Structuring Chaotic Minds
Welcome to Structuring Chaotic Minds: A Show Focused on Balancing Mental Wellness & Life. Created for individuals just like you and me who struggle with anxiety, being overwhelmed, and balancing life due to mental health. I'm your host Melissa Franklin. I am a leadership and development coach who suffers from the amazing combo of Bipolar I disorder and ADHD. And yes, some people think I’m crazy, but I'm still crushing my goals. So, I'm on a mission to amplify the voices about our situations, share critical knowledge and information with our family & friends, and help remove the social BS about mental health and mindsets. Join me and my expert guests as we venture through our wonderful world of well…EVERYTHING! Between careers, finances, and even physical health, all the way down to your own personal self-care support groups and mental health. Let's go!
Structuring Chaotic Minds
Innovation in Leadership: Balancing Structure & Adaptability
In this powerful panel episode of the Structuring Chaotic Minds podcast, we explore what it really takes to lead with innovation while staying grounded in structure.
Hosted by Melissa Franklin, this discussion brings together a dynamic group of leaders across business, policy, education, finance, and organizational strategy to unpack:
💡 What innovation in leadership truly looks like today
💡 How to stay adaptable in the face of rapid change
💡 The mindset shifts required for sustainable impact
💡 Why collaboration is essential to forward-thinking leadership
💡 Real-world strategies for balancing creativity with structure
Featuring Panelists:
✅ Oliver Catt – Business Growth & Sales Leadership Expert
✅ Alyssa Freeney – Innovator in Policy & Youth Leadership
✅ Nestor Esparza Magaña – Community-Centered Leadership Innovator
✅ Sarena Diamond – Organizational Change Expert & Transformation Leader
✅ Dave Sullivan – Financial Strategy & Operational Innovation Expert
Whether you're scaling a business, navigating leadership in your community, or looking to build systems that allow innovation to thrive—this episode will leave you with the clarity, strategy, and motivation to lead boldly.
🎧 Tune in and take notes—you’re going to want to revisit this one.
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Welcome to Structuring Chaotic Minds, the podcast where we turn the chaos of everyday challenges into structured success. I'm your host, melissa. In each episode, we'll explore innovative strategies, real-life stories and actionable insights to help you navigate the complexities of leadership, business and personal growth. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a leader or someone striving for personal development, this podcast will give you the tools to create clarity in the chaos. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys for joining us for another conversation. Today we are kicking off our Balanced Growth Leadership Series, talking about the topic of innovation in leadership how can we balance structure and adaptability. So this guide is going to go ahead and get us started and going into all of this, I want to go ahead and kick it off by introducing our panelists today. We have an amazing set of individuals, so I am your host, melissa Franklin, joining us tonight. We have Oliver Katt. He is a business growth and sales leadership expert. I'm going to go ahead and let him introduce himself and what he does.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone, oliver Gatt here, founder of the Catalyst. We specialize in sales and leadership development, especially for mid-market companies. Anywhere from 50 to 500 employees working with frontline leadership teams who have never been leaders before or have never been trained, all the way up to C-suite executives, helping them develop their teams grow and ultimately become better leaders.
Speaker 2:On. Next we have Alyssa Franey. She is the youngest one in our group. She would be an innovator of policy and youth leadership, and I'm going to go ahead and let her have the mic now.
Speaker 4:Hi everybody, nice to meet you guys. My name is Alyssa. Simply put, I am a huge AI enthusiast. I love technology and recently I found my groove in community advocacy. So I really do like being in front and helping other youth kind of lead our own futures. So that's where I come into play and in the future I hope to be a city council member in my community.
Speaker 2:So Next on our list we have Nestor Esparza Magana. As he likes to say, it's like lasagna, and he is a community-centered leadership innovator. I'm going to go ahead and pass over the mic to Nestor.
Speaker 5:Hi everyone. I am Nestor Esparza Magaña and I am the advocacy director with the Student Alternatives Program Inc. Based here in San Antonio, also known as SAPI for short. We have our central office in San Antonio where we have programs throughout the state. We focus on education, particularly focusing with opportunity youth or youth that are at risk of dropping out of high school. But as the nonprofit, we focus on having community-based programs, doing community based advocacy and looking at community partnerships as a way to implement our programs and innovate at the community level.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, nestor. Next we have Sarina Diamond. She is an organizational change expert. I love this type. And then she is actually there about transformation. Sarina, go ahead and introduce yourself to the group.
