There Are No Unskilled Workers — Only Unwilling Leaders

Most organizations claim they have a skills gap — but what if the real issue is leadership?

In this episode of Elements of Culture, we sit down with Sam Caucci, Founder & CEO of 1Huddle, to challenge the way companies think about training, onboarding, and performance. Sam breaks down why most corporate learning fails, how outdated academic models waste talent, and why the future of work depends on leaders who are willing to create challenge, competition, and continuous growth.

From frontline workers to the C-suite, this conversation explores what it truly means to build culture, unlock human potential, and lead in an era shaped by AI, automation, and rapid change.

Join us weekly as we dig into the real stories behind work culture transformation.

Not theory. Not fluff. Just honest conversations with leaders and innovators who've been in the trenches.

Transcript

Setting The Stakes For Work’s Future

Speaker 0:00

But we have never experienced what's about to happen over the next decade. McKinsey says 50% of the tasks that make up jobs will be totally different in the next decade. So companies need to be, they need to have the infrastructure to rapidly change and shift.

Speaker 2 0:17

At Elements of Culture, we sit down with experts in leadership and team building to explore the DNA that drives a thriving organization. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Elements of Culture. My name is Taryn, and I'm joined with my co-host Julie. And today we are so thrilled to have a very special guest with us today. His name is Sam Caiucci. He is the founder and CEO of One Huddle, based out of Newark, New Jersey. And this is a coaching development platform. So, Sam, tell us a little bit about One Huddle and welcome to the show.

Speaker 0:49

x to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so One Huddle, who doesn't like a game, right? So that's that's kind of the whole idea. You know, I spent my career in a bunch of different environments where we always had to, mostly in sales roles, where we're always training up new sales reps, always launching new products, new services, always trying to upskill existing sellers, even though they always thought they knew everything. So it was always an onboarding, reskilling, upskilling. We always brought in sales trainers. So from like name your flavor, Dale Carnegie to Tony Robbins to Gary Vee, and you know, all those, all those trainers are great, but they're kind of like a shower. Like you got to do it every day to reinforce it. And the idea for One Huddle was what if we took everything an employee needed to know and transformed it into something they're already good at and they already like to do, which is a game. So we work with hundreds of brands across the globe, uh, from bartenders at Tau Hospitality to sales reps at Madison Square Garden to fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force and in all of those environments, they use One Huddle every day to uh put themselves in a position to be successful using games.

Speaker 2 2:07

That's amazing. I think all of us have short attention spans. So the fact that we can learn in a game environment just sounds very fun. So, Sam, tell us a little bit about your background and you know, kind of leading up to One Huddle before you launched One Huddle. What does that look like? What's kind of brought you to where you're at today?

From Coaching To Performance Obsession

Speaker 2:25

Sure. So, you know, our office at One Huddle today is based in Newark, New Jersey. Um, and you know, but I'm originally from South Florida, which much different, uh much different climate, I guess to say. Uh, but I I I started my career actually as a teacher. I worked in public schools as a I was a football coach and I started my career, you know, in education. Uh I jumped from coaching football to working in the sports industry, where my first job was a hundred percent commissioned sales job selling speed and agility training to pro athletes. So kind of like a pretty niche sector. But there was a company that started up. They had a dozen strength and conditioning coaches, you know, kind of PhDs and everything from biomechanics to nutrition to speed and agility. And they needed a salesperson. And uh my first, so my first five, six years in a real professional role, I managed business development, sales and marketing, agent relations, and we trained pro-football, pro-baseball, pro-basketball, pro-tennis. Uh, so I, you know, that was where I kind of, I would say, really planted my feet uh it professionally. And I spent a lot of time around a lot of coaches who got paid a lot of money to make an athlete just a tenth of a second faster, or try to make a athlete jump just two or three inches higher. And performance was the point every day when we came to work. Um, you know, fast forward, you know, I had a few other stops along the way, all in the same speed, agility, performance sector, but always in business development. And, you know, when I started One Huddle, it was really me kind of looking backward at all the challenges we had in all the organizations I was with. And oftentimes it wasn't the challenge, it wasn't bad product, bad service. The challenge wasn't anything marketing related. The real challenge was how do we get all our people consistently performing at the level they're capable of? So that is what kind of vaulted me into the entrepreneurial journey of creating a technology company, which I knew nothing about. But creating One Huddle really grew out of that experience.

