00:02:34
In other cases, it is about setting a roadmap for that to become real. But in all cases, it is truly about bringing that vision to life. And, and what I when I say that is that so many leaders that I work with, they can see the future. They just don't necessarily see all the future. So for example, I have had this year alone, I've had two very large clients, one, a billion-dollar professional services company in the healthcare industry that had done a technology deployment, and they were trying to assess how do they continue to sustain the level of change that they had rolled out with this new technology, as well as to scale it to other areas of the business. And on the flip side, I had a professional services company that had done a technology deployment.
00:03:26
And I had a professional services company in the automotive industry approaching their first hundred million in revenue. So completely different challenges. And what they were looking for was to try and look at how do they improve their operational processes and the steps that they could make that would stand, they could standardize to allow them to grow more efficiently. So in both cases, they had a vision and in some cases they had actually executed, whether it be a technology or a process, but they didn't know how to get to the next step. And. Both, both engagements were tremendously joyful for me because not only was the, the scalability or the sustainability of the change, the outcome and a roadmap to do that, but the people and the capability of the people that they were leading, as well as more importantly, the leaders themselves was expanded upon their capabilities were better.
00:04:20
And a big piece of that was really about helping to lower the challenge and the difficulty that comes with change and really helping to cultivate trust, building that trusted relationship between the leaders and the teams that needed to embrace those, the vision and to make it come to life. That's a really interesting case, like practical case of a real-life scenario. And I have a question regarding the change management, because like usually people don't like changes. And I guess that these companies, they are already established on the market for some time. So like how, for example, what do you usually advise to the leaders when they want to embrace a change inside their team, how they should communicate it effectively to the team so that there is no, there is no oppression, let's say inside the team, like against the change and that everybody just gets on the board smoothly and efficiently.
00:05:19
The biggest piece that I see leaders often missing is the role that purpose plays in helping to drive change. So, employees today, certainly things have changed over the course of the 30 years. You can't, as a leader anymore, expect blind following. Sure. Whatever you say, I'm going to go do it. Robotic following is less effective than it's ever been in the world. Now, I don't know that it was always effective for every person, but I do know that there are an awful lot of leaders that once they understand that if an employee or a team understands the why. Behind the change, you've built a belief in why are we doing this? And I'm not saying that, that leaders have to justify everything, but creating that sense of purpose, connecting a transformation initiative to a compelling purpose.
00:06:10
It creates that alignment with the leader's vision and the employee's interest in achieving that, but it creates engagement in that. So we're sort of a joint force and most significantly, I always see that once you've created that purpose and that sense of why understanding and building belief, you create an energy that is so, it's beautiful and it moves people forward together, not just individually alone. Is it enough to then define the vision and mission as a purpose or what exactly is the purpose for the companies? The mission and vision are incredibly important. And when you can align that. It's crucially important, but I also think that it's important for companies and leaders to understand that change is going to require that human view that, that I often say it's the values that go with that mission and vision.
00:07:09
What is it that, how are we showing up? Not just what do we need to do, but how do we need to do it? And when you look at that people side of change or the human part, that's where you get a breakthrough in both the alignment and the, and the engagement, the activity around the work. It's, it is truly the reason that I love what I do every day. It is when you see that spark and, and it happens every time when you have that spark that gets sort of visually visible on people's faces as they're embracing and they see the real purpose and the, and they get the glimmer of what their vision is hugely impactful.
00:07:49
Like, for example, I have in mind when you're speaking right now, like Apple, for example, or other big, like, um, big Silicon Valley companies, like where the people really like are motivated to work for them because they work on the future, on the innovation of the mobile phone, et cetera. And, uh, so I have a question, how we can then facilitate this on like smaller scale, because for example, if I'm like a starting entrepreneur and, uh, I have my little idea or I have a startup and not necessarily, I can tell to people, you know, we are going to drive, uh, the next, the iPhone or like, uh, something that people can relate to.
