April 7, 2025 • 60 mins
In this powerful panel episode of the Structuring Chaotic Minds podcast, we explore what it really takes to lead with innovation while staying grounded in structure.
Hosted by Melissa Franklin, this discussion brings together a dynamic group of leaders across business, policy, education, finance, and organizational strategy to unpack:
💡 What innovation in leadership truly looks like today
 💡 How to stay adaptable in the face of rapid change
 💡 The mindset shifts required for sustainable impact
 💡 Why collaboration is essential to forward-thinking leadership
 💡 Real-world strategies for balancing creativity with structure
Featuring Panelists:
✅ Oliver Catt – Business Growth & Sales Leadership Expert
✅ Alyssa Freeney – Innovator in Policy & Youth Leadership
✅ Nestor Esparza Magaña – Community-Centered Leadership Innovator
✅ Sarena Diamond – Organizational Change Expert & Transformation Leader
✅ Dave Sullivan – Financial Strategy & Operational Innovation Expert
Whether you're scaling a business, navigating leadership in your community, or looking to build systems that allow innovation to thrive—this episode will leave you with the clarity, strategy, and motivation to lead boldly.
🎧 Tune in and take notes—you’re going to want to revisit this one.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Structuring Chaotic Minds, the
podcast where we turn the chaosof everyday challenges into
structured success.
I'm your host, melissa.
In each episode, we'll exploreinnovative strategies, real-life
stories and actionable insightsto help you navigate the
complexities of leadership,business and personal growth.
Whether you're an entrepreneur,a leader or someone striving
(00:21):
for personal development, thispodcast will give you the tools
to create clarity in the chaos.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thank you guys for joining us for another
conversation.
Today we are kicking off ourBalanced Growth Leadership
Series, talking about the topicof innovation in leadership how
can we balance structure andadaptability.
So this guide is going to goahead and get us started and
going into all of this, I wantto go ahead and kick it off by
introducing our panelists today.
(00:51):
We have an amazing set ofindividuals, so I am your host,
melissa Franklin, joining ustonight.
We have Oliver Katt.
He is a business growth andsales leadership expert.
I'm going to go ahead and lethim introduce himself and what
he does.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Hey everyone, oliver Gatt here, founder of the
Catalyst.
We specialize in sales andleadership development,
especially for mid-marketcompanies.
Anywhere from 50 to 500employees working with frontline
leadership teams who have neverbeen leaders before or have
never been trained, all the wayup to C-suite executives,
helping them develop their teamsgrow and ultimately become
(01:28):
better leaders.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
On.
Next we have Alyssa Franey.
She is the youngest one in ourgroup.
She would be an innovator ofpolicy and youth leadership, and
I'm going to go ahead and lether have the mic now.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Hi everybody, nice to meet you guys.
My name is Alyssa.
Simply put, I am a huge AIenthusiast.
I love technology and recentlyI found my groove in community
advocacy.
So I really do like being infront and helping other youth
kind of lead our own futures.
(02:03):
So that's where I come intoplay and in the future I hope to
be a city council member in mycommunity.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So Next on our list we have Nestor Esparza Magana.
As he likes to say, it's likelasagna, and he is a
community-centered leadershipinnovator.
I'm going to go ahead and passover the mic to Nestor.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Hi everyone.
I am Nestor Esparza Magaña andI am the advocacy director with
the Student Alternatives ProgramInc.
Based here in San Antonio, alsoknown as SAPI for short.
We have our central office inSan Antonio where we have
programs throughout the state.
We focus on education,particularly focusing with
(02:48):
opportunity youth or youth thatare at risk of dropping out of
high school.
But as the nonprofit, we focuson having community-based
programs, doing community basedadvocacy and looking at
community partnerships as a wayto implement our programs and
innovate at the community level.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you so much, nestor.
Next we have Sarina Diamond.
She is an organizational changeexpert.
I love this type.
And then she is actually thereabout transformation.
Sarina, go ahead and introduceyourself to the group.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Thanks so much and thanks for having me.
I am, as you said, serenaDiamond.
I have over 30 years ofcorporate experience
transforming businesses, systems, technologies, starting at
Accenture and Pepsi and thenrounding out my career at IBM
before I went out on my own andformed Diamond Solution Group,
where I help to diagnose andchange and transformational
(03:45):
issues in everything fromFortune 100 through to private
equity and small medium business, because really helping change
to become easier to implementand to become something that is
more than just a strategicinitiative but actually
something that helps to scalebusinesses is what I bring to
(04:06):
the table.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Love it.
And last but not least, we haveDave Sullivan.
He is a financial strategy andoperational innovation expert.
Dave, go ahead and take over.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
Thank you, dave Sullivan.
Innovative cost consultants orwith innovative cost consultants
and nowadays so manyorganizations are more and more
concerned with things likecontrolling costs, operating
more efficiently and alsorecruiting and retaining talent.
So most of the ways we help ourclients fall under one or more
of those three generalcategories, and that's what we
(04:39):
do.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Thank you guys.
All right, we're going to goahead and get started with our
actual discussion, all right?
So we'd like to engage theaudience and have you guys
partake in some poll questionsso you can start thinking about
this one.
I'm going to put it up in alittle bit.
You don't have to answer yet,but I will put the poll up in a
little bit.
But as we're getting to talkabout the actual topic
innovation what does it actuallymean?
(05:05):
That word can be thrown outeverywhere Structure innovation,
so I just happen to like it.
What I really like, though, isbeing adaptable.
I like structure, I likefollowing things, but I like the
adaptability in things, so thatword really sticks out to me in
innovation Collaboration I mean, we're all here, a lot of us
have met through certaincollaborations or different
pieces, and it's really drivingprogress as teamwork and pushing
(05:28):
it together, and you also havestrategic thinking turning
challenges into opportunities,and then a mindset shift is
really the most important oneViewing innovation as something
that's an ongoing process,rather than kind of like
sticking to the mold, the norm,and then never being willing to
adapt and change.
So, to kick this off and justreally thinking about this, we
(05:50):
want to go ahead and ask fromthe audience first what's the
biggest barrier to leadershipinnovation in your opinion.
So I'm going to go ahead andshare this one now.
I'm going to go ahead and askour panelists now what are we
thinking about these results?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean I'll jump in.
I won't go off on a tangent.
I promise I wanted to select Aand C, which clearly was a
majority of the answers in thepoll, and the reason why I would
select A and C is they standout from everything For me.
(06:27):
The reason why I actually wentwith C in the end is because
I've worked in organizationsbefore where it's an
organization that leads by fear.
So when you're working with anorganization that already leads
with fear, that instantlymatriculates down to the rest of
(06:49):
the team, you get people thenthat don't want to innovate,
they don't want to change, theydon't want to do anything
because all of a sudden theyfear for their jobs.
And the specific company thatI'm talking about was the exact
epitome of that.
Nobody would cross the linebecause the minute you said
(07:10):
something, you're out on yourdoor.
That's it Now.
Ultimately, resistance tochange is a knock-on effect from
that as well, because if youfear for that in the first place
, you're not going to want to dothe other thing, and I've
experienced it firsthand andthat was a big thing for me.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Love it Anyone else?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I kind of want to add on to what he's saying.
Sorry, sorry, sorry guys, Iwant to add on to what he's
saying, but because for me, whenI see it, I picked A resistance
to change because when I liketo talk about technology shifts,
especially AI, there's a lot ofpeople that I know of that I
tried to work with, that arelike okay, can we avoid AI at
(07:58):
any point?
Because I don't know how to useit and it's something that's
new to me.
It's like, oh well, yes and no,but it might make your life a
little bit harder.
So I think it's just that thechange that is inevitable is
what scares people, so they aretimid to try to move into that
(08:20):
change.
Even I was timid at some point.
I was like this doesn't makeany sense.
How come I'm using an AI or abot to do all the stuff that I
have to do?
What does that mean for me inthe future?
What kind of jobs did I want todo originally that may not be
available now, and it's thingslike that that hinder our
capabilities to think beyond thebarrier that we see in front of
(08:43):
us.
So I feel like it's theresistance to change that makes
innovation either stagnant or itjust falls apart a lot easier.
So that's what I think.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I wanted to jump in as well.
I think Oliver and I were onthe same page about A and C, but
it's interesting because when Iwork with clients, I almost
always am brought in to face theresistance to change and as we
start to peel back the layers ofthat, it's almost always
fear-based.
It doesn't necessarily onlyneed to be fear of failure.
(09:17):
In some cases it's fear of theunknown, fear of not knowing
what my role is in it.
Known fear of not knowing whatmy role is in it.
And from a leadershipperspective, the biggest barrier
that they have is that they cansee where they're trying to get
to and they need to bring theirteams along with them.
So helping the teams toovercome the fears that are
(09:40):
behind their resistance, even ifit's not necessarily fear of
failure, is a really bigchallenge for the leaders.
I mean, that's where a lot ofthe work that I do is focused on
helping to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I love it.
Bring her on for rufflingfeathers on the next piece.
All right, you guys.
Would anybody else like toexpand on the topic?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Okay, I was just going to add to that and I
completely agree with Serena inthat regard.
I mean, one of the things thatI will say is, if you find the
right organization that'swilling to jump on that journey,
they still may be fearful, butif they're not resistant to that
change, then you're gettingtheir buy-in and you'll start to
(10:27):
see that knock-on effect.
A client that I'm working withat the moment they are.
They are afraid of change, butessentially they're open to it
and their team are bought intoit.
So they they're taking itslowly and to elicit point with
the, the, with the fact that,with AI and everything else
taking over, yeah, things aregoing to change massively over
(10:52):
the next few years and peoplehave to jump on that train
immediately.
But no, I agree with everythingthey both said on that one.
Yeah, good answer.
Speaker 7 (10:59):
I love it.
I think that's a greatperspective.
Oliver, I'm glad you were thefirst one that spoke up and
mentioned that, because it gives, I think, all of us who are
trying to help organizations.
It reminds us that a lot oftimes the people we're speaking
with, the decision makers ofthese organizations, if we and
that's what we're supposed to doput ourselves in our prospects
(11:20):
and our clients' shoes, we'retalking to people who very well
could be very fearful.
So if we lead with knowing thatthey could be very fearful, it
could be an organization that ispushing fear all the time.
If they're not fearful, thenthey'll just move faster.
But if we expect them to befearful, we can be more
(11:44):
empathetic for that, and I thinksometimes we're just like we
just think our solution is sogreat, it helps everybody, it'll
help you, just do it Right.
So I'm glad you said that,because I'm going to take that
away from this discussion andkeep it with me when I'm talking
to people.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I love that answer, dave, like basically expect the
reality of what's likely goingto happen and kind of be
prepared by building in empathyand making sure that you're
aware that it's probably whatthey're going to go through.
So, instead of giving pushbackand making it a harder process,
make it a more receptive,understanding and supportive
process.
(12:24):
I love that.
Guys, we'll start talking aboutnavigating change and actually
looking into this piece.
So if we start looking atcollaboration as a tool for
leadership, not something solo,you actually have to work
together in order to thrive.
A lot of us were those studentswho we either did it or we
didn't.
And if you were a student whothrived, you could do it by
(12:45):
yourself.
You did it in a group, then youwere likely the one doing it
all by yourself.
But when it came down togetting work done, there were
some really good people thatwere really good at
collaborating and getting otherindividuals to work, even if
they weren't doing the writingand that sort.
But we look at that and how canwe actually apply that into the
corporate world or into theentrepreneurships and into the
(13:07):
nonprofits and those differentspaces where we're collaborating
now?
Cross-industry partnershipswill really synergize things and
bring that synergy together towhere you start seeing things
that you might not have seenwithout having these types of
conversations.
Those are probably the mostdelightful of them.
And then effective networking.
One of the groups I love themost SCN like seriously loving
(13:30):
that group right now.
Oliver is doing an amazing jobof leading our particular
chapter in an area that we'retrying to go international and
being able to pull all thesecollaborations across the globe
to make sure that this synergythrives for everyone.
So I want to go ahead and shareour next poll question and then
start asking the audience fortheir thoughts.
(13:50):
So, do you actively seekcollaboration?
Some of you already know theanswer to Thinking about this.
This is how you can innovateyour role and actually make sure
that you can grow, adapt,expand.