The Experience Gap And Learning Science

Speaker 1 4:47

Yeah, Sam, uh as a person with the LD background, this is just right up my alley because one of the things that we were talking about previously, Taryn and I, was about group instruction and individual instruction and how adult learners learn differently. And so when you throw, you know, 25 new hires into a classroom and you've got somebody spitting at them for eight hours while they do slides, um, there's some disconnect somewhere that makes people think that the way you learned in kindergarten is somehow is going to be the same way you can learn as an adult learner. And so the great thing about turning content into games is that it helps the person figure it out. They figure the patterns out, they figure out why it works and the learning. So I think for me that's super exciting because um to tell leadership that this is not working and there's a better way, I think it's like we've done it this way the whole time. Talk to me a little bit about your you have an education background, so talk to me a little bit about your innovation for that. And so you were talking about in your history of doing sales and business, you saw the gaps. Talk to me about those gaps. What were you seeing? What was happening? And when you were coming up with One Huddle and this concept, what were your what's your thought process there?

Speaker 6:01

Sure. I mean, I think this the gaps I was seeing professionally when it was, you know, other everything from hiring veteran sellers to hiring interns right out of college was I really saw an experience gap. And you know, you'd get a young person into an entry-level inside sales role. And because of technology, because of the environment that they've grown up in, it's not so much they don't know how to present or they don't know how to handle objections or they don't know how to ask great questions. It's that they just haven't had as much reps at prior generations at verbal and face-to-face communication. So the idea that we tried to employ was how do you accelerate that experience gap? How do you create more opportunities to fail, struggle, um, be challenged? Because we know that failure is the best teacher. We know that success is 99% failure. We know that, especially in sports, you learn through struggle intention. But then I looked at how we're doing it in the corporate world and in most organizations from a learning perspective, and we almost rob the learner of those types of failure opportunities. We make it too comfortable. We make the path too smooth. You know, so all of my research around what are the critical ingredients to sprinkle on the skilling process kept coming back to three things. One, if you want to create a high-performance skill environment, it has to be challenging. Failure, not optional. We got to introduce struggle constantly at every stage of the process. Second, it's got to be continuous. It's got to be every day, just like exercise. You can't do it once and be done with it. We got to do this thing 52 weeks a year. Um, by the way, in the US today, 93% of corporate training is one and done, onboarding only, compliance annually only, not continuous. So that's a big problem we have. Then finally, it's got to be competitive. We learn that when you use the power of competition, you can create real powerful metrics to look to, rating, ranking, leaderboards, in order to understand where improvement is happening. So again, coming back to one huddle in the game, like we're saying, what's something that's hard? You can do it every day, and is something that creates competition. And a game is the most, is a, it's like it's already done. It's fully baked. It's a powerful vehicle already to do it. Uh so that that was why at One Huddle we wrapped everything around a game. I think when we sell into organizations and we talk to organizations, I think like you're saying, Julie, there's there's almost this perspective that this is work. You know, it's not supposed to be play. What's a game? You know, nobody plays game. This is that we don't want that in our place. And that's something we chip away at in the market today. But there is still a very a lot of organizations employ this concept that learning has to be academic. It has to be, you know, you're sitting in a lecture hall. It's like ass and seat time is how they measure and you know, measure success. Uh, but all the learning science points to the opposite, points to failure, struggle, continuous, and you know, getting people to compete against each other being really powerful to create a behavior change.

Media Cred, Wasted Talent, And Worker Stories

Speaker 2 9:32

Wow, that's that's amazing. The the statistic of 93% of corporate companies is their onboarding, it's one and done. That's that's crazy to me. But at the same time, I mean, that's realistic. I mean, that's what we're seeing. And and it also shows me that there's such opportunity for what you guys offer at One Huddle. Now, for those that aren't familiar with One Huddle, you've been featured on CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business, I mean, Wall Street Journal. The list goes on and just goes to show that there's a real um, we we like to talk about market disruptors. I feel like One Huddle is a real market disruptor when it comes to um what you offer and you're disrupting the norm um of what how people have learned um and onboarded at companies. Now, not only that, Sam, you're also an author. You have a book that's being released, and um I'm excited to get my own personal copy. The book is called Wasted Talent. Uh, tell us a little bit about wasted talent and what's kind of brought you through this journey to um to pen this book.