00:08:29
Like there is not really a cue to join my startup or something like this. So how this can be done from the day number one, when, uh, the small entrepreneurs are starting with their idea, how they can make their employees or also freelancers engaged on daily basis so that they can grow and scale. Because I think that this is also probably some of our audience who are currently, they might be facing a similar struggle that, uh, they have their own startup. They have their own small businesses, but, uh, it's kind of the robotic setup that you just outsource somebody to make your website, or you have an employee who is just like checking the boxes on everyday basis.
00:09:15
So how does small businesses can also make this kind of purpose that it will really be like, uh, yeah, we are developing the new iPhone. I love that question. And thank you for that thoughtful linkage between something big, which a lot of people think about when they think about transformation and something that is personal, right? It's an individual unique. I, I work with and talk with a lot of solopreneurs or people thinking about being a solopreneur. They have an idea. They really want the, the impact in the world that it could be. And, you know, we live in a time that the rate and pace of change, it's awesome, right? It is faster than it's ever been. You don't need to focus on yesterday for more than a minute, and you can be looking forward.
00:10:04
So having those great ideas is really important. I tell leaders of all, all organization sizes, solopreneurs, as well as the billion-dollar, you know, the C-suite of the billion-dollar company that I worked with earlier this year. I want you to try and remember that there are people behind all of the things that you are trying to do. Whether you're trying to sell your idea as a solopreneur or sell your idea as Steve Jobs used to do. And there's always sort of three things, every communication strategy I work with. I do a lot of ghostwriting for C-suite CEOs that are trying to build that culture of trust and understanding. I always say these three things: ask yourself before you press the send button on a text message, even, what do you want the recipient, whether that be a solopreneur trying to sell their idea.
00:10:55
What do you, or a large organizational email, what do you want them to think as a result of what you're saying? What do you want them to feel as a result of what you're saying? And what lastly, what, and really importantly, what do you want them to do with this information? I think a lot of leaders sometimes get hung up on the 'I just need to be authentic.' I need to be fully transparent. And I always say to people, okay, I'm a big one for authenticity and I'm a fan of transparency. Where it's appropriate. What do you want them to think, feel, and do when they're done reading this email or this newsletter or this blog or a text message?
00:11:35
So if a solopreneur is trying to garner support for an inspiration behind the work that they're doing, if they're communicating consistently with a human being expectation on the other side of that, what do we want them to think, feel, and do? It is tremendously impactful. Sometimes it will stop you from pressing send. Right. To say, you know what, this was the rantings of a late night idea and they don't need to do anything with it. Or in some cases, I've had some leaders that said, I don't need them to do anything. And what I want them to feel is that I've got their backs. And what I want them to think is, 'I don't know, let's go back and rework that. Let's, let's go back and talk about why you're sharing it with them.' Right.
00:12:19
So if you're sharing it to be authentically everything from the, you know, frankly, the holiday message that you said. Send out to people, hopefully not on December 24th at noon, because people are thinking, 'Gosh, I was really hoping I could start my holiday.' But what do you want them to think, feel, and do? Really important for whoever you're communicating your ideas, your visions, your strategy. Always think about the person on the other side of the screen or on the other side of the table. If you are still in traditional setup in person, when I, when I was at IBM, I used to coach my leadership team. I used to coach my team to say, I really wish, you know, we have a spell check button before you send out an email, right?
00:13:00
Everybody or spell check is now automatic. I really, really, really want a, so what button and not being sarcastic. I want to, so what do I, what do I do with this? What do I want them to think, feel, and do? And I used to coach my, my managers, the people that work for me to, to be really focused on that. So what, like, what do, what do I want? Right. What do, why am I doing this? The same thing, that purpose, right? What's the purpose? What's the purpose of the communication? What's the purpose of the innovative idea? That's maybe a million-dollar idea. If somebody is watching, just, can you make a, just a what button? I mean, it's possible to, I can imagine it from the technical perspective.
00:13:40
Like you integrate the AI, which will like summarize in one sentence. What is the emotion that is triggering? I think that grammar really has something similar that they get the sense of like what the sentiment of your message or your exact text is to some extent. But not necessarily, it's applicable probably to the professional environment because my grammar is usually showing like inspirational or, or like emojis with the hearts. I don't necessarily like wanting to do this kind of sentiment in the professional environment. Well, and in lots of things with Grammarly, sometimes it gets word choice to mean different things. Right. And I say to everybody that digital transformation, digital communication has made it so hard because there isn't a font that allows you to understand the tone, the intention.