Are you open to collaborationor are you like, hey, guys, stay
away?
What do we think?
(14:14):
At least no one said never.
They could be lying, but nobodysaid never, so we'll start
there.
Um, nester, I'm gonna startwith you because I can honestly
say active poodle community likewe are literally.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
yeah, um, I and but I agree with, uh, the message
sent by, by dave regarding oftenas a possibility, because
always would be, really, youknow, that's never the case,
that it's like always a must,right, I mean that's very
difficult, but often, yes, yeah,as you can see, the Puro
(14:48):
community, the idea of workingtogether, right, of being part
of the community and like whenyou're working for a nonprofit,
you're looking at, you know,huge problems that your
community, your society isfacing and the reality is that
one person, one organization,cannot do it alone.
So, whether you're lookinginside your team for that
(15:09):
collaboration or towards theoutside with partnerships and
other organizations, I think asmuch as possible we always look
for that.
I mean that's part of kind ofour you know, theory of, you
know of impact as far as, likeyou know, at the community level
is through partnerships.
So, but there's always thatit's not that it's always the
(15:32):
case, but, yeah, often and asmuch as possible would be would
be my answer to that.
I think it's it's essential toto be able to to tackle the
problems that that we work on asa non-profit at the community
level and so on I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I want to kick off the next part, or emphasize and
piggyback off of that yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So I'll tell you why I selected Always.
I work with clients to offerbespoke leadership content.
Everything is built toorganizations, clients,
individuals and such like.
The reason why I selectedAlways is because for me, it's a
(16:15):
collaborative approach andeverything that I do is fully
customized.
I don't deliver anything that'soff the shelf.
I don't believe in off theshelf, which is why I built my
company on working with clientsthat need a fully custom
approach.
I'm working with client Athat's got 500 individuals in a
(16:38):
call center.
That is an operation that Ican't pull people off left,
right and center, so it has tobe collaborative because I need
to work around their schedule.
Prime example, the other day Ihad an urgent meeting with the
training team to deliver somecontent.
They had a mistake which sentout 93,000 messages to customers
in error.
All of a sudden, all hands ondeck, everything went wrong,
(17:01):
everything went out the windowand fires are burning.
So for me it's like okay, cool,that's why you brought me in.
I understand the operation thatyou are working in, I
understand what you do.
So guess what?
Yep, my meeting takes a backhand.
Like yes, you'll pay me by thehour.
Yes, you'll a backhand.
Like yes, you'll pay me by thehour.
Yes, you'll pay me by theproject.
(17:22):
Yes, you'll pay me by whateverI'm delivering.
But I'm not one of these peoplethat will sit there and turn
around and go hey, I just want,I just take the money for you
missing a meeting.
It doesn't work like that.
So for me, everything istailored to who I'm working with
.
Collaboration is a must, so forme, working with Collaboration
is a must.
So for me, every step of theway hands down.
But I get why other peoplewould select something different
, because it depends on youroffering, it depends who you're
(17:43):
working with and it depends onthe client as well.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It's interesting.
I also said always and I doagree, dave, from an often
perspective from my clients.
But one of the things that Ihave really enjoyed as I've gone
out on my own as a solopreneuris that I have worked with the
most eclectic group ofindustries, everything from a
(18:09):
Fortune 100 pharmaceutical tothe automotive industry to
property development, and one ofthose, the things that has been
unique and the reason thatclients often bring me in is
that the ability to collaboratewith leadership in various
industries and bring experiencesthat they wouldn't have had an
(18:30):
opportunity to know because theytend to stay in their own silo.
So they love the fact that mebringing some of the things that
are outside of their normalpurview and some of those kinds
of insights to help them to bebetter in their leadership and,
through that, collaborationacross industry is really
(18:51):
crucial.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Anybody else like to emphasize a little further?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I'd like to emphasize on mine.
I put sometimes because, for me, the more and more I realize
that trying to be a communityadvocate and trying to get into
being more like out there in mycommunity, I cannot do that
stuff by myself.
The organization that I'm withnobody does anything by
themselves.
It's always like we're all here, we're all on the part of this
(19:24):
team and you have to understandthat.
If you want to do things byyourself, go ahead, but you're
not going to probably be assuccessful as you would be with
10 persons as opposed to oneperson.
So I realized that in justcollaborating in a certain space
, doing that in my work jobs,doing that in just my personal
(19:49):
life, collaboration has actuallyopened a lot more doors for me
than it would be by myself.
I'm an introvert, I like beingby myself, but I realized I have
to do a lot more work when I'mby would be by myself.
I'm an introvert, I like beingby myself, but I realized I have
to do a lot more work when I'mby myself and it's like, well,
it's not really helping me atthe end of the day.
And if I want to build thoserelationships, if I want to be
known as somebody who isapproachable, who can actually
(20:12):
hold conversations with peopleand actually is likable.
I have to be collaborative andthat's something that actually
the more and more you do, themore you begin to like it, the
more you begin to like meetingother people.
So I feel like collaborationjust in general it gets a lot
easier.
That's why I'm not sayingalways because I still tend to
(20:34):
avoid interacting with otherpeople, but sometimes because
it's opening my eyes thatcollaborating is actually pretty
good.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
If I could add something and just going back to
what Oliver was saying, becauseI was saying like, OK, you know
, sometimes, because that'scloser to often than to always
to me, that's why it was myanswer, because that's closer to
often than to always to me,that's why it was my answer.
But maybe, to take, you know, asI was listening to Oliver and
then, like the rest of youtalking, I was thinking well, in
the end, even the work thatmight seem that one is doing on
(21:08):
their own, it's really comingfrom some collaborative process,
right?
So you know you might end updoing something on your own, but
this is coming from like anorganization, as a nonprofit,
right?
So you know you might end updoing something on your own, but
this is coming from like anorganization, as a nonprofit,
right?
So it might be like afoundation that is funding you
to implement that program.
Even though you're doing it onyour own, you're actually doing
it with the resources that arebeing provided.
And then maybe you're doing itin collaborative spaces like
(21:28):
this or where we have met, rightso, where we're working all on
our own, maybe kind of separateprojects, but we're still
exchanging information or, youknow, getting thoughts back and
input.
So I guess then in that sense Iwill have to change my answer
and put it back on always.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I love that.
All right, we're gonna go aheadand go off to the next topic
Mindset.
This is definitely somethingthat we have to be conscientious
of, not only in just growth ingeneral, but in leadership
definitely, because we cansquash everything if we don't
have the right mindset.
I don't know about you guys,but growth is absolutely
(22:09):
necessary.
As a leader, I can't standworking for the same people.
It's like what am I going tolearn then?
Not trying to be rude?
So you got to embrace thosechallenges of opportunities and
actually be willing to growrather than.
I don't want to try that.
I think it was Oliver that wassaying he had a group that's
super excited and they know thatthey're nervous about what
they're going to be goingthrough, but they're pumped up
(22:29):
and they're excited aboutactually getting in there and
getting it done.
So that's where the resiliencestarts getting built.
We learn from failure Likewe're going to go through it.
It's going to happen, we'regoing to fail.
Alyssa gets excited.
It's super cute.
Now she's like, oh, got fourno's, next one's got to be a yes
.
And I'm like cool, like I lovethat.
(22:50):
And she's just like the moreno's I get, the sooner I'm going
to get a yes, and then she justknows how to actually respond
to individuals in a way that Iwouldn't have done.
That.
I would have been like no guysLike I wouldn't have been able
to handle it the same way.
I'm not as resilient and Ipretend like I don't care.
But I care.
It just doesn't work like thatfor me, unfortunately Got to
(23:13):
focus on continually learning inorder to continue to grow,
because industries shift andchange.
One of the things that wefreaked out the most about was
definitely AI.
As this little girl startedintroducing it to all of us,
people pushed back, especiallysome family members who believe
like computer science, coding,don't want to change it, don't
want to shift it.
And my favorite comment thatshe made was when she flat out
(23:35):
said you know what?
That's so beautiful, guys, butlet's study history.
And during the IndustrialRevolution, you either own the
machine or you knew how tooperate it or you had no job.
You decide where you want to be.
And I was like, okay, cool,like I understand, I'll start
learning how to use it so Idon't become completely obsolete
.
Use it so I don't becomecompletely obsolete.
(23:58):
And it's evolved and it'sactually made me start thinking
new things about AI, looking atit as a baby that I have to
actually train and adapt andteach it things.
So this has actually helped meempower other individuals and
being like hey.
I don't know it either, but wefigured it out and that gets
really exciting to other peoplethat you can admit.
You fell on your face, youdidn't know.
You were just as scared,because that's where you create
(24:19):
that empathy, that's where youcreate that understanding.
It's not sympathy and feelingbad for people.
It's really connecting andresonating with them.
So I want you guys to thinkabout it for yourselves.
What's the biggest challenge instaying innovative as a leader
for you?
Is it going to be your timeconstraint?
Is it going to be your timeconstraint?
Is it going to be uncleardirection, fear of risk I'm
(24:40):
hearing a lot of that onetonight or possibly lack of
resources, especially if you'rethere as a solopreneur or
shifting over into that space?
Speaker 6 (24:51):
While people are voting, melissa.
It's so funny because I'mcurrently doing a continuous
improvement for leaders coursefor a client and almost this
exact question has been raisedeach time.
We're about to do the second offour sessions around the
challenges of being in acontinuous improvement mindset
(25:14):
and while all of these are thethings that come up, what's
really interesting is thechallenges that they feel that
are beyond their control.
Ai is not one that they've saidis beyond their control,
because they know thateventually they're just going to
have to learn it.
(25:35):
It was sort of like I'm goingto just have to figure it out,
but it was really interestingbecause it was almost these
exact same four.
C was a little different of theones that came out, so usurp
the pole, but it was reallyinteresting that this whether
it's an AI or any innovationthat mindset around challenges
(25:57):
becomes, you know, the driver,or at least the thought, the
provoking thought process.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I love that One of our audience members actually
said wouldn't time constraintsand unclear direction be the
same, or almost the same?
Lack of time may result.
May be a result of focusing ontoo much I definitely agree on
that one like stretchingyourself a little too far, thin
and such.
But if we're seeing it, guys,we're looking at this and we're
(26:24):
noticing lack of resources andtime constraints definitely
seems to be the biggest one.
Who wants to kick that off I'llgo.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
So first of all, to gabby's point in the comments.
I love that, yes, because a lotof people would see that as the
same the organizations that Iwork with.
For me time, if you look at itas a structured management
organization, so you've gotheads of then directors, then
ex-leader operations,supervisors, whatever, right, if
(27:00):
you really break that down tosome time, restraints for a
frontline supervisor or managerwould be that forefront.
But unclear direction wouldthen be the knockoff effect of
management above not giving themdirection of where they want to
go.
So you can see it from bothsides.
(27:20):
But it depends on theorganization.
It depends on that kind ofhierarchy structure which makes
a huge difference.
But totally get it and yes, itcan be that way.
I didn't answer this question asme and that's why I'm kind of
saying it now.
I'm answering this question asfrom my client's perspective
because for me, time constraints, I run my own business.
(27:43):
There are no time constraints.
I have to make time.
If I'm not sleeping, I'mworking Hence, for me it's half
eight in the evening.
I've got screaming childrennext door which I can hear right
now.
So I'm making time and, to befair, most nights my wife and I
run our own businesses.
So after they go to sleep, weget the laptops out, we work
(28:10):
Unclear direction.
Well, if it's unclear it's me,it's my problem Because I'm not
being clear to myself.
Fear of risk, I take risks and,for me, lack of resources If I
need something, I go and buy it.
So the reason why I select timeconstraints on here is because,
again, I'm kind of seeing itfrom my client's side and I'm
answering it from their side,because the group of leaders
that I am currently coaching andtraining for a client at the
(28:31):
moment, everything is time.
They don't have time.
These guys have got a mixtureof anywhere from five to 30
people reporting into them andeverything is time.
And when you're working in anorganization as a leader nine
times out of ten and I'mplucking hours here, you're
working a nine till five.
That's your hours, that's whatyou focus on.
(28:53):
You're not running your ownbusiness, so you're not.
Yes, don't get me wrong, leadersare thinking about stuff
outside of work.