Speaker 10:41

Yeah, I mean, I I grew up in an Italian-American family, and my I always had grandma yelling at me, the worst thing in life is wasting talent. And so that was uh something that always is always in the in the back of my head. Uh, and as you think about the concept of wasting talent, when when I would, when I started to really get into one huddle really cranking, and as we were growing, now we got the we get the opportunity to look at the way a lot of organizations do things because they have to pop the hood, and we can see what's onboarding look like, what's ongoing look like, what do they actually train on versus what they say they train on? There's a big gap in that today with companies. You know, they say there's a communication gap, but most companies don't have any communication training. So, you know, there's like there's a lot of there's a lot of challenges today. So, you know, when I started, when I started One Huddle and we started to grow it, obviously um we get to talk to a lot of most fun part of my job is talking to the workers on the front lines that play our game every day. Um, you know, like Dennis, who works at a major hotel brand in Orlando, who went from being a frontline worker in a in a you know dishwashing job to a frontline manager and leader because he was beating everybody else's ass on all the games. So like that's a huge, you know, those are stories we like. We like hearing about the housekeeper who went from pushing the cart down the hall to, you know, working behind the bar, you know, outside, you know, at you know, at a major resort because they took advantage of learning opportunities their company afforded them and they rose up. And I you know, I kept seeing this thing that, you know, the reality is I don't think there are any unskilled workers. I think we have unwilling leaders. And I think as a society, when we call humans unskilled, it's really unfortunate. You know, with wasted talent, it was, I always say I kind of had my cup was overflowing and I had to empty it. And the book was definitely a uh an exercise in doing that. And you know, the book explores where work came from, from Zeus to Gen Z. So like I go way back. So where did where did we get this whole thing called work? I then explore the 10 realities of work because we talk a lot today. You all talk to a lot of guests, you're in the middle of this too, right? This future of work moment. But I kind of want to pause and say, why don't we talk about the reality of work today? Why don't we talk about mass incarceration? Why don't we talk about poverty? Why don't we talk about wages? Why don't we talk about HR often being under-resourced? Let's talk about automation's impacts. Let's talk about real issues that face our people today. And, you know, like any good book, I give my point of view on how we tackle it and fix it. So a lot of great stories from a lot of workers that wake up every day and, you know, work their you know what off to make it in, you know, make it in their in their career and make it in this world of work today.

Speaker 1 13:43

Yeah, Sam, that's a great, I love what you said. There's no unskilled workers. And um as like in my background L and D, I try to tell people that. And I think the statistic of 97% of corporate America doing it academically, um, I think is it's actually hurting my heart a little bit because um even that and you know this education is your background. Even in academics, we are learning that the old method of teaching students and you know, young people is not effective as we thought it was. And the the education is having to transform as well. Talk to me a little bit about how how you have these conversations with your clients and getting them to chip away at this mindset of this academic uh type of learning and how this is more powerful. You can show them statistics statistics, but what do you think is the mindset that is hindering them from wanting to take on something new, especially for a generation like Gen Z, who grew up their whole life with technology?

