then when I realized where I contributed to not having the team be successful, I was able to shift my and grow as a person and as a leader to really be able to pull the best work out of everyone for not just the benefit of the business. I mean, that's all you have to have a profitable, successful business to keep everyone going and employed, but really for the growth of the people and that people understood what they were doing.

Jason Taylor 16:32

Yeah, absolutely. You said something there too. You said, you know, if you have a leader that's, you know, not engaged and, you know, negative and what that I believe culture adds loads of money to our our our bottom line. The other thing I believe though is, and very strongly is as a leader, you're always on stage. Mm-hmm. And somebody, Julie, somebody is always watching. Even when we don't think we're being watched, we're being watched, right? They're seeing if Julie rolls her eyes or shrugs her shoulders or you know, is listening to that person just they know if you believe and they know if you don't believe, and they know, hey, that you know, if that's if that's the the person we're following right now and she's not engaged right now, maybe I shouldn't be engaged. So as leaders, we always have to worry about how am I portraying myself, not just on what I'm saying, but what's my body language say right now? What is what's my face saying right now? Am I smiling? Do I look like I believe? Am I am I am I actually engaged with the conversation so they know I'm on board, so they actually want to follow as well, right? So important. Absolutely important. I want to spin this off because you've been, like I said, you've worked with global organizations, right? And you've worked from you know small organizations to to large organizations and somebody who's you know starting up and who's scaling up. So what changes about leadership when you're building something new versus scaling an existing business?

Julie Willoughby 17:56

Yeah, you know, I think a few things. I don't think the leadership really changes. Like if I was to go back right now into a big company, I mean, the important thing is that you understand what the company's mission is and what the boundaries are that you have. What are your boundary conditions to be like very engineering about it? Like you may have constraints that you can't work around, and and that needs to be understood and move forward. But like if you're starting up something brand new and the and the slate is completely blank, that can be really exciting and really scary at the same time. And not everyone is going to adapt to that well. And so doing this at a big company, understanding what your your mission is and what your vision could seem really like, okay, it's just straightforward. Here's what your tasks are and what you need to do. But there's always some initiative or some goal that needs to be understood by the team if it's really going to come out the other side to be successful. Right. And and I think, I think that like understanding as a leader what it is that you need to ensure happens for the business and the company that you cannot do without a team. You cannot make an outcome with no team and without people buying into that. And if you have the negativity on the team, trying to understand if you can pull that person aside and shift the mindset so that you can actually actually have a positive outcome because it's really hard to have a negative outcome.

Jason Taylor 19:31

Yeah.

Julie Willoughby 19:31

Or have a negative person have a positive outcome. You know, if you're if you're like just it's like negativity attracts negativity, and positivity attracts positivity. So whatever energy you put into it is what you're gonna get out.

Jason Taylor 19:46

100%. 100%. Have you ever gone to an organization and thought this team isn't ready to scale? And just and based on the people that are in on the team, have you ever thought of that?

Julie Willoughby 19:56

I think I tend to go where you have the team you you have to, you know. I think there's a saying that says something like, uh, you go to war with the team you have, not the the team that you the army that you wish you had, you know, and and you figure out what everyone can do. And so if I've said I have this team and we can't get it done, I haven't been in that situation. I mean, well, actually I have been in that situation, but we got it done. And so it's like we didn't have the resources we needed, we didn't have the skills we needed, we didn't have, we didn't have all the engineers we needed. In fact, we didn't have any engineers and we were doing, we were doing chemical processing and and so, but everyone could find some portion of what they need what needed to be done. And for instance, I asked, um, in one of these projects that I was running, I was recruiting people in f on an influence basis. They weren't actually reporting to me. And one of the teammates that came to me, that someone asked me to see if this person would be interested. I just looked at her, I said, Do you like to cook? And she says, I love to cook. And I kind of knew she liked to cook. I said, Well, this that's exactly what this coding science is. It's just like cooking. You follow a recipe, you mix it up, and voila, we have a beautiful prince. And and so I think finding those connections or just realizing that, hey, someone believes in you to do it, even though you don't feel qualified, helps pull that together.