They are still working.
I'm not disregarding that.
But you don't work the same waywhen you run your own business,
because you are constantlythinking about it.
You are constantly it's in theback of your brain.
So the reason I selected timerestraints is because that's
(29:17):
what everybody is telling me atthe minute and you're not going
to believe this, alyssa.
You're going to have kittenswhen you hear this.
I mentioned chat GPT tosomebody the other day that I'm
coaching and they said what'sthat?
Look at that reaction.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
Are they 80?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Say that again, serenaena.
Are they 80 years old?
Uh, no, they're probablymid-20s.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Maybe they were just grok users and trying to pretend
that chai gpt doesn't exist doyou know what it is?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
and I, I, I dug deep when that prompt because they
were trying to build reports,and I said, okay, look, I get,
you can't share confidentialinformation.
But I took an hour and a half aday to 10 minutes by using
ChatGPT, copying and pastingreports.
That was the same thing doneevery day.
That took an hour and a half todo.
(30:12):
I created a prompt and a customChat gpt, showed them what to
do, showed them what to pull out, and that took.
Now that now that takes 10minutes a day.
But again, working in anorganization where you don't
have access to ai, or maybe youdon't have an iphone with all
right, I'm not going to sayapple intelligence, because it
(30:33):
is what it is but you don't have, you don't have access to this
stuff.
Maybe you're just not in thatworld.
I get, I get it and and for methere are so many different ways
to look at that question, but Ilove that question because it
opens so many doors.
Go on, alyssa, pipe up on thatone.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
When you said that, I was like no, you're joking.
I was like this person has tobe.
You know, as Serena said, maybe80.
You said 20, and I wanted tocry Because, especially because
of how fast it's moving now, youwere talking about your iPhone.
(31:16):
Right In the newest iPhones,they have that built in in the
camera.
You take a picture and chat gptpops up and says, oh here, this
is what it is based off what Isaw, and it's like you can do
that.
Okay, if you even look ongoogle or I don't know if it's
on safari, mom, you would haveto tell me if it's on safari but
(31:36):
if you look on Google andyou're doing a certain search,
Google pulls up the AI summaryof what you're searching, so you
can save time.
So it's like there's no way youdon't know what ChatGPT is or
what AI is in general, BecauseOpenAI is everywhere and I'm
pretty sure you've heard it onthe news, you've heard it
somewhere, You've heard it onInstagram reels, you've heard it
(32:00):
TikTok, you've heard itsomewhere.
So I'm like, is this personliving under a rock or what is
going on?
Because there's no way they areable to connect with you or
connect with other people andnot have heard about AI.
Even people who don't like ithave heard of it.
It's like it's not.
I don't know.
(32:22):
In this generation we call ittrolling.
I'm not trolling.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
I'm going to put you on a call with my parents.
Good luck explaining that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
To be fair, I think that's funny that you said it
was a person who was 20, becausethis young lady has a range of
friends.
They're all from linkedin.
It's so strange, um, butthey're all a very range of ages
in the tech ai world.
I think the oldest one he'swhat john, so he'd be like 72,
75 I think he's 75, yeah andthen alissa was in the group as
(32:54):
the youngest, 17, for like no 16at the time.
Now she's 18, so like they'vebeen buddies for like two years
as they grow out everything inthe AI salon and they continue
advocate and they range in theirage, but they will own it, they
learn about it.
They had to have theconversations and be real with
each other that we get lost in atangent and get stuck trying
(33:17):
out new things that we stilldon't even know how to play with
, get all excited and then starton a new app let's just say it
wasn't, it was.
It was a very interestingconversation anyone else want to
emphasize off of that uh, Iwould like to.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
I mean, I answered, uh, the lack of resources.
Again, like from a non-profitperspective.
You know that tends to be acommon, a common theme, which
then might lead to timeconstraints and so on.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
But again.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
That's why I think things like AI are super helpful
when lack of resources is oneof those obstacles, because you
can definitely do so much more.
I mean, the examples havealready been given here, but I
think that's one of those thingsthat one needs to definitely be
using, like I mean.
(34:13):
I mean one can have differentperspectives about AI, but I
think, when it comes to justimproving your organization in a
sense of, like, making it moreefficient, to be able to have,
like, maybe more output,whatever it is that you're doing
, you know whether that's goingto be an email, some like you
know technical, like you knowquery or something, but I think
there's just kind of no wayaround it.
(34:34):
It's, it's, it's everywhere andit's yeah, it's undeniable that
if you don't, if you don't useit, you're going to be left
behind, and this could be like awhole, a whole different
conversation, a whole differentpanel, but it is.
Then what will be theimplications?
Knowing that you have access tosuch resources?
Right, because it's like, noweveryone has their own
(34:54):
assistants and you can trainthem and you know, basically,
they start learning about you.
So then the expectations forproduction and output would also
go go up.
So how is that balanced?
That remains to be seen,because everything's so new.
But what's, I think, a fact isyou, you need to to, to use it,
because otherwise, right now,today, like you'll start like
getting behind, like for sure,there's no way that you can
(35:19):
compete, let's say, withoutmaking the most of AI.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I love that I feel like I didn't quite see it like
that because it was more likehaving to learn something new.
So I feel like that's why timeconstraints.
Sometimes companies will feellike I didn't quite see it like
that because it was more likehaving to learn something new.
So I feel like that's why timeconstraints.
Sometimes companies will feellike nope, not doing that, we
just don't have the time to gotry something new.
And really what they're sayingis they don't have the money to
go invest the time to learnsomething new.
They're like no, no, we're nottaking that chance.
(35:44):
So it really comes down to likeam I going to put that money in
there?
Down to like am I going to putthat money in there?
Do I think it's worth thereturn of investment or do I
feel more of a headache and thatthat's actually what's causing
more fear?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
that's what it is for me.
Just to add to that, andactually something you just said
, melissa, makes total sense,right, organizations cost
whatever, and what's funny isit's just clicked, the companies
actually look at and they arebuilding.
It's not looking, they'reactually building an internal ai
bot for the organization as aknowledge base.
(36:15):
So maybe they just don't knowit as chat gpt, maybe they know
it as something else, but Idon't know.
Now it's opened the doors to alot of questions on my side, but
they never, never heard ofChatGPT and that's still.
I feel like I took theirChatGPT virginity plate, so I'll
take that.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I love that.
Oh, my goodness, speaking aboutthat, I think a better question
would just be in the basket.
So can you tell me the name ofthe technology that you guys are
building right now?
And who knows, knows, it mightalready have a name.
I know alissa created a bot fordave at one point and she put a
name to him and everythingdesigned him did his logo or
(36:57):
branding based on how he wantedit to talk.
And dave and I like to talk alot about nepq I would think I'm
like butchering that right now.
I can't remember what it is atthe top of my head, but as we
talk, talk about sales Dave andI talk a lot about emotional
intelligence and being realistic, about asking the right
questions.
That would invoke emotion withpeople and that's the process
(37:20):
that we keep looking at and it'slike a circle.
But at the same time, if it'snot in place, then it kind of
breaks everything.
So it was necessary to programhis with that and it made a lot
of other questions easier andsuch um.
I know it helped me when shedidn't want to do stuff for me.
No more, she's like here's abot, I made it for you, leave me
alone.
It's like man okay, fine, I'llleave you alone.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So yeah, just so you guys know she's the best
assistant ever I was working onthe bot that can do your accent
all over that's why I'm in linefor the next one.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Thank you, and you can find somebody can finally
just take my language and justmake it americanized, so I'll
take that all right.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So as we're going through all that, we get it
started, we pull the trigger.
Now we've got to actually makesure we don't drown.
So now we've got to navigatethrough everything and make sure
that we can stay adaptable,because as water starts getting
in the boat, are we just goingto sit there and watch it or are
we going to be like trying totoss it out so that way we can
keep going?
So, really, what doesinnovation mean in leadership
for you all?
(38:26):
How do you balance structureand adaptability?
And then, what mindset shiftsare necessary for leaders to
stay innovative?
Finally, what common challengesdo leaders face in adapting to
change?
These are four questions forthe panelists.
I'm going to leave it open forthem to pick whichever one they
want to tackle first, and wewill start the discussion from
(38:49):
there.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
I think I'll do the first one Go for it.
So I feel like what innovationand leadership means to me is
it's like how we saw that it'sthe adaptability, the resilience
and, I think, being open-mindedjust in general to your team.
That like creates and fostersthat kind of change.
(39:12):
And like as I've learned fromyou like being a leader doesn't
automatically mean you get toorder people around.
It means that you're able togrow with your team, you're able
to create other leaders withthem.
So I feel like that's theinnovative part.
If you're able to recreateyourself and other people,
(39:32):
recreate other leaders and theycan handle the stuff without you
needing to be there, that islike that innovation piece,
because you're creating the nextset of leaders without you
needing to be there, and thenthey know that they can handle
the stuff when you're gone.
And I feel like that is whattrains the innovation, because
(39:53):
if you're able to have multiplepeople who can lead each other
without making the person thatthey're leading feel inadequate,
that is what fosters thepositive growth and that's what
keeps that a train rolling.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So yeah hello, worm inside.
Thanks, kiddo, who's next?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
sorry.
Did you give her the 20 bucksbefore this call or after?
Speaker 6 (40:21):
it was 50 she's an innovative young woman.
She figured it out.
Um, it's really interesting.
I work with leaders a lot inthis exact space, about being
able to see the vision for thechange, and really the challenge
that they often face is notslowing down but bringing others
(40:44):
with them and making sure thatthe brilliant ideas, the
innovative ideas, sometimes theexperiences that they have are
so much more broad than thepeople in their teams or in
their organizations that theycan adapt to changes more
quickly or at least changedmindset, and so one of the
(41:05):
things that I often am workingwith leaders in is about
communication and about how dothey communicate either their
own vision or what theirexpectations are.
That allows other people one tocome with them on the journey of
change, but two to also beengaged and really ignited in
the enthusiasm around what thatchange is, rather than fearful.
(41:27):
So I think that becomes thecommon challenges often, in some
cases remembering that whenthey've said it the first time,
they may have thought about itfor weeks or months before
they've actually articulated it,and bringing the others along
and giving them space to be ableto ask those questions to come
(41:47):
along, is often one of thosechallenges that that they have
to overcome.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I love that.
You're not wrong.
I think each of us come withour own background bias,
confirmation bias of like whatthings are supposed to look like
.
Therefore, it's like we gotthis, let's go.
Well, you're not scared becauseyou've done it before.
What about the person next toyou?
And kind of like, as Davesaying, you got to create that
space for them to feel that theycan go get it done so that they
(42:15):
can do it rinse and repeat, sothat way they can grow that
resilience and keep going withthat.
But that's what I feel like asa leader, you also have to be
realistic with yourself on whatlittle baby steps can you create
too so that they can be readyfor those scenarios?
As dave was saying, likebuilding in that readiness for
(42:35):
them.
Okay, cool, we know wherethey're going to do public
speaking in the classroom.
You can ask any one of mystudents.
You're going to have to talk infront of the classroom at 30 at
one point I don't talk in frontof nobody I don't care.
You're going to talk to yourfriend for first, just for the
beginning, and then eventuallywe're going to do a table of
four and you guys are just goingto talk like that and you guys
are going to do some so muchteam building.
You're going to want to talkand then eventually I'm going to
(42:56):
make you a team of eightbecause you guys are going to
pair up and then eventually youhave to talk in front of the
entire like the entire classroom, and these kids were like
amazing public speakers and nowthey're becoming coaches and
speakers.
Speaker 6 (43:07):
For me it's like yay, building adaptability and
building growth without havingto do it all by myself what I I
loved about what you just said,melissa, was that you gave them
the space to, to, to be thechange, to do the change.
So often I run into leaderswhere they told their team what
(43:29):
they wanted, or their teammember, and then their team
member either didn't do itexactly as they expected or
didn't know enough, so theydidn't do it at all.
And then, because they believein the team, they feel badly.
They didn't articulate it wellor they're overloaded already.
They just take it on and do itthemselves.
(43:49):
And then I'm always sort ofbacking them up and saying and
what have we learned?
We keep saying the people arethe most important and yet, at
the end of the day, the workreally was more important than
the person, because you didn'tgive them the opportunity to
learn and to grow.
