Listen On…
In this episode of Team Anywhere, Mitch Simon interviews Ollie Lingwood-Craddock, the CEO of Rungway, a platform that promotes effective communication and authentic dialogue in organizations. They discuss the importance of human-centric leadership and how Rungway’s employee listening platform helps leaders connect with their workforce and understand what is really happening in their organization.
Lingwood-Craddock emphasizes the need for leaders to step outside their normal network to gain a broader perspective and address emerging issues. The conversation explores the value of anonymity in enabling employees to share their experiences and ideas, ultimately creating a more inclusive and engaged workforce.
The Importance of Effective Communication and Authentic Dialogue with Employees
Ollie Lingwood-Craddock discusses the need for open and honest communication in the workplace. He explains that traditional methods of employee feedback, like suggestion boxes, often fall short in capturing the true thoughts and experiences of employees. Rungway, the employee listening platform he leads, allows individuals to express their ideas and concerns in their own words, providing leaders with a more accurate understanding of what’s happening in their organization.
Unlocking Hidden Insights from People Data
With Rungway’s technology, Ollie explains how they gather and analyze the text from employee discussions to identify emerging issues within a company. By identifying these sparks before they become major problems, leaders can take proactive steps to address them. Ollie emphasizes the importance of understanding the “why” behind these issues, as it provides deeper insights into their impact and helps leaders determine the appropriate actions to take.
Building a More Inclusive and Engaged Workforce
Ollie showcases the inclusivity of Rungway, where individuals can choose to provide feedback anonymously if they feel more comfortable doing so. He acknowledges that not everyone feels confident raising their hand in group situations, and by providing an avenue for anonymous feedback, Rungway allows for a more accurate representation of employee experiences. Ollie stresses the need for leaders to step outside their normal networks and proactively seek feedback from the wider workforce to truly understand the realities of their organization.
Who is Ollie Lingwood-Craddock?
Ollie Lingwood-Craddock is a passionate leader with a focus on growth through people. With extensive experience in scaling SaaS business models, B2B revenue growth, talent/learning/edtech sector knowledge, content development, and subscription business growth, Ollie is a sought-after speaker and thought leader in the industry.
As the CEO of Rungway, Ollie is at the forefront of employee listening platforms that guide constructive conversations, enable stronger connections with leadership, and accelerate employee-based decision making. With over 100,000 employees worldwide using the platform, Rungway is changing the way organizations manage change by providing a continuous feedback loop that fosters a psychologically safe environment for employees to speak up and contribute to creating a more open and inclusive culture.
- Website: https://www.rungway.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craddocko/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rungwayteam8624
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Authentic Dialogue Quotes
Rungway is a means where individuals in a company can ask questions, raise ideas, and raise issues in their own words, in their own time, with free text and build up a picture for the leaders of that company in terms of what’s really going on in their organization. 
We can give [clients] a real sense of why [change initiatives are not going well]. So we help them focus on what they need to focus on, who is impacted by it, why are they impacted in their own words, which is the why is really critical. 
Julie created a community, initially an open community, which is what to level the rungs, hence the name Runway. And from there, we’ve evolved into an organization which helps leaders of companies at scale connect with their employees, understand what’s happening, and enter dialogue efficiently with them to move forward and take people with them on that journey. 
We help [organizations] pick out the 2 or 3 things that are those emerging issues, those sparks before they become a bomb, in terms of maybe the kind of change initiative you’re trying to lead, which you have a sense isn’t going well. 
The workplace reflects wider society, and not everybody in the workplace feels comfortable to metaphorically raise their hand, in a group situation. 
If you rely on that open door mentality, you hear from the same people, which means you hear from a subset of your organization. You need to step outside your normal network to know what’s going on across your entire company and to understand the reality of that.