Jason Taylor 21:31

Yeah. Yeah. You give people permission. Speak speaking about permission, actually. So, you know, in the companies you've worked with and having to experiment experiment with innovation, sometimes when we innovate, it requires people to take some risk along the way to innovate, right? So, how do you create a culture or an or an environment where you give permission for those people to experiment and innovate without fear?

Julie Willoughby 21:56

Yeah. No, it's a it's a a great question. One that I had to learn. I just don't know if it comes intuitively to every everyone. And I think it comes because many times what what happens in organizations is you've started out as an individual contributor, you're a designer, you're an engineer, and you're doing, doing, doing. And then you think that when you get put in a leadership position that you're expected to know all the answers or be the subject matter expert. And in reality, you know, I've I just don't, I'm not smart enough to know everything that's out there, you know, and and people who claim to do or that they are an expert, it's like, okay, well, I have experience and I have knowledges that build up, but I I just don't, I'm not smart enough to know everything, you know, and and so there's always something out there that I believe is possible. And I think that fear-based environment that ends up happening comes from a place of insecurity or not having your leadership support or or reactions. So like watching your words and and your reactions, how you react to things, people saying things, oh no, I tried that, I've tried that years ago, or hey, I already thought about that. That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work, you know, and and that's that like shuts people down. That shuts people down faster. It shut me down. I know I've shut other people down in my past, realizing that that error and and developing, you know, you looking at the state that I wanted the team to be in versus where the team was, and then adjusting.

Jason Taylor 23:31

Yeah, absolutely. You you are are you come across truly as a very self-aware leader. And what I mean by that is you in this conversation, you do often talk about, hey, that's a mistake I made, or I did that. And if I did, you know what I mean? Like you're very self-aware and in how you position yourself, which is really refreshing, quite frankly, because sometimes leaders they act almost like they they have all the answers. And I think it's so powerful when a leader, even especially in on when they're on on stage or they're in a big group and whatnot, I think it is incredibly powerful when a leader says, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's such a powerful statement to say that because it actually shows vulnerability, it shows them that they're they're a human being, that they're not and and guess what, they're not supposed to know everything, right? I hope they follow it up usually with a but I can find out. Right. But there's so many leaders, and I'm sure you've seen it as well, and on a conference or something, or they're on stage and they get asked a question that they don't know the answer to, and they do the hub of hubbadas, right? And they just kind of give a little bit of a dance, and you're and all I'm thinking, and when I'm one of those participants watching them is that say, hey, just say, just say you don't know. And when you're talking about you didn't know or people are smarter than you in the room and whatnot, that's just a self-aware leadership that just says, Hey, you know what? Doesn't have to be my decision. Don't kid yourself though. I want the best decision for the company or what we're working on, but it doesn't necessarily need to be my decision, but maybe it has to follow within these guidelines and then we can we can go forward as a team, right? Right, right.

Julie Willoughby 25:00

Yes. Now and I think that self-awareness or the um the EQ, that that is also something that you evolve, and I don't think you're you just like graduate from college and and have it, right? You need someone to mentor you and and point out and accept learning how to take feedback was was a very powerful experience for myself. And and then realizing that and being like, oh, I have been doing this, you know, and this isn't growing that person. And and then also in coaching leaders because you want the people that you're in your sphere and that you're coaching and that you're leading to become great leaders too. And so, you know, they are also having to work through, I mean, especially in the scientific and the engineering because sector is that the brilliance comes when you put all these different ideas together and then work out at to come up with a result at the end. And that that is when you have that, that is so powerful. And experiencing that firsthand. I mean, my team at TerraSafe is like that. I mean, we just, you know, we rally and we are together and we figure things out. And that has been probably one of the most satisfying things to be able to do with a team.