00:14:31
Grammarly tries to do that with your word choice. And because word choice is, you know, people's vocabulary is very personal and what word feels aggressive to you might not feel aggressive at all to me or vice, more importantly, vice versa. So I often say to those people that are, you know, okay, yes, you can use Grammarly. You could create the 'so what' button if that was, I really do agree with you that, you know, there's gotta be an AI generation; probably tomorrow or the time we get off this call, it'll be done. Right. But there's gotta be some level of innovation that will help to say, did you really mean it to sound that way? Because 89. 9% of the people that read this are going to perceive you to be aggressive or assertive or directive.
00:15:14
And you kind of, this isn't consistent with the way you've been sort of like those AI twins that exist now with some of the AI content creation. Yeah, definitely. So let's see if after. When we hit the stop button of this podcast, there will be already the so what button, but I have a question regarding the balance, because you said that you always need to think what do the people feel, think and do, and like a kind of like a get empathic. We can agree that I think it's a, it's a factual that the women are usually more empathic than the men. It doesn't mean that men cannot learn the empathy and they cannot work on their skills there. But.
00:15:54
From my perspective, it's also really difficult to balance between, because then if you think too much about what the people think or what they, then you are sometimes forgetting where you want to go, what you want to feel, how you want to change the landscape and the environment. And also then there is a third thing, which is like, I usually like when I start to pilot new things on LinkedIn. On social media, on YouTube, I usually make it my weekly habit or daily habit that, which is kind of like a robotic. I'm just like, give me the time of the day I need to perform this. So for example, if you want to start the strategic communication and engagement on LinkedIn, I just introduce into my to-do list every day a certain activity
00:16:45
which is for example daily posting, daily commenting but it's kind of robotic until I will get used to this kind of activity where I can Then engage with people and think about what they feel what they think but what is then the best balance for the people to navigate the environment between like because it's also many times women are not that much confident because they think too much about the other person So, what would be the best balance between these three? I love that you brought this up only because it's been a topic for quite a while in my circles, and I'm not quite sure why women and empathy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will tell you this. I mean, I have worked with a lot of leaders.
00:17:28
I mean, I worked at IBM for 18 years. I had probably equal number of women and men leaders above me or, or peers beside me. I know it's not common, but I'm going to debunk that leaders that are women naturally have an empathetic approach. And here's the only reason I would say this is why I think too many leaders that who happened to also be women have. Come through the ranks, watching role models that did not necessarily role models of success that did not necessarily demonstrate female leadership styles or those that are typically recommended as, or, or characterized as women. So I am trying to balance their skillset or more importantly, build their skillset is what is it that they are trying to cultivate within their organization?
00:18:21
If they are looking to create a trusted environment where employees feel that their potential is appreciated, growth is supported, their accomplishments are appreciated. Those things are not uniquely to women. I've worked with some fantastic male leaders who, that was just as important to them as what we call empathy. And I, I hesitate to try and characterize that in one gender or another, because I tend to believe that it is. Yeah. Yeah. You came through the ranks or what role models you followed or what books and coursework that you did. That's what you learned. People are not naturally empathetic just because they came out of the womb, female-gendered, or male-gendered, or not. I really, truly believe it's something that we are nurtured along the way.
00:19:14
And I think that it's really an important, important distinction because you can learn other ways of approaching and cultivating. And I think that it's really important to have a trusted, engaging relationship with your organization. It takes work. Some people, because of their role models and their patterns that they built up as they were coming up through their, their development ranks, their professional career, will have a lot to unlearn. Let me be very clear. I have worked in some incredibly toxic environments and I talk to people that do. Sometimes those are the exact lessons that you say, okay, this is, I'm learning what not to do. But even if those are from your childhood. Or you had a toxic teacher who yelled and screamed and people were okay with that.