And I love what you just didbecause you gave them many
opportunities and manyiterations for them to grow,
(44:11):
even though they're students.
Certainly your best evidence ofyour leadership in growing
young people is on this callwith us, so I love that just
just to piggyback off the backof serena there.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Like I see that with delegation, like with every
client that I work with, rightand I talk about it probably
every other week where they'vegiven a task to somebody and
they've gone here.
You go, here's A to Z, butyou've got to come to me for M,
n and O, and at that pointyou're like well, why did you
(44:52):
even delegate if you're notgiving me that autonomy to go
and do that?
And that's the point, becausethen all of a sudden they fail
at M, n and O.
So the leader just goes okay,I'll take that back, and it just
screws the pooch on all of that.
Yeah, make total sense.
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I love that.
I feel like we have to respectthat.
We hire leaders for a reasonand we hired them for that role.
That's the whole point.
You spend all this money tohire expert because you don't
have to do it, and there's oneparticular organization I'm
thinking about specifically onwhat you're saying doesn't quite
do that, and I was in charge ofdifferent programs and
(45:30):
different things with them.
It was really annoying that Iwould do grant compliance and
keep up and honest agitator.
Here I literally have thatreputation.
Honest agitator Okay cool, I'drather be honest than a liar.
But if I'm an honest agitator,I'm going to ruffle some
feathers along the way, andyou're too honest sometimes.
Okay, well, I don't know whatto tell you in that space
(45:51):
because I need to make sure thatwe're still growing and
adopting.
And they pushed it down.
There was a lot of bottleneckingand it was cute because I was
told that I was bottlenecking.
I was like no, I'm the one wholiterally understands what
they're saying for grantcompliance, but what you're not
saying is what you don't wantthe board to find out.
Got it Understood?
I can't work for people likethat and that's it's fine.
(46:12):
But it comes down to if there'stoo much of it.
Why'd you hire me there's, I'msure there's somebody else who's
better at it, cause I'm justgoing to make your life
difficult.
Next, like seriously and I'vebeen in rooms with other people
in here before where they'veseen me do it I've been like,
okay, cool, not gonna work.
Next, set Like, and that's okay,because you have to do what
(46:37):
works for you and you have to berealistic on just the way
Oliver was saying, like, did itget delegated or not?
So I love when I bring people inand I ask them.
We do a synergy triangle, someof my groups to connect with
collaborations with my people.
When they come in for theorganization, though, I end up
asking them so what do you do?
Who do you serve, like as faras, like in general, not clients
, but organization, your purpose, what do you want to be here
(46:59):
for?
Now we can understand where toplace you.
Here's the project that we havecoming on, here's the goal.
Now you guys tell me how we'regetting there.
That's the whole point ofhiring you, so I don't have to
figure out all other stuff andthey feel much more empowered
when they understand what themission is or what we need to do
, and then they're moreempowered, that they have
basically permission to do itand then step out there in that
(47:23):
space, any common challenges youguys think leaders might be
facing adapting to change but.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
I think I want to back off.
You want to back off.
Add on to what serena wassaying about like the
communication part.
Adding on to not being able tocompletely articulate what your
vision is to other people.
Or like how you had said thatsome people who have went
through certain things mightfind the challenge less daunting
than others.
So it's like we're not fullycommunicating what our strengths
(47:58):
and weaknesses are.
So when we're trying to adapt tothe change, it's like, well,
how come you can't do it?
I was able to do it.
It's like, well, that's greatfor you, but we're not meeting
at the same point.
Like we we're both agreeingthat we want to get to this spot
, but we don't know the sandbagsthat we have to carry along the
way, the other baggage that wehave.
(48:18):
And it's like the communicationwhen it's, I guess, when it's
breaking, it's not the best.
And then that's how you getpeople who lose motivation
because they're feeling like,well, they're just going to push
me through to this and I'm noteven going to give it my best
effort, because they don't seethis is where I'm struggling,
that they just automaticallythink that they were able to do
(48:40):
it, I'm able to do it, and it'sjust like things like that.
So they're like it's clear andconcise communication.
That is emphasized in everypoint and, I guess, at every
quarter.
Whatever you're trying to do,that doesn't get fully.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Um, I guess exercised so well guys, how comfortable
are y'all with change inleadership?
Don't just vote yes because yougot rid of the boss you hated,
but be real how comfortable arewe with those changes?
And then audience you can startputting final questions you
(49:18):
would like our speakers toaddress in the chat so we can
start answering those for you.
I'm going to share this results.
What are those you and about toshare this results?
Hmm, what are that?
All they're actually going tobe waiting for is but I'm just
(49:39):
reading that.
Um, so yeah, I have to trainand make a new one, alissa,
perfect.
Is this not the project youwere supposed to be working on?
Trying to figure out how youcan get all the branding for him
aligned in one?
Speaker 4 (49:54):
pretty much I want to see if I can get one with the,
the speaking bot, and figure outhow to get it with the british
accent.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
That'd be awesome that's hilarious that you say
that.
That's funny because, uh, atthe same time too, what you can
teach him how to do is how hecan can ask that bot to go do
the coding for him that heneeded to build the website, so
he doesn't need you either.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Don't worry, oliver, it will be done.
You will have a best friend intechnology, I promise.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Any questions from the audience, guys, aside from
Oliver needing a bot?
Speaker 6 (50:39):
you know, melissa, when and as we're looking for
audience questions, I I havealways um reminded my my clients
who are in leadership positionsthat are struggling with change
.
When, when the new thing comeswhatever whatever that is, now
it's AI it always feels likeit's the biggest challenge, it's
(51:01):
the mountain, okay, and I can'ttell you how many times I've
had people say can we just findthe pause button?
I just need like a little whileto just get caught up.
And I say to leaders all thetime it's our responsibility to
find the commonality that allowspeople to be able to talk
eloquently about networking,meaning the cabling that was in
(51:43):
buildings and then, all of asudden, mobility was the new
thing and everybody was up inarms.
How are we going to overcomethis?
We just got trained on and whenwe were able to find that the
same concepts applied it's justwhether the cable is actually in
the wall or in the air theywere able to get it, the concept
(52:07):
.
So one of the things that Ichallenge leaders all the time
with is imagine it's the same.
Only you're responsible to findthat step that gets them over
the chasm.
I actually said to somebody forAI, ai is not that hard, it is
Google on steroids, like if youcould just be on Google all the
(52:29):
time and Google could be really,really, really smart.
That's all that you're talkingabout.
They're like, oh okay, okay, Ican do that, and it is.
I think it's the responsibilityof leaders to find something,
even if it's not exactly right,but find some commonality so
that their team can overcomethat fear of change, that the
(52:50):
innovation isn't thatfar-fetched.
Now I mean, I'm sure there'sgoing to be something in my
lifetime that is going to be sofar-fetched that even I'm going
to have a hard time finding thethread.
But I do think that's aleader's responsibility,
certainly to help their teamsovercome that.
And if they need to help, youknow they can come to me and
I'll find the thread for them.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Be sure to drop your information down in the chat so
that they can reach out.
So the questions actually werehere and I just didn't pay
attention to them.
I apologize so if you guys wantto tackle one of these three
questions as we wrap it up forthe night.
But how do you encourageinnovation in structured
environments?
And I feel like that's kind ofwhat Serena just tapped on right
now, like it's already so set.
(53:34):
This is where we wouldencourage it, but what
leadership strategies help inuncertain times?
And then, how can businessbalance innovation with risk
management?
Speaker 4 (53:47):
I think what she said covered pretty much all these
questions and snippets.
Like she's like what strategies?
It's google on steroids, liketrying to pretty much, I guess,
make it similar to somethingelse that they're already
familiar with, to like ease therisk, to ease the, the fear, and
she's balancing innovation withrisk management by saying, okay
(54:11):
, we're gonna try this out, butwe're gonna take it like with
baby steps, because we knowwe're not all there yet and
that's fine.
Like, if you can use google,you can use this chat, gbt,
we'll just figure it out.
And it's like that'sencouraging the, the innovation
in the environment, because,like, we all got it, we'll take
(54:31):
time and we'll do it.
And then I really do like that,um, what's it called?
I guess an analogy now, becauseI normally call ai like a child
that you're trying to train orwhatever, or like as simple as a
really, really smart baby.
Sometimes it's like it's just ababy, like be nice to it, and
(54:55):
she's like fine, okay, I'll benice to it, but it makes it
easier for somebody to see it as, oh, it's like a child rather
than something that could takemy job away.
You know, it's like somethingthat's much more, I guess,
digestible.
So I think that was a cute wayof saying it Google on steroids.
(55:16):
Or maybe, if people don't haveAndroid, it'd be Safari on
steroids, I don't know, but yeah, I think that's cute.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
I love that.
Please, alyssa, take my kids,train them Please.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Just do it.
One of the preparationsAlyssa's actually going to be
doing is collaborating withNestor right now, working with
some kiddos in his group toactually grow out that community
and they are going to be.
Nestor, do you want to share alittle bit more about what those
kiddos are doing, sharing theirstories?
And, Alyssa, you can talk aboutthe podcast?
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Yeah, and actually I just wanted to mention, like, as
far as like the strategies, Iwanted to just kind of have like
two keywords almost oneadaptability and collaboration.
So it's, you know you point outthis collaboration, but yeah,
just, we are engaging our youthin the advocacy that we're doing
(56:11):
and trying to have them reallydrive the advocacy not only
through their stories but alsothrough their direct input on
you know how to present thosestories or who to present those
stories to or in which context.
And at least I was visiting thePuro Community Studio some
(56:34):
weeks ago and tomorrow I'mactually meeting with the
students to post the invitationto go on April 1st to the
mayoral youth-led forum.
So hopefully we'll see you withthe three of them there.
But yeah, we're excited aboutthat and collaborations of that
(56:56):
sort, because then that startstranslating into youth-led
collaborations, which is evenmore exciting, especially for
those of us that work ineducation and working with youth
.
That's really great.
But I think that's whycollaborating is like you know,
it's a strategy that, whetherthe times are certain or
uncertain, you know it's a goodstrategy to have.
(57:20):
But yeah, I'm looking forwardto that, and the students are
too.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
So Be sure to tell James hi, we're looking forward
to connecting again.
Alyssa, you want to emphasizewhat's off of that too?
Speaker 4 (57:37):
Well, yeah, I mean, aside from being able to connect
with other like-minded kids,it's um, for what I do with my
podcast is I pretty much justuse uh, I break down ai into
simple conversations for peopleto understand.
I I try to mainly get people whodon't like AI, as weird as it
(58:00):
sounds, to make it easier forthem to understand it, because
if people who are so opposed toit can understand it, people who
like it are obviously going tounderstand it.
So I try to get those as mytarget audience, to make the I
guess, the content simplisticfor everybody, because AI in
(58:23):
itself is not an easy topic toexpress and explain.
But when I was able to meetJames and then talk to him about
certain projects, like on hisown branding and stuff, it was
like being able to speak to himas if I was speaking to
something I'm really interestedin.
So it just made it a lot easierto like connect with him and I
(58:47):
can't wait to actually have himon the podcast and we can just
talk about that stuff and do theadvocating piece.
So I am looking forward tomeeting with you guys again and
talking about all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
So, yeah, so I had some students that are in here,
that are in college right now,who had me when they were in
seventh grade, and I told themat one point or another you guys
are gonna be collaborating asadults, you're gonna keep this
going, and alissa and dominicare actually launching a
non-profit that's partneringhere in san Antonio to bridge
trade, business and educationSuper excited about those next
(59:22):
ventures.
You guys will start hearingthat a little bit more after the
actual mayor elections and citycouncil elections, and then you
kind of want to not makeopinions for anybody before they
vote, if that makes sense, andthen after they vote.
Well, we got a lot of surprisecoming, guys, lots of surprises.
So thank you so much to ourpanelists for joining us tonight
(59:43):
.
The conversation on innovationwas definitely a fun one.
I really started enjoying this.
This is a monthly thing that wedo.
It's the fourth Monday of everymonth.
Next month we're going to betalking about ruffling feathers.
Guys, this is a kickoffconversation.