Speaker 14:41

Yeah, I think that what's what's interestingly, and this is very relevant to the moment we're in right now, what's really getting brands to move today in our conversations is the fear of what's happening around AI automation and a knowledge gap around how to use the tools and how they're gonna affect everybody's job. You know, this isn't this isn't the this isn't like automation that was gonna just take a frontline worker's job. Now we're talking about AI that's touching, you know, all the way up to the C-suite. There are functions that AI are affecting. So I think that for us, how we're getting brands to look at adding more technology to their stack differently is you know, we're really pitching this concept, and you all know because you talk to a lot of great guests from across software. Sales and marketing tech. Remember like 20 years ago when all you needed was a CRM? Today, you can't survive with just a CRM. You need CRM, you need HubSpot, you need a marketing automation tool, you need top of funnel, bottom of funnel, middle of funnel, post funnel. You know, you get all these tools. Financial tech, you have a stack mindset. You have a bunch of different tools around the finance operation. For whatever reason, in learning and development, we think that all you need is an e-learning tool and one thing, and that's it. So what we talk to brands, we talk about how you need to skill people from multiple angles. And uh no longer is one modality, one tool, one medium enough to tackle what's coming down the pipe with AI, because we don't even know what functions are going to be affected and how each job is gonna shift in the next five to 10 years. So I'd say the best brands are hearing that and saying we need to pick a part of our learner journey, our employee journey, and see how we can employ more technology, not less. And for us, the actual best place we start isn't compliance, it's not onboarding, it's not even sales training. Check this out. Number one topic for us is usually a culture-related topic. So one of our brands that use the platform, their rock stars at it, are Lowe's Hotels. Lowe's Hotels, number one game on their platform is about their core values. We work with Audible, the audiobook company. Number one game on their platform is on their people principles. Uh, so the best games that companies have been launching with are the things that bring people together that are more community-based. Because if you get, if you care more about the person to your left and your right, you may give more or bring more of yourself to work every day.

Culture Games Beat Compliance First

Speaker 2 17:31

That's amazing. Uh, thank you for sharing that, just a bit of some of the success of the companies that are really driving that. It's interesting that it's more focused on the culture versus like a process that they need to have nailed down. Because that's, you know, Julie and I obviously the show is called Elements of Culture. We're very passionate about culture and communication. But that's oftentimes what is missing so much is that when you bring someone on board, they don't understand your vision. They don't understand the culture. They're trying to figure out where they fit in. So I think having that is so necessary. Um, you mentioned something a moment ago, Sam, about um, you know, companies that are kind of hesitant on with tech and things like that. There's certainly a level of fear that's associated with, I think, the companies that aren't necessarily stepping forward and and, you know, kind of implementing those new things. What would you say to leaders that are still kind of in this place where what's worked in the past has worked well for them? So there's there's fear to make changes, but there's also it's also necessary. So what would you say to people that are trying to navigate this place? They're kind of in between.

Innovation Mindset And Employee Experience

Speaker 18:40

Yeah, I mean, I think the best brands have a um an innovation mindset. And I think when they think about innovation, they think about there's always something in the lab that they're playing with. And, you know, um, I I get the opportunity at One Huddle to work with a lot of really cool, about a quarter of our clients are hospitality brands. We get to work with really cool Michelin-starred restaurants and um great culinary mines. And the thing I've learned when you talk to those folks is that the stuff on the menu has been fully baked, but they're always spending 10 to 15% of their time downstairs in the second kitchen that testing something in the lab, something new, stretching something different. And even though 99% of those things they test may fail, one or two things spill out that can really transform the menu moving forward. You know, I think that's that's a real important mindset for executives today, because we could bring it back to the same topic around AI and automation. The speed at which things are changing are we've never experienced. We've always experienced innovation, we've always experienced new technologies, we've always experienced shifts in the labor market. But we have never experienced what's about to happen over the next decade. McKinsey says 50% of the tasks that make up jobs will be totally different in the next decade. So companies need to be, they need to have the infrastructure to rapidly change and shift. And it's unfortunate, but brands are usually really set up well to make those changes on customer or guest experience areas, but are rarely thinking as much about the employee experience as they are the customer experience. And I would argue, I'm sure you would both agree on this on the culture point, it's almost like it's a law of gravity. The customer experience cannot surpass the employee experience. The ceiling is the employee experience, especially in today's workforce, where brands like Amazon, it's found that in at least a dozen markets, Amazon has run out of workers that they can hire because they've hired and fired the overwhelming majority of those workers over the last seven years. That is going to be a major problem for those brands in the years ahead. So I think the innovation mindset, always investing on the margins, a little bit of time to test and try and reach are really important.

Speaker 1 21:20

Sam, quick question. So we talk about um unskilled, you know, unskilled workers and just how your platform changes that. Talk to me about what are some new skill sets that we need to be training our workforce for? Because um, I probably need it. You know, like I you never want to be out of the loop. Like you don't want to be out of the loop of a skill set that probably wasn't prevalent 10 years ago, but is very prevalent now moving forward. One huddle, do you guys have those discussions? Is that on the forefront of your mind? And how does that change the way you're developing for your clients?

