July 15, 2025 • 20 mins
An award-winning organizational psychologist and executive, Shonna is a recognized thought leader in HR, psychology, and business with over 100 articles, technical reports, book chapters, and books, and over 100 conference talks, keynotes, and panels. With a background in consulting and executive leadership roles, Shonna has advised organizations on people strategy and transformation across various sectors. At BetterUp, she stood up and led teams in behavioral science, strategic partnerships and alliances, and executive advisory, driving research-backed insights to enhance organizational performance. https://www.fractionalinsights.ai/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you so much for listening to the art of improvement.
This week's guest doctor SHAWNA. Waters, co founder and CEO
of Fractional Insights. My conversation with doctor Waters is coming
up next on the Art of improvement. Thank you so
(00:20):
much for listening to the art of improvement. I'm Karen
Klaus and my guest today is doctor SHAWNA.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Water.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
She's co founder and CEO of Fractional Insights. Hi, doctor Waters,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hi Karen, thank you so much for having me on.
It's great to be here. I'm been great.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I talked to your co founder, doctor Etah, and she
was telling me a little bit, but it's a task.
I'm going to see what either of y'all say, But
tell me a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
What is Fractional Insights.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, we're an advisory firm and we help companies get
a real return on their biggest investment, which is their people.
Comes to be sixty to seventy percent of a company's expenditures,
and we use a proven science based approach to help
them design workplaces that boost performance. And that's because they
(01:16):
support human needs. So we have a strong belief that
what's good for people is good for business.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So in the last several times that I got hired,
I had to first get the interview. Past the interview,
I guess whatever it was they were looking for, and
then after that I took a what they didn't call
a personality profile, but being interviewed by someone who asked
(01:43):
questions like what is a large problem that you faced
and how did you solve it? Or how do you
deal with difficult people? And so what is the difference
between those questions? And I think they were the same
questions for like the last three people. But what is
the difference between that and something that you do? And
(02:04):
I'm assuming it's like organizational psychology, what would be the difference.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, what you just described
as part of the selection process where they are really
trying to establish what are these characteristics that are true
to you as an individual, and they're trying to measure
those in a systematic way to predict who is going
(02:30):
to be the most likely to be successful in the job.
So that is part of organizational psychology, and that was
actually a place that I spent a big part of
the first part of my career was on that side.
I joke that it's you know, sort of turning people
into numbers, right, right, But to do that, and to
(02:53):
do that well, you also have to study the other
side of the coin, which is the organization its else.
So what does it look like or what does it
mean to drive success success with the business, success in
the job, and really looking at that side of the
equation and say, how do we design these organizational systems
(03:17):
so that whoever we end up selecting to put into
the job, they are most likely we increase their likelihood
of success.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
In order to have that secret sauce and get the
right person, I feel like both the corporation and the
employee have to know themselves and their goals. And maybe
that isn't always the case, or is it because I
don't know, is it that usually the case for a
(03:48):
corporation when they are asking questions like this, and how
does an employee know what they're looking for?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's such a great call out, right that the
starting point for any of this to work is really
this question of like, what what do we want? What
is success? How do we define it? And to your point,
I think this is one of these cases where sometimes
the simplest questions are the hardest. And so whether we're
(04:20):
talking about an individual and really saying, like, what what
is it that I want? What's going to make me
happy and fulfilled? Or an organization and saying, okay, what
is what does good really look like? And what is
our goal? How are we going to measure that? These
are both cases where frequently we sort of rush to
(04:41):
solution without pausing to really assess, you know, and think
deeply about about you know, that question of success. So
for individuals, that's why things like coaching are become so popular.
You know, it's really a structured process with some one
who's dedicated to support you in uncovering those answers. Now,
(05:04):
on the organization side, that's frequently you know, something that's
done done with the help of consultants, and that often
looks like both at the you know, highest organizational levels
in terms of, you know, what are we trying to
accomplish as a business, what is it going to take
to get there, and how do we know if we're
(05:25):
on our way or have arrived, or if it's at
the level of the job and think about managers, you know,
so often the hardest part about performance management is actually
getting the manager and the employee to even.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Agree, oh my gosh, you're right, You're so right, and that,
oh my gosh, there is a I'm not saying there's
a union of employees, but just recently a bunch of
employees got together and said, you know what, what can
we do to hell our managers understand what we're going through?