Speaker 6:Thanks so much and thanks for having me. I am, as you said, serena Diamond. I have over 30 years of corporate experience transforming businesses, systems, technologies, starting at Accenture and Pepsi and then rounding out my career at IBM before I went out on my own and formed Diamond Solution Group, where I help to diagnose and change and transformational issues in everything from Fortune 100 through to private equity and small medium business, because really helping change to become easier to implement and to become something that is more than just a strategic initiative but actually something that helps to scale businesses is what I bring to the table.
Speaker 2:Love it. And last but not least, we have Dave Sullivan. He is a financial strategy and operational innovation expert. Dave, go ahead and take over.
Speaker 7:Thank you, dave Sullivan. Innovative cost consultants or with innovative cost consultants and nowadays so many organizations are more and more concerned with things like controlling costs, operating more efficiently and also recruiting and retaining talent. So most of the ways we help our clients fall under one or more of those three general categories, and that's what we do. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys. All right, we're going to go ahead and get started with our actual discussion, all right? So we'd like to engage the audience and have you guys partake in some poll questions so you can start thinking about this one. I'm going to put it up in a little bit. You don't have to answer yet, but I will put the poll up in a little bit. But as we're getting to talk about the actual topic innovation what does it actually mean?
Speaker 2:That word can be thrown out everywhere Structure innovation, so I just happen to like it. What I really like, though, is being adaptable. I like structure, I like following things, but I like the adaptability in things, so that word really sticks out to me in innovation Collaboration I mean, we're all here, a lot of us have met through certain collaborations or different pieces, and it's really driving progress as teamwork and pushing it together, and you also have strategic thinking turning challenges into opportunities, and then a mindset shift is really the most important one Viewing innovation as something that's an ongoing process, rather than kind of like sticking to the mold, the norm, and then never being willing to adapt and change. So, to kick this off and just really thinking about this, we want to go ahead and ask from the audience first what's the biggest barrier to leadership innovation in your opinion. So I'm going to go ahead and share this one now.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go ahead and ask our panelists now what are we thinking about these results?
Speaker 3:I mean I'll jump in. I won't go off on a tangent. I promise I wanted to select A and C, which clearly was a majority of the answers in the poll, and the reason why I would select A and C is they stand out from everything For me. The reason why I actually went with C in the end is because I've worked in organizations before where it's an organization that leads by fear.
Speaker 3:So when you're working with an organization that already leads with fear, that instantly matriculates down to the rest of the team, you get people then that don't want to innovate, they don't want to change, they don't want to do anything because all of a sudden they fear for their jobs. And the specific company that I'm talking about was the exact epitome of that. Nobody would cross the line because the minute you said something, you're out on your door. That's it Now. Ultimately, resistance to change is a knock-on effect from that as well, because if you fear for that in the first place, you're not going to want to do the other thing, and I've experienced it firsthand and that was a big thing for me.
Speaker 2:Love it Anyone else?
Speaker 4:I kind of want to add on to what he's saying. Sorry, sorry, sorry guys, I want to add on to what he's saying, but because for me, when I see it, I picked A resistance to change because when I like to talk about technology shifts, especially AI, there's a lot of people that I know of that I tried to work with, that are like okay, can we avoid AI at any point? Because I don't know how to use it and it's something that's new to me. It's like, oh well, yes and no, but it might make your life a little bit harder.
Speaker 4:So I think it's just that the change that is inevitable is what scares people, so they are timid to try to move into that change. Even I was timid at some point. I was like this doesn't make any sense. How come I'm using an AI or a bot to do all the stuff that I have to do? What does that mean for me in the future? What kind of jobs did I want to do originally that may not be available now, and it's things like that that hinder our capabilities to think beyond the barrier that we see in front of us. So I feel like it's the resistance to change that makes innovation either stagnant or it just falls apart a lot easier. So that's what I think.