Speaker 21:54

Yeah, I think that you know some of this stuff is would be would be, I don't actually don't think it's well, I think is it important that everybody understands how AI works and what's Gemini versus Claude versus Anthropic versus ChatGPT? Yeah. Is it important that they have the technical know-how to use those tools? Sure. Is it important that they've uh gone through a communication and networking training? Absolutely. I actually, though, think that the organizations that are have the highest engagement with the best NPS scores, with the best performance numbers, they're spending a heck of a lot more time on the things that AI can't touch. And this is an area that sometimes we all don't talk about. But you know, AI can be, you know, can be 99.99999999% human-like. But guess what? It can never get to 100%. It just can't. So the one thing that brands can do when they're skilling workers is leaning into their humanity and leaning into things that make the human experience special and unique. I put myself in the shoes of a frontline worker. Maybe they work in healthcare, and maybe they are in a pink-collar job working on a patient that's in, that's in a hospital, and they walk in and they're trying to engage a patient. And the patient has a New York Jets hat. I don't know why they would have that, but they have a New York Jet Jets hat up on, you know, up in their room. The nurse being able to make a human connection in that moment, even though they're not a football fan, even though they don't know anything about the Jets, is something that I don't care what technology we throw at, um, the employee experience will not be able to replace. You know, so I do believe that maybe the skill of the future is the things that make us more human. And I I really my hope for the future of work around talent, HR, L and D groups is we don't lose sight of the things that make us truly unique uh by spending so much time thinking about food safety training.

Skills For An AI Era: Double Down On Human

Speaker 2 24:11

That's so good. Um, there's there's so many thoughts I have about uh different areas you've commented on, but so good. One analogy that you brought up earlier about the innovation um in the kitchen, I think is so good because we can all relate to being in the kitchen. I think if our own kitchen, or if you have past, you know, restaurant experience by chance, or or being a guest going in and knowing that you know the chef's got something off the menu for you, having that mindset of innovation, um, but also keeping that balanced with having that human element and that authenticity. Because just as we're here having this conversation today, we can be very authentic and ourselves and having that conversation. Whereas, you know, as one uh conversation we had recently said that, you know, these conversations are going to be done by the avatar, which, you know, that that may possibly be coming sooner than we think as well. But I think at the same time, there is such a level of humanness that we all have and our unique character that we bring to the table. I want to shift gears uh just a little bit, Sam, and and ask you, you know, that this could be things that you're seeing at One Huddle, this could be things that you're seeing in the industry, or maybe even you've touched on it in your book that's coming on as well. But what are some of the current challenges that you see, you know, of course, onboarding uh companies that just aren't doing that well, but what are some of the current challenges that you're seeing that maybe are not on the on the minds of leaders that should be?