(06:04):
Because I don't think that we're alone in that. Sometimes
as an employee, you don't think that anyone is hearing
what your problems are, what it's going to take to
be successful. All you feel like sometimes is that your
bosses are, you know, checking the boxes. How How does
let's just say you already got hired, How does a
(06:27):
company or how do managers learn to listen? I guess
or is it even a doable thing?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah? Well I think that's a great question. And so
I'm a certified coach in addition to an organizational psychologist
and consultant, and I've given many workshops on learning how
to listen. And the reason why is if you if
you reflect on you know, and you're a communication right
(06:58):
right right, But if you think about it, so much
of our training and our education is focused on how
to speak, how to speak, how to influence very little,
if any. It's pretty rare that we get explicit training
on how to listen. But really, if you look at
(07:19):
the research on this, listening is one of the most
critical skills. And that's true in an individual, you know,
one on one conversation like we're having, or whether you're
a leader responsible for even hundreds of thousands of employees,
and how do you really listen so that you close
that gap between your lift experience and perception, which is
(07:42):
very very different, and the experience and perception of those
throughout your organization and all these different contexts and levels.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, when you say a manager, there are you can
coach a manager to listen. I'm gonna mark right there
because it's stopped a little. When I think about a
boss that listens, or someone who has coached to be
listened listen to listen to employees, I sometimes I don't know,
(08:15):
maybe I'm paranoid, but I sometimes think it's some kind
of trick because when a boss actually listens, and it's
so rare that they do, I always wonder are they
trying to get into my personal life to understand my quirks,
my weaknesses, And why should I let that part of
(08:37):
me go to a manager.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Am I crazy?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Or is there is there some sort of techniques that
managers use to get to that personal information I'm paranoid.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, I find that paranoia also comes with you know,
hard earned through experience, right right. But it's unfortunate because
you know, as I said, I'm going to name my
bias that I believe what's what's good for people is
good for business and vice versa. But again, the reason
why I think it's so important to keep saying that
(09:12):
is I find that that is not a core belief
that's held.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
By everyone, right, right.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So historically, even hr professionals have this sort of implicit
belief that it's a zero sum game that if we're
benefiting the organization and employees sort of are taking one
for the team and vice versa. And so there often
is that sort of starting defensiveness about you know, how
(09:44):
is this going to be used against me or manipulated?
You know, there's like employment as mutual exploitations.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's so pathetic though, I hate it, right, and it.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Doesn't have to be that way. And so I actually,
you know this is I teach at Georgetown University. I
teach a few different classes there, but one that I've
designed for the university. It's called Coaching for Leadership and Performance,
and it really starts with this mindset shift that any
(10:21):
of us, whether we're in a managerial role or anything else,
can adopt. And my co author Bertie Reardan and I
call this a new kind of con artist jokingly but right,
but what we mean, what we mean by that is curious, open,
and non judgmental.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And THO, yeah, please, no, I'm just gonna say, yeah,
that sounds great, But again I'm thinking, you know that
that is it possible to coach a manager into that,
into that way of thinking?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, it is a muscle, just like anything any other
skill or mindset that we can build, and it takes practice.
But really, by adopting this mindset of curiosity, open and
non judgment whether it's a performance issue that you're dealing
with or a new employee, and you're really trying to
(11:21):
understand them and what they care about and what lights
them up so that you can find that alignment between
the things that are going to get them most engaged
and excited and thus performing really well and putting in
discretionary effort. You know, that is really the position you
(11:41):
want to be in because you can create then that
trust between you and the employee where they feel seen
and heard and you're now equipped to help proactively put
them in the position to best deliver for the organization
and or troubleshoot and issues.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's great. That is so great. I love that if
you just now started listening. This is doctor Shauna Water.
She is co founder and CEO of a company called
Fractional Insights. Can you tell us a little bit before
I ask you your you know, ten million more questions?
Where can people find out more information? And do you
(12:22):
have a website?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, So you can find out more about Fractional
Insights at fractional Insights dot ai and you can follow
me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. It's Shauna Waters
sho na is my profile?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay? Perfect?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And so really it's not employees that are contacting you.
It would be more the corporations, the companies that need
I guess that extra boost when it comes to finding
people or hiring the right people.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah? So typically the organizations that reach out to us,
they're experiencing some kind of challenge in achieving their business
goals or strategic objectives. So what this might look like is,
you know, we're not seeing the level of innovation that
we want to and that's causing a competitive threat or
(13:23):
or missing our sales targets, or our product team isn't
talking to our marketing team sufficiently. Right. So there's usually
some kind of pain that the company is experiencing, and
so they come to us, and you know, as psychologists,
we know that any business problem is the people problems,
(13:45):
and so we help them really work through, like what
are those connection points and how can they address them through.
