August 25, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode, Sarena Diamond takes us inside her journey from corporate leadership to personal empowerment. She opens up about navigating burnout, the hidden costs of “corporate trauma,” and the courage it takes to redefine success. Sarena highlights why effective change management is rooted in people, not processes, and how leaders can create supportive environments that prevent disconnection. Her story is a call to action for anyone looking to embrace career transitions, balance ambition with well-being, and take ownership of their destiny.
Key Takeaways
- Career transitions are about defining your version of fulfillment.
- Burnout often stems from energy drain and misalignment with values.
- The “Power of AND” shows us we don’t have to choose—multiple paths can coexist.
- Leadership isn’t about cutting—it’s about fueling growth and empowerment.
- Change management succeeds when leaders focus on people, not just processes.
- Dreams only matter when you turn them into actionable plans.
Contact Sarena Diamond at:
Website:Diamond Solutions Group, LLC – Turning "What if?" into "Way to go!"
LinkedIn: (35) Sarena Diamond | LinkedIn
Instagram: Sarena Diamond (@sarenadiamond) • Instagram photos and videos
Facebook:Facebook
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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jess K (00:00):
If you look success on paper but feel exhausted,
disconnected or feel like you'reliving somebody else's life.
Serena Diamond is here andshe's been crushing it for 30
years in the corporateleadership.
She's had the titles, theachievement, but also the
burnout and the drama that camewith it.
So let's continue to talk withher about how and where she made
(00:20):
her boldest move and how sherebuilt into something else.
Claude (00:24):
Let's get right into it Hi.
I'm Claude and I'm Jess.
We are corporate employees byday, entrepreneurs by night and
work besties for life.
Jess K (00:35):
Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other
up, laugh through the chaos andthrive together in every
industry.
Work besties, Welcome.
We're so excited to have you.
Sarena Diamond (00:49):
Thank you so much.
Jess K (00:50):
As I mentioned in the bio, you've had a 30-year
corporate career.
What pushed you to walk awayfrom that?
Sarena Diamond (00:57):
and start this new adventure.
I loved every minute of thework that I did in Accenture and
Pepsi and IBM, loved all thethings that I learned, but at
the end of the day, I had a bitof corporate trauma, much like
many people that were surprisedat giving your all to some place
(01:18):
that it wasn't supposed to be.
And post-IBM, I spent asix-month engagement period of
time and I decided to go out onmy own to really be able to work
for the one boss that I couldalways trust, which was myself,
and I have never looked backsince then and there is nothing
I would ever do to go back atthis point.
(01:39):
I will do this for the rest ofmy career because I absolutely
love having control of my owndestiny and my own life and my
own experiences.
Jess K (01:50):
I love that.
I think that's one of thethings that we love most about
our little work bestiescommunity is that we get to be
our own bosses.
It's a very freeing experience.
Claude (02:03):
It's not that easy either.
When you work for someone else,you know that you're having a
paycheck.
Sarena Diamond (02:09):
That's true.
You go on vacation, you have apaycheck Right and it is.
But there is also the aspect ofyou have no control over what
it is that you're doing.
There's a lot of years I was asingle parent working at IBM and
I would say, well, they didn'tmake me clean the men's room
today.
(02:29):
And I mean I was a senior leaderand doing some pretty difficult
jobs as dictated to me bycorporate leaders that were more
senior than I was.
They weren't things that Iwould have asked of others,
which is why lots of times itstopped with me as the leader.
I wouldn't pass it down to myteam, but the quarterly
reductions in force.
There was an enormous amount oftrauma that came from that.
(02:52):
I am one of those people thatbelieves you never cut your way
to growth, so companies don'tgrow by cutting.
But it is really an importantaspect of that and I wouldn't go
back ever.
Now I go back and I actuallyhelp leaders be better at
achieving the changes thatthey're trying to make happen
without making some of thosehorrible decisions that lots of
leaders have to deal with.
Jess K (03:13):
What were some of those early signs that, in your career
, success wasn't aligned to yourwell-being?
Sarena Diamond (03:29):
Probably the hardest one was that I would
have nightmares about thingsthat were really horrible in
history.
So, for example, during theperiod of the IBM reductions in
force, where I wasn't choosingthe people that were being
reduced, I was just trying, Iwas figuring out how do you
solve for that client commitmentthat we made when you're going
to remove those people from theIBM workforce.
I actually had a period ofabout three months in that job
(03:51):
where I had that resembledSchindler's List and the gas
chambers from some of those,because that's what it felt like
Unbelievable kinds of traumathat was the people in the
position to be removing humanbeings from their jobs, rather
than finding other ways to solvefor corporate decisions.
Because, let's be clear, thereisn't a layoff that ever comes
(04:13):
without having made poorleadership decisions.
I truly believe that you cananticipate well, maybe COVID
made some resistance.
You, as a leader, have aresponsibility to be able to
read the room and read thedirections, and not everybody
does it well, right, and noteverybody is willing to read
what they see.
So it is certainly one of thosechallenges that lots of people
(04:35):
have.
Jess K (04:36):
I hear you.
Yeah, not to be a gloom anddoom.
Sarena Diamond (04:39):
That was terrible.
Jess K (04:40):
You're seeing it and hearing it in the news A lot of
companies are reducing workforceand, youbeing-wise, it's hard.
Sarena Diamond (05:05):
When I hear somebody in my network or
somebody reaches out to me andsays how did you do it for all
those years at IBM?
And I always start with whatare you doing to take care of
yourself?
Because delivering that kind ofmessage, there isn't a human
being that's ready to do that,and if they are, they're not
really human beings and ifthey're okay with the message on
a regular basis, their heart'snot in it and they really
(05:26):
shouldn't be responsible forleading other people in their
well-being either.
Jess K (05:29):
You have this kind of mantra of the power of end and
what this means to you.
How did that shape you and thebusiness that you started?
Sarena Diamond (05:39):
So when I first started looking at going out on
my own, I didn't really know howto find the clients or develop
my own business and I was verylinear in my thinking.
I kept thinking, okay, I willgo with this approach, or I will
do this kind of a category, orI will look here.
And it actually was a mentor ofmine who stayed and we've
(06:04):
become really great friends whosaid to me why do you keep
saying, or what about?
And?
And that one question justchanged everything, because that
day I started saying, well, howcan I get even more creative
about this?
So I literally was looking forjobs, reaching out to people on
LinkedIn who had postedfull-time jobs that I could do,
(06:26):
and say things to them like Isee that you posted this job and
finding the right person foryour company is going to take a
long time if you're reallycareful about it.
What are you doing in theinterim?
How about I come and help youas an interim hire?
It didn't turn into anengagement, but I did have four
conversations as a result ofthat and I like to think that I
was really good luck because, aswe would get closer to hiring
(06:46):
me to be their interim fill inthe gap, they would amazingly
find the right person and thenmake an announcement within a
few weeks.
So I'm like, all right, I'll behere.
Good luck to him for that.
The concept it has evolved.