This is my second book that Iwill be releasing later on in
(01:00:03):
the year and this will start thepre-sales and the conversation
about it.
Because I am an honest agitator, I like to bring to light
different things that mightruffle feathers, but the purpose
is to innovate change.
The biggest thing is tohighlight what's best for
everyone and how can we growtogether, so I'm super excited
about that topic.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
And next month we'll actually be talking about
collaboration and leadership.
If today's episode resonatedwith you don't forget to
subscribe share and leave areview.
Remember the key to success isnot getting chaos, but learning
how to structure it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
Stay inspired, keep growing and Thank you guys for
coming.
Welcome to Structuring Chaotic Minds, the
podcast where we turn the chaosof everyday challenges into
structured success.
I'm your host, melissa.
In each episode, we'll exploreinnovative strategies, real-life
stories and actionable insightsto help you navigate the
complexities of leadership,business and personal growth.
Whether you're an entrepreneur,a leader or someone striving
(00:21):
for personal development, thispodcast will give you the tools
to create clarity in the chaos.
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Thank you guys for joining us for another
conversation.
Today we are kicking off ourBalanced Growth Leadership
Series, talking about the topicof innovation in leadership how
can we balance structure andadaptability.
So this guide is going to goahead and get us started and
going into all of this, I wantto go ahead and kick it off by
introducing our panelists today.
(00:51):
We have an amazing set ofindividuals, so I am your host,
melissa Franklin, joining ustonight.
We have Oliver Katt.
He is a business growth andsales leadership expert.
I'm going to go ahead and lethim introduce himself and what
he does.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Hey everyone, oliver Gatt here, founder of the
Catalyst.
We specialize in sales andleadership development,
especially for mid-marketcompanies.
Anywhere from 50 to 500employees working with frontline
leadership teams who have neverbeen leaders before or have
never been trained, all the wayup to C-suite executives,
helping them develop their teamsgrow and ultimately become
(01:28):
better leaders.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
On.
Next we have Alyssa Franey.
She is the youngest one in ourgroup.
She would be an innovator ofpolicy and youth leadership, and
I'm going to go ahead and lether have the mic now.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Hi everybody, nice to meet you guys.
My name is Alyssa.
Simply put, I am a huge AIenthusiast.
I love technology and recentlyI found my groove in community
advocacy.
So I really do like being infront and helping other youth
kind of lead our own futures.
(02:03):
So that's where I come intoplay and in the future I hope to
be a city council member in mycommunity.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So Next on our list we have Nestor Esparza Magana.
As he likes to say, it's likelasagna, and he is a
community-centered leadershipinnovator.
I'm going to go ahead and passover the mic to Nestor.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Hi everyone.
I am Nestor Esparza Magaña andI am the advocacy director with
the Student Alternatives ProgramInc.
Based here in San Antonio, alsoknown as SAPI for short.
We have our central office inSan Antonio where we have
programs throughout the state.
We focus on education,particularly focusing with
(02:48):
opportunity youth or youth thatare at risk of dropping out of
high school.
But as the nonprofit, we focuson having community-based
programs, doing community basedadvocacy and looking at
community partnerships as a wayto implement our programs and
innovate at the community level.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Thank you so much, nestor.
Next we have Sarina Diamond.
She is an organizational changeexpert.
I love this type.
And then she is actually thereabout transformation.
Sarina, go ahead and introduceyourself to the group.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Thanks so much and thanks for having me.
I am, as you said, serenaDiamond.
I have over 30 years ofcorporate experience
transforming businesses, systems, technologies, starting at
Accenture and Pepsi and thenrounding out my career at IBM
before I went out on my own andformed Diamond Solution Group,
where I help to diagnose andchange and transformational
(03:45):
issues in everything fromFortune 100 through to private
equity and small medium business, because really helping change
to become easier to implementand to become something that is
more than just a strategicinitiative but actually
something that helps to scalebusinesses is what I bring to
(04:06):
the table.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Love it.
And last but not least, we haveDave Sullivan.
He is a financial strategy andoperational innovation expert.
Dave, go ahead and take over.
Speaker 7 (04:18):
Thank you, dave Sullivan.
Innovative cost consultants orwith innovative cost consultants
and nowadays so manyorganizations are more and more
concerned with things likecontrolling costs, operating
more efficiently and alsorecruiting and retaining talent.
So most of the ways we help ourclients fall under one or more
of those three generalcategories, and that's what we
(04:39):
do.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Thank you guys.
All right, we're going to goahead and get started with our
actual discussion, all right?
So we'd like to engage theaudience and have you guys
partake in some poll questionsso you can start thinking about
this one.
I'm going to put it up in alittle bit.
You don't have to answer yet,but I will put the poll up in a
little bit.
But as we're getting to talkabout the actual topic
innovation what does it actuallymean?
(05:05):
That word can be thrown outeverywhere Structure innovation,
so I just happen to like it.
What I really like, though, isbeing adaptable.
I like structure, I likefollowing things, but I like the
adaptability in things, so thatword really sticks out to me in
innovation Collaboration I mean, we're all here, a lot of us
have met through certaincollaborations or different
pieces, and it's really drivingprogress as teamwork and pushing
(05:28):
it together, and you also havestrategic thinking turning
challenges into opportunities,and then a mindset shift is
really the most important oneViewing innovation as something
that's an ongoing process,rather than kind of like
sticking to the mold, the norm,and then never being willing to
adapt and change.
So, to kick this off and justreally thinking about this, we
(05:50):
want to go ahead and ask fromthe audience first what's the
biggest barrier to leadershipinnovation in your opinion.
So I'm going to go ahead andshare this one now.
I'm going to go ahead and askour panelists now what are we
thinking about these results?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean I'll jump in.
I won't go off on a tangent.
I promise I wanted to select Aand C, which clearly was a
majority of the answers in thepoll, and the reason why I would
select A and C is they standout from everything For me.
(06:27):
The reason why I actually wentwith C in the end is because
I've worked in organizationsbefore where it's an
organization that leads by fear.
So when you're working with anorganization that already leads
with fear, that instantlymatriculates down to the rest of
(06:49):
the team, you get people thenthat don't want to innovate,
they don't want to change, theydon't want to do anything
because all of a sudden theyfear for their jobs.
And the specific company thatI'm talking about was the exact
epitome of that.
Nobody would cross the linebecause the minute you said
(07:10):
something, you're out on yourdoor.
That's it Now.
Ultimately, resistance tochange is a knock-on effect from
that as well, because if youfear for that in the first place
, you're not going to want to dothe other thing, and I've
experienced it firsthand andthat was a big thing for me.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Love it Anyone else?
Speaker 4 (07:34):
I kind of want to add on to what he's saying.
Sorry, sorry, sorry guys, Iwant to add on to what he's
saying, but because for me, whenI see it, I picked A resistance
to change because when I liketo talk about technology shifts,
especially AI, there's a lot ofpeople that I know of that I
tried to work with, that arelike okay, can we avoid AI at
(07:58):
any point?
Because I don't know how to useit and it's something that's
new to me.
It's like, oh well, yes and no,but it might make your life a
little bit harder.
So I think it's just that thechange that is inevitable is
what scares people, so they aretimid to try to move into that
(08:20):
change.
Even I was timid at some point.
I was like this doesn't makeany sense.
How come I'm using an AI or abot to do all the stuff that I
have to do?
What does that mean for me inthe future?
What kind of jobs did I want todo originally that may not be
available now, and it's thingslike that that hinder our
capabilities to think beyond thebarrier that we see in front of
(08:43):
us.
So I feel like it's theresistance to change that makes
innovation either stagnant or itjust falls apart a lot easier.
So that's what I think.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
I wanted to jump in as well.
I think Oliver and I were onthe same page about A and C, but
it's interesting because when Iwork with clients, I almost
always am brought in to face theresistance to change and as we
start to peel back the layers ofthat, it's almost always
fear-based.
It doesn't necessarily onlyneed to be fear of failure.
(09:17):
In some cases it's fear of theunknown, fear of not knowing
what my role is in it.
Known fear of not knowing whatmy role is in it.
And from a leadershipperspective, the biggest barrier
that they have is that they cansee where they're trying to get
to and they need to bring theirteams along with them.
So helping the teams toovercome the fears that are
(09:40):
behind their resistance, even ifit's not necessarily fear of
failure, is a really bigchallenge for the leaders.
I mean, that's where a lot ofthe work that I do is focused on
helping to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I love it.
Bring her on for rufflingfeathers on the next piece.
All right, you guys.
Would anybody else like toexpand on the topic?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Okay, I was just going to add to that and I
completely agree with Serena inthat regard.
I mean, one of the things thatI will say is, if you find the
right organization that'swilling to jump on that journey,
they still may be fearful, butif they're not resistant to that
change, then you're gettingtheir buy-in and you'll start to
(10:27):
see that knock-on effect.
A client that I'm working withat the moment they are.
They are afraid of change, butessentially they're open to it
and their team are bought intoit.
So they they're taking itslowly and to elicit point with
the, the, with the fact that,with AI and everything else
taking over, yeah, things aregoing to change massively over
(10:52):
the next few years and peoplehave to jump on that train
immediately.
But no, I agree with everythingthey both said on that one.
Yeah, good answer.
Speaker 7 (10:59):
I love it.
I think that's a greatperspective.
Oliver, I'm glad you were thefirst one that spoke up and
mentioned that, because it gives, I think, all of us who are
trying to help organizations.
It reminds us that a lot oftimes the people we're speaking
with, the decision makers ofthese organizations, if we and
that's what we're supposed to doput ourselves in our prospects
(11:20):
and our clients' shoes, we'retalking to people who very well
could be very fearful.
So if we lead with knowing thatthey could be very fearful, it
could be an organization that ispushing fear all the time.
If they're not fearful, thenthey'll just move faster.
But if we expect them to befearful, we can be more
(11:44):
empathetic for that, and I thinksometimes we're just like we
just think our solution is sogreat, it helps everybody, it'll
help you, just do it Right.
So I'm glad you said that,because I'm going to take that
away from this discussion andkeep it with me when I'm talking
to people.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I love that answer, dave, like basically expect the
reality of what's likely goingto happen and kind of be
prepared by building in empathyand making sure that you're
aware that it's probably whatthey're going to go through.
So, instead of giving pushbackand making it a harder process,
make it a more receptive,understanding and supportive
process.
(12:24):
I love that.
Guys, we'll start talking aboutnavigating change and actually
looking into this piece.
So if we start looking atcollaboration as a tool for
leadership, not something solo,you actually have to work
together in order to thrive.
A lot of us were those studentswho we either did it or we
didn't.
And if you were a student whothrived, you could do it by
(12:45):
yourself.
You did it in a group, then youwere likely the one doing it
all by yourself.
But when it came down togetting work done, there were
some really good people thatwere really good at
collaborating and getting otherindividuals to work, even if
they weren't doing the writingand that sort.
But we look at that and how canwe actually apply that into the
corporate world or into theentrepreneurships and into the
(13:07):
nonprofits and those differentspaces where we're collaborating
now?
Cross-industry partnershipswill really synergize things and
bring that synergy together towhere you start seeing things
that you might not have seenwithout having these types of
conversations.
Those are probably the mostdelightful of them.
And then effective networking.
One of the groups I love themost SCN like seriously loving
(13:30):
that group right now.
Oliver is doing an amazing jobof leading our particular
chapter in an area that we'retrying to go international and
being able to pull all thesecollaborations across the globe
to make sure that this synergythrives for everyone.
So I want to go ahead and shareour next poll question and then
start asking the audience fortheir thoughts.
(13:50):
So, do you actively seekcollaboration?
Some of you already know theanswer to Thinking about this.
This is how you can innovateyour role and actually make sure
that you can grow, adapt,expand.
Are you open to collaborationor are you like, hey, guys, stay
away?
What do we think?
(14:14):
At least no one said never.
They could be lying, but nobodysaid never, so we'll start
there.
Um, nester, I'm gonna startwith you because I can honestly
say active poodle community likewe are literally.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
yeah, um, I and but I agree with, uh, the message
sent by, by dave regarding oftenas a possibility, because
always would be, really, youknow, that's never the case,
that it's like always a must,right, I mean that's very
difficult, but often, yes, yeah,as you can see, the Puro
(14:48):
community, the idea of workingtogether, right, of being part
of the community and like whenyou're working for a nonprofit,
you're looking at, you know,huge problems that your
community, your society isfacing and the reality is that
one person, one organization,cannot do it alone.