Workers As Consumers And People Divisions

Speaker 25:38

Yeah, it's a great question. No, I I think that the the opportunity today, if we're talking about how do we reskill, reposition uh the labor we have. Again, in the US, just pick on the U.S. for a second. 350 million Americans, 165 million employed at work. Do you know 100 million of those are uh workers who don't have a college degree? Two and three American workers are without a four-year credential. So organizations today, the way that the American workforce is looking is it's it's more likely that you have someone without a college degree who's working two to three different jobs. That's a $400 parking ticket away from poverty. Brookings Institute says one and two American jobs are bad jobs, which again, you're living on an edge, you're working multiple places. So I think that one of the things that brands should be thinking about more is how they care about the worker before they clock in and after they clock out. And within the within the confines of the space a worker is within your organization, they're on-prem and they're clocked in. I think organizations, they largely do a lot of things. We can make, we could talk all day long about are they doing the right things when it comes to their people? Are they really skilling them up and so on? But organizations, I I found every organization has a point of view on what workers should be doing when they're on the clock. But not a lot of them spend a lot of time thinking about how how do we help our workers with financial literacy? And what, you know, again, how do we help our workers with things like parenting? How do we help our workers with things like mental health, uh physical fitness, health, wellness? These are, you know, in many ways can be positioned as employee benefits that organizations today, um, I think I think this is where there are organizations making good movements here, and they're setting up people divisions. The people division is a little separate than HR. I'm always very skeptical when the people division lives under HR, because the HR function historically has been one of risk mitigation, not employee development. Nothing against human resources, but that function was never built with the intention of let's accelerate the career pathway of our people. There's a great book called Long Life Learning. Uh, and uh the author, who's a Harvard grad, talks heavily about how it was there was a time when the average American only worked two to three jobs in a lifetime. You know, my parents and so on, some folks we all know. The Gen Alpha, which we're at the top of the alphabet now, my daughter's eight, so she's Gen Alpha, they say she's gonna work 44 different jobs in a lifetime. And since employees become consumers, you know, if you get fired from Chipotle, do you think you're gonna eat a Chipotle again? You think you're gonna tell everybody, oh, you should eat a Chipotle? So I think that what brand should be thinking about this is the fact that employees are consumers. Nobody quits in person anymore. They're quitting on different, you know, they're quitting on digital channels, they're communicating on digital channels. So it's an opportunity to when people come to work to um take more responsibility of building up the character and education and career development of the people that work with you. Because the trade of my time for your wage, uh, I don't know, it the wage isn't that high anymore. So brands need to be either, you know, ponying up more there or they need to be finding ways to make the employee experience more well-rounded and build great people, not just great workers.

Speaker 1 29:29

Yeah, Sam, I 100% agree with you. Um, I think the employees are the new consumer and the number one consumer. I don't even think you can meet the client's needs until you meet your employees' needs. And it's interesting you're saying that we had a discussion with somebody and they were saying that their daughter, I think is 16, 17, or maybe I was straight out of college, I can't remember the details, but she was she got an interview with a company and she pretty much checked them out on Glassdoor, read the reviews, and was like, yeah, this is not the company for me. And so it's like, you know, you have a generation that has choices and they want to be a part of something that's healthy and good, and they don't want to bring a toxic work environment into their life. They don't want to bring additional stresses into their life. And so I think companies really need, especially I think the larger corporate American companies. I think I've seen really good healthy startups um try to cultivate healthy culture, and you can see it in our the leaders that are doing that. But I think the corporate, the big major companies, they they have a lot to learn. The turnover rate is still exceptionally high for them. Um even with some little bit of knowledge I have in like the healthcare field, some of the rates of heart attacks, disease, diabetes, those things are increasing because stress is increasing. They're sitting more, they're not moving, the wellness side of things. And so I think I think you nailed it on the head. They're the new consumer. And if employees, I think employers don't think about that, they're gonna have bigger issues than just AI. I think they're gonna have major issues. Like their reputation matters now. And what they stand for and what they represent really matter. Uh Sam, talk to me a little bit about what's what's the future like for One Huddle? What are you guys on the forefront of um doing and thinking? Are you all planning to go international? And um, because I I feel like there's something, um, I think skill, I've I've I've I've been in I've been at school overseas and I know learning is different uh abroad. Um any plans to go internationally and what does that kind of look like or what is one huddle planning for the next five or ten years?