It started as how do I embraceand lots of opportunities, as
opposed to singular thinking andfeeling like if I had applied
to 25 opportunities on LinkedIn,check the box I had done
(07:09):
something really good for theday.
It allowed me to open up lotsof things.
But what's really funny is ithas become a hallmark of almost
every engagement that I do withclients, almost every workshop
that I deliver now, because somuch of the work that leaders
are trying to do is how do I dothis, how do I do this, how do I
do this and not how do I dothis and also show up with the
(07:31):
core values of my company andalso balance what's true for me
and my values, my personalvalues, how do I do what's
expected and what feels like theright thing is at the same time
?
Claude (07:43):
What is the core value of your company?
So for, me.
Sarena Diamond (07:48):
It wanted to help me to see who I wanted to
be working with and what kindsof companies, what kind of
missions they were on Not thatothers are bad, it's just they
weren't really interested oraligned with me.
So I started looking veryspecifically at those kinds of
companies and those kinds ofopportunities.
But what was more so is I'veseen where leaders understand
(08:10):
that they weren't supposed to bethe big boss.
I'm actually one of my veryearly clients used to say can't
you just make them do it?
I would say I can, but let'sstart with.
Why would you want to try that?
And I've had a client whereI've had to remind them your
core values on your website.
Say these are the kinds ofthings that you want to be
emulating and, as leaders, maybehave some opportunity.
(08:34):
I've had a client where I saidwe're going to have a little bit
of a mirror moment here,because you need to look
yourself in the mirror and sayhow can you be expecting your
people to be demonstrating thesevalues, your leaders to be
demonstrating these values everysingle day?
When you were doing things likecalling them in on short notice
because they've made a mistake,right and you're taking them to
(08:56):
task and people like how we dothe work we do and what we're
expected to do.
My biggest alignment really forthe power of hand has really
resonated with clients iseverybody does performance
management right, whether it'ssmall or big.
Small companies do it for little, tiny bits, but large
corporations, their performancemanagement process starts with
(09:18):
objectives at the beginning ofthe year and they're always
these business results, theseKPIs that you've met.
Are you saying how they achievethose outcomes matter?
Of course they do.
Well, are you showing that inyour performance management
program?
Are you helping your leaders tosee that how we achieve the
results is as important as theresults themselves?
(09:39):
Years of having these giantpeople that achieve these great
sales results and are just jerksto everybody their moral
compass is a question.
The reality is that's not whereanybody wants to work or the
people that people want to dobusiness with.
That's a lot of the work that Ido now with leaders is to help
them to say you know what?
Let's talk about how youachieve the work you do and show
(10:01):
up demonstrating your corevalues leading, supporting,
encouraging others to be doingthe work that they need to be
doing.
Jess K (10:07):
What's the most common mistake companies make when they
are implementing change?
Sarena Diamond (10:13):
I tell people all the time a company doesn't
implement change.
A leader implements changebecause people make decisions
Individuals in leadership rolesmore or less less prepared, but
leaders make those decisions asto how to go forward.
And leaders and the reasonthat's important is because
leaders can always get better.
Companies don't grow their own,their own capabilities, they
grow their people's capability.
(10:34):
So I always say to leaders howyou're showing up from a
transformation perspective, how,what are those challenges?
The things that I often see isthat a leader.
I will ask a question like how,when did this first idea come to
you?
We've got this grand vision.
Maybe it's an acquisition, andthis happened very recently.
We had this grand vision we'regoing to acquire this smaller
(10:55):
company and it just so happenedthat the leader was ready to
sell and move out.
Okay, great, then we talk aboutit, and so they will have
taught.
The leader will have thoughtabout it, talked about it, and
so they will have talked.
The leader will have thoughtabout it, talked about it,
mulled it over, had meetingsabout it, gone for a run to the
gym and thought about it formonths, months and months and
months, and then it's finallyday to let people know about it
(11:15):
and they send an email and thenthey're done.
Right, then they're donecommunicating.
They're done because they'vespent so much time in their own
head building up the purpose,the value, the vision for this
transformation.
They forget to give people thepurpose of it, the vision for it
, the reason to join in and bereally, truly engaged.
And sometimes it's something sosimple as communication.
(11:37):
Sometimes it's really aboutexplaining the why and
understanding the purpose behindit and helping the entire rest
of the organization to buildbelief.
The other thing I see leadersdoing lots of times is the
senior.
Most leader will make theannouncement or the
transformation is going to be atthe level of the CEO or the
office of the COO, and theydon't work on helping to cascade
(12:00):
the change through each of theleadership chains.
So they forget the fact thatthe people that are going to
need to do new ways of workingmaybe it's adopting new
technology, maybe it's adifferent process those people
report to one or two or threelevels of management, between
the person that announced thechange and the people that are
living with it every day.
And each of those levels of theorganization can't really
(12:23):
cascade the change andpersonalize it, localize it for
their team.
Right, you're always at odds.
Right, the leader's reallyfrustrated.
I always get hired when theleader's frustrated.
Right, something didn't happen,the timing that they expected,
the level of KPI that theyexpected.
Rarely does someone say this isgoing to be a big change for
(12:43):
our folks.
Let's get an organizationalchange expert in at the
beginning.
I love it, but it's always muchlater than that.
But when they do that, wealmost always have to do a
little bit of reset, a littlebit of engagement that the
people back into understandingthe belief system, the
understanding the why.
But once we do that, we'realways ready to go.
Claude (13:04):
Change is very often very scary, right.
So what do you do to ease theirfear?
Sarena Diamond (13:11):
What's funny is the reason change is so scary,
and I help leaders to see thisall the time.
The fear that is there is basedon the fact that, 99% of the
time, the people that are doingthe jobs that they're doing
today don't see their position,don't see a level of comfort
that they have now in the futurestate, and so leaders really
(13:32):
need to do a good job of helpingto bring their teams along.
And that is not always a tellkind of story.
Sometimes that is a questionkind of story.
So I have a series of questionsthat I ask leaders to ask of
their people to help them feellike they're part of it.
You have to be supporting,enabling behaviors in those new
(13:52):
ways of working and making surethat the people that are so
fearful sometimes that doesn'tcome out looking like fear.
Sometimes that comes outlooking like a whole lot of
resistance it's the leadersaying I believe in you and your
(14:14):
ability to make this happen,and I'm going to be here to make
sure that you succeed.
Claude (14:19):
And do you usually come before the changes so that you
give a communication plan, or doyou come after when it didn't
work, and everybody's freakingout after when it didn't work
and everybody's freaking outTimes.
Sarena Diamond (14:33):
I come before and I will tell you when I come
before.
I've had a couple of clients inthe three and a half years that
were very intuitive and theyrecognized this was going to be
a big change.
So they said we need acommunication strategy.
They called it that.
Really it was a leadershipstrategy around change and it
was everything from how do wereinforce, how do we allow for
(14:55):
feedback huge issue aboutallowing for feedback, making
people feel like they are partof the solution as the solution
is being built.
Jess K (15:03):
It's not always a train wreck.
Sarena Diamond (15:05):
When I get called, it's the place where
it's not going as quickly or aspositively as was expected.