Speaker 6:I wanted to jump in as well. I think Oliver and I were on the same page about A and C, but it's interesting because when I work with clients, I almost always am brought in to face the resistance to change and as we start to peel back the layers of that, it's almost always fear-based. It doesn't necessarily only need to be fear of failure. In some cases it's fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what my role is in it. Known fear of not knowing what my role is in it. And from a leadership perspective, the biggest barrier that they have is that they can see where they're trying to get to and they need to bring their teams along with them. So helping the teams to overcome the fears that are behind their resistance, even if it's not necessarily fear of failure, is a really big challenge for the leaders. I mean, that's where a lot of the work that I do is focused on helping to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2:I love it. Bring her on for ruffling feathers on the next piece. All right, you guys. Would anybody else like to expand on the topic?
Speaker 3:Okay, I was just going to add to that and I completely agree with Serena in that regard. I mean, one of the things that I will say is, if you find the right organization that's willing to jump on that journey, they still may be fearful, but if they're not resistant to that change, then you're getting their buy-in and you'll start to see that knock-on effect. A client that I'm working with at the moment they are. They are afraid of change, but essentially they're open to it and their team are bought into it. So they they're taking it slowly and to elicit point with the, the, with the fact that, with AI and everything else taking over, yeah, things are going to change massively over the next few years and people have to jump on that train immediately. But no, I agree with everything they both said on that one. Yeah, good answer.
Speaker 7:I love it. I think that's a great perspective. Oliver, I'm glad you were the first one that spoke up and mentioned that, because it gives, I think, all of us who are trying to help organizations. It reminds us that a lot of times the people we're speaking with, the decision makers of these organizations, if we and that's what we're supposed to do put ourselves in our prospects and our clients' shoes, we're talking to people who very well could be very fearful. So if we lead with knowing that they could be very fearful, it could be an organization that is pushing fear all the time. If they're not fearful, then they'll just move faster. But if we expect them to be fearful, we can be more empathetic for that, and I think sometimes we're just like we just think our solution is so great, it helps everybody, it'll help you, just do it Right. So I'm glad you said that, because I'm going to take that away from this discussion and keep it with me when I'm talking to people.
Speaker 2:I love that answer, dave, like basically expect the reality of what's likely going to happen and kind of be prepared by building in empathy and making sure that you're aware that it's probably what they're going to go through. So, instead of giving pushback and making it a harder process, make it a more receptive, understanding and supportive process. I love that. Guys, we'll start talking about navigating change and actually looking into this piece. So if we start looking at collaboration as a tool for leadership, not something solo, you actually have to work together in order to thrive. A lot of us were those students who we either did it or we didn't. And if you were a student who thrived, you could do it by yourself. You did it in a group, then you were likely the one doing it all by yourself. But when it came down to getting work done, there were some really good people that were really good at collaborating and getting other individuals to work, even if they weren't doing the writing and that sort. But we look at that and how can we actually apply that into the corporate world or into the entrepreneurships and into the nonprofits and those different spaces where we're collaborating now? Cross-industry partnerships will really synergize things and bring that synergy together to where you start seeing things that you might not have seen without having these types of conversations. Those are probably the most delightful of them. And then effective networking. One of the groups I love the most SCN like seriously loving that group right now. Oliver is doing an amazing job of leading our particular chapter in an area that we're trying to go international and being able to pull all these collaborations across the globe to make sure that this synergy thrives for everyone.
Speaker 2:So I want to go ahead and share our next poll question and then start asking the audience for their thoughts. So, do you actively seek collaboration? Some of you already know the answer to Thinking about this. This is how you can innovate your role and actually make sure that you can grow, adapt, expand. Are you open to collaboration or are you like, hey, guys, stay away? What do we think? At least no one said never. They could be lying, but nobody said never, so we'll start there. Um, nester, I'm gonna start with you because I can honestly say active poodle community like we are literally.
Speaker 5:yeah, um, I and but I agree with, uh, the message sent by, by dave regarding often as a possibility, because always would be, really, you know, that's never the case, that it's like always a must, right, I mean that's very difficult, but often, yes, yeah, as you can see, the Puro community, the idea of working together, right, of being part of the community and like when you're working for a nonprofit, you're looking at, you know, huge problems that your community, your society is facing and the reality is that one person, one organization, cannot do it alone.
Speaker 5:So, whether you're looking inside your team for that collaboration or towards the outside with partnerships and other organizations, I think as much as possible we always look for that. I mean that's part of kind of our you know, theory of, you know of impact as far as, like you know, at the community level is through partnerships. So, but there's always that it's not that it's always the case, but, yeah, often and as much as possible would be would be my answer to that. I think it's it's essential to to be able to to tackle the problems that that we work on as a non-profit at the community level and so on I love it.
