HEART Forward: Connection and conviviality with Zoe Wilson

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"HEART Forward" brings Southern Glazer’s HEART Values — Honesty, Excellence, Agility, Respect, and Teamwork — to life through authentic stories from our people.

How do you form stronger connections at work? According to Zoe Wilson, conviviality — fostering an environment where people feel welcome — is the key.

Zoe, a Sales Consultant for the American-Liberty Division (Southern Glazer’s dedicated division for Pernod Ricard USA) in Michigan, began her career at Southern Glazer’s as a merchandiser in Indiana about four years ago. She recently launched the Conviviality Committee to deepen connections within her team of sales representatives. Zoe says, “Connection is the heart of this industry.”

For the third episode of “HEART Forward," Zoe and Colleen discuss how collaboration and community can cultivate a stronger connection between coworkers. Zoe reminds listeners that “your voice matters, your ideas matter, and your work matters.” Listen to the full episode to dive into our core value of teamwork and the opportunities it can provide.  

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"HEART Forward," hosted by Colleen Anderson, Vice President and Human Resources Business Partner, is a short-form series designed to bring Southern Glazer’s HEART Values to life through authentic employee stories. These values define how we serve our customers, collaborate with supplier partners, and support one another. Explore career opportunities at Southern Glazer’s today.

COLLEEN: Welcome to the Southern Glazer's HEART Forward Podcast, where our HEART Values come to life through the authentic stories of our people. Each episode features real experiences that show how honesty, excellence, agility, respect, and teamwork show up in everyday moments and why they matter now more than ever.

I'm your host, Colleen Anderson, and I have the honor of serving as an HR leader here at Southern Glazer's. Let's dive in and discover how leading with heart shapes a world class culture as the heartbeat of how we lead, how we connect, and how we grow.

Hello everyone. Today's guest is someone who embodies the spirit of connection, creativity and is a true heart champion. Joining us is Zoe Wilson, a dedicated sales representative in Michigan whose journey began as a merchandiser in Indiana and evolved through a passion for people and connections.

Zoe reminds, wherever you are, whatever team you're a part of, just remember you matter. Your contribution matters. And when we lead with heart, our collective strength is fueled by teamwork.

Welcome, Zoe. Thank you for joining us here at HEART Forward. 

ZOE: Hi Colleen, Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to it. 

COLLEEN: You know, Zoe, before we dive in, I'd love for you to share with our listeners a little bit about you and a little bit about what you do here at Southern Glazer's. 

ZOE: Yeah, absolutely. So I started in the sales representative role pretty much fresh out of college and I've been here for about about four years now. I work in off premise sales and I think like my favorite part of this job is definitely the people that I work with and the relationship with some of my customers. That's definitely one of my favorite parts of the job is going to an account and just feeling like you're seeing your friends. So I really enjoy that part of the job.

In my personal life, I'm a a proud dog and cat mother. They are just lights in my life and I also enjoy like being outdoors. So like camping, hiking, It's definitely how like I recharge. So I look, I look forward to all of those things. And yeah, that's a little bit about me. 

COLLEEN: Listeners may want to know. Tell us what's your What is the name of your dog and your cat? 

ZOE: So my dog she is, she's about to be 4. Her name is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she goes by Rue for short and then oh gosh, Scotty. Scotty is my cat and her her real name came from my college roommates, but her full name is Queen Moscato Rosé. So little fun there. 

COLLEEN: I'm so glad I asked. It's it's wonderful. 

ZOE: Yeah. 

COLLEEN: Well, Zoe, you know, just that little bit of hearing about how much you enjoy work and how you see work as connections with friendship. I can't wait to get into this. So the first question I want to ask you is just what is one value within HEART that has become especially meaningful to you over time and why? 

ZOE: Yeah, so a value that definitely holds a special place in my heart has got to be teamwork. Being involved in sports my entire life really embedded the importance of teamwork and the power that it can have when it's, like, cultivated properly.

A fun story to share. Before I interviewed for my current position, I made it a point to research some of Pernod Ricard's values, and the term conviviality stood out to me. Granted, I could not say it at the time. I even had to like a Google the pronunciation of it so I didn't sound silly, but it really stood out to me because connection is just so important in life. And that's that's in the workplace, that's in our personal lives.