Jess K (15:13):
Serena, you've talked a lot about change and you even
said the word organizationalchange management.
Can you define what that is?
Sarena Diamond (15:22):
Lots of people think that organizational change
management is the new org chartwhen we've reorganized the
company.
It's not, it's reallyunfortunate because, also, I
will get called a lot to say,well, can you help us manage
this really strategic project?
And I ask them are you lookingfor somebody to hold you all
accountable, to come to meetingsand do your work?
(15:44):
Because that's projectmanagement and I can have
meetings.
I can certainly do that for you.
But let's be really clearthat's probably not why things
have gone south.
Having a babysitter isn't goingto make sure that everybody
really believes they probablyhave more work than they can
accomplish.
I am one of those veryoptimistic people that believe
everyone comes to work each daywith a sense of wonder around
(16:08):
what they're and a to-do listand mentally they've got a plan
for what they're trying toaccomplish.
The goal for everyone should beat the end of the day.
They leave at the end of theday with a sense of achievement
and they're really, really happywith what they've accomplished.
Today, unfortunately, I usuallyget called because it's the
strategic project has gone south.
(16:29):
The reason it's calledorganizational change management
or organizational changeexpertise is that it is how do
you bring the people along whenyou're changing the processes or
the technology?
There's a way of working right.
There's the way people interactwith the technologies that you
know you're putting in a newsystem and you've got your new
activities that you want peopleto do and processes, but people
(16:51):
have to find new ways of doingthat.
Sometimes it is the interactionbetween departments, sometimes
it is the handoffs betweenthings, sometimes it is the
governance and the approvalsthat need to happen.
At IBM we had an initiative thatI ran.
There were 16 levels ofapproval and it had grown over
time.
The sad part is, when we didthe analysis around that process
(17:12):
, 15 of those 16 people had notrejected the process.
There was one place where wefound that we were actually
getting things held up.
What that means is that we hadtaught all of the people in the
process the right businessquestions to answer, so they
knew that they could geteverything.
But we didn't need to wait forthose 15 people because we'd
already built that capability inthe rest of the organization.
(17:34):
People had adopted new ways ofworking over the length of time
and now what we needed to do wasto catch up the process of
approvals because it was slowingeverything down.
You wouldn't know that if youwere just focused on yep, the
process is executing the way youplanned it.
Jess K (17:48):
To summarize that when you talk about organizational
change, management or expertisewhich I love that word better
actually it isn't necessarilyabout reorganization or
reduction of headcount.
It is about ways of working andgetting people to buy in, to
understand why they're doingwhat they're doing and how to
have more of an ownership of itand feel good about what they're
(18:08):
doing Right.
Build beliefs they're doing.
Build beliefs.
As you are helping through thisorganizational change process,
how do you help address theburnout situation and help to
recognize this within theprocess?
Sarena Diamond (18:26):
So you know what's funny.
I think about burnout probablydifferently than many, in that
if you're doing something thatyou love, you can do it all day
long.
Imagine something that you justis the funnest activity that
you ever do in your life and youcan do it for hours and you're
like, wow, how did the time goby so quickly?
Yeah, Burnout comes from whenthe energy of doing the things
that you're doing is multiplied.
The drain of energy ismultiplied by the fact that you
(18:47):
don't love what you're doing.
It's at odds with who you areas a person or the values that
you have.
It's rarely physicallyexhausting work that you love.
One of the things that I ask youknow teams to look at is are
you, when you're burning outbecause you're spending 20 hours
a day or eight?
(19:07):
You know you're.
You're 16 hours a day inmeetings at work and then you're
four hours a day trying tocatch up on emails at the end
and you're catching a little bitof sleep and a whole lot of
coffee and you're right back atit.
It's unsustainable.
Not because you love whatyou're spending all that time on
, it's because the energy drainthat's happening from doing the
things that are either oppositeof what you love doing or in
(19:32):
some cases, it is so repetitiveit has an opportunity to be
automated.
There's a, there's a challengethere, and it's not usually in
your.
In your, aligned to what yourvalues are, what's bringing you
joy, and so a lot of times, withburnout, I always look at other
ways that you could be doingwhat you're doing today.
Are there people that should bedoing what you're doing, that
(19:53):
are better equipped to be doingit?
Are there other ways of yousharing some of that load across
your team?
Lots of times it's leaders, andoften women leaders, who don't
want to overly burden a teammember or they don't want to ask
for help with somebody who mayknow how to do something faster.
But I think a lot of that comesfrom the feeling that they're
just so responsible for all ofit and it's so at odds with what
(20:19):
they're either naturally goodat or where they find their joy.
What would be coaching?
Jess K (20:23):
to those women leaders because it does do right, tend
to be a little bit more womenleaders who do take on more of
the workload.
Sometimes it's I know I canjust do it quicker and faster
versus waiting, or you feel bad,or I feel like Burdening, you
know, like your teams, withextra work.
Sarena Diamond (20:41):
I'd probably say just let's talk about this
right, quit the message that yousend when you take something
away.
I'll give you the story right.
The leader had asked the nextleader, second line leader, to
accomplish something they hadagreed on a deadline that she
did.
The leader knew that theirdirect report completely
understood the expectations andthe objectives and they had a
(21:04):
lot of work to do.
But there was a little bit ofmisalignment in how important it
must have been, because theperson that worked for this
woman didn't get it done.
Big surprise, it was due on aFriday.
Friday came, my coachee wasasking where it was and oh, I
didn't get to it.
I'll work on it over theweekend.
So that's what we all do.
(21:25):
She was going to work on itover the weekend.
No-transcript wheelhouseAbsolutely.
(21:55):
Was the work that they weredoing, something they were
interested in?
Oh yeah, she really wanted todo this project.
She just couldn't get to itbecause she had all the other
things.
And was this something that wasgoing to grow?
Her skill set, her experiences?
This was going to be a goodthing for her to have gotten to
do.
It was so when you were soemphatic about telling your team
(22:18):
how their growth and theirsupport and their achievement is
the most important thing to you.
And then you took the work awayto do it yourself.
Rather than burdening them withtheir growth opportunity, you
told them that the work is stillreally more important than
their individual development.
As their leader, you were muchmore interested in achieving the
(22:38):
work.
It's funny because we had thatconversation and she was like I
never thought of it that way.
I said well, how do you thinkthat she felt when you took it
away?
So you said I think she feltrelieved.
I said did she?
Because she wanted to do this?
The person said to me is thatshe perceived I'm disappointed
in myself for not having beenable to deliver, and so we ended
(23:02):
up talking about how could youhave done that differently.
As the leader, you wanted togive her this experience.
You expected she could havedone the experience and she
understood the work.
And what we agreed was thatdoing a check-in midway, asking
for things like what can I takeoff your plate in order to make
sure you have the opportunity todo this really well, because I
know you're excited about it andI'm excited about you
(23:22):
delivering it, but not givingthem the opportunity to achieve
that.
Claude (23:27):
But what happens if actually it's a sucky project
that unfortunately has to bedone and doesn't improve the
skill set right?