So, whether you're lookinginside your team for that
(15:09):
collaboration or towards theoutside with partnerships and
other organizations, I think asmuch as possible we always look
for that.
I mean that's part of kind ofour you know, theory of, you
know of impact as far as, likeyou know, at the community level
is through partnerships.
So, but there's always thatit's not that it's always the
(15:32):
case, but, yeah, often and asmuch as possible would be would
be my answer to that.
I think it's it's essential toto be able to to tackle the
problems that that we work on asa non-profit at the community
level and so on I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I want to kick off the next part, or emphasize and
piggyback off of that yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So I'll tell you why I selected Always.
I work with clients to offerbespoke leadership content.
Everything is built toorganizations, clients,
individuals and such like.
The reason why I selectedAlways is because for me, it's a
(16:15):
collaborative approach andeverything that I do is fully
customized.
I don't deliver anything that'soff the shelf.
I don't believe in off theshelf, which is why I built my
company on working with clientsthat need a fully custom
approach.
I'm working with client Athat's got 500 individuals in a
(16:38):
call center.
That is an operation that Ican't pull people off left,
right and center, so it has tobe collaborative because I need
to work around their schedule.
Prime example, the other day Ihad an urgent meeting with the
training team to deliver somecontent.
They had a mistake which sentout 93,000 messages to customers
in error.
All of a sudden, all hands ondeck, everything went wrong,
(17:01):
everything went out the windowand fires are burning.
So for me it's like okay, cool,that's why you brought me in.
I understand the operation thatyou are working in, I
understand what you do.
So guess what?
Yep, my meeting takes a backhand.
Like yes, you'll pay me by thehour.
Yes, you'll a backhand.
Like yes, you'll pay me by thehour.
Yes, you'll pay me by theproject.
(17:22):
Yes, you'll pay me by whateverI'm delivering.
But I'm not one of these peoplethat will sit there and turn
around and go hey, I just want,I just take the money for you
missing a meeting.
It doesn't work like that.
So for me, everything istailored to who I'm working with
.
Collaboration is a must, so forme, working with Collaboration
is a must.
So for me, every step of theway hands down.
But I get why other peoplewould select something different
, because it depends on youroffering, it depends who you're
(17:43):
working with and it depends onthe client as well.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It's interesting.
I also said always and I doagree, dave, from an often
perspective from my clients.
But one of the things that Ihave really enjoyed as I've gone
out on my own as a solopreneuris that I have worked with the
most eclectic group ofindustries, everything from a
(18:09):
Fortune 100 pharmaceutical tothe automotive industry to
property development, and one ofthose, the things that has been
unique and the reason thatclients often bring me in is
that the ability to collaboratewith leadership in various
industries and bring experiencesthat they wouldn't have had an
(18:30):
opportunity to know because theytend to stay in their own silo.
So they love the fact that mebringing some of the things that
are outside of their normalpurview and some of those kinds
of insights to help them to bebetter in their leadership and,
through that, collaborationacross industry is really
(18:51):
crucial.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Anybody else like to emphasize a little further?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I'd like to emphasize on mine.
I put sometimes because, for me, the more and more I realize
that trying to be a communityadvocate and trying to get into
being more like out there in mycommunity, I cannot do that
stuff by myself.
The organization that I'm withnobody does anything by
themselves.
It's always like we're all here, we're all on the part of this
(19:24):
team and you have to understandthat.
If you want to do things byyourself, go ahead, but you're
not going to probably be assuccessful as you would be with
10 persons as opposed to oneperson.
So I realized that in justcollaborating in a certain space
, doing that in my work jobs,doing that in just my personal
(19:49):
life, collaboration has actuallyopened a lot more doors for me
than it would be by myself.
I'm an introvert, I like beingby myself, but I realized I have
to do a lot more work when I'mby would be by myself.
I'm an introvert, I like beingby myself, but I realized I have
to do a lot more work when I'mby myself and it's like, well,
it's not really helping me atthe end of the day.
And if I want to build thoserelationships, if I want to be
known as somebody who isapproachable, who can actually
(20:12):
hold conversations with peopleand actually is likable.
I have to be collaborative andthat's something that actually
the more and more you do, themore you begin to like it, the
more you begin to like meetingother people.
So I feel like collaborationjust in general it gets a lot
easier.
That's why I'm not sayingalways because I still tend to
(20:34):
avoid interacting with otherpeople, but sometimes because
it's opening my eyes thatcollaborating is actually pretty
good.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
If I could add something and just going back to
what Oliver was saying, becauseI was saying like, OK, you know
, sometimes, because that'scloser to often than to always
to me, that's why it was myanswer, because that's closer to
often than to always to me,that's why it was my answer.
But maybe, to take, you know, asI was listening to Oliver and
then, like the rest of youtalking, I was thinking well, in
the end, even the work thatmight seem that one is doing on
(21:08):
their own, it's really comingfrom some collaborative process,
right?
So you know you might end updoing something on your own, but
this is coming from like anorganization, as a nonprofit,
right?
So you know you might end updoing something on your own, but
this is coming from like anorganization, as a nonprofit,
right?
So it might be like afoundation that is funding you
to implement that program.
Even though you're doing it onyour own, you're actually doing
it with the resources that arebeing provided.
And then maybe you're doing itin collaborative spaces like
(21:28):
this or where we have met, rightso, where we're working all on
our own, maybe kind of separateprojects, but we're still
exchanging information or, youknow, getting thoughts back and
input.
So I guess then in that sense Iwill have to change my answer
and put it back on always.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I love that.
All right, we're gonna go aheadand go off to the next topic
Mindset.
This is definitely somethingthat we have to be conscientious
of, not only in just growth ingeneral, but in leadership
definitely, because we cansquash everything if we don't
have the right mindset.
I don't know about you guys,but growth is absolutely
(22:09):
necessary.
As a leader, I can't standworking for the same people.
It's like what am I going tolearn then?
Not trying to be rude?
So you got to embrace thosechallenges of opportunities and
actually be willing to growrather than.
I don't want to try that.
I think it was Oliver that wassaying he had a group that's
super excited and they know thatthey're nervous about what
they're going to be goingthrough, but they're pumped up
(22:29):
and they're excited aboutactually getting in there and
getting it done.
So that's where the resiliencestarts getting built.
We learn from failure Likewe're going to go through it.
It's going to happen, we'regoing to fail.
Alyssa gets excited.
It's super cute.
Now she's like, oh, got fourno's, next one's got to be a yes
.
And I'm like cool, like I lovethat.
(22:50):
And she's just like the moreno's I get, the sooner I'm going
to get a yes, and then she justknows how to actually respond
to individuals in a way that Iwouldn't have done.
That.
I would have been like no guysLike I wouldn't have been able
to handle it the same way.
I'm not as resilient and Ipretend like I don't care.
But I care.
It just doesn't work like thatfor me, unfortunately Got to
(23:13):
focus on continually learning inorder to continue to grow,
because industries shift andchange.
One of the things that wefreaked out the most about was
definitely AI.
As this little girl startedintroducing it to all of us,
people pushed back, especiallysome family members who believe
like computer science, coding,don't want to change it, don't
want to shift it.
And my favorite comment thatshe made was when she flat out
(23:35):
said you know what?
That's so beautiful, guys, butlet's study history.
And during the IndustrialRevolution, you either own the
machine or you knew how tooperate it or you had no job.
You decide where you want to be.
And I was like, okay, cool,like I understand, I'll start
learning how to use it so Idon't become completely obsolete
.
Use it so I don't becomecompletely obsolete.
(23:58):
And it's evolved and it'sactually made me start thinking
new things about AI, looking atit as a baby that I have to
actually train and adapt andteach it things.
So this has actually helped meempower other individuals and
being like hey.
I don't know it either, but wefigured it out and that gets
really exciting to other peoplethat you can admit.
You fell on your face, youdidn't know.
You were just as scared,because that's where you create
(24:19):
that empathy, that's where youcreate that understanding.
It's not sympathy and feelingbad for people.
It's really connecting andresonating with them.
So I want you guys to thinkabout it for yourselves.
What's the biggest challenge instaying innovative as a leader
for you?
Is it going to be your timeconstraint?
Is it going to be your timeconstraint?
Is it going to be uncleardirection, fear of risk I'm
(24:40):
hearing a lot of that onetonight or possibly lack of
resources, especially if you'rethere as a solopreneur or
shifting over into that space?
Speaker 6 (24:51):
While people are voting, melissa.
It's so funny because I'mcurrently doing a continuous
improvement for leaders coursefor a client and almost this
exact question has been raisedeach time.
We're about to do the second offour sessions around the
challenges of being in acontinuous improvement mindset
(25:14):
and while all of these are thethings that come up, what's
really interesting is thechallenges that they feel that
are beyond their control.
Ai is not one that they've saidis beyond their control,
because they know thateventually they're just going to
have to learn it.
(25:35):
It was sort of like I'm goingto just have to figure it out,
but it was really interestingbecause it was almost these
exact same four.
C was a little different of theones that came out, so usurp
the pole, but it was reallyinteresting that this whether
it's an AI or any innovationthat mindset around challenges
(25:57):
becomes, you know, the driver,or at least the thought, the
provoking thought process.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I love that One of our audience members actually
said wouldn't time constraintsand unclear direction be the
same, or almost the same?
Lack of time may result.
May be a result of focusing ontoo much I definitely agree on
that one like stretchingyourself a little too far, thin
and such.
But if we're seeing it, guys,we're looking at this and we're
(26:24):
noticing lack of resources andtime constraints definitely
seems to be the biggest one.
Who wants to kick that off I'llgo.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
So first of all, to gabby's point in the comments.
I love that, yes, because a lotof people would see that as the
same the organizations that Iwork with.
For me time, if you look at itas a structured management
organization, so you've gotheads of then directors, then
ex-leader operations,supervisors, whatever, right, if
(27:00):
you really break that down tosome time, restraints for a
frontline supervisor or managerwould be that forefront.
But unclear direction wouldthen be the knockoff effect of
management above not giving themdirection of where they want to
go.
So you can see it from bothsides.
(27:20):
But it depends on theorganization.
It depends on that kind ofhierarchy structure which makes
a huge difference.
But totally get it and yes, itcan be that way.
I didn't answer this question asme and that's why I'm kind of
saying it now.
I'm answering this question asfrom my client's perspective
because for me, time constraints, I run my own business.
(27:43):
There are no time constraints.
I have to make time.
If I'm not sleeping, I'mworking Hence, for me it's half
eight in the evening.
I've got screaming childrennext door which I can hear right
now.
So I'm making time and, to befair, most nights my wife and I
run our own businesses.
So after they go to sleep, weget the laptops out, we work
(28:10):
Unclear direction.
Well, if it's unclear it's me,it's my problem Because I'm not
being clear to myself.
Fear of risk, I take risks and,for me, lack of resources If I
need something, I go and buy it.
So the reason why I select timeconstraints on here is because,
again, I'm kind of seeing itfrom my client's side and I'm
answering it from their side,because the group of leaders
that I am currently coaching andtraining for a client at the
(28:31):
moment, everything is time.
They don't have time.
These guys have got a mixtureof anywhere from five to 30
people reporting into them andeverything is time.
And when you're working in anorganization as a leader nine
times out of ten and I'mplucking hours here, you're
working a nine till five.
That's your hours, that's whatyou focus on.
(28:53):
You're not running your ownbusiness, so you're not.
Yes, don't get me wrong, leadersare thinking about stuff
outside of work.
They are still working.
I'm not disregarding that.
But you don't work the same waywhen you run your own business,
because you are constantlythinking about it.
You are constantly it's in theback of your brain.
So the reason I selected timerestraints is because that's
(29:17):
what everybody is telling me atthe minute and you're not going
to believe this, alyssa.
You're going to have kittenswhen you hear this.
I mentioned chat GPT tosomebody the other day that I'm
coaching and they said what'sthat?
Look at that reaction.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
Are they 80?
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Say that again, serenaena.
Are they 80 years old?
