--- title: The Conversation Advantage With Ryan Payne description: Ryan Payne on why culture lives in everyday conversations, not mission statements, and why silence never means alignment. Activating Greatness recap. image: https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-5-Ryan-1.png --- [![Velocity Advisory Group](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Velocity-Logo-2023-Wide-1.png)](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/) ☰ Menu - About - [Meet Our Team](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/about/) - [Meet Our Coaches](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/coaches/) - [Careers](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/careers/) - [Speaking Engagements](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/velocity-speakers/) - Solutions - [Culture & Engagement](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/culture-engagement/) - [DISC Assessments & Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/) - [Employee Experience](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/employee-experience/) - [Executive Coaching](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/executive-coaching/) - [Family Business](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/family-business/) - [Leadership Development](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-development/) - [Sales Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/5cs-of-selling/) - [Strategy & Implementation](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/strategy-implementation/) - Resources - [Activating Greatness Podcast](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/podcast/) - [Blog](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/blog/) - [Case Studies](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/case-studies/) - [News and Announcements](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/news-and-events/) - [OrderDisc](https://orderdisc.com/) - [Upcoming Events](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/upcoming-events/) - Industries - [Construction](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/construction/) - [Financial Services](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/financial-services/) - [Life Sciences](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/lifesciences/) - [Contact](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/contact/) Activating Greatness Podcast Episodes January 26, 2026 | Episode 5 # Culture Lives in Everyday Conversations, Not Mission Statements — with Ryan Payne ## Silence Is Not Agreement: Ryan Payne on Why Culture Lives in Everyday Conversations **In this post:** *Ryan Payne, who leads leadership and development at Velocity Advisory Group, argues that culture is built in hallway check-ins and phone calls, not mission statements. He explains why silence never means alignment and how leaders can make small conversations intentional.* The meeting ends the way most meetings end. The leader asks if anyone has questions. The room goes quiet. Everyone files out, and the leader files the silence under agreement. Ryan Payne thinks that leader is wrong. "I guarantee you when you were saying, 'All right, anybody else have any questions?' and you get silence, there is a lot of questions," Payne said on *Activating Greatness*, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group. People stay quiet, he said, because they do not know, because they are afraid, because they lack clarity, or because they do not feel safe having that conversation with you. The quiet is information. Most leaders miss it because they are looking for culture in the wrong place. ## Culture Lives in Everyday Conversations Payne leads the leadership and development practice at Velocity. Before that, he spent about 13 years at GEICO, the last six leading a team of about 250 people that included property damage adjusters and a training team, across offices from Baltimore to California. He said he was always brought in to change a culture. What he learned runs against the way many organizations try to do it. Companies put the mission, the vision, and the essential behaviors on the hallway walls. "Culture doesn't live in your mission. It doesn't live in your vision," Payne said. "To me, it lives in your everyday conversations we have with people." Leaders tend to believe culture shifts in big moments: the all-staff meeting, the strategy rollout, the annual off-site with paintball or fishing. Payne said it is shaped by small ones instead. The hallway check-in. How a leader handles tension. How the team responds when someone makes a mistake. Each of those moments answers a question employees are always asking. "Does that leader value learning or perfection? Do they listen or do they rush? Do they follow through, or they just talk about it?" he said. ## People Remember the Tuesday Night The slide deck will not stick, Payne said, and neither will the business plan. What people carry is "how you made them feel on that Tuesday night after that rough day, their tough phone call, or the hard conversation." Employees read a leader's tone, consistency, and emotional presence constantly. "That 60-second interaction will either build trust or erode it," he said. He describes culture as "a series of micro leadership moments," and he believes many leaders either overlook those moments or decide they do not have time for them. That is also why he named emotional awareness, part of emotional