What if the leader say youdidn't have time, I will take it
over in the weekend, so whatwould you?
Sarena Diamond (23:43):
This is an opportunity that I always say to
people.
Every single piece of it is anopportunity to automate,
simplify, streamline something,Otherwise you would eliminate it
.
There is really truly a suckypiece of your business process
and nobody wants to do it.
I would be bringing everybodytogether and say, listen, nobody
wants to do this, let's usbrainstorm.
(24:04):
How can we apply automation?
What other ways can we get thiswork done?
Because what's not going to workis who draws the short straw
this week, and if that's theanswer is always I don't want to
make my people have to draw theshort straw then you've given
them permission to see a portionof the business as if it's
critical that you cannotautomate, you cannot streamline,
(24:27):
you cannot eliminate that thereis something that is beyond the
reach and that's really alimiting conversation.
But if you brought peopletogether and said, listen,
nobody likes doing these Excel,that's how people learned Excel
macros, because people didn'twant to have to do the Excel
master spreadsheets.
When you can bring peopletogether and say, let's put our
brains together and let's figureout other people, people
(24:49):
smarter than within ourorganization, beyond the walls
of what we are doing, how elsecould we be doing this work?
We are in a time,technology-wise and process and
people capability-wise, thatthere is anything that you can't
solve with putting some smartpeople together and saying this
is a job nobody wants to do, andI certainly don't want to do it
over a weekend, and I don'twant any of you doing it over a
(25:10):
weekend either.
So let's figure out how do wemake it automated, how do we
make it limited, streamlined,Really powerful message to
people too.
Jess K (25:17):
One thing I would add to that is even if it is something
nobody likes to do and youstart taking on all that stuff
as a leader, then you startsetting the precedence that your
team doesn't need to do thestuff.
Claude (25:26):
that's minutiae, because sometimes automating is not an
option, unfortunately, becauseit costs money.
Sarena Diamond (25:33):
There are ways around that and you're right,
but it shouldn't be the leadersdoing it.
Then the question is are thereother people that should be
doing it?
Should we be outsourcing thiselsewhere?
There are always alternativesto saying I want a highly
compensated, highly skilledindividual to be doing something
that is beneath theirexperience and their skill level
, and they shouldn't see youdoing it either, because then
(25:57):
they learn the lesson.
Whoever wants to be promoted,because all you do is get the
things that you don't want otherpeople to have to do.
Jess K (26:03):
Slightly switching topics here.
You also talk about the powerof what if?
And you really help yourleaders.
You help them move from vaguedreams to real action plan.
What is that biggest mind shift?
Your clients need to do that inpart of this process of a
transformation.
Sarena Diamond (26:20):
My whole tagline is turning what if?
Into way to go.
People say, what does that mean?
And I'm like, well, everybodyhas that.
What if we could do this?
Or what if?
There's always a wondering thatgoes with the what if?
Part.
And then there's that aspect ofthat'll never work.
You know, you always have thepeople that are the the glasses.
So not even half empty, right,it's not half full, that'll
(26:42):
never work.
That'll never work.
Oh, that could all.
Let me tell you all the thingsthat could go wrong if we try.
They're the really cautionaryones, right.
And then you say there arepeople that would no matter what
, they'll figure out a way tomake it work and they'll find
that positive.
So I always say to, especiallythe leaders, when you can see it
, our team could do this.
Imagine if we as a group couldachieve that.
(27:03):
How do you get to a place whereyou are celebrating with your
team, way to go, theachievements that you get, and
that comes from very specificfunctions around building the
belief in what that is?
Very specifically, you need tomake sure that people are
engaged, communicated and theyfeel like they are a part of it.
Then they can say, okay, I'mall in, but I don't know how to
(27:25):
do it.
So then you have to enableskills, set and enable those
behaviors, and you build that,not just the capabilities in the
people, but also their comfortand belief that you are
supporting them in their growth.
One of the things that leadersstruggle often with is they
forget about the people.
Once they see it, they may haveto learn new ways of working,
(27:46):
new things, new skills.
So how do they learn that?
How do you model that for them?
And then, once they've achievedthe most important thing is,
how do you sustain this?
I have a whole talk that I doaround not having the work that
you do be flavor of the month.
It's the worst thing to knowthat your team is thinking well,
this is flavor of the month forthe boss, right?
(28:07):
So we'll get it until the nextthing that comes.
Sustaining change and that eraof continuous improvement is
really about cultural norms thatsay nothing is beyond our reach
.
We have the ability as a teamto achieve anything that we can
dream up, so the what-ifs becomeway to go on a regular basis.
(28:27):
And that's the important partof any kind of organizational
change, big or small, is makingsure that you do all three of
those every time.
Jess K (28:36):
So, based on that, what does being unstoppable mean to
you?
Sarena Diamond (28:41):
It actually started as a result of finding
my opportunity to start my owncompany.
There's so much in the worldthat will limit us to the boxes
that society says we're supposedto be.
For me, unstoppable reallymeans not necessarily allowing
myself to be defined by whatthose other people have decided
(29:02):
was the right thing.
So much of my going out on myown and learning the ways of
doing business development as asolopreneur after 30 plus years
of corporate life was reallyhard.
And how do you find ways ofnetworking?
How do you find ways of talkingwith other people?
And there's so many communitybuild and membership
(29:22):
opportunities out there forpeople.
I tell people find your owngroup that feels the most
comfortable for you, allowingyourself to have time to learn
from people that have comebefore that are genuinely and
honestly interested in yoursuccess.
Come up to me at the end andtalk, and that was the end of it
(29:50):
.
And then, a few months later, Iget a message on LinkedIn that
says I don't know if youremember, but I've had two of
those that have happened in thislast quarter where women that
had seen me speak at a thingduring the International Women's
Month have come back to me andtold me something that I had
said to them.
It made a difference to them,and I think about the people in
(30:10):
my life, like Audrey, who askedme the question why do you keep
saying, or what about?
And?
And I think about all thosethings where you've said
something to someone that made adifference to them, and the
ability to have that impact onsomeone else's life.
That's what we're supposed todo as human beings.
This isn't about getting out ofanother world at the end, but
(30:31):
having won.
There is no winning.
That's really what it is for me.
Jess K (30:35):
That's amazing, karina.
Every last question for you,because this is a work-vesting
community.
A lot of our listeners outthere probably are asking
themselves the question now isthis it?
What does that mean for change?
So what would you say to helpthem take that first step
towards change?
Sarena Diamond (30:53):
I would tell them to try and define what it
is they want out of their oneprecious life, what is going to
give them not just joy but asense of accomplishment.
That's the piece that allowsyou to say I know what I need to
be doing and I need to bemoving toward.
And if they can, allows you tosay I know what I need to be
doing and I need to be movingtoward.
And if they can't figure it out, I'm more than willing to chat
(31:13):
with people and ask them thekinds of questions that I ask.
Love that.
Jess K (31:17):
Serena, thank you so much for showing us what success
does look like, and we so lookforward to partnering with you,
and we'll want to say, if youcould just let us know really
quickly how people can find youand where to connect with you.