Speaker 2:I want to kick off the next part, or emphasize and piggyback off of that yeah.
Speaker 3:So I'll tell you why I selected Always. I work with clients to offer bespoke leadership content. Everything is built to organizations, clients, individuals and such like. The reason why I selected Always is because for me, it's a collaborative approach and everything that I do is fully customized. I don't deliver anything that's off the shelf. I don't believe in off the shelf, which is why I built my company on working with clients that need a fully custom approach. I'm working with client A that's got 500 individuals in a call center. That is an operation that I can't pull people off left, right and center, so it has to be collaborative because I need to work around their schedule.
Speaker 3:Prime example, the other day I had an urgent meeting with the training team to deliver some content. They had a mistake which sent out 93,000 messages to customers in error. All of a sudden, all hands on deck, everything went wrong, everything went out the window and fires are burning. So for me it's like okay, cool, that's why you brought me in. I understand the operation that you are working in, I understand what you do. So guess what?
Speaker 3:Yep, my meeting takes a backhand. Like yes, you'll pay me by the hour. Yes, you'll a backhand. Like yes, you'll pay me by the hour. Yes, you'll pay me by the project. Yes, you'll pay me by whatever I'm delivering. But I'm not one of these people that will sit there and turn around and go hey, I just want, I just take the money for you missing a meeting. It doesn't work like that. So for me, everything is tailored to who I'm working with. Collaboration is a must, so for me, working with Collaboration is a must. So for me, every step of the way hands down. But I get why other people would select something different, because it depends on your offering, it depends who you're working with and it depends on the client as well.
Speaker 6:It's interesting. I also said always and I do agree, dave, from an often perspective from my clients. But one of the things that I have really enjoyed as I've gone out on my own as a solopreneur is that I have worked with the most eclectic group of industries, everything from a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical to the automotive industry to property development, and one of those, the things that has been unique and the reason that clients often bring me in is that the ability to collaborate with leadership in various industries and bring experiences that they wouldn't have had an opportunity to know because they tend to stay in their own silo. So they love the fact that me bringing some of the things that are outside of their normal purview and some of those kinds of insights to help them to be better in their leadership and, through that, collaboration across industry is really crucial.
Speaker 2:Anybody else like to emphasize a little further?
Speaker 4:I'd like to emphasize on mine. I put sometimes because, for me, the more and more I realize that trying to be a community advocate and trying to get into being more like out there in my community, I cannot do that stuff by myself. The organization that I'm with nobody does anything by themselves. It's always like we're all here, we're all on the part of this team and you have to understand that. If you want to do things by yourself, go ahead, but you're not going to probably be as successful as you would be with 10 persons as opposed to one person. So I realized that in just collaborating in a certain space, doing that in my work jobs, doing that in just my personal life, collaboration has actually opened a lot more doors for me than it would be by myself.
Speaker 4:I'm an introvert, I like being by myself, but I realized I have to do a lot more work when I'm by would be by myself. I'm an introvert, I like being by myself, but I realized I have to do a lot more work when I'm by myself and it's like, well, it's not really helping me at the end of the day. And if I want to build those relationships, if I want to be known as somebody who is approachable, who can actually hold conversations with people and actually is likable. I have to be collaborative and that's something that actually the more and more you do, the more you begin to like it, the more you begin to like meeting other people. So I feel like collaboration just in general it gets a lot easier. That's why I'm not saying always because I still tend to avoid interacting with other people, but sometimes because it's opening my eyes that collaborating is actually pretty good.
Speaker 5:If I could add something and just going back to what Oliver was saying, because I was saying like, OK, you know, sometimes, because that's closer to often than to always to me, that's why it was my answer, because that's closer to often than to always to me, that's why it was my answer.
Speaker 5:But maybe, to take, you know, as I was listening to Oliver and then, like the rest of you talking, I was thinking well, in the end, even the work that might seem that one is doing on their own, it's really coming from some collaborative process, right? So you know you might end up doing something on your own, but this is coming from like an organization, as a nonprofit, right? So you know you might end up doing something on your own, but this is coming from like an organization, as a nonprofit, right? So it might be like a foundation that is funding you to implement that program. Even though you're doing it on your own, you're actually doing it with the resources that are being provided. And then maybe you're doing it in collaborative spaces like this or where we have met, right so, where we're working all on our own, maybe kind of separate projects, but we're still exchanging information or, you know, getting thoughts back and input. So I guess then in that sense I will have to change my answer and put it back on always.