Often it's looking at you know, redesigning of their systems
and incentive redesigning jobs. It might even be you know,
(14:06):
we're trying to get people as the common one these days.
We want people to adopt AI, and we're not seeing
the kind of uptake that we want to see. Help
us figure out why.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So my daughters they're just about to graduate from college
four years and they grew up in a world where
I mean, AI has been there from the beginning, and
so it's something that they use. And I'm just using
that as an example, But what is it about? And
(14:35):
I'm not necessarily saying it's older employees, but what is
it about employees that sometimes try to buck the system.
In other words, if we're all moving to digital, if
we're all moving to AI, if we're all moving to
learn this, what makes some employees just say, Nah, I'm
not going to do that. I've always done it this
way and I'm not going to do it differently.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I find that everybody likes the
idea of change, but very few people like the actual
process of change. And part of that is is we
all want to be successful, and so for especially for
people who are further along in their careers or who
(15:19):
are maybe used to doing things a certain way, they
have a lot of reinforcement for that, right, Like it's
gotten me to where you know I am. Now, there's
a lot more personal risk to doing something different, trying
something new where you're by definition and novice, than it
is to keep doing this thing that you've been rewarded
(15:41):
for in the past. And that's why it's so hard
to get over you know, homeospatis, right, like to build
up the momentum to actually make people feel safe and
that it's important enough to take those risks.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So I'm going out. If you have no answer for this,
just tell me, Karen, that's too much. But I mean,
could you give an example on how you would maybe
use you know, psychology as a corporation to get those
those employees to get on board.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Absolutely. So this is where you know, Aaron and I
am my co founder who you referenced earlier. We've developed
this methodology called psychological ergonomics, and really the whole idea
of psychological ergonomics is that we can design our work
systems and our organizations for our minds, just the same
(16:42):
way that we've designed our work spaces and our you know,
equipment to fit our bodies. And what that would look
like is so there's an example of an organization called
service Now, which is an HR technology vendor and they're
chief people off of or Jackie Kenny was having just
(17:02):
this exact problem. They really wanted their employees to adopt
AI tools, but understandably, everyone was concerned that if they did,
they were going to eliminate their own jobs. And so
yeah was a big right. Yeah, it's the uncomfortable truth
(17:22):
that often isn't said out loud, right, and it's the
quiet part saying it out loud. But if you are
concerned that what the organization wants you to do. Use
AI is actually in conflict with your own deep security
needs to continue to have a job and a paycheck
and all that stuff, which one is going to take precedence, right.
(17:44):
So Jackie and her team saw this and what they
did was they put out a public statement and they said, look,
if you use AI and by doing so, you actually
eliminate the need for your role, you are not going
to be fired. We commit that we will promote you.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And does it?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Does it work?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right? And well, what's what's interesting is like, first of all,
that's a great example of what's good for people. It's
the business. So of course that's a much more attractive
situation to the employees. But also imagine it for the organization.
They have these early adopters who are likely, you know,
(18:30):
some of your more innovative, more you know, risk taking
creative employees who rather than eliminating them, you are putting
them into positions where they can be better models and
leaders for others in the in the team. And so
very quickly those kinds of messages get out, right, It
(18:53):
only takes one or two promotions, right, and then everyone
you know, the organization is serious and so I think
that's a great example. It's one of my favorites of
just how you can really just and sometimes it's small tweaks,
but by really understanding, like what is the fear, what's
(19:13):
getting in the way of our employees doing what's good
for the business, and addressing that head on with policy
and system changes, that is that is brilliant.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I just love that. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I feel like I have so many more questions that
I want to ask you, but as we're wrapping up here,
please let people or companies or corporations know how they
can get in touch with you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah. Well, first of all, you can reach out to
me personally at Shauna at Fractionalinsights dot ai, reach us
on the website at fractional Insights dot ai, or find
me on LinkedIn. I post regularly and would love to
have people follow along there as well.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Well. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I love what you you guys are doing, and I
wish you all the best because company employees, yes, we
need it, but companies need to make those changes also.