One Huddle’s Mission And Global Footprint

Go For It: Leadership And Risk

Speaker 31:28

Sure. Yeah, it's a great, great question. What do I want to be when I grow up? You know, we're we're at One Huddle where we employ a really uh it's kind of like a football team, back to my origins. We try to stay focused on the next game, you know, the next year, where we're at. You know, I I I would say this though. You know, today when we first started One Huddle, we noticed that the organizations that would buy One Huddle would give it to a very specific portion of the workforce. And it was generally that other one-third that have a four-year degree, that group of workers who get all of the learning opportunities. So we'd work with the sales team and we work with the executive team and the leadership teams and the frontline leaders. And uh one of our early investors was a gentleman named Don Katz. He's the CEO of Audible. Uh, that's what brought One Huddle from we were in New York, then we were in Silicon Valley, and then we landed in Newark because he encouraged us uh and kind of said, if you want the investment, you need to, you need to get here. Uh so we did that. And like any startup, you know, you're you're like free rent? Yeah, I'm there tomorrow. So that's what we did, and we came here. And I tell this story because over the next year, two years, our team came here. And our team at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, some moved within blocks of the office. They started interacting in the community, eating in the community, talking to people in the community. And Newark is a top 50 U.S. city, but it has had a challenge history and it's fighting back. There's definitely a and post-COVID and a lot of stuff going on. And the interaction in Newark for me, just walking Broad Street, changed my vantage point on the product we were building pretty dramatically. And this is maybe a point to all the folks out there that and whether you're an entrepreneur, you're thinking to be an entrepreneur, you have a problem you're trying to solve, the best thing to do is roll your sleeves up and just you got to get in it. You can't see it from you know, behind a desk. And uh we realize that frontline workers just don't get the same learning opportunities. And that's where a lot of talent goes wasted because there are skills within the four walls of a brand who, if you don't see them, you can never unlock them, even though you're paying for the talent. So we we shifted One Huddle to be even though we work with still workers at all corners, our focus was very straightforward. We want to create a world where everybody can compete. And when you do that, you find talent you didn't know you had. So, you know, we're very a lot of our brands are here in the in North America. We do have clients uh in Europe, Asia, the Middle East as well today. But to your question on where we're going, uh, you know, I think that a future of work where the informal skills a worker has can be valued as much as the formal ones is a world we're fighting for. When that housekeeper on the front line, and this is a real story, is the number one player for the entire brand on spirit knowledge, that tells you that worker, it's not just a skill they have acquired, it's an interest they have. So the march for us is you know, how do we make sure that, you know, let's rid the world of this unskilled worker thing and put uh using technology, create a world where workers' skills can shine, they can access the right stuff. And like, and this is not a nonprofit, you know, moral argument we're making only. It's uh businesses are stronger, they sell more, they reduce costs, they grow faster when their entire team plays to their each one of their strengths individually. So that's the world we're going to. There's a lot of tech in there. We're using AI in many ways, not to replace work, but surface the right games to the right people at the right moment so that HR doesn't have to. So that's a lot of the heavy, you know, if I were to get in a technical level, a lot of what we're trying to do is if we can surface information to people quicker, they can get up to speed faster. And then organizations and workers can um be more successful.

Speaker 2 35:57

So it, I mean, really what it boils down to is not overlooking the human element down to the, you know, the local people in your markets. And and for those, like you said, CEOs or those that are looking in entrepreneurship to start something, get roll up your sleeves, get your feet on the ground, and assess the situation. Like you said, I think that that's so important, whether it's locally or if you're looking at scaling globally, get to those markets, get to the people, understand the people, the culture, all of those things I think make such a difference in your strategy and your launch. Sam, you obviously have just a tremendous background and perspective on life, on people and on business. I think uh I think that that's amazing. Um, what would you say if you could, you know, leave one bit of advice for those that are listening, whether they're new leaders, they're venturing into entrepreneurship, or they're trying to make some changes in their own personal career path. Has there been something that stood out to you along your journey or that you learned early on? Maybe it was in your sport, in your sports. Um maybe it's been a coach or just someone who's kind of given you um that great life coaching along the journey. What would you kind of encourage people along their path?

Speaker 37:09

Yeah, and and I'm gonna steal a story here. Um, the the first conference I ever got to speak at was in Tunica, Mississippi. Uh have you been to Tunica, Mississippi? It's out there. I've heard of it. You know, cool spot. It was on a riverboat, I think.

Speaker 2 37:23

Nice.

Speaker 37:24

Maybe a little much too much uh whiskey down there. But yeah, we were on a riverboat, and you know, it was a Nike coaching conference, and I got invited to speak in front of a room of about 300 high school and college coaches. And I remember you know, flying down and uh it was my session was on the end of the first night. We were the we were the final session before the keynote, which is good because everybody kind of comes to get a seat. So it looks like everybody's there to see you, but they're really there to see who's after you. Makes you feel better though, right? It's great. Love this perfect placement. You know, you don't want to be Saturday morning first thing. You want to be like Friday evening.

Speaker 1 38:02

That's true. That's true.