Speaker 2:I love that. All right, we're gonna go ahead and go off to the next topic Mindset. This is definitely something that we have to be conscientious of, not only in just growth in general, but in leadership definitely, because we can squash everything if we don't have the right mindset. I don't know about you guys, but growth is absolutely necessary. As a leader, I can't stand working for the same people. It's like what am I going to learn then? Not trying to be rude? So you got to embrace those challenges of opportunities and actually be willing to grow rather than. I don't want to try that.
Speaker 2:I think it was Oliver that was saying he had a group that's super excited and they know that they're nervous about what they're going to be going through, but they're pumped up and they're excited about actually getting in there and getting it done. So that's where the resilience starts getting built. We learn from failure Like we're going to go through it. It's going to happen, we're going to fail. Alyssa gets excited. It's super cute. Now she's like, oh, got four no's, next one's got to be a yes. And I'm like cool, like I love that. And she's just like the more no's I get, the sooner I'm going to get a yes, and then she just knows how to actually respond to individuals in a way that I wouldn't have done. That. I would have been like no guys Like I wouldn't have been able to handle it the same way. I'm not as resilient and I pretend like I don't care. But I care. It just doesn't work like that for me, unfortunately Got to focus on continually learning in order to continue to grow, because industries shift and change.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we freaked out the most about was definitely AI. As this little girl started introducing it to all of us, people pushed back, especially some family members who believe like computer science, coding, don't want to change it, don't want to shift it. And my favorite comment that she made was when she flat out said you know what? That's so beautiful, guys, but let's study history. And during the Industrial Revolution, you either own the machine or you knew how to operate it or you had no job. You decide where you want to be. And I was like, okay, cool, like I understand, I'll start learning how to use it so I don't become completely obsolete. Use it so I don't become completely obsolete. And it's evolved and it's actually made me start thinking new things about AI, looking at it as a baby that I have to actually train and adapt and teach it things. So this has actually helped me empower other individuals and being like hey.
Speaker 2:I don't know it either, but we figured it out and that gets really exciting to other people that you can admit. You fell on your face, you didn't know. You were just as scared, because that's where you create that empathy, that's where you create that understanding. It's not sympathy and feeling bad for people. It's really connecting and resonating with them. So I want you guys to think about it for yourselves. What's the biggest challenge in staying innovative as a leader for you? Is it going to be your time constraint? Is it going to be your time constraint? Is it going to be unclear direction, fear of risk I'm hearing a lot of that one tonight or possibly lack of resources, especially if you're there as a solopreneur or shifting over into that space?
Speaker 6:While people are voting, melissa. It's so funny because I'm currently doing a continuous improvement for leaders course for a client and almost this exact question has been raised each time. We're about to do the second of four sessions around the challenges of being in a continuous improvement mindset and while all of these are the things that come up, what's really interesting is the challenges that they feel that are beyond their control. Ai is not one that they've said is beyond their control, because they know that eventually they're just going to have to learn it. It was sort of like I'm going to just have to figure it out, but it was really interesting because it was almost these exact same four. C was a little different of the ones that came out, so usurp the pole, but it was really interesting that this whether it's an AI or any innovation that mindset around challenges becomes, you know, the driver, or at least the thought, the provoking thought process.
Speaker 2:I love that One of our audience members actually said wouldn't time constraints and unclear direction be the same, or almost the same? Lack of time may result. May be a result of focusing on too much I definitely agree on that one like stretching yourself a little too far, thin and such. But if we're seeing it, guys, we're looking at this and we're noticing lack of resources and time constraints definitely seems to be the biggest one. Who wants to kick that off I'll go.
Speaker 3:So first of all, to gabby's point in the comments. I love that, yes, because a lot of people would see that as the same the organizations that I work with. For me time, if you look at it as a structured management organization, so you've got heads of then directors, then ex-leader operations, supervisors, whatever, right, if you really break that down to some time, restraints for a frontline supervisor or manager would be that forefront. But unclear direction would then be the knockoff effect of management above not giving them direction of where they want to go. So you can see it from both sides. But it depends on the organization. It depends on that kind of hierarchy structure which makes a huge difference. But totally get it and yes, it can be that way.