Sarena Diamond (31:29):
Easiest way is LinkedIn.
If you spell my name right, Iam the only Serena Diamond
spelled S-A-R-E-N-A.
I'm the only Serena Diamond onLinkedIn.
Jess K (31:37):
Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break
room, rescuing each other fromendless meetings or just sending
that perfectly timed meme.
Having a work bestie is likehaving your own personal hype
squad.
Claude (31:50):
So keep lifting each other, laughing through the
chaos and, of course, thriving.
Until next time, stay positive,stay productive and don't
forget to keep supporting eachother.
Work besties.
If you look success on paper but feel exhausted,
disconnected or feel like you'reliving somebody else's life.
Serena Diamond is here andshe's been crushing it for 30
years in the corporateleadership.
She's had the titles, theachievement, but also the
burnout and the drama that camewith it.
So let's continue to talk withher about how and where she made
(00:20):
her boldest move and how sherebuilt into something else.
Claude (00:24):
Let's get right into it Hi.
I'm Claude and I'm Jess.
We are corporate employees byday, entrepreneurs by night and
work besties for life.
Jess K (00:35):
Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other
up, laugh through the chaos andthrive together in every
industry.
Work besties, Welcome.
We're so excited to have you.
Sarena Diamond (00:49):
Thank you so much.
Jess K (00:50):
As I mentioned in the bio, you've had a 30-year
corporate career.
What pushed you to walk awayfrom that?
Sarena Diamond (00:57):
and start this new adventure.
I loved every minute of thework that I did in Accenture and
Pepsi and IBM, loved all thethings that I learned, but at
the end of the day, I had a bitof corporate trauma, much like
many people that were surprisedat giving your all to some place
(01:18):
that it wasn't supposed to be.
And post-IBM, I spent asix-month engagement period of
time and I decided to go out onmy own to really be able to work
for the one boss that I couldalways trust, which was myself,
and I have never looked backsince then and there is nothing
I would ever do to go back atthis point.
(01:39):
I will do this for the rest ofmy career because I absolutely
love having control of my owndestiny and my own life and my
own experiences.
Jess K (01:50):
I love that.
I think that's one of thethings that we love most about
our little work bestiescommunity is that we get to be
our own bosses.
It's a very freeing experience.
Claude (02:03):
It's not that easy either.
When you work for someone else,you know that you're having a
paycheck.
Sarena Diamond (02:09):
That's true.
You go on vacation, you have apaycheck Right and it is.
But there is also the aspect ofyou have no control over what
it is that you're doing.
There's a lot of years I was asingle parent working at IBM and
I would say, well, they didn'tmake me clean the men's room
today.
(02:29):
And I mean I was a senior leaderand doing some pretty difficult
jobs as dictated to me bycorporate leaders that were more
senior than I was.
They weren't things that Iwould have asked of others,
which is why lots of times itstopped with me as the leader.
I wouldn't pass it down to myteam, but the quarterly
reductions in force.
There was an enormous amount oftrauma that came from that.
(02:52):
I am one of those people thatbelieves you never cut your way
to growth, so companies don'tgrow by cutting.
But it is really an importantaspect of that and I wouldn't go
back ever.
Now I go back and I actuallyhelp leaders be better at
achieving the changes thatthey're trying to make happen
without making some of thosehorrible decisions that lots of
leaders have to deal with.
Jess K (03:13):
What were some of those early signs that, in your career
, success wasn't aligned to yourwell-being?
Sarena Diamond (03:29):
Probably the hardest one was that I would
have nightmares about thingsthat were really horrible in
history.
So, for example, during theperiod of the IBM reductions in
force, where I wasn't choosingthe people that were being
reduced, I was just trying, Iwas figuring out how do you
solve for that client commitmentthat we made when you're going
to remove those people from theIBM workforce.
I actually had a period ofabout three months in that job
(03:51):
where I had that resembledSchindler's List and the gas
chambers from some of those,because that's what it felt like
Unbelievable kinds of traumathat was the people in the
position to be removing humanbeings from their jobs, rather
than finding other ways to solvefor corporate decisions.
Because, let's be clear, thereisn't a layoff that ever comes
(04:13):
without having made poorleadership decisions.
I truly believe that you cananticipate well, maybe COVID
made some resistance.
You, as a leader, have aresponsibility to be able to
read the room and read thedirections, and not everybody
does it well, right, and noteverybody is willing to read
what they see.
So it is certainly one of thosechallenges that lots of people
(04:35):
have.
Jess K (04:36):
I hear you.
Yeah, not to be a gloom anddoom.
Sarena Diamond (04:39):
That was terrible.
Jess K (04:40):
You're seeing it and hearing it in the news A lot of
companies are reducing workforceand, youbeing-wise, it's hard.
Sarena Diamond (05:05):
When I hear somebody in my network or
somebody reaches out to me andsays how did you do it for all
those years at IBM?
And I always start with whatare you doing to take care of
yourself?
Because delivering that kind ofmessage, there isn't a human
being that's ready to do that,and if they are, they're not
really human beings and ifthey're okay with the message on
a regular basis, their heart'snot in it and they really
(05:26):
shouldn't be responsible forleading other people in their
well-being either.
Jess K (05:29):
You have this kind of mantra of the power of end and
what this means to you.
How did that shape you and thebusiness that you started?
Sarena Diamond (05:39):
So when I first started looking at going out on
my own, I didn't really know howto find the clients or develop
my own business and I was verylinear in my thinking.
I kept thinking, okay, I willgo with this approach, or I will
do this kind of a category, orI will look here.
And it actually was a mentor ofmine who stayed and we've
(06:04):
become really great friends whosaid to me why do you keep
saying, or what about?
And?
And that one question justchanged everything, because that
day I started saying, well, howcan I get even more creative
about this?
So I literally was looking forjobs, reaching out to people on
LinkedIn who had postedfull-time jobs that I could do,
(06:26):
and say things to them like Isee that you posted this job and
finding the right person foryour company is going to take a
long time if you're reallycareful about it.
What are you doing in theinterim?
How about I come and help youas an interim hire?
It didn't turn into anengagement, but I did have four
conversations as a result ofthat and I like to think that I
was really good luck because, aswe would get closer to hiring
(06:46):
me to be their interim fill inthe gap, they would amazingly
find the right person and thenmake an announcement within a
few weeks.
So I'm like, all right, I'll behere.
Good luck to him for that.
The concept it has evolved.
It started as how do I embraceand lots of opportunities, as
opposed to singular thinking andfeeling like if I had applied
to 25 opportunities on LinkedIn,check the box I had done
(07:09):
something really good for theday.
It allowed me to open up lotsof things.
But what's really funny is ithas become a hallmark of almost
every engagement that I do withclients, almost every workshop
that I deliver now, because somuch of the work that leaders
are trying to do is how do I dothis, how do I do this, how do I
do this and not how do I dothis and also show up with the
(07:31):
core values of my company andalso balance what's true for me
and my values, my personalvalues, how do I do what's
expected and what feels like theright thing is at the same time
?
Claude (07:43):
What is the core value of your company?