00:19:58
I do think that it is an important thing to say, I'm going to take from this experience what I need to learn positively and what I need to learn that I'm going to avoid. And if I, I guess if I believed that you couldn't unlearn those skills, I would one, be a very bad leadership developer. I'm not a coach. I'm more of a consultant and a guide. But I, I do think that the people can learn this capability. It does take intentionality. It does take effort to say, 'You know what? That's not what I wanted people to think.' When I sent out the email that said, 'Business is bad. Everybody's going to need to work extra-10% more.' I didn't want people to think what they thought or what feedback I got, or I didn't want people to polish their resume and go on LinkedIn and, and resign.
00:20:48
What I wanted them to do was buckle down and try harder. Okay. There's probably other ways to do it. Is it usually with the feedback when this unlearning starts or like how people can unlearn? What are the steps that drives this transformation of unlearning and how, what is the trigger of unlearning usually? Usually, sadly, it's usually a problem. Your best salesperson resigns. Your operations leader says, I've had enough. I'm not doing this anymore. It's usually something that causes people to say, what is it? That I need to do differently to have this not repeat itself. Unfortunately, I work with lots of leaders that the only, the only reason that they're even considering getting outside expert opinion is because either their PE company said you will get outside expert support or they've had some kind of really difficult business outcome, right?
00:21:44
That they've lost sales or a huge client or, or something along those lines. I had one client early on in my, when I founded Diamond Solution Group, that they were struggling four years after an acquisition of a relatively small, less than 10% size of their company. They acquired this competitor, had a very hard time integrating, and not because they shouldn't have been able to integrate all of the pieces, but because the personalities of the company that they acquired, nobody took into consideration what those people felt about being acquired. What they did on a day-to-day basis that would keep them siloed. And nobody really paid any attention to how do we want them to, to think and to feel about being part of the larger company.
00:22:34
It was very interesting because they had been trying for four years. They eventually decided they were going to just hold. They had bought it three years ago. They were going to buy and hold. And after a year, they realized that wasn’t working either because the amount of, as I lovingly referred to a whole group of people, the amount of human glue. In that company, trying to make the acquisition impact, not visible to the client base was tremendous. And all it was going to take was one person to say, I’ve had enough. I can’t do this anymore. I physically can’t do this anymore. When there were lots of people that were close and that’s when they called me and I will got to say, it was not hard.
00:23:15
Once we started looking at purpose, why are we doing this? Why are, why did we come together? Once we started looking at it from a purpose, it wasn't hard. And it didn't take long. I will say we were seven months from start to finish until we started to be able to turn the corner on that. And within 11 months, they were rebranding the vehicles that were the previously acquired company. Four years in, they were still branded in the former company name. And four months after that, they were rebranding them to the acquired company. It was a lovely day. So we can say that the unlearning process started with the acknowledgement. Of the problem. And then you define and communicate the purpose of the company to the all, to all layers and to all of the people.
00:24:03
And then how can you monitor if actually people jumped on the board with that purpose that you have communicated? Or how do you know that, for example, in this case that like of the acquiring a new company, if you develop a new purpose that you then communicate to all parties. This is what we are doing now. Let's just make a big line between what was before. We are just now we are one company and we are doing this. This is our purpose. How can you know if the communication worked, if people actually integrated this new purpose or are there some following steps that the leader needs to do afterwards? Isn't it just like you sent email and that's it? I wish that was the case.
00:24:49
Actually, tell leaders that their communication has to keep communicating so many times that the thought of communicating it again makes them roll their eyes or vomit a little bit. Then they know that they're done. I also tell you that change just to get people's minds changed doesn't doesn't make a different business outcome. There are always some kind of systems, record ways of working, or in some cases, an outcome like a consolidated invoice. You've acquired a company. You're still sending two invoices to the same client. Those are some key simple standard metrics that are way down in the operational life cycle that a leader says, okay, we acquired the company and now we're one, they sell that to customers all the time. There's going to be more efficiencies, but they're still getting two invoices.
00:25:41
There's still two teams of people trying to do that billing. There's still sometimes doing, you know, two teams delivering inventory or something along the operational processes. So one of the things when I help leaders to really take their change vision into something that will will be recognized by business value, because let's be clear, it's nice when everybody gets on board. It's really, really important that they get on board and there's business results that come as a result. There's efficiencies, effectiveness, some financial benefits, something along those lines. And I always start at the beginning that says there is a human aspect of this. It will drive those outcomes so much faster if we don't forget that there are people associated with it. So you can tell people one invoice, well, our systems don't do it.