Speaker 3:I didn't answer this question as me and that's why I'm kind of saying it now. I'm answering this question as from my client's perspective because for me, time constraints, I run my own business. There are no time constraints. I have to make time. If I'm not sleeping, I'm working Hence, for me it's half eight in the evening. I've got screaming children next door which I can hear right now. So I'm making time and, to be fair, most nights my wife and I run our own businesses. So after they go to sleep, we get the laptops out, we work Unclear direction. Well, if it's unclear it's me, it's my problem Because I'm not being clear to myself. Fear of risk, I take risks and, for me, lack of resources If I need something, I go and buy it.
Speaker 3:So the reason why I select time constraints on here is because, again, I'm kind of seeing it from my client's side and I'm answering it from their side, because the group of leaders that I am currently coaching and training for a client at the moment, everything is time. They don't have time. These guys have got a mixture of anywhere from five to 30 people reporting into them and everything is time. And when you're working in an organization as a leader nine times out of ten and I'm plucking hours here, you're working a nine till five. That's your hours, that's what you focus on. You're not running your own business, so you're not.
Speaker 3:Yes, don't get me wrong, leaders are thinking about stuff outside of work. They are still working. I'm not disregarding that. But you don't work the same way when you run your own business, because you are constantly thinking about it. You are constantly it's in the back of your brain. So the reason I selected time restraints is because that's what everybody is telling me at the minute and you're not going to believe this, alyssa. You're going to have kittens when you hear this. I mentioned chat GPT to somebody the other day that I'm coaching and they said what's that? Look at that reaction.
Speaker 6:Are they 80?
Speaker 3:Say that again, serenaena. Are they 80 years old? Uh, no, they're probably mid-20s.
Speaker 5:Maybe they were just grok users and trying to pretend that chai gpt doesn't exist do you know what it is?
Speaker 3:and I, I, I dug deep when that prompt because they were trying to build reports, and I said, okay, look, I get, you can't share confidential information. But I took an hour and a half a day to 10 minutes by using ChatGPT, copying and pasting reports. That was the same thing done every day. That took an hour and a half to do. I created a prompt and a custom Chat gpt, showed them what to do, showed them what to pull out, and that took. Now that now that takes 10 minutes a day. But again, working in an organization where you don't have access to ai, or maybe you don't have an iphone with all right, I'm not going to say apple intelligence, because it is what it is but you don't have, you don't have access to this stuff. Maybe you're just not in that world. I get, I get it and and for me there are so many different ways to look at that question, but I love that question because it opens so many doors. Go on, alyssa, pipe up on that one.
Speaker 4:When you said that, I was like no, you're joking. I was like this person has to be. You know, as Serena said, maybe 80. You said 20, and I wanted to cry Because, especially because of how fast it's moving now, you were talking about your iPhone. Right In the newest iPhones, they have that built in in the camera.
Speaker 4:You take a picture and chat gpt pops up and says, oh here, this is what it is based off what I saw, and it's like you can do that. Okay, if you even look on google or I don't know if it's on safari, mom, you would have to tell me if it's on safari but if you look on Google and you're doing a certain search, Google pulls up the AI summary of what you're searching, so you can save time. So it's like there's no way you don't know what ChatGPT is or what AI is in general, Because OpenAI is everywhere and I'm pretty sure you've heard it on the news, you've heard it somewhere, You've heard it on Instagram reels, you've heard it TikTok, you've heard it somewhere. So I'm like, is this person living under a rock or what is going on? Because there's no way they are able to connect with you or connect with other people and not have heard about AI. Even people who don't like it have heard of it. It's like it's not. I don't know. In this generation we call it trolling. I'm not trolling.
Speaker 3:I'm going to put you on a call with my parents. Good luck explaining that.
Speaker 2:To be fair, I think that's funny that you said it was a person who was 20, because this young lady has a range of friends. They're all from linkedin. It's so strange, um, but they're all a very range of ages in the tech ai world. I think the oldest one he's what john, so he'd be like 72, 75 I think he's 75, yeah and then alissa was in the group as the youngest, 17, for like no 16 at the time.