So for, me.
Sarena Diamond (07:48):
It wanted to help me to see who I wanted to
be working with and what kindsof companies, what kind of
missions they were on Not thatothers are bad, it's just they
weren't really interested oraligned with me.
So I started looking veryspecifically at those kinds of
companies and those kinds ofopportunities.
But what was more so is I'veseen where leaders understand
(08:10):
that they weren't supposed to bethe big boss.
I'm actually one of my veryearly clients used to say can't
you just make them do it?
I would say I can, but let'sstart with.
Why would you want to try that?
And I've had a client whereI've had to remind them your
core values on your website.
Say these are the kinds ofthings that you want to be
emulating and, as leaders, maybehave some opportunity.
(08:34):
I've had a client where I saidwe're going to have a little bit
of a mirror moment here,because you need to look
yourself in the mirror and sayhow can you be expecting your
people to be demonstrating thesevalues, your leaders to be
demonstrating these values everysingle day?
When you were doing things likecalling them in on short notice
because they've made a mistake,right and you're taking them to
(08:56):
task and people like how we dothe work we do and what we're
expected to do.
My biggest alignment really forthe power of hand has really
resonated with clients iseverybody does performance
management right, whether it'ssmall or big.
Small companies do it for little, tiny bits, but large
corporations, their performancemanagement process starts with
(09:18):
objectives at the beginning ofthe year and they're always
these business results, theseKPIs that you've met.
Are you saying how they achievethose outcomes matter?
Of course they do.
Well, are you showing that inyour performance management
program?
Are you helping your leaders tosee that how we achieve the
results is as important as theresults themselves?
(09:39):
Years of having these giantpeople that achieve these great
sales results and are just jerksto everybody their moral
compass is a question.
The reality is that's not whereanybody wants to work or the
people that people want to dobusiness with.
That's a lot of the work that Ido now with leaders is to help
them to say you know what?
Let's talk about how youachieve the work you do and show
(10:01):
up demonstrating your corevalues leading, supporting,
encouraging others to be doingthe work that they need to be
doing.
Jess K (10:07):
What's the most common mistake companies make when they
are implementing change?
Sarena Diamond (10:13):
I tell people all the time a company doesn't
implement change.
A leader implements changebecause people make decisions
Individuals in leadership rolesmore or less less prepared, but
leaders make those decisions asto how to go forward.
And leaders and the reasonthat's important is because
leaders can always get better.
Companies don't grow their own,their own capabilities, they
grow their people's capability.
(10:34):
So I always say to leaders howyou're showing up from a
transformation perspective, how,what are those challenges?
The things that I often see isthat a leader.
I will ask a question like how,when did this first idea come to
you?
We've got this grand vision.
Maybe it's an acquisition, andthis happened very recently.
We had this grand vision we'regoing to acquire this smaller
(10:55):
company and it just so happenedthat the leader was ready to
sell and move out.
Okay, great, then we talk aboutit, and so they will have
taught.
The leader will have thoughtabout it, talked about it, and
so they will have talked.
The leader will have thoughtabout it, talked about it,
mulled it over, had meetingsabout it, gone for a run to the
gym and thought about it formonths, months and months and
months, and then it's finallyday to let people know about it
(11:15):
and they send an email and thenthey're done.
Right, then they're donecommunicating.
They're done because they'vespent so much time in their own
head building up the purpose,the value, the vision for this
transformation.
They forget to give people thepurpose of it, the vision for it
, the reason to join in and bereally, truly engaged.
And sometimes it's something sosimple as communication.
(11:37):
Sometimes it's really aboutexplaining the why and
understanding the purpose behindit and helping the entire rest
of the organization to buildbelief.
The other thing I see leadersdoing lots of times is the
senior.
Most leader will make theannouncement or the
transformation is going to be atthe level of the CEO or the
office of the COO, and theydon't work on helping to cascade
(12:00):
the change through each of theleadership chains.
So they forget the fact thatthe people that are going to
need to do new ways of workingmaybe it's adopting new
technology, maybe it's adifferent process those people
report to one or two or threelevels of management, between
the person that announced thechange and the people that are
living with it every day.
And each of those levels of theorganization can't really
(12:23):
cascade the change andpersonalize it, localize it for
their team.
Right, you're always at odds.
Right, the leader's reallyfrustrated.
I always get hired when theleader's frustrated.
Right, something didn't happen,the timing that they expected,
the level of KPI that theyexpected.
Rarely does someone say this isgoing to be a big change for
(12:43):
our folks.
Let's get an organizationalchange expert in at the
beginning.
I love it, but it's always muchlater than that.
But when they do that, wealmost always have to do a
little bit of reset, a littlebit of engagement that the
people back into understandingthe belief system, the
understanding the why.
But once we do that, we'realways ready to go.
Claude (13:04):
Change is very often very scary, right.
So what do you do to ease theirfear?
Sarena Diamond (13:11):
What's funny is the reason change is so scary,
and I help leaders to see thisall the time.
The fear that is there is basedon the fact that, 99% of the
time, the people that are doingthe jobs that they're doing
today don't see their position,don't see a level of comfort
that they have now in the futurestate, and so leaders really
(13:32):
need to do a good job of helpingto bring their teams along.
And that is not always a tellkind of story.
Sometimes that is a questionkind of story.
So I have a series of questionsthat I ask leaders to ask of
their people to help them feellike they're part of it.
You have to be supporting,enabling behaviors in those new
(13:52):
ways of working and making surethat the people that are so
fearful sometimes that doesn'tcome out looking like fear.
Sometimes that comes outlooking like a whole lot of
resistance it's the leadersaying I believe in you and your
(14:14):
ability to make this happen,and I'm going to be here to make
sure that you succeed.
Claude (14:19):
And do you usually come before the changes so that you
give a communication plan, or doyou come after when it didn't
work, and everybody's freakingout after when it didn't work
and everybody's freaking outTimes.
Sarena Diamond (14:33):
I come before and I will tell you when I come
before.
I've had a couple of clients inthe three and a half years that
were very intuitive and theyrecognized this was going to be
a big change.
So they said we need acommunication strategy.
They called it that.
Really it was a leadershipstrategy around change and it
was everything from how do wereinforce, how do we allow for
(14:55):
feedback huge issue aboutallowing for feedback, making
people feel like they are partof the solution as the solution
is being built.
Jess K (15:03):
It's not always a train wreck.
Sarena Diamond (15:05):
When I get called, it's the place where
it's not going as quickly or aspositively as was expected.
Jess K (15:13):
Serena, you've talked a lot about change and you even
said the word organizationalchange management.
Can you define what that is?
Sarena Diamond (15:22):
Lots of people think that organizational change
management is the new org chartwhen we've reorganized the
company.
It's not, it's reallyunfortunate because, also, I
will get called a lot to say,well, can you help us manage
this really strategic project?
And I ask them are you lookingfor somebody to hold you all
accountable, to come to meetingsand do your work?
(15:44):
Because that's projectmanagement and I can have
meetings.
I can certainly do that for you.
But let's be really clearthat's probably not why things
have gone south.