And really connection is the heart of this industry. It's one of the reasons why this job has been so rewarding, be it the relationships we build with our suppliers, with our coworkers, with our customers, or even with our competitors.

So quick shout out to my Southern counterparts Bond, Norm, and Will really appreciate you guys. But yeah, connection is also the foundation of teamwork. So in my first MBA courses, they discussed the importance of team building and basically stated that you, you have to figure out how to take a group of individuals and form them into a like minded team.

And you do this by creating what's called the psychological safety, which is when people feel like they belong, they feel like they're safe to have a voice and share their opinions and like they're contributing to a shared goal. And then this in turn, like when you cultivate that psychological safety, it leads to connection.

And the benefits of connection in the workplace have been studied. And results show that it not only increases like individual morale, but it also increases productivity, it reduces turnover rates, and it can have positive effects on the overall business of a company. And really, like, at the end of the day, like that's what HEART Values are all about. Like that's the goal of having HEART Values, you know? 

COLLEEN: The proof is in the data that you just shared and speaking about teamwork and and connections being the foundation, you're really emphasizing that teamwork is not just a behavior, it's a mindset and. 

ZOE: Absolutely. 

COLLEEN: And the collective strength of connection is what creates this shared success that you're experiencing. And I just, I think that is so unique in that you not only everyday wanting to do a job and and do it exceptionally well, but you're also here to support and help others succeed as part of that mindset. So that is truly unique and and a true heart champion as it relates to teamwork, Zoe. 

ZOE: Thank you. 

COLLEEN: Can you share how teamwork has shown up in your day-to-day work recently and what impact it had in that example? 

ZOE: Yeah, absolutely. So it kind of goes back to conviviality, but the way that teamwork has shown up recently is the implementation of a project my coworkers and I have been working on called the Conviviality Committee.

So last spring, Steve, which is Michigan's general sale manager, he challenged the Michigan team to participate in what he called the spirit of creativity. So each team was tasked with coming up with an idea to bring out positive change in the state. And he left it kind of he well, he left it very open-ended. So it was kind of like come to the table with, with anything, like we'll accept anything. So, so that was really cool. So I had an idea of the Conviviality Committee.

And so I came to my manager, Lori, with the idea of creating a board of sales representatives that would operate kind of as a bridge to promote connection amongst the sales representatives across the state.

So Michigan has I think almost maybe 25 reps. So we're all spread out and there's a lot of us. So that connection is really important and really something that I wanted to focus on. And so the idea is like we focus so much on creating lasting relationships with our customers and that's awesome. We see the benefits from that. But my idea was like what if we also turn that focus inward to our own team?

And so the intention is to foster conviviality within the sales representatives group by focusing on connection, leadership, growth and providing a space to be heard and understood. So it was honestly kind of born out of a frustrating time as well.

So like we all know like business was slowing down a little bit and Michigan had gone through some recent route to market changes. And to be honest, our team morale was a was a little down. Like it doesn't matter even if change is good or positive, it can still still be hard to like handle and deal with, especially like when you're still out there, like trying to crush your goals and stuff.

So it was like our morale was a little down and like I wanted to, I guess I think I wanted to be able to find a way for sales representatives to support sales representatives in times that are challenging, you know, like this business is so fun when it's fun, but when it's hard, it's hard. So it's like, how can we support each other in those tough moments?

And something that Steve always mentions and meetings is that we have to learn how to control the controllables. And to me, I believe connection in morale can be can controlled or at least heavily influenced.

So together Lori and I worked on it for a while. We worked on the idea, kind of built the foundation and then we presented it to our team. So shout out Team W love you guys. And then that is when Chelsea and Sue ended up joining our group. And honestly, we had so much fun building this idea and then presenting it.

Like we, we treated it like like a Shark Tank event. Like we had music, like Chelsea made shirts, like we ran in there and we're like jumping around while we were presenting it. And we just, we just had so much fun with it. And we actually ended up winning that little, that little spirit of creativity.

So honestly, like without Chelsea and Sue and Lori, there is no way like I would have been able to do it alone. They really took my idea and together we were able to breathe life into it. Which leads me to the next point is like, I'm, I'm so excited to announce that we're now actively working with our designated board to help this vision come to life and like actually bring it to the sales reps of Michigan.