Uh, no, they're probablymid-20s.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Maybe they were just grok users and trying to pretend
that chai gpt doesn't exist doyou know what it is?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
and I, I, I dug deep when that prompt because they
were trying to build reports,and I said, okay, look, I get,
you can't share confidentialinformation.
But I took an hour and a half aday to 10 minutes by using
ChatGPT, copying and pastingreports.
That was the same thing doneevery day.
That took an hour and a half todo.
(30:12):
I created a prompt and a customChat gpt, showed them what to
do, showed them what to pull out, and that took.
Now that now that takes 10minutes a day.
But again, working in anorganization where you don't
have access to ai, or maybe youdon't have an iphone with all
right, I'm not going to sayapple intelligence, because it
(30:33):
is what it is but you don't have, you don't have access to this
stuff.
Maybe you're just not in thatworld.
I get, I get it and and for methere are so many different ways
to look at that question, but Ilove that question because it
opens so many doors.
Go on, alyssa, pipe up on thatone.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
When you said that, I was like no, you're joking.
I was like this person has tobe.
You know, as Serena said, maybe80.
You said 20, and I wanted tocry Because, especially because
of how fast it's moving now, youwere talking about your iPhone.
(31:16):
Right In the newest iPhones,they have that built in in the
camera.
You take a picture and chat gptpops up and says, oh here, this
is what it is based off what Isaw, and it's like you can do
that.
Okay, if you even look ongoogle or I don't know if it's
on safari, mom, you would haveto tell me if it's on safari but
(31:36):
if you look on Google andyou're doing a certain search,
Google pulls up the AI summaryof what you're searching, so you
can save time.
So it's like there's no way youdon't know what ChatGPT is or
what AI is in general, BecauseOpenAI is everywhere and I'm
pretty sure you've heard it onthe news, you've heard it
somewhere, You've heard it onInstagram reels, you've heard it
(32:00):
TikTok, you've heard itsomewhere.
So I'm like, is this personliving under a rock or what is
going on?
Because there's no way they areable to connect with you or
connect with other people andnot have heard about AI.
Even people who don't like ithave heard of it.
It's like it's not.
I don't know.
(32:22):
In this generation we call ittrolling.
I'm not trolling.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
I'm going to put you on a call with my parents.
Good luck explaining that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
To be fair, I think that's funny that you said it
was a person who was 20, becausethis young lady has a range of
friends.
They're all from linkedin.
It's so strange, um, butthey're all a very range of ages
in the tech ai world.
I think the oldest one he'swhat john, so he'd be like 72,
75 I think he's 75, yeah andthen alissa was in the group as
(32:54):
the youngest, 17, for like no 16at the time.
Now she's 18, so like they'vebeen buddies for like two years
as they grow out everything inthe AI salon and they continue
advocate and they range in theirage, but they will own it, they
learn about it.
They had to have theconversations and be real with
each other that we get lost in atangent and get stuck trying
(33:17):
out new things that we stilldon't even know how to play with
, get all excited and then starton a new app let's just say it
wasn't, it was.
It was a very interestingconversation anyone else want to
emphasize off of that uh, Iwould like to.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
I mean, I answered, uh, the lack of resources.
Again, like from a non-profitperspective.
You know that tends to be acommon, a common theme, which
then might lead to timeconstraints and so on.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
But again.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
That's why I think things like AI are super helpful
when lack of resources is oneof those obstacles, because you
can definitely do so much more.
I mean, the examples havealready been given here, but I
think that's one of those thingsthat one needs to definitely be
using, like I mean.
(34:13):
I mean one can have differentperspectives about AI, but I
think, when it comes to justimproving your organization in a
sense of, like, making it moreefficient, to be able to have,
like, maybe more output,whatever it is that you're doing
, you know whether that's goingto be an email, some like you
know technical, like you knowquery or something, but I think
there's just kind of no wayaround it.
(34:34):
It's, it's, it's everywhere andit's yeah, it's undeniable that
if you don't, if you don't useit, you're going to be left
behind, and this could be like awhole, a whole different
conversation, a whole differentpanel, but it is.
Then what will be theimplications?
Knowing that you have access tosuch resources?
Right, because it's like, noweveryone has their own
(34:54):
assistants and you can trainthem and you know, basically,
they start learning about you.
So then the expectations forproduction and output would also
go go up.
So how is that balanced?
That remains to be seen,because everything's so new.
But what's, I think, a fact isyou, you need to to, to use it,
because otherwise, right now,today, like you'll start like
getting behind, like for sure,there's no way that you can
(35:19):
compete, let's say, withoutmaking the most of AI.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I love that I feel like I didn't quite see it like
that because it was more likehaving to learn something new.
So I feel like that's why timeconstraints.
Sometimes companies will feellike I didn't quite see it like
that because it was more likehaving to learn something new.
So I feel like that's why timeconstraints.
Sometimes companies will feellike nope, not doing that, we
just don't have the time to gotry something new.
And really what they're sayingis they don't have the money to
go invest the time to learnsomething new.
They're like no, no, we're nottaking that chance.
(35:44):
So it really comes down to likeam I going to put that money in
there?
Down to like am I going to putthat money in there?
Do I think it's worth thereturn of investment or do I
feel more of a headache and thatthat's actually what's causing
more fear?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
that's what it is for me.
Just to add to that, andactually something you just said
, melissa, makes total sense,right, organizations cost
whatever, and what's funny isit's just clicked, the companies
actually look at and they arebuilding.
It's not looking, they'reactually building an internal ai
bot for the organization as aknowledge base.
(36:15):
So maybe they just don't knowit as chat gpt, maybe they know
it as something else, but Idon't know.
Now it's opened the doors to alot of questions on my side, but
they never, never heard ofChatGPT and that's still.
I feel like I took theirChatGPT virginity plate, so I'll
take that.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I love that.
Oh, my goodness, speaking aboutthat, I think a better question
would just be in the basket.
So can you tell me the name ofthe technology that you guys are
building right now?
And who knows, knows, it mightalready have a name.
I know alissa created a bot fordave at one point and she put a
name to him and everythingdesigned him did his logo or
(36:57):
branding based on how he wantedit to talk.
And dave and I like to talk alot about nepq I would think I'm
like butchering that right now.
I can't remember what it is atthe top of my head, but as we
talk, talk about sales Dave andI talk a lot about emotional
intelligence and being realistic, about asking the right
questions.
That would invoke emotion withpeople and that's the process
(37:20):
that we keep looking at and it'slike a circle.
But at the same time, if it'snot in place, then it kind of
breaks everything.
So it was necessary to programhis with that and it made a lot
of other questions easier andsuch um.
I know it helped me when shedidn't want to do stuff for me.
No more, she's like here's abot, I made it for you, leave me
alone.
It's like man okay, fine, I'llleave you alone.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So yeah, just so you guys know she's the best
assistant ever I was working onthe bot that can do your accent
all over that's why I'm in linefor the next one.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Thank you, and you can find somebody can finally
just take my language and justmake it americanized, so I'll
take that all right.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So as we're going through all that, we get it
started, we pull the trigger.
Now we've got to actually makesure we don't drown.
So now we've got to navigatethrough everything and make sure
that we can stay adaptable,because as water starts getting
in the boat, are we just goingto sit there and watch it or are
we going to be like trying totoss it out so that way we can
keep going?
So, really, what doesinnovation mean in leadership
for you all?
(38:26):
How do you balance structureand adaptability?
And then, what mindset shiftsare necessary for leaders to
stay innovative?
Finally, what common challengesdo leaders face in adapting to
change?
These are four questions forthe panelists.
I'm going to leave it open forthem to pick whichever one they
want to tackle first, and wewill start the discussion from
(38:49):
there.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
I think I'll do the first one Go for it.
So I feel like what innovationand leadership means to me is
it's like how we saw that it'sthe adaptability, the resilience
and, I think, being open-mindedjust in general to your team.
That like creates and fostersthat kind of change.
(39:12):
And like as I've learned fromyou like being a leader doesn't
automatically mean you get toorder people around.
It means that you're able togrow with your team, you're able
to create other leaders withthem.
So I feel like that's theinnovative part.
If you're able to recreateyourself and other people,
(39:32):
recreate other leaders and theycan handle the stuff without you
needing to be there, that islike that innovation piece,
because you're creating the nextset of leaders without you
needing to be there, and thenthey know that they can handle
the stuff when you're gone.
And I feel like that is whattrains the innovation, because
(39:53):
if you're able to have multiplepeople who can lead each other
without making the person thatthey're leading feel inadequate,
that is what fosters thepositive growth and that's what
keeps that a train rolling.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
So yeah hello, worm inside.
Thanks, kiddo, who's next?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
sorry.
Did you give her the 20 bucksbefore this call or after?
Speaker 6 (40:21):
it was 50 she's an innovative young woman.
She figured it out.
Um, it's really interesting.
I work with leaders a lot inthis exact space, about being
able to see the vision for thechange, and really the challenge
that they often face is notslowing down but bringing others
(40:44):
with them and making sure thatthe brilliant ideas, the
innovative ideas, sometimes theexperiences that they have are
so much more broad than thepeople in their teams or in
their organizations that theycan adapt to changes more
quickly or at least changedmindset, and so one of the
(41:05):
things that I often am workingwith leaders in is about
communication and about how dothey communicate either their
own vision or what theirexpectations are.
That allows other people one tocome with them on the journey of
change, but two to also beengaged and really ignited in
the enthusiasm around what thatchange is, rather than fearful.
(41:27):
So I think that becomes thecommon challenges often, in some
cases remembering that whenthey've said it the first time,
they may have thought about itfor weeks or months before
they've actually articulated it,and bringing the others along
and giving them space to be ableto ask those questions to come
(41:47):
along, is often one of thosechallenges that that they have
to overcome.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I love that.
You're not wrong.
I think each of us come withour own background bias,
confirmation bias of like whatthings are supposed to look like
.
Therefore, it's like we gotthis, let's go.
Well, you're not scared becauseyou've done it before.
What about the person next toyou?
And kind of like, as Davesaying, you got to create that
space for them to feel that theycan go get it done so that they
(42:15):
can do it rinse and repeat, sothat way they can grow that
resilience and keep going withthat.
But that's what I feel like asa leader, you also have to be
realistic with yourself on whatlittle baby steps can you create
too so that they can be readyfor those scenarios?
As dave was saying, likebuilding in that readiness for
(42:35):
them.
Okay, cool, we know wherethey're going to do public
speaking in the classroom.
You can ask any one of mystudents.
You're going to have to talk infront of the classroom at 30 at
one point I don't talk in frontof nobody I don't care.
You're going to talk to yourfriend for first, just for the
beginning, and then eventuallywe're going to do a table of
four and you guys are just goingto talk like that and you guys
are going to do some so muchteam building.
You're going to want to talkand then eventually I'm going to
(42:56):
make you a team of eightbecause you guys are going to
pair up and then eventually youhave to talk in front of the
entire like the entire classroom, and these kids were like
amazing public speakers and nowthey're becoming coaches and
speakers.
Speaker 6 (43:07):
For me it's like yay, building adaptability and
building growth without havingto do it all by myself what I I
loved about what you just said,melissa, was that you gave them
the space to, to, to be thechange, to do the change.
So often I run into leaderswhere they told their team what
(43:29):
they wanted, or their teammember, and then their team
member either didn't do itexactly as they expected or
didn't know enough, so theydidn't do it at all.
And then, because they believein the team, they feel badly.
They didn't articulate it wellor they're overloaded already.
They just take it on and do itthemselves.
(43:49):
And then I'm always sort ofbacking them up and saying and
what have we learned?
We keep saying the people arethe most important and yet, at
the end of the day, the workreally was more important than
the person, because you didn'tgive them the opportunity to
learn and to grow.
And I love what you just didbecause you gave them many
opportunities and manyiterations for them to grow,
(44:11):
even though they're students.
Certainly your best evidence ofyour leadership in growing
young people is on this callwith us, so I love that just
just to piggyback off the backof serena there.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Like I see that with delegation, like with every
client that I work with, rightand I talk about it probably
every other week where they'vegiven a task to somebody and
they've gone here.
You go, here's A to Z, butyou've got to come to me for M,
n and O, and at that pointyou're like well, why did you
(44:52):
even delegate if you're notgiving me that autonomy to go
and do that?