Having a babysitter isn't goingto make sure that everybody
really believes they probablyhave more work than they can
accomplish.
I am one of those veryoptimistic people that believe
everyone comes to work each daywith a sense of wonder around
(16:08):
what they're and a to-do listand mentally they've got a plan
for what they're trying toaccomplish.
The goal for everyone should beat the end of the day.
They leave at the end of theday with a sense of achievement
and they're really, really happywith what they've accomplished.
Today, unfortunately, I usuallyget called because it's the
strategic project has gone south.
(16:29):
The reason it's calledorganizational change management
or organizational changeexpertise is that it is how do
you bring the people along whenyou're changing the processes or
the technology?
There's a way of working right.
There's the way people interactwith the technologies that you
know you're putting in a newsystem and you've got your new
activities that you want peopleto do and processes, but people
(16:51):
have to find new ways of doingthat.
Sometimes it is the interactionbetween departments, sometimes
it is the handoffs betweenthings, sometimes it is the
governance and the approvalsthat need to happen.
At IBM we had an initiative thatI ran.
There were 16 levels ofapproval and it had grown over
time.
The sad part is, when we didthe analysis around that process
(17:12):
, 15 of those 16 people had notrejected the process.
There was one place where wefound that we were actually
getting things held up.
What that means is that we hadtaught all of the people in the
process the right businessquestions to answer, so they
knew that they could geteverything.
But we didn't need to wait forthose 15 people because we'd
already built that capability inthe rest of the organization.
(17:34):
People had adopted new ways ofworking over the length of time
and now what we needed to do wasto catch up the process of
approvals because it was slowingeverything down.
You wouldn't know that if youwere just focused on yep, the
process is executing the way youplanned it.
Jess K (17:48):
To summarize that when you talk about organizational
change, management or expertisewhich I love that word better
actually it isn't necessarilyabout reorganization or
reduction of headcount.
It is about ways of working andgetting people to buy in, to
understand why they're doingwhat they're doing and how to
have more of an ownership of itand feel good about what they're
(18:08):
doing Right.
Build beliefs they're doing.
Build beliefs.
As you are helping through thisorganizational change process,
how do you help address theburnout situation and help to
recognize this within theprocess?
Sarena Diamond (18:26):
So you know what's funny.
I think about burnout probablydifferently than many, in that
if you're doing something thatyou love, you can do it all day
long.
Imagine something that you justis the funnest activity that
you ever do in your life and youcan do it for hours and you're
like, wow, how did the time goby so quickly?
Yeah, Burnout comes from whenthe energy of doing the things
that you're doing is multiplied.
The drain of energy ismultiplied by the fact that you
(18:47):
don't love what you're doing.
It's at odds with who you areas a person or the values that
you have.
It's rarely physicallyexhausting work that you love.
One of the things that I ask youknow teams to look at is are
you, when you're burning outbecause you're spending 20 hours
a day or eight?
(19:07):
You know you're.
You're 16 hours a day inmeetings at work and then you're
four hours a day trying tocatch up on emails at the end
and you're catching a little bitof sleep and a whole lot of
coffee and you're right back atit.
It's unsustainable.
Not because you love whatyou're spending all that time on
, it's because the energy drainthat's happening from doing the
things that are either oppositeof what you love doing or in
(19:32):
some cases, it is so repetitiveit has an opportunity to be
automated.
There's a, there's a challengethere, and it's not usually in
your.
In your, aligned to what yourvalues are, what's bringing you
joy, and so a lot of times, withburnout, I always look at other
ways that you could be doingwhat you're doing today.
Are there people that should bedoing what you're doing, that
(19:53):
are better equipped to be doingit?
Are there other ways of yousharing some of that load across
your team?
Lots of times it's leaders, andoften women leaders, who don't
want to overly burden a teammember or they don't want to ask
for help with somebody who mayknow how to do something faster.
But I think a lot of that comesfrom the feeling that they're
just so responsible for all ofit and it's so at odds with what
(20:19):
they're either naturally goodat or where they find their joy.
What would be coaching?
Jess K (20:23):
to those women leaders because it does do right, tend
to be a little bit more womenleaders who do take on more of
the workload.
Sometimes it's I know I canjust do it quicker and faster
versus waiting, or you feel bad,or I feel like Burdening, you
know, like your teams, withextra work.
Sarena Diamond (20:41):
I'd probably say just let's talk about this
right, quit the message that yousend when you take something
away.
I'll give you the story right.
The leader had asked the nextleader, second line leader, to
accomplish something they hadagreed on a deadline that she
did.
The leader knew that theirdirect report completely
understood the expectations andthe objectives and they had a
(21:04):
lot of work to do.
But there was a little bit ofmisalignment in how important it
must have been, because theperson that worked for this
woman didn't get it done.
Big surprise, it was due on aFriday.
Friday came, my coachee wasasking where it was and oh, I
didn't get to it.
I'll work on it over theweekend.
So that's what we all do.
(21:25):
She was going to work on itover the weekend.
No-transcript wheelhouseAbsolutely.
(21:55):
Was the work that they weredoing, something they were
interested in?
Oh yeah, she really wanted todo this project.
She just couldn't get to itbecause she had all the other
things.
And was this something that wasgoing to grow?
Her skill set, her experiences?
This was going to be a goodthing for her to have gotten to
do.
It was so when you were soemphatic about telling your team
(22:18):
how their growth and theirsupport and their achievement is
the most important thing to you.
And then you took the work awayto do it yourself.
Rather than burdening them withtheir growth opportunity, you
told them that the work is stillreally more important than
their individual development.
As their leader, you were muchmore interested in achieving the
(22:38):
work.
It's funny because we had thatconversation and she was like I
never thought of it that way.
I said well, how do you thinkthat she felt when you took it
away?
So you said I think she feltrelieved.
I said did she?
Because she wanted to do this?
The person said to me is thatshe perceived I'm disappointed
in myself for not having beenable to deliver, and so we ended
(23:02):
up talking about how could youhave done that differently.
As the leader, you wanted togive her this experience.
You expected she could havedone the experience and she
understood the work.
And what we agreed was thatdoing a check-in midway, asking
for things like what can I takeoff your plate in order to make
sure you have the opportunity todo this really well, because I
know you're excited about it andI'm excited about you
(23:22):
delivering it, but not givingthem the opportunity to achieve
that.
Claude (23:27):
But what happens if actually it's a sucky project
that unfortunately has to bedone and doesn't improve the
skill set right?
What if the leader say youdidn't have time, I will take it
over in the weekend, so whatwould you?
Sarena Diamond (23:43):
This is an opportunity that I always say to
people.
Every single piece of it is anopportunity to automate,
simplify, streamline something,Otherwise you would eliminate it
.
There is really truly a suckypiece of your business process
and nobody wants to do it.
I would be bringing everybodytogether and say, listen, nobody
wants to do this, let's usbrainstorm.
(24:04):
How can we apply automation?
What other ways can we get thiswork done?