And I'm so happy for you and how you and
your co founder have come to the realization that what
did you say it's what's good for the company or
(20:19):
good for the business.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, what's good for people is good for business, and
vice versa.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I love it well.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Thank you so much, doctor Shana Waters, and I hope
I get a chance to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Thank you so much, Karen, have a great day.
Thank you so much for listening to the art of improvement.
This week's guest doctor SHAWNA. Waters, co founder and CEO
of Fractional Insights. My conversation with doctor Waters is coming
up next on the Art of improvement. Thank you so
(00:20):
much for listening to the art of improvement. I'm Karen
Klaus and my guest today is doctor SHAWNA.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Water.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
She's co founder and CEO of Fractional Insights. Hi, doctor Waters,
how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hi Karen, thank you so much for having me on.
It's great to be here. I'm been great.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I talked to your co founder, doctor Etah, and she
was telling me a little bit, but it's a task.
I'm going to see what either of y'all say, But
tell me a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
What is Fractional Insights.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, we're an advisory firm and we help companies get
a real return on their biggest investment, which is their people.
Comes to be sixty to seventy percent of a company's expenditures,
and we use a proven science based approach to help
them design workplaces that boost performance. And that's because they
(01:16):
support human needs. So we have a strong belief that
what's good for people is good for business.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So in the last several times that I got hired,
I had to first get the interview. Past the interview,
I guess whatever it was they were looking for, and
then after that I took a what they didn't call
a personality profile, but being interviewed by someone who asked
(01:43):
questions like what is a large problem that you faced
and how did you solve it? Or how do you
deal with difficult people? And so what is the difference
between those questions? And I think they were the same
questions for like the last three people. But what is
the difference between that and something that you do? And
(02:04):
I'm assuming it's like organizational psychology, what would be the difference.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, what you just described
as part of the selection process where they are really
trying to establish what are these characteristics that are true
to you as an individual, and they're trying to measure
those in a systematic way to predict who is going
(02:30):
to be the most likely to be successful in the job.
So that is part of organizational psychology, and that was
actually a place that I spent a big part of
the first part of my career was on that side.
I joke that it's you know, sort of turning people
into numbers, right, right, But to do that, and to
(02:53):
do that well, you also have to study the other
side of the coin, which is the organization its else.
So what does it look like or what does it
mean to drive success success with the business, success in
the job, and really looking at that side of the
equation and say, how do we design these organizational systems
(03:17):
so that whoever we end up selecting to put into
the job, they are most likely we increase their likelihood
of success.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
In order to have that secret sauce and get the
right person, I feel like both the corporation and the
employee have to know themselves and their goals. And maybe
that isn't always the case, or is it because I
don't know, is it that usually the case for a
(03:48):
corporation when they are asking questions like this, and how
does an employee know what they're looking for?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, it's such a great call out, right that the
starting point for any of this to work is really
this question of like, what what do we want? What
is success? How do we define it? And to your point,
I think this is one of these cases where sometimes
the simplest questions are the hardest. And so whether we're
(04:20):
talking about an individual and really saying, like, what what
is it that I want? What's going to make me
happy and fulfilled? Or an organization and saying, okay, what
is what does good really look like? And what is
our goal? How are we going to measure that? These
are both cases where frequently we sort of rush to
(04:41):
solution without pausing to really assess, you know, and think
deeply about about you know, that question of success. So
for individuals, that's why things like coaching are become so popular.
You know, it's really a structured process with some one
who's dedicated to support you in uncovering those answers. Now,
(05:04):
on the organization side, that's frequently you know, something that's
done done with the help of consultants, and that often
looks like both at the you know, highest organizational levels
in terms of, you know, what are we trying to
accomplish as a business, what is it going to take
to get there, and how do we know if we're
(05:25):
on our way or have arrived, or if it's at
the level of the job and think about managers, you know,
so often the hardest part about performance management is actually
getting the manager and the employee to even.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Agree, oh my gosh, you're right, You're so right, and that,
oh my gosh, there is a I'm not saying there's
a union of employees, but just recently a bunch of
employees got together and said, you know what, what can
we do to hell our managers understand what we're going through?