00:26:31
There's only a couple of things, usually human glue that is trying to create a manual single invoice because the leader said there'll be a single invoice. If the amount of human glue behind there creates more inefficiency, or in some cases, lots of cases, human error. It becomes a really big problem. So one of the things that I always do with clients and the engagements that we work with is that I start to say, 'this is the change.' This is the effect of the change. And then the question that's really important is: as demonstrated by X, Y, and Z, these portions of the business process. Sometimes it is something so simple as a financial report or a billing statement. Sometimes it is more significant, like usage of a common system. Yeah.
00:27:19
Usage of our common inventory system so that people aren't in trying to reconcile inventory systems between an acquired company and an emerged acquisition. Those are just some of the really important, realistic aspects. And I think lots of people, when they think about change management or project management, they think about that portion. They don't necessarily think about the entire, how do you change the ways of working, the way people are actually working. That then are recognized in. These systems or these outcomes in these reports. It's a really interesting what you said about the software and that this might also drive the problem. And I was just thinking about like a technical culture differences that a lots of time, like, especially when there is a acquireance of a new company, etC, like you might be used to different software than for example, your new company set up, they'll be using, but it's also happening in the real life to the people, not necessarily who are not the leaders.
00:28:19
It's like when you are changing the employment, it's a, our new normal since COVID times that we, there is really bite spread of different softwares. And especially it's different in the different cultures in different countries that for example, in Belgium, we use different communication softwares or applications in our phones. Then for example, in US, like for us, it's a lot of WhatsApp in Republic. It's a lots of telegram. I heard that. But now in Gen Z it's a lots of Snapchats people are using, even though for me it was super taboo five years ago. So it's like a, they are really interesting technical cultural differences among the different companies, which might cause also a lots of like technical stress, which is not really taken into consideration when there is actually a change that we usually also mainly like a, we speak about the purpose of like how to explain to people.
00:29:17
What is it? And sometimes even this is for forgotten something like onboarding, or we just think that this is just normal, like that everybody knows how to work with WhatsApp, how to send messages. If you just don't use WhatsApp, you might be stressed from the new system of your employment. And then also with the new system, technical, how to learn with all of the different softwares and, and things like this do also, for example, notice the technical cultural differences. Across the different leaderships and how they deal with changes in this aspect. Absolutely. And I'm, I'm so glad that you brought this because this is one of those questions that we often run out of time before we get to, because the intersection of technology and any kind of human-centric change is crucially important, right?
00:30:07
Technology is an enabler of change for sure. But transformation really requires for it to be successful, that you understand and address the human being. And so that's, that's really, I think, what I wanted to focus on, is how do we take that change and put it into practice, but also what are some of the things that are possible and what are the things that are going to need to use whatever that technology is? When I was at IBM, I had responsibility for transforming the Global Workforce Management function. And that was, you know, there were 1,500 people around the world staffing the IBM's 240,000 consulting professionals. So that was everything from identifying the demand, understanding how we were going to satisfy that demand from a client perspective, what skills and what basis.
00:30:47
But even at that point, we had to figure out how to bring that demand to the table; each of those organizations had different technology. And yet, there couldn't be a consistent level of understanding, common ways of working if we didn't adopt a consistent technology. So there was aspects of that migration, that integration, that really big initiative that was focused on what's being used today. Is that a better thing? Not necessarily a best practice. I'm no longer a fan of the word best practice because technology changes too fast. It's just a better practice today. There's probably a better practice coming tomorrow. But if we could look at what was the ways people were using technology in each of the various areas of the organization and where we could land on one, because standardizing is crucially important before you try to simplify, before you try to automate.
00:31:44
And essentially, before you try to eliminate any of your steps in your business process. So it's really important that you standardize on a platform or a technology. I think one of the things that is often hard for leaders is to understand that sometimes you have to get to a place where it may not be the best for me as an individual, but it's best for the organization as a whole. And so while the features and functions of one technology work in Belgium, it may not work the same way in Japan, and for reasons of the organization. And this is where the leader really has to make a decision that we are not an island unto ourselves, right? Belgium isn't an island of one. Japan isn't an island of one.