And that's the point, becausethen all of a sudden they fail
at M, n and O.
So the leader just goes okay,I'll take that back, and it just
screws the pooch on all of that.
Yeah, make total sense.
I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I love that.
I feel like we have to respectthat.
We hire leaders for a reasonand we hired them for that role.
That's the whole point.
You spend all this money tohire expert because you don't
have to do it, and there's oneparticular organization I'm
thinking about specifically onwhat you're saying doesn't quite
do that, and I was in charge ofdifferent programs and
(45:30):
different things with them.
It was really annoying that Iwould do grant compliance and
keep up and honest agitator.
Here I literally have thatreputation.
Honest agitator Okay cool, I'drather be honest than a liar.
But if I'm an honest agitator,I'm going to ruffle some
feathers along the way, andyou're too honest sometimes.
Okay, well, I don't know whatto tell you in that space
(45:51):
because I need to make sure thatwe're still growing and
adopting.
And they pushed it down.
There was a lot of bottleneckingand it was cute because I was
told that I was bottlenecking.
I was like no, I'm the one wholiterally understands what
they're saying for grantcompliance, but what you're not
saying is what you don't wantthe board to find out.
Got it Understood?
I can't work for people likethat and that's it's fine.
(46:12):
But it comes down to if there'stoo much of it.
Why'd you hire me there's, I'msure there's somebody else who's
better at it, cause I'm justgoing to make your life
difficult.
Next, like seriously and I'vebeen in rooms with other people
in here before where they'veseen me do it I've been like,
okay, cool, not gonna work.
Next, set Like, and that's okay,because you have to do what
(46:37):
works for you and you have to berealistic on just the way
Oliver was saying, like, did itget delegated or not?
So I love when I bring people inand I ask them.
We do a synergy triangle, someof my groups to connect with
collaborations with my people.
When they come in for theorganization, though, I end up
asking them so what do you do?
Who do you serve, like as faras, like in general, not clients
, but organization, your purpose, what do you want to be here
(46:59):
for?
Now we can understand where toplace you.
Here's the project that we havecoming on, here's the goal.
Now you guys tell me how we'regetting there.
That's the whole point ofhiring you, so I don't have to
figure out all other stuff andthey feel much more empowered
when they understand what themission is or what we need to do
, and then they're moreempowered, that they have
basically permission to do itand then step out there in that
(47:23):
space, any common challenges youguys think leaders might be
facing adapting to change but.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
I think I want to back off.
You want to back off.
Add on to what serena wassaying about like the
communication part.
Adding on to not being able tocompletely articulate what your
vision is to other people.
Or like how you had said thatsome people who have went
through certain things mightfind the challenge less daunting
than others.
So it's like we're not fullycommunicating what our strengths
(47:58):
and weaknesses are.
So when we're trying to adapt tothe change, it's like, well,
how come you can't do it?
I was able to do it.
It's like, well, that's greatfor you, but we're not meeting
at the same point.
Like we we're both agreeingthat we want to get to this spot
, but we don't know the sandbagsthat we have to carry along the
way, the other baggage that wehave.
(48:18):
And it's like the communicationwhen it's, I guess, when it's
breaking, it's not the best.
And then that's how you getpeople who lose motivation
because they're feeling like,well, they're just going to push
me through to this and I'm noteven going to give it my best
effort, because they don't seethis is where I'm struggling,
that they just automaticallythink that they were able to do
(48:40):
it, I'm able to do it, and it'sjust like things like that.
So they're like it's clear andconcise communication.
That is emphasized in everypoint and, I guess, at every
quarter.
Whatever you're trying to do,that doesn't get fully.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Um, I guess exercised so well guys, how comfortable
are y'all with change inleadership?
Don't just vote yes because yougot rid of the boss you hated,
but be real how comfortable arewe with those changes?
And then audience you can startputting final questions you
(49:18):
would like our speakers toaddress in the chat so we can
start answering those for you.
I'm going to share this results.
What are those you and about toshare this results?
Hmm, what are that?
All they're actually going tobe waiting for is but I'm just
(49:39):
reading that.
Um, so yeah, I have to trainand make a new one, alissa,
perfect.
Is this not the project youwere supposed to be working on?
Trying to figure out how youcan get all the branding for him
aligned in one?
Speaker 4 (49:54):
pretty much I want to see if I can get one with the,
the speaking bot, and figure outhow to get it with the british
accent.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
That'd be awesome that's hilarious that you say
that.
That's funny because, uh, atthe same time too, what you can
teach him how to do is how hecan can ask that bot to go do
the coding for him that heneeded to build the website, so
he doesn't need you either.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Don't worry, oliver, it will be done.
You will have a best friend intechnology, I promise.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Any questions from the audience, guys, aside from
Oliver needing a bot?
Speaker 6 (50:39):
you know, melissa, when and as we're looking for
audience questions, I I havealways um reminded my my clients
who are in leadership positionsthat are struggling with change
.
When, when the new thing comeswhatever whatever that is, now
it's AI it always feels likeit's the biggest challenge, it's
(51:01):
the mountain, okay, and I can'ttell you how many times I've
had people say can we just findthe pause button?
I just need like a little whileto just get caught up.
And I say to leaders all thetime it's our responsibility to
find the commonality that allowspeople to be able to talk
eloquently about networking,meaning the cabling that was in
(51:43):
buildings and then, all of asudden, mobility was the new
thing and everybody was up inarms.
How are we going to overcomethis?
We just got trained on and whenwe were able to find that the
same concepts applied it's justwhether the cable is actually in
the wall or in the air theywere able to get it, the concept
(52:07):
.
So one of the things that Ichallenge leaders all the time
with is imagine it's the same.
Only you're responsible to findthat step that gets them over
the chasm.
I actually said to somebody forAI, ai is not that hard, it is
Google on steroids, like if youcould just be on Google all the
(52:29):
time and Google could be really,really, really smart.
That's all that you're talkingabout.
They're like, oh okay, okay, Ican do that, and it is.
I think it's the responsibilityof leaders to find something,
even if it's not exactly right,but find some commonality so
that their team can overcomethat fear of change, that the
(52:50):
innovation isn't thatfar-fetched.
Now I mean, I'm sure there'sgoing to be something in my
lifetime that is going to be sofar-fetched that even I'm going
to have a hard time finding thethread.
But I do think that's aleader's responsibility,
certainly to help their teamsovercome that.
And if they need to help, youknow they can come to me and
I'll find the thread for them.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Be sure to drop your information down in the chat so
that they can reach out.
So the questions actually werehere and I just didn't pay
attention to them.
I apologize so if you guys wantto tackle one of these three
questions as we wrap it up forthe night.
But how do you encourageinnovation in structured
environments?
And I feel like that's kind ofwhat Serena just tapped on right
now, like it's already so set.
(53:34):
This is where we wouldencourage it, but what
leadership strategies help inuncertain times?
And then, how can businessbalance innovation with risk
management?
Speaker 4 (53:47):
I think what she said covered pretty much all these
questions and snippets.
Like she's like what strategies?
It's google on steroids, liketrying to pretty much, I guess,
make it similar to somethingelse that they're already
familiar with, to like ease therisk, to ease the, the fear, and
she's balancing innovation withrisk management by saying, okay
(54:11):
, we're gonna try this out, butwe're gonna take it like with
baby steps, because we knowwe're not all there yet and
that's fine.
Like, if you can use google,you can use this chat, gbt,
we'll just figure it out.
And it's like that'sencouraging the, the innovation
in the environment, because,like, we all got it, we'll take
(54:31):
time and we'll do it.
And then I really do like that,um, what's it called?
I guess an analogy now, becauseI normally call ai like a child
that you're trying to train orwhatever, or like as simple as a
really, really smart baby.
Sometimes it's like it's just ababy, like be nice to it, and
(54:55):
she's like fine, okay, I'll benice to it, but it makes it
easier for somebody to see it as, oh, it's like a child rather
than something that could takemy job away.
You know, it's like somethingthat's much more, I guess,
digestible.
So I think that was a cute wayof saying it Google on steroids.
(55:16):
Or maybe, if people don't haveAndroid, it'd be Safari on
steroids, I don't know, but yeah, I think that's cute.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
I love that.
Please, alyssa, take my kids,train them Please.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Just do it.
One of the preparationsAlyssa's actually going to be
doing is collaborating withNestor right now, working with
some kiddos in his group toactually grow out that community
and they are going to be.
Nestor, do you want to share alittle bit more about what those
kiddos are doing, sharing theirstories?
And, Alyssa, you can talk aboutthe podcast?
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Yeah, and actually I just wanted to mention, like, as
far as like the strategies, Iwanted to just kind of have like
two keywords almost oneadaptability and collaboration.
So it's, you know you point outthis collaboration, but yeah,
just, we are engaging our youthin the advocacy that we're doing
(56:11):
and trying to have them reallydrive the advocacy not only
through their stories but alsothrough their direct input on
you know how to present thosestories or who to present those
stories to or in which context.
And at least I was visiting thePuro Community Studio some
(56:34):
weeks ago and tomorrow I'mactually meeting with the
students to post the invitationto go on April 1st to the
mayoral youth-led forum.
So hopefully we'll see you withthe three of them there.
But yeah, we're excited aboutthat and collaborations of that
(56:56):
sort, because then that startstranslating into youth-led
collaborations, which is evenmore exciting, especially for
those of us that work ineducation and working with youth
.
That's really great.
But I think that's whycollaborating is like you know,
it's a strategy that, whetherthe times are certain or
uncertain, you know it's a goodstrategy to have.
(57:20):
But yeah, I'm looking forwardto that, and the students are
too.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
So Be sure to tell James hi, we're looking forward
to connecting again.
Alyssa, you want to emphasizewhat's off of that too?
Speaker 4 (57:37):
Well, yeah, I mean, aside from being able to connect
with other like-minded kids,it's um, for what I do with my
podcast is I pretty much justuse uh, I break down ai into
simple conversations for peopleto understand.
I I try to mainly get people whodon't like AI, as weird as it
(58:00):
sounds, to make it easier forthem to understand it, because
if people who are so opposed toit can understand it, people who
like it are obviously going tounderstand it.
So I try to get those as mytarget audience, to make the I
guess, the content simplisticfor everybody, because AI in
(58:23):
itself is not an easy topic toexpress and explain.
But when I was able to meetJames and then talk to him about
certain projects, like on hisown branding and stuff, it was
like being able to speak to himas if I was speaking to
something I'm really interestedin.
So it just made it a lot easierto like connect with him and I
(58:47):
can't wait to actually have himon the podcast and we can just
talk about that stuff and do theadvocating piece.
So I am looking forward tomeeting with you guys again and
talking about all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
So, yeah, so I had some students that are in here,
that are in college right now,who had me when they were in
seventh grade, and I told themat one point or another you guys
are gonna be collaborating asadults, you're gonna keep this
going, and alissa and dominicare actually launching a
non-profit that's partneringhere in san Antonio to bridge
trade, business and educationSuper excited about those next
(59:22):
ventures.
You guys will start hearingthat a little bit more after the
actual mayor elections and citycouncil elections, and then you
kind of want to not makeopinions for anybody before they
vote, if that makes sense, andthen after they vote.
Well, we got a lot of surprisecoming, guys, lots of surprises.
So thank you so much to ourpanelists for joining us tonight
(59:43):
.
The conversation on innovationwas definitely a fun one.
I really started enjoying this.
This is a monthly thing that wedo.
It's the fourth Monday of everymonth.
Next month we're going to betalking about ruffling feathers.
Guys, this is a kickoffconversation.
This is my second book that Iwill be releasing later on in
(01:00:03):
the year and this will start thepre-sales and the conversation
about it.
Because I am an honest agitator, I like to bring to light
different things that mightruffle feathers, but the purpose
is to innovate change.
The biggest thing is tohighlight what's best for
everyone and how can we growtogether, so I'm super excited
about that topic.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
And next month we'll actually be talking about
collaboration and leadership.
If today's episode resonatedwith you don't forget to
subscribe share and leave areview.
Remember the key to success isnot getting chaos, but learning
how to structure it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
Stay inspired, keep growing and Thank you guys for
coming.
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