Speaker 2:Now she's 18, so like they've been buddies for like two years as they grow out everything in the AI salon and they continue advocate and they range in their age, but they will own it, they learn about it. They had to have the conversations and be real with each other that we get lost in a tangent and get stuck trying out new things that we still don't even know how to play with, get all excited and then start on a new app let's just say it wasn't, it was.
Speaker 2:It was a very interesting conversation anyone else want to emphasize off of that uh, I would like to.
Speaker 5:I mean, I answered, uh, the lack of resources. Again, like from a non-profit perspective. You know that tends to be a common, a common theme, which then might lead to time constraints and so on.
Speaker 3:But again.
Speaker 5:That's why I think things like AI are super helpful when lack of resources is one of those obstacles, because you can definitely do so much more.
Speaker 5:I mean, the examples have already been given here, but I think that's one of those things that one needs to definitely be using, like I mean.
Speaker 5:I mean one can have different perspectives about AI, but I think, when it comes to just improving your organization in a sense of, like, making it more efficient, to be able to have, like, maybe more output, whatever it is that you're doing, you know whether that's going to be an email, some like you know technical, like you know query or something, but I think there's just kind of no way around it.
Speaker 5:It's, it's, it's everywhere and it's yeah, it's undeniable that if you don't, if you don't use it, you're going to be left behind, and this could be like a whole, a whole different conversation, a whole different panel, but it is. Then what will be the implications? Knowing that you have access to such resources? Right, because it's like, now everyone has their own assistants and you can train them and you know, basically, they start learning about you. So then the expectations for production and output would also go go up. So how is that balanced? That remains to be seen, because everything's so new. But what's, I think, a fact is you, you need to to, to use it, because otherwise, right now, today, like you'll start like getting behind, like for sure, there's no way that you can compete, let's say, without making the most of AI.
Speaker 2:I love that I feel like I didn't quite see it like that because it was more like having to learn something new. So I feel like that's why time constraints. Sometimes companies will feel like I didn't quite see it like that because it was more like having to learn something new. So I feel like that's why time constraints. Sometimes companies will feel like nope, not doing that, we just don't have the time to go try something new. And really what they're saying is they don't have the money to go invest the time to learn something new. They're like no, no, we're not taking that chance. So it really comes down to like am I going to put that money in there? Down to like am I going to put that money in there? Do I think it's worth the return of investment or do I feel more of a headache and that that's actually what's causing more fear?
Speaker 3:that's what it is for me. Just to add to that, and actually something you just said, melissa, makes total sense, right, organizations cost whatever, and what's funny is it's just clicked, the companies actually look at and they are building. It's not looking, they're actually building an internal ai bot for the organization as a knowledge base. So maybe they just don't know it as chat gpt, maybe they know it as something else, but I don't know. Now it's opened the doors to a lot of questions on my side, but they never, never heard of ChatGPT and that's still. I feel like I took their ChatGPT virginity plate, so I'll take that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Oh, my goodness, speaking about that, I think a better question would just be in the basket. So can you tell me the name of the technology that you guys are building right now? And who knows, knows, it might already have a name. I know alissa created a bot for dave at one point and she put a name to him and everything designed him did his logo or branding based on how he wanted it to talk. And dave and I like to talk a lot about nepq I would think I'm like butchering that right now.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what it is at the top of my head, but as we talk, talk about sales Dave and I talk a lot about emotional intelligence and being realistic, about asking the right questions. That would invoke emotion with people and that's the process that we keep looking at and it's like a circle. But at the same time, if it's not in place, then it kind of breaks everything. So it was necessary to program his with that and it made a lot of other questions easier and such um. I know it helped me when she didn't want to do stuff for me. No more, she's like here's a bot, I made it for you, leave me alone. It's like man okay, fine, I'll leave you alone.
Speaker 6:So yeah, just so you guys know she's the best assistant ever I was working on the bot that can do your accent all over that's why I'm in line for the next one.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and you can find somebody can finally just take my language and just make it americanized, so I'll take that all right.
