Natalie Ghidotti is the CEO and principal of Ghidotti Communications of Little Rock.
Ghidotti, a graduate of Texas Christian University, founded Ghidotti Communications, a public relations consulting firm, in 2007. The firm serves clients in all industries, including retail, fast food, health care, technology and marketing startups, nonprofits and professional services. She is a past president of the Arkansas Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and will serve on the executive committee of the national PRSA Counselors Academy next year. She is the only Arkansas member of PRConsultants Group, a network of 50 senior-level PR practitioners representing the top markets in the country.
This is a crisis communications question: If you had been asked to advise John Stumpf, former CEO of Wells Fargo & Co., about how to handle the scandal surrounding the bank’s opening of unauthorized accounts, what would you have told him?
The moment the fraudulent actions and questionable sales culture were discovered, I would have advised Stumpf to publicly admit what happened, take full responsibility, apologize and unveil a plan to remedy the situation and ensure nothing like it would happen again. I would also insist that the apology and the initial statements come from Stumpf and not other leaders. The CEO should immediately tell the public that fraudulent behavior is unacceptable and employees found to be involved are punished appropriately. Unfortunately for Wells Fargo, it was too little, too late.
You’ve been an employee and now you’re a boss. What have you learned about being a boss that you wish you’d known as an employee?
At my first job as a reporter at the Fort Worth Business Press, a business consultant had us sit in a circle, listen to the person beside us and repeat back to her, “What I’m hearing you say is … .” I thought it was the hokiest thing ever until I became a boss and understood the power of listening. Listening to your employees makes a difference in how they feel about your mission. Listening is twice as hard as talking — particularly for marketing people — so I am in constant improvement when it comes to mastering the art of listening.
This issue of Arkansas Business focuses on the skills gap between what employers need and what they’re finding in new employees. What skills deficits are you seeing?
Many of my colleagues say their millennial employees are the obvious children of the helicopter parent craze. We see a lack of resourcefulness, which often has millennials looking to others to help them with answers before they ever try to figure things out on their own. In a fast-paced work environment that requires some serious thinking on your feet, that can be a major weak link in the team. Thankfully, the team we have now — all millennials except two of us — are resourceful and quick learners.
What was your biggest career mistake and what did you learn from it?
It may not have been the biggest mistake ever, but neglecting to correct a misspelling in a client ad during my first job as a PR practitioner definitely left a major impression on me. Thankfully, the ad never made it to the client or the publication, but it did make it to the desk of my boss, Steve Holcomb, who proceeded to tell me all the ways simple mistakes like a misspelling in an ad can get an agency fired. I pledged from that point on to always take the time with the details. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had my share of mistakes since then, but that one moment gave me a completely different view of my job, the agency-client relationship and how to keep both! So thanks to Steve for taking me under his wing and helping me understand the importance of the details.