intelligence, as the most underrated leadership skill. In his view, it is what separates a leader from a manager. ## Put It on Your Calendar, Not Theirs Remote and hybrid work removed the hallway, and host Alec McChesney pressed Payne on how leaders build touch points without one. Payne's answer was intentionality, and it starts with the calendar. Leaders fill their schedules with the meetings they consider most important. He schedules people too. Each week he lists five people he wants to connect with. The entry goes on his calendar, not theirs. When he sees an open spot on someone's day, he calls without warning. Some people pushed back at first. Over time they came around, because the call was not about a problem. That matters more than it sounds. Payne said many employees now assume a call from the boss means trouble. "I don't want that to be the case anymore," he said. The point of the call is to ask how someone is doing, then pause, listen, and understand. McChesney shared his own version: a weekly message to a teammate that simply says, "Tell me something good." Payne named his own daily habit in the same spirit: check in with people, and not only about work. "We're not leading tasks, we're leading humans," he said. Brooke Page-Thompson has made a similar case for [authentic, people-first culture](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-2-the-culture-shift-brooke-page-thompson). FREE ONE-PAGE CHECKLIST ### The Everyday Conversation Checklist Use it to schedule weekly check-ins, read what your team is not saying, and turn routine exchanges into trust. [Get the free checklist](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/everyday-conversation-checklist) ## People Are Not as Complicated as You Think Payne offered a claim he expected to surprise people. One of the biggest misconceptions in leadership, he said, is that people are complicated. "They're actually not," he said. Most leaders simply do not slow down long enough to see who their people are: what drives them, what stresses them out, and which strengths they naturally lean into. "If you understand this, everything changes," he said. Trust builds faster. Engagement rises. And the job gets easier, because the leader stops leading every person the same way. The payoff shows up in results. At GEICO, one of Payne's most important metrics measured service quality. Speed, scripts, and process all mattered, he said, but none mattered as much as whether employees felt their leader cared about them. When they did, service improved. "Success is driven by how they feel towards their leader," he said. ## It Takes One Disruptor Executives want profit tomorrow, and a plan built conversation by conversation can sound too slow. Payne faced that resistance directly. Running one region, he proposed pulling every member of his scattered staff out of the field on the same day, six times a year, for team-building and training. Leadership asked whether he meant to reduce productivity for his entire staff. He did, and he pointed to the results from every place he had led before. He invited senior executives to the first session. Soon after, they were asking when the next one would be. Sometimes, he said, people have to see it to believe it. > "Stop assuming silence means agreement or alignment." > > *Ryan Payne, Head of Leadership and Development, Velocity Advisory Group* When a manager in a 60,000-person organization asks what one person can do, Payne's answer is blunt. "It takes one person to be the disruptor," he said. Leaders who wait for senior leadership to act are giving away control they already have over their own teams. Michael Dixon made the same argument for [building culture on purpose](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-26-mind-the-fish-tank-michael-dixon). Payne recently told a room of 43 directors and above that the influence to change the organization was already sitting in front of them. "If you want to make a change, you can make a change," he said. He asked each of them to have one new conversation the next day. ## Key Takeaways 1. **Treat silence as a signal.** A quiet room after "any questions?" usually means confusion, fear, or a lack of safety. Draw the questions out. 2. **Look for culture in small moments.** Hallway check-ins, feedback, and reactions to mistakes shape culture more than mission statements or off-sites. 3. **Schedule people, not just meetings.** Put check-ins on your own calendar and make sure every call from the boss is not about a problem. 4. **Slow down long enough to see people.** Learn what drives, stresses, and strengthens each person, then stop leading everyone the same way. 5. **Start with one conversation.