Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Jotkowitz.
Hi Joe, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a communication guy. I was originally intrigued with communication back in high school. I was a little reserved and hesitant around girls, so I thought if I took a public speaking class, it would help build my confidence and teach me how to approach girls with some gift of gab. In addition, at my high school, if you took speech communication, you didn’t have to take English and looking at the length of novels such as The Grapes of Wrath or Wuthering Heights, communication seemed like a more desirable choice. However, as I quickly learned, speech communication does not teach you about pick-up lines or how to get dates.
I did however find communication and communicate studies absolutely fascinating. I started noticing in my studies in college that there were a number of situations where really smart people worked together but didn’t accomplish their goals. Most of the time it was an issue of communication.
Over the past 25+ years or so I have been working with individuals on leadership development and management skill from the standpoint of focusing on communication and behavior. I started our firm, The Executive Advisory, almost 20 years ago and traditionally we have been asked to design, develop, and facilitate various training and development programs. In addition, we worked with leaders one-on-one in an executive coaching capacity. While we work globally, we call home Los Angeles.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A few years ago, we encountered severe challenges when COVID hit as did most businesses. Most of the requests we received were to conduct training, development, coaching, etc. in person. We would physically travel to clients or once in a while, they would travel to us. We only had a handful of engagements and projects that were remote. However, everything had to become remote overnight.
In our world, video conferences became the medium of choice as it did in most industries. However, we quickly started to observe that engagement, interaction, and resonance was decreasing as we began using many of the platforms that were in the market (e.g., Zoom, Teams, WebEx, etc.). Basically, the training and coaching industry turned into a talking head in a video box sharing a presentation. Therefore, we realized we had to reinvent ourselves so clients wanted to attend training/coaching, participated in conversations and exercises, and walked away with new tools and techniques to manage and lead people. In order to do this, we built a streaming training studio.
We now broadcast training and development programs all over the world and do so in a highly engaging and interactive manner. The analogy I use when discussing how we pivoted is to liken it to the evening news or ESPN SportsCenter where instead of the content being the news of the day or the latest trade in sports, we stream content and engage participants on being a more effective leader or improving their managerial skills or operating as a more collaborative team member. As a result, we have been able to conduct more programs, facilitate more training, lead more coaching, and do so from our own office here in Los Angeles.
We’ve been impressed with The Executive Advisory, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We build healthier companies, stronger teams, and effective leaders.
Our team is passionate about helping organizations create productive and positive work environments. We pride ourselves in combining the diverse background of our team to provide the client with creative, tailored and unique solutions for today’s complex performance challenges. We work across a multitude of industries, functions and levels. We tailor our approach to include virtual and in-person options, depending on the current needs and state of business.
Bottom line, we help people be their best and companies thrive.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
We love the diversity within the city from not only a people perspective but also from a business and industry standpoint. Of course, the traffic can make it a bit taxing to get from client to client, but now that remote work is more and more acceptable, we don’t always have to show up in person.
Contact Info:
- Website: TheExecutiveAdvisory.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064706624286&ref=br_tf
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-executive-advisory-llc/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TEAdvisory