Because what's not going to workis who draws the short straw
this week, and if that's theanswer is always I don't want to
make my people have to draw theshort straw then you've given
them permission to see a portionof the business as if it's
critical that you cannotautomate, you cannot streamline,
(24:27):
you cannot eliminate that thereis something that is beyond the
reach and that's really alimiting conversation.
But if you brought peopletogether and said, listen,
nobody likes doing these Excel,that's how people learned Excel
macros, because people didn'twant to have to do the Excel
master spreadsheets.
When you can bring peopletogether and say, let's put our
brains together and let's figureout other people, people
(24:49):
smarter than within ourorganization, beyond the walls
of what we are doing, how elsecould we be doing this work?
We are in a time,technology-wise and process and
people capability-wise, thatthere is anything that you can't
solve with putting some smartpeople together and saying this
is a job nobody wants to do, andI certainly don't want to do it
over a weekend, and I don'twant any of you doing it over a
(25:10):
weekend either.
So let's figure out how do wemake it automated, how do we
make it limited, streamlined,Really powerful message to
people too.
Jess K (25:17):
One thing I would add to that is even if it is something
nobody likes to do and youstart taking on all that stuff
as a leader, then you startsetting the precedence that your
team doesn't need to do thestuff.
Claude (25:26):
that's minutiae, because sometimes automating is not an
option, unfortunately, becauseit costs money.
Sarena Diamond (25:33):
There are ways around that and you're right,
but it shouldn't be the leadersdoing it.
Then the question is are thereother people that should be
doing it?
Should we be outsourcing thiselsewhere?
There are always alternativesto saying I want a highly
compensated, highly skilledindividual to be doing something
that is beneath theirexperience and their skill level
, and they shouldn't see youdoing it either, because then
(25:57):
they learn the lesson.
Whoever wants to be promoted,because all you do is get the
things that you don't want otherpeople to have to do.
Jess K (26:03):
Slightly switching topics here.
You also talk about the powerof what if?
And you really help yourleaders.
You help them move from vaguedreams to real action plan.
What is that biggest mind shift?
Your clients need to do that inpart of this process of a
transformation.
Sarena Diamond (26:20):
My whole tagline is turning what if?
Into way to go.
People say, what does that mean?
And I'm like, well, everybodyhas that.
What if we could do this?
Or what if?
There's always a wondering thatgoes with the what if?
Part.
And then there's that aspect ofthat'll never work.
You know, you always have thepeople that are the the glasses.
So not even half empty, right,it's not half full, that'll
(26:42):
never work.
That'll never work.
Oh, that could all.
Let me tell you all the thingsthat could go wrong if we try.
They're the really cautionaryones, right.
And then you say there arepeople that would no matter what
, they'll figure out a way tomake it work and they'll find
that positive.
So I always say to, especiallythe leaders, when you can see it
, our team could do this.
Imagine if we as a group couldachieve that.
(27:03):
How do you get to a place whereyou are celebrating with your
team, way to go, theachievements that you get, and
that comes from very specificfunctions around building the
belief in what that is?
Very specifically, you need tomake sure that people are
engaged, communicated and theyfeel like they are a part of it.
Then they can say, okay, I'mall in, but I don't know how to
(27:25):
do it.
So then you have to enableskills, set and enable those
behaviors, and you build that,not just the capabilities in the
people, but also their comfortand belief that you are
supporting them in their growth.
One of the things that leadersstruggle often with is they
forget about the people.
Once they see it, they may haveto learn new ways of working,
(27:46):
new things, new skills.
So how do they learn that?
How do you model that for them?
And then, once they've achievedthe most important thing is,
how do you sustain this?
I have a whole talk that I doaround not having the work that
you do be flavor of the month.
It's the worst thing to knowthat your team is thinking well,
this is flavor of the month forthe boss, right?
(28:07):
So we'll get it until the nextthing that comes.
Sustaining change and that eraof continuous improvement is
really about cultural norms thatsay nothing is beyond our reach
.
We have the ability as a teamto achieve anything that we can
dream up, so the what-ifs becomeway to go on a regular basis.
(28:27):
And that's the important partof any kind of organizational
change, big or small, is makingsure that you do all three of
those every time.
Jess K (28:36):
So, based on that, what does being unstoppable mean to
you?
Sarena Diamond (28:41):
It actually started as a result of finding
my opportunity to start my owncompany.
There's so much in the worldthat will limit us to the boxes
that society says we're supposedto be.
For me, unstoppable reallymeans not necessarily allowing
myself to be defined by whatthose other people have decided
(29:02):
was the right thing.
So much of my going out on myown and learning the ways of
doing business development as asolopreneur after 30 plus years
of corporate life was reallyhard.
And how do you find ways ofnetworking?
How do you find ways of talkingwith other people?
And there's so many communitybuild and membership
(29:22):
opportunities out there forpeople.
I tell people find your owngroup that feels the most
comfortable for you, allowingyourself to have time to learn
from people that have comebefore that are genuinely and
honestly interested in yoursuccess.
Come up to me at the end andtalk, and that was the end of it
(29:50):
.
And then, a few months later, Iget a message on LinkedIn that
says I don't know if youremember, but I've had two of
those that have happened in thislast quarter where women that
had seen me speak at a thingduring the International Women's
Month have come back to me andtold me something that I had
said to them.
It made a difference to them,and I think about the people in
(30:10):
my life, like Audrey, who askedme the question why do you keep
saying, or what about?
And?
And I think about all thosethings where you've said
something to someone that made adifference to them, and the
ability to have that impact onsomeone else's life.
That's what we're supposed todo as human beings.
This isn't about getting out ofanother world at the end, but
(30:31):
having won.
There is no winning.
That's really what it is for me.
Jess K (30:35):
That's amazing, karina.
Every last question for you,because this is a work-vesting
community.
A lot of our listeners outthere probably are asking
themselves the question now isthis it?
What does that mean for change?
So what would you say to helpthem take that first step
towards change?
Sarena Diamond (30:53):
I would tell them to try and define what it
is they want out of their oneprecious life, what is going to
give them not just joy but asense of accomplishment.
That's the piece that allowsyou to say I know what I need to
be doing and I need to bemoving toward.
And if they can, allows you tosay I know what I need to be
doing and I need to be movingtoward.
And if they can't figure it out, I'm more than willing to chat
(31:13):
with people and ask them thekinds of questions that I ask.
Love that.
Jess K (31:17):
Serena, thank you so much for showing us what success
does look like, and we so lookforward to partnering with you,
and we'll want to say, if youcould just let us know really
quickly how people can find youand where to connect with you.
Sarena Diamond (31:29):
Easiest way is LinkedIn.
If you spell my name right, Iam the only Serena Diamond
spelled S-A-R-E-N-A.
I'm the only Serena Diamond onLinkedIn.
Jess K (31:37):
Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break
room, rescuing each other fromendless meetings or just sending
that perfectly timed meme.
Having a work bestie is likehaving your own personal hype
squad.
Claude (31:50):
So keep lifting each other, laughing through the
chaos and, of course, thriving.
Until next time, stay positive,stay productive and don't
forget to keep supporting eachother.
Work besties.
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