Jason Taylor 26:16

Yeah, I love that. And you know, you talked about getting feedback. I I think what you just said there was so authentic and transparent and honest. It's, you know, feedback's great when you're telling me I'm great. You know what I mean? When you're telling me, oh, wow, yeah, nobody ever handled it like that before. You were awesome, right? And everybody says, oh, give me the feedback. I want to hear the feedback. But I actually think what you said is true. It's hard getting feedback sometimes when it is challenging your status quo and somebody's actually saying to you, I think you could have been better. I don't think you should have said that. I actually think that uh you handled that the wrong way. That's hard to take. And my favorite is when somebody says to me, Don't take it personally.

Julie Willoughby 26:57

Right.

Jason Taylor 26:58

I I think that is such BS. I think to myself, well, don't take it personally. Well, wait a second. You're talking about me, right? So I am going to take it personally. Now, getting feedback, I think is a journey. I think leadership in totality is a journey, right? And do I think that we need to give feedback based on, you know, strengths and blind spots? Absolutely. We're not doing everything perfect. We need to actually figure it out along the way. But that being said, it is a journey and it stings a little. When you worked at something hard and you think you went the right way, and somebody's saying, you know what? I completely disagree with you. But and I think you should have done it this way. But yeah, it's a journey for sure. Right. Julie, when we're talking about leadership, many leaders focus on strategy and execution, right? But culture often actually determines if if the job or the plans are actually gonna succeed. What's one critical decision that had a bigger impact than expected for you when you've when you've tried to do this based on on culture?

Julie Willoughby 27:55

Yes. I, you know, I was thinking about that. And then just like, okay, what is that one single decision and what what would it be? And it's transparency has been the biggest success factor that I've had. And being transparent, but yet not creating whiplash. There was a time where I thought people wanted to know every detail of what was going on because I want I understand every detail, but that actually was confusing them. And that it wasn't bringing anything. There was nothing good about that. So, like if I don't have the information, I'm not just going to spat out whatever transpired that day because it could be incorrect information. Yeah. And so it's being transparent that, hey, this is all I got. I do not know. Or, you know, there's things going on, but none of them make sense yet. So it doesn't make sense for me to tell you what's happening because no one we're they're still figuring it out. And to try and process that right now would just be confusing. So let's just take, just take the moment we need to find out what is going to happen and not rush it.

Jason Taylor 29:03

Love it. I have two more questions for you, and then I'm going to let you get back to your busy day because you've been more than generous with your time today. First question I have is if Julie today could talk to Julie in the past when you're you're coming out of school and you're maybe in your first job or whatnot, and you had to give that Julie one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be?

Julie Willoughby 29:25

I think the biggest one would be to let go of your ego.

Jason Taylor 29:29

Let go of your ego. That's powerful. Yeah, that's powerful. Yeah. Don't uh it's not all about you. Give credit to the team and it's it's okay to, like you said several times, it's okay to be wrong and not know.

Julie Willoughby 29:39

Right. Yeah.

Jason Taylor 29:40

Love that. Last question. Like I've said several times throughout this conversation, you've been with multiple organizations and you've worked with outstanding people and teams along the way. If you're looking back at those teams that you've helped build and lead, what's one quality you hope people remember about you when you led them?

Julie Willoughby 29:59

No, that I believed in them and helped them achieve their next best thing.

Jason Taylor 30:03

Awesome. Julie, I love how you're you're you're to the point. You just say it like it is, you're incredibly transparent, incredibly authentic, and uh absolutely love your style of leadership and how you how you present yourself. So with that, I know you're a busy woman. I know you have a thousand things to do. I appreciate your time today. So does the so does the team and so does the uh the listeners. And uh I uh wish you nothing but the best and uh uh keep doing what you're doing.

Julie Willoughby 30:31

Thank you, Jason, so much. Thanks for getting all this out.

Jason Taylor 30:34

No problem, no problem.