(06:04):
Because I don't think that we're alone in that. Sometimes
as an employee, you don't think that anyone is hearing
what your problems are, what it's going to take to
be successful. All you feel like sometimes is that your
bosses are, you know, checking the boxes. How How does
let's just say you already got hired, How does a
(06:27):
company or how do managers learn to listen? I guess
or is it even a doable thing?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah? Well I think that's a great question. And so
I'm a certified coach in addition to an organizational psychologist
and consultant, and I've given many workshops on learning how
to listen. And the reason why is if you if
you reflect on you know, and you're a communication right
(06:58):
right right, But if you think about it, so much
of our training and our education is focused on how
to speak, how to speak, how to influence very little,
if any. It's pretty rare that we get explicit training
on how to listen. But really, if you look at
(07:19):
the research on this, listening is one of the most
critical skills. And that's true in an individual, you know,
one on one conversation like we're having, or whether you're
a leader responsible for even hundreds of thousands of employees,
and how do you really listen so that you close
that gap between your lift experience and perception, which is
(07:42):
very very different, and the experience and perception of those
throughout your organization and all these different contexts and levels.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, when you say a manager, there are you can
coach a manager to listen. I'm gonna mark right there
because it's stopped a little. When I think about a
boss that listens, or someone who has coached to be
listened listen to listen to employees, I sometimes I don't know,
(08:15):
maybe I'm paranoid, but I sometimes think it's some kind
of trick because when a boss actually listens, and it's
so rare that they do, I always wonder are they
trying to get into my personal life to understand my quirks,
my weaknesses, And why should I let that part of
(08:37):
me go to a manager.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Am I crazy?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Or is there is there some sort of techniques that
managers use to get to that personal information I'm paranoid.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, I find that paranoia also comes with you know,
hard earned through experience, right right. But it's unfortunate because
you know, as I said, I'm going to name my
bias that I believe what's what's good for people is
good for business and vice versa. But again, the reason
why I think it's so important to keep saying that
(09:12):
is I find that that is not a core belief
that's held.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
By everyone, right, right.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So historically, even hr professionals have this sort of implicit
belief that it's a zero sum game that if we're
benefiting the organization and employees sort of are taking one
for the team and vice versa. And so there often
is that sort of starting defensiveness about you know, how
(09:44):
is this going to be used against me or manipulated?
You know, there's like employment as mutual exploitations.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It's so pathetic though, I hate it, right, and it.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Doesn't have to be that way. And so I actually,
you know this is I teach at Georgetown University. I
teach a few different classes there, but one that I've
designed for the university. It's called Coaching for Leadership and Performance,
and it really starts with this mindset shift that any
(10:21):
of us, whether we're in a managerial role or anything else,
can adopt. And my co author Bertie Reardan and I
call this a new kind of con artist jokingly but right,
but what we mean, what we mean by that is curious, open,
and non judgmental.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And THO, yeah, please, no, I'm just gonna say, yeah,
that sounds great, But again I'm thinking, you know that
that is it possible to coach a manager into that,
into that way of thinking?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, it is a muscle, just like anything any other
skill or mindset that we can build, and it takes practice.
But really, by adopting this mindset of curiosity, open and
non judgment whether it's a performance issue that you're dealing
with or a new employee, and you're really trying to
(11:21):
understand them and what they care about and what lights
them up so that you can find that alignment between
the things that are going to get them most engaged
and excited and thus performing really well and putting in
discretionary effort. You know, that is really the position you
(11:41):
want to be in because you can create then that
trust between you and the employee where they feel seen
and heard and you're now equipped to help proactively put
them in the position to best deliver for the organization
and or troubleshoot and issues.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's great. That is so great. I love that if
you just now started listening. This is doctor Shauna Water.
She is co founder and CEO of a company called
Fractional Insights. Can you tell us a little bit before
I ask you your you know, ten million more questions?
Where can people find out more information? And do you
(12:22):
have a website?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah? Absolutely, So you can find out more about Fractional
Insights at fractional Insights dot ai and you can follow
me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. It's Shauna Waters
sho na is my profile?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Okay? Perfect?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
And so really it's not employees that are contacting you.
It would be more the corporations, the companies that need
I guess that extra boost when it comes to finding
people or hiring the right people.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah? So typically the organizations that reach out to us,
they're experiencing some kind of challenge in achieving their business
goals or strategic objectives. So what this might look like is,
you know, we're not seeing the level of innovation that
we want to and that's causing a competitive threat or
(13:23):
or missing our sales targets, or our product team isn't
talking to our marketing team sufficiently. Right. So there's usually
some kind of pain that the company is experiencing, and
so they come to us, and you know, as psychologists,
we know that any business problem is the people problems,
(13:45):
and so we help them really work through, like what
are those connection points and how can they address them through.