So I do want to say a quick thank you to them. Haval, Kyle, Chelsea, Sue and Paula, like, thank you so much for accepting the call to be on the board and really buying into this idea. It's it's really been so rewarding already. And I'm so excited to see like where we take this. So, so thank you because I really couldn't have done it without you.

COLLEEN: And give us a little sneak peek. What does that board, what do they want to accomplish? 

ZOE: Yeah. So this is a great question because Steve, Steve always says like, remember why you're doing this. And I'm like, yeah, no, for sure. But yeah. So what we want to accomplish is we want to bring connection back to the sales reps, you know, and, and sometimes it's hard to do. Like, I think an easy answer is like, oh, well, let's let's have a party, let's have a get together. And it's like, sometimes that's just not possible, especially like geographically.

So, so our goal is to have meetings amongst the sales representatives. So like the board will send out a Zoom link and if you guys want to come on the Zoom link, like come talk to us. What are the concerns that we're having? Like, what are we struggling with? Like how can we help each other instead of just like expecting management to take care of everything for us. It's like we have to, we have to help them as well and we have to help ourselves. And so it's really just forming a better community. Yeah.

And then I think some of our other goals is like in that connection, we want to also like work on some leadership building and some skills training, just public speaking maybe for example. Or like, I think at one point we talked about doing a book club and just like discussing all of that. So the, the the ideas for it are pretty endless. But I think at the end of the day, like it, it does go back to just cultivating better connection between everyone. 

COLLEEN: I'm envisioning literally a virtual open door forum. I mean, it's, it's so cool, Zoe, and kudos to you mentioned the leader there, Michigan, Steve Konopka, for really just having an open minded opportunity for you and others to say, what if when you were explaining this you that you literally said that what if recognizing the moment of change and how change is hard, but through connections, we can empower each other to work through that change together.

And so this Conviviality Committee is brilliant. Congratulations and thank you for sharing the vision and all that you'll accomplish with that.

So Zoe, as listeners are listening to this and they internally and externally they are wanting to make a difference in their current circumstances, situations, what would you suggest, any small habits or even a mindset that they can take on that would make a big difference?

ZOE: Yeah, of course. So I think I think of a piece of advice, or at least the mindset that I've recently really started to embrace goes back to the why in our rebranded family values. And it's also a crucial part of teamwork. And that is that you matter. Your voice matters, your ideas matter. The work you do every day matters.

And what makes teams and teamwork so powerful is that everyone involved bring something different to the table. Everyone brings different skills, they bring different perspectives, they bring different experiences. And at the end of the day, that diversity is, is such a strength.

And, and maybe, maybe you're the comedic relief that lightens the mood in, in a, in a touchy meeting. Or maybe you are the one that crushes the goals and can provide best practices on how you got there. Maybe you're super consistent and you always show up on time. You always show up for others. You always get your work done. Maybe you have the most experience and can mentor younger sales reps or younger employees or new employees. Maybe you're the one that asks questions that others won't but are still important.

Whatever it is you bring to the table, whatever skills you have, whoever you are like I want, I want you to embrace it. And I want you to remember that you are an integral part of your team. So. So share your ideas, believe in yourself, and remember that you matter. 

COLLEEN: I will just build upon that because that is a powerful call to action, which is really empowering everybody listening to think about what can I bring to my team today, thinking about how can I build a stronger connection or connections? How can I foster conviviality in honor of Zoe and, and all that I learned today, to build a mindset of teamwork?

So Zoe, what a powerful message. Thank you so much for sharing your time, your experience, and your accomplishments. Congratulations again, and we look forward to seeing all that you're going to do with Conviviality Committee. Thank you for being an exceptional heart champion. 

ZOE: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute blast. I appreciate it. 

COLLEEN: We hope these heartfelt stories spark a deeper understanding of who we are, what we stand for, and how we show up every day. These values aren't just words, they're the compass guiding our decisions, our relationships, and our impact.

When you lead with heart, you win with heart. And together we're building a stronger Southern Glazer's. We're igniting a movement where purpose drives performance and every action reflects the values that define our culture and our future. Forward, HEART Forward.

Follow along to learn more about our HEART Values and company culture at Southern Glazer’s.