00:32:29
And there is no vote process. This isn't necessarily this in this case of a transformation where you needed a global technology decision. We needed to make sure that it was good for all, not best for one. And it was really an important part of the communication change because that technology being rapidly changing, you really need to address the human-centric side of it so that people said, 'I may be foregoing a couple of things that work really well for me in order to be part of the bigger outcome and the better out result that comes.' And that's really an important leadership difficulty, but it is a responsibility of the leadership to be able to see that.
00:33:14
And not fall back on the hierarchical because I said, so that's why you're doing it because I said so, which is the shortcut that people will often will say, well, I'm just going to tell them that we're using this application or this piece of technology in the company. It doesn't back to the purpose. I know everything comes back to the why, but back to the purpose. Why are we doing this? Even if it's a step back for Belgium, but it's important to have the entire, you know, eight out of 10 for everybody is better than. Nine or 10 out of 10 for one and two out of 10 for somebody else. I see your global perspective because you were at IBM, Global Director, if I'm not mistaken, director on the global scope.
00:33:57
So you have a vast experience with the global perspective and how to create the borderless solutions for all. And I also like a phrase, which is saying that it's not about what you say. It's about how you say it. Like sometimes people. Really just think like, yeah, in my to-do list, there is like communicate something and you just need to communicate it, but it's always about how you communicate it, how you, for example, prepare people for that communication that you are also, you are going to also take into consideration the cultural differences on the global scale. And as you said before, like some words might be, for example, not really welcomed by some, some words might be more pleasant for some. Other people.
00:34:44
So it's always also about how you say that change and the recommendations on the global scale. And we got a question from the audience, which very well suits here. And it's because we spoke about the rapid change. Technology is definitely rolling. It's like, what was the trend today? Doesn't need to be tomorrow. And here is a question of how to keep with trends in tech environment as a leader when the landscape is changing all the time. So. So. So like how you as a leader can navigate the tech environment, because for example, then if you want to make, if I understand the question well, if you want to then make the changes because the trends changes, how you are then navigating it as a leader, because it's also like a lot of people say that you as a company should stick with something.
00:35:37
It's also, for example, really big challenge for SAP. This is, I think a really good example that. That they are, they have really big customer base and lots of people, they go with them because they have a lot of partnerships, and just, it's like Frankenstein built on SAP, and it's really hard to get out from SAP. If you have built your company on it in the nineties, for example, but if you then want to change from something like SAP to something more modern, like how you as a leader navigate this landscape to not just literally mess up. And I love that question and I appreciate the fact that your audience has raised that. I think that one of the things that that tells, and I get that question a lot, the responsibility of a leader.
00:36:25
Oh my gosh, the responsibility of leader. The best leaders that I have seen navigate the ongoing state of technology change are those that do not represent themselves as the expert in everything. They represent themselves and they strive to be leaders that have hired the best people, the most innovative technologists on their teams, the people that are bringing good ideas and continuously improving the company. Because if a leader has to be the one that knows everything, they will fail. They will be out outdated. They will. Because it's humanly impossible. Even with AI. Yeah. They know everything. But the leader that says, 'I know what I know and I'm very comfortable with that.' And I'm going to surround myself with people that are smarter than me in certain areas, like technology changes, like applying technology innovation to our business from a product lens perspective.
00:37:31
Like finding new ways of approaching our customer base through innovative sales engagement. Those leaders that can find and are comfortable surrounding themselves with people that are as smart or smarter in their area of expertise. And the leader is not threatened by that human being being part of the team. Those are the companies that I am seeing that are staying ahead of technology changes. They're embracing the AI innovation, the things that are really lighting up the innovative ways. And they're continuously improving their company. Yeah. Their organization skills, their capabilities, and their business results are following really fast. So I would just warn any leader that says, 'Oh my gosh, I'm going to spend the two weeks of the holidays polishing up all of my technology skills.' I would rather a leader take the two weeks of the holidays and think about the team they've got.