Often it's looking at you know, redesigning of their systems
and incentive redesigning jobs. It might even be you know,
(14:06):
we're trying to get people as the common one these days.
We want people to adopt AI, and we're not seeing
the kind of uptake that we want to see. Help
us figure out why.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
So my daughters they're just about to graduate from college
four years and they grew up in a world where
I mean, AI has been there from the beginning, and
so it's something that they use. And I'm just using
that as an example, But what is it about? And
(14:35):
I'm not necessarily saying it's older employees, but what is
it about employees that sometimes try to buck the system.
In other words, if we're all moving to digital, if
we're all moving to AI, if we're all moving to
learn this, what makes some employees just say, Nah, I'm
not going to do that. I've always done it this
way and I'm not going to do it differently.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I find that everybody likes the
idea of change, but very few people like the actual
process of change. And part of that is is we
all want to be successful, and so for especially for
people who are further along in their careers or who
(15:19):
are maybe used to doing things a certain way, they
have a lot of reinforcement for that, right, Like it's
gotten me to where you know I am. Now, there's
a lot more personal risk to doing something different, trying
something new where you're by definition and novice, than it
is to keep doing this thing that you've been rewarded
(15:41):
for in the past. And that's why it's so hard
to get over you know, homeospatis, right, like to build
up the momentum to actually make people feel safe and
that it's important enough to take those risks.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So I'm going out. If you have no answer for this,
just tell me, Karen, that's too much. But I mean,
could you give an example on how you would maybe
use you know, psychology as a corporation to get those
those employees to get on board.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Absolutely. So this is where you know, Aaron and I
am my co founder who you referenced earlier. We've developed
this methodology called psychological ergonomics, and really the whole idea
of psychological ergonomics is that we can design our work
systems and our organizations for our minds, just the same
(16:42):
way that we've designed our work spaces and our you know,
equipment to fit our bodies. And what that would look
like is so there's an example of an organization called
service Now, which is an HR technology vendor and they're
chief people off of or Jackie Kenny was having just
(17:02):
this exact problem. They really wanted their employees to adopt
AI tools, but understandably, everyone was concerned that if they did,
they were going to eliminate their own jobs. And so
yeah was a big right. Yeah, it's the uncomfortable truth
(17:22):
that often isn't said out loud, right, and it's the
quiet part saying it out loud. But if you are
concerned that what the organization wants you to do. Use
AI is actually in conflict with your own deep security
needs to continue to have a job and a paycheck
and all that stuff, which one is going to take precedence, right.
(17:44):
So Jackie and her team saw this and what they
did was they put out a public statement and they said, look,
if you use AI and by doing so, you actually
eliminate the need for your role, you are not going
to be fired. We commit that we will promote you.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
And does it?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Does it work?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Right? And well, what's what's interesting is like, first of all,
that's a great example of what's good for people. It's
the business. So of course that's a much more attractive
situation to the employees. But also imagine it for the organization.
They have these early adopters who are likely, you know,
(18:30):
some of your more innovative, more you know, risk taking
creative employees who rather than eliminating them, you are putting
them into positions where they can be better models and
leaders for others in the in the team. And so
very quickly those kinds of messages get out, right, It
(18:53):
only takes one or two promotions, right, and then everyone
you know, the organization is serious and so I think
that's a great example. It's one of my favorites of
just how you can really just and sometimes it's small tweaks,
but by really understanding, like what is the fear, what's
(19:13):
getting in the way of our employees doing what's good
for the business, and addressing that head on with policy
and system changes, that is that is brilliant.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I just love that. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
I feel like I have so many more questions that
I want to ask you, but as we're wrapping up here,
please let people or companies or corporations know how they
can get in touch with you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah. Well, first of all, you can reach out to
me personally at Shauna at Fractionalinsights dot ai, reach us
on the website at fractional Insights dot ai, or find
me on LinkedIn. I post regularly and would love to
have people follow along there as well.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Well. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I love what you you guys are doing, and I
wish you all the best because company employees, yes, we
need it, but companies need to make those changes also.
And I'm so happy for you and how you and
your co founder have come to the realization that what
did you say it's what's good for the company or
(20:19):
good for the business.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, what's good for people is good for business, and
vice versa.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I love it well.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Thank you so much, doctor Shana Waters, and I hope
I get a chance to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Thank you so much, Karen, have a great day.
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