** Change does not require permission from the top. One leader having one better conversation can start the shift. HOW VELOCITY HELPS ### Velocity DISC Assessments & Training Payne argues that people become far less complicated once leaders slow down to learn what drives them, what stresses them, and how they communicate. Velocity's DISC Assessments & Training gives teams a shared language for those differences through the Birds: Eagle, Parrot, Dove, and Owl. Leaders learn to read the signals in everyday conversations, flex their own style, and stop treating a quiet Dove or Owl as agreement. The result is the kind of trust Payne says makes the job easier. [Explore DISC Assessments & Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/) ## The Takeaway: Slow Down at the Right Moments Payne's best leadership advice came in two parts. The serious one: "Slow down at the right moments. Speed is important. I'm not saying it's not, but presence is powerful." The fun one: try anything twice. People have bad days, he said, so if a check-in falls flat, come back and ask again tomorrow. He knows the value of a second try. Payne, a Dove by nature, once watched a VHS tape of his college speech and threw it in the trash. He then presented to his team every Wednesday for years until it felt natural, which took about seven. Better conversations work the same way. They are a learned behavior, and the leaders who keep showing up are the ones whose teams finally start talking. ## Listen to the Full Episode Hear Ryan Payne's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on *Activating Greatness*. [Watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/vvGYY3-dFU4), or listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4LcgAut0KyYiGyDhFvMjPD) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1868386871). Follow Ryan on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-payne-717496199/). FREE GUIDE ### The Silence Check Payne warns that the quiet after "any questions?" hides doubt, fear, and confusion. This short framework helps you read what your team is not saying in meetings, calls, and check-ins, and draw those questions into the open. [Get the free guide](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/silence-check) Share: [facebook-f icon](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne) [linkedin-in icon](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne) [Twitter icon](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne) [pinterest-p icon](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/link/?url=https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne) [envelope icon](mailto:?body=https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne) [Culture & Engagement](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/culture-engagement) ## Ready to activate greatness on your team? Velocity Advisory Group helps leadership teams build the culture, strategy, and systems that let good people do their best work. [Book a discovery call](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/contact/) ## Related posts [Communication & Coaching](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/communication-coaching), [Leadership Mindset](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/leadership-mindset) ## [Episode 53: Fruitful Friction: Why Polite Leadership Stalls Progress — with Hilary Blair](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-53-fruitful-friction-hilary-blair) [Alec McChesney](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney) Oct 19, 2026, 9:00:00 AM Polite Is the Death of Progress: Hilary Blair on Fruitful Friction In this post: Hilary Blair, CEO... [Read more](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-53-fruitful-friction-hilary-blair) [![EP 10 With Tony Greco](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blog-featured-images/ep-10-TONY.png?height=200&name=ep-10-TONY.png)](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-10-from-proximity-to-purpose-tony-greco) [Team Alignment](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/team-alignment) ## [Episode 10: How to Build Alignment and Accountability Across Remote Teams — with Tony Greco](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-10-from-proximity-to-purpose-tony-greco) [Alec McChesney](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney) Mar 1, 2026, 4:30:00 PM Silence Creates Gaps: Tony Greco on Leading Teams That Never Share a Hallway In this post: Tony... [Read more](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-10-from-proximity-to-purpose-tony-greco) [![EP 18 With Jeremy Maskel, APR](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-18-Jeremy-3-1.png?height=200&name=ep-18-Jeremy-3-1.png)](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-18-say-it-so-it-sticks-jeremy-maskel) [Communication & Coaching](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/communication-coaching), [Professional Services](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/tag/professional-services) ## [Episode 18: Say It So It Sticks: How Leaders Should Own the Message — with Jeremy Maskel](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-18-say-it-so-it-sticks-jeremy-maskel) [Alec McChesney](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney) Apr 2, 2026, 1:45:00 AM Say It So It Sticks: Jeremy Maskel on Why Leaders Own the Message In this post: Omaha Public... [Read more](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-18-say-it-so-it-sticks-jeremy-maskel) --- [![](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png?width=1025&height=267&name=Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png)](http://velocityadvisorygroup.com) Copyright © 2026, Velocity Advisory Group ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Alec McChesney", "url" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-20T14:57:17.655Z", "datePublished" : "2026-01-26T16:02:15.000Z", "headline" : "The Conversation Advantage With Ryan Payne", "image" : [ "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-5-Ryan-1.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-5-the-conversation-advantage-ryan-payne", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hubfs/Velocity%20Logo%202023%20Wide-2.png" }, "name" : "Velocity Advisory Group" } } ```