00:38:32
And who's really good at the technology innovation or applying that technology to the products and services. And so I would say, you know, I really think a leader is passionate about making sure that they are able to show all of the things that you are offering in the client base. And how do I help support them and make sure that they feel that their value to this company is bringing that insight and that we're a team together, that I'm not intimidated by how good they are at that aspect of the business. And they will make me smarter as a leader. Because I can bring my leadership. With those lessons. And the things that they're sharing to do with the play, I really like this answer because it also makes the motivation to change a bit the traditional hierarchy in the organizations.
00:39:17
I like how you say that the leaders that are comfortable with surrounding themselves with innovative people. I was at the beginning like, 'wait a moment like there is also like somebody is also thinking like the other way, because I would always want to like surround myself with innovative people, but then I also open up to like traditional ways how some companies are working, that indeed it's like you as a leader in traditional company; they usually want to shine, they don't want to be overshadowed, they usually want to like showcase their skills, etc. And it's to be honest, it's killing the company in the innovative ways because nowadays who doesn't who's even. like uh it's
00:40:01
buzzword ai is a buzzword everybody is nowadays using the ai in like how the ai is helping your organization or your company but on the other hand there is a person in that company who is thinking in innovative ways so it gives you a bit of aspect or a bit of perspective if you want to for example invest in something if that company is to some extent leveraging the ai if they are going with a flow of innovation and if they are going with a flow of innovations or if they don't modernize their processes so this is for example one of the things that i usually like to look when i'm investing in the
00:40:38
new softwares for example In our products, etc how you are leveraging AI or the new advanced technology so I can be sure that I'm investing in the right product that is going forward and that you are customer-centric and you think about how I as a user will be using it also in the future, it's not just during the next six months but maybe I'm thinking about even 60 years from now, so I'm thinking about that as well. So, to use your service right and I will tell you that the leaders who are engaging the diverse perspectives, the diverse experiences of their organization and they're really truly empowering their team to be part of the solution to co.
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-Create their future, leveraging technology, leveraging new ways of working, those leaders and those companies are seeing not just more sustainable results but faster future scalability, faster adoption; you're in the marketplace, and their business results are showing time and time again. Clients that I work with, they're doing that-they are outpacing from a growth perspective; they're outpacing from a hiring perspective; their ability to attract and retain their top talent across the board. I mean, it's so important that innovation is also in the way you lead, because when you are challenging yourself to innovate and continuously improve your leadership skills you that is focused on that you know cultivating trust how do you do that how is it that i am challenging myself as a leader to be better and be purposeful not not be you know the oh let me go do something that won't deliver value but you're being very specific and purposeful those are the leaders and those are the companies that i'm seeing are are just making huge leaps and bounds
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nice can you also tell me more about your company so like how people can find you and how they can collaborate with you and what products or services they can for example collaborate with you thanks so Much for that, so probably the easiest is LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, although I do have a website, Diamond Solution Group LLC. com but linkedin serena diamond spelled with the a you can find me on linkedin there and you know what i love working with leaders who are struggling with figuring out how to be a leader and how to be a leader and figuring out the best ways to adopt and adapt to the changing landscape so
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you know i work on a lot of operational excellence roles a lot of things where people are they don't really know why it's not reaching the experiences reaching the outcomes that they're trying to get to i will have a you know free collaboration with anybody to try and brainstorm some of that i will you know be happy to help any of those leaders to address you know address those problems and you know i'm and if i'm not the right person i will 100 find somebody that is and put them in connection to do that i really do believe that that we are in this together that change is hard for everybody myself included with some things just getting a new laptop is always one of those things that you're like wait the change is hard but really truly being in that continuously improving and challenging ourselves to grow as people as teams and As organizations, this is all about, so thank you so much for having me and I'll see you next time,
00:43:59
thank you so much for this opportunity, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much Sarina, it's really impressive, and you guys if you want to embrace the change and jump on the innovation board then definitely reach out to Sarina and also Diamond Solutions Group because these guys will put you on the innovation wave. Is there something currently cooking for your company? What is there in the future, like for example now we are almost at the end of 2024 so what are the plans for the next year? My plans for next year are going to be a lot of things i'm going to be working on next year going to really include a lot more
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opportunities to speak about some of these kinds of things and continue to help leaders in a broader perspective so i'm going to be hitting the road a little bit more and doing some additional speaking and some workshops with companies who are trying to bring this kind of mindset into their organizations happy to you know to help anybody that's trying to to do that with a sort of a workshop or facilitation kind of kind of mode so not just projects but i'm going to be working on a lot of things and i'm going to be also a facilitation that Through that, so nice and I have also a question about IBM because you spent there
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a quite a long time in your career, you were there for more than 18 years if I'm not mistaken, yeah, and uh was there something about the mindset that IBM had and that you learned that you then took with you to the Diamond Solution Group, like what was different with IBM than for example with other companies that you were working with, and what was different with that, that's a great question I think um, you know, I started my career at Accenture and I started then learning that it wasn't just necessarily about the technology or the processes that we Were doing but it was really about the people that I worked with, and learning from them, and I continued throughout you know the places that I worked before I got to IBM.