Speaker 38:04

So, and the and for football fans out there, there was a famous coach. His name was Bobby Bowden. He was won national championships at Florida State. He was the he was a very, very successful, prominent coach. And I'm about halfway through the talk, and all of a sudden everybody is, I could see the movement in the room, everybody's sorts of starting to look someplace else. It was like the C's parted. Bobby Bowden comes marching down the middle aisle and moves up to the front row. A bunch of coaches just moved, and he sat down arm's length for me, crossed his legs, took out a notebook, grabbed the pen, and just started marching and listening. And, you know, had a half hour left in the talk. The talk ended, and he did his keynote thing. Later that evening, I elbowed up to the bar and I'm ordering, ordering a drink, and I look to my left and I see a big hand hit the table and it has a national championship ring, which you can't miss. And there's Coach Bowden. And he goes, Hey, son, you did a great job up there. I go, thanks, coach. I go, you know, any any any advice for me? I said, you know, this is my first talk. Like, what do you, you know, how'd I do? What'd you think? And he kind of scoffed at me and he goes, son, just go for it. And the go for it for me has been something I always share with new interns that come into our program, new employees, folks we talk to. And I think that we have enough people playing it safe today. We need more people throwing the ball down the field, taking shots at things, going for it. And that go for it mindset, especially as a technology company, and you all know you talk to a lot of folks that there's been I could there's a bunch of points along the way that this whole thing could have gone off the rails. And but we took shots. And as we take shots and we get lucky, which is what happens, you There's luck, there's opportunity, you're definitely prepared, but you get lucky, you then have a responsibility to make sure that you are spreading the love back to the folks in your community. So I think my point is on one hand, go for it. And on the other hand, as you have success, like remember that it's privileged. You are, you know, to have success, to be in that position. And, you know, I like I said, the most fun I have in my job every day is when I can elbow up and talk to a worker that's on the front line, not about what they think about one huddle, but you know, how are things going and having more of a human impact and a human conversation.

Speaker 1 40:43

Yeah, I I like your go for it because throw the Hail Mary, take the risk. Um, I think uh we talked about this earlier where the overthinkers will never take that risk because you overthink yourself out of every possible way it could fail. And so we're like, no, it won't work. And so you said it a lot of it's luck. You know, like and I think also the people that if I think the people that don't know what they don't know actually do well because they don't know that they don't know anything, and so they're willing to take the risk. And so uh if you're a person that overthinks, find some people that don't overthink and think they're great at something because they'll give you that push, I feel like, to take those risks. And you'll be the one that's like, this is all doing, it's this is all wrong. This is being done all wrong. But I think it's a good way. I think pushing healthy risk within um even your workforce, your sales teams, all those things is good for innovation as well. I think if people are not taking risks, they're not innovating.

Closing And Book Shoutout

Speaker 41:43

I love it. You're on the point. I mean, uh, when we do sales training, we talk about a concept called being oblivious to no. The best salespeople are almost, they're unaware that no is even a word. You know, it's like that's a why wouldn't you do this? This is this makes sense. And um, another thing you make me think of is, you know, after this, I'm going to my daughter's soccer practice and you know, watch a bunch of eight-year-old girls play soccer, they think they can do anything. And it's always parents, it's the parents on the sidelines saying, Don't do this, don't do that. They, they no fear.

Speaker 2 42:15

That's so true. Yeah, we we often we instill this fear sometimes at such a young age. Um, and maybe if we didn't as parents, they would go out there and go do it, you know. Um, I I mean, I think that there's certainly safety with certain certain things. I've got two daughters. So now I would you're gonna have me rethinking some of my communication with my kids. Um, Sam, thank you so much for joining this conversation. It's been so amazing just getting to meet you, understand uh your approach to business, your own personal journey, and super excited to see your book. So, everybody who's listening, go grab us a book, Wasted Talent by uh Sam Caiucci. And it's gonna be great. I I have no doubts. Thank you for contributing to the conversation about culture and being empathetic, being a leader who sees the person down at the person's level.

Speaker 43:08

Thank you both. And I I love the conversations you all are having. I think it's really important and wish you all a ton more success along the way.

unknown 43:14

Thank you.

Speaker 1 43:14

Yeah, thank you, Sam, appreciate it.