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But I have to say, the 18 years that I that I was with IBM, the learning from other people, really truly dedicated, smart, innovative minds, is the thing that I've taken, continuously improving, making sure that I was continuously improving not just myself but for those around me, and that was one of the things that I valued every day at IBM, where the people and the relationships that I built while I was there, and I still maintain those relationships. Today, so that's the important aspect of all this because it's; it is the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is the people that you work with. Yes, and I can even imagine this is a really great dynamic for the Solutions Group because you have lots of people who you are meeting on a daily basis and lots of speaking opportunities for the next year, and also the clients; so it's: every day is not the same.
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I just had a call with a girl just before our podcast today, and she's working in the services; she's providing LinkedIn coaching, and she's like: 'You know what is the most incredible about being solar entrepreneur is that every person is different with some people i spend one one one hour with some people three hours some people like i have a literally i have one video that i'm sending to 20 people and each person just understands that video differently and it's just incredible dynamic of providing services it's awesome it's an awesome awesome place to be because people are really truly amazing and when you're that's what you're doing it for it's it's a joyful day and taking uh this is also my last question taking into consideration that your
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was uh successful like you started in accenture you worked more than 18 years in ibm you established your own company which is on market for more than three years what would be the advice that you would give yourself looking back before even the accenture that you were for example worried about and now when you went through all of these challenges and obstacles and founded your own company what would be the advice that you would give yourself continuously learn don't ever stop and decide you've learned enough right this is not uh blu-ray or dvd technology we are just from a human being perspective continuously learning what we're supposed to do and be it's a phenomenal opportunity and if every day You start with anticipating the great things you're going to learn.
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You'll finish every day with a sense of accomplishment from having done that, so I would have done that as a young person. I don't think that I was a young person. I would have done that as a young person. I would have done that as a conscious of it early in my career. But looking back at all the things that I learned at each place from each person that I encountered, that continuous learning is really the important part and it's it's been the hallmark of my 30 plus year career and I hope it continues to be for the next 30 years. Nice! I really like it also signals uh to be Humble that uh the success is not constant, that there are ups and downs all the time, and it's about just embracing the learning curve and the things just doesn't work.
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And I think that's a really important part of my career-it's important to learn from the mistakes and just keep going forward for sure. Alright, so and that's a wrap-up for today's episode of Create The Future. Now, I hope you enjoyed the conversation and gained some valuable insights into, for example, change management innovation. We also discovered our own innovation which is, what button? And how to unlearn different skills or as a leader, how to learn how to Learn how to learn how to learn how to learn how to learn. Embrace your team and innovate your environment. As always, we are here to help you navigate the evolving digital landscape and create an impactful future with technology. If you loved today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with others who are also excited about innovation.
00:49:47
You can also follow Innovatology on social media for more updates, tips, and behind-the-scenes content. And I would also just ask you, Serena: if we maybe had something that we didn't mention during our podcast and you would still like to tell to our audience. That we didn't cover yet, I am good; I just think you know what goes into cultivating trust within your organizations. Thank you so much; thank you again to Serena for joining us and sharing your expertise, and also thank you our listeners because you are making this podcast reality; thank you for tuning in today, and I will see you then next time. Have a nice day or evening or wherever you are. Bye.