Speaker 2:So as we're going through all that, we get it started, we pull the trigger. Now we've got to actually make sure we don't drown. So now we've got to navigate through everything and make sure that we can stay adaptable, because as water starts getting in the boat, are we just going to sit there and watch it or are we going to be like trying to toss it out so that way we can keep going? So, really, what does innovation mean in leadership for you all? How do you balance structure and adaptability? And then, what mindset shifts are necessary for leaders to stay innovative? Finally, what common challenges do leaders face in adapting to change? These are four questions for the panelists. I'm going to leave it open for them to pick whichever one they want to tackle first, and we will start the discussion from there.
Speaker 4:I think I'll do the first one Go for it.
Speaker 4:So I feel like what innovation and leadership means to me is it's like how we saw that it's the adaptability, the resilience and, I think, being open-minded just in general to your team. That like creates and fosters that kind of change. And like as I've learned from you like being a leader doesn't automatically mean you get to order people around. It means that you're able to grow with your team, you're able to create other leaders with them. So I feel like that's the innovative part. If you're able to recreate yourself and other people, recreate other leaders and they can handle the stuff without you needing to be there, that is like that innovation piece, because you're creating the next set of leaders without you needing to be there, and then they know that they can handle the stuff when you're gone. And I feel like that is what trains the innovation, because if you're able to have multiple people who can lead each other without making the person that they're leading feel inadequate, that is what fosters the positive growth and that's what keeps that a train rolling.
Speaker 2:So yeah hello, worm inside. Thanks, kiddo, who's next?
Speaker 3:sorry. Did you give her the 20 bucks before this call or after?
Speaker 6:it was 50 she's an innovative young woman. She figured it out. Um, it's really interesting.
Speaker 6:I work with leaders a lot in this exact space, about being able to see the vision for the change, and really the challenge that they often face is not slowing down but bringing others with them and making sure that the brilliant ideas, the innovative ideas, sometimes the experiences that they have are so much more broad than the people in their teams or in their organizations that they can adapt to changes more quickly or at least changed mindset, and so one of the things that I often am working with leaders in is about communication and about how do they communicate either their own vision or what their expectations are.
Speaker 6:That allows other people one to come with them on the journey of change, but two to also be engaged and really ignited in the enthusiasm around what that change is, rather than fearful. So I think that becomes the common challenges often, in some cases remembering that when they've said it the first time, they may have thought about it for weeks or months before they've actually articulated it, and bringing the others along and giving them space to be able to ask those questions to come along, is often one of those challenges that that they have to overcome.
Speaker 2:I love that. You're not wrong. I think each of us come with our own background bias, confirmation bias of like what things are supposed to look like. Therefore, it's like we got this, let's go. Well, you're not scared because you've done it before. What about the person next to you? And kind of like, as Dave saying, you got to create that space for them to feel that they can go get it done so that they can do it rinse and repeat, so that way they can grow that resilience and keep going with that. But that's what I feel like as a leader, you also have to be realistic with yourself on what little baby steps can you create too so that they can be ready for those scenarios? As dave was saying, like building in that readiness for them. Okay, cool, we know where they're going to do public speaking in the classroom. You can ask any one of my students. You're going to have to talk in front of the classroom at 30 at one point I don't talk in front of nobody I don't care.
Speaker 2:You're going to talk to your friend for first, just for the beginning, and then eventually we're going to do a table of four and you guys are just going to talk like that and you guys are going to do some so much team building. You're going to want to talk and then eventually I'm going to make you a team of eight because you guys are going to pair up and then eventually you have to talk in front of the entire like the entire classroom, and these kids were like amazing public speakers and now they're becoming coaches and speakers.
Speaker 6:For me it's like yay, building adaptability and building growth without having to do it all by myself what I I loved about what you just said, melissa, was that you gave them the space to, to, to be the change, to do the change. So often I run into leaders where they told their team what they wanted, or their team member, and then their team member either didn't do it exactly as they expected or didn't know enough, so they didn't do it at all. And then, because they believe in the team, they feel badly. They didn't articulate it well or they're overloaded already. They just take it on and do it themselves.
Speaker 6:And then I'm always sort of backing them up and saying and what have we learned? We keep saying the people are the most important and yet, at the end of the day, the work really was more important than the person, because you didn't give them the opportunity to learn and to grow. And I love what you just did because you gave them many opportunities and many iterations for them to grow, even though they're students. Certainly your best evidence of your leadership in growing young people is on this call with us, so I love that just just to piggyback off the back of serena there.
Speaker 3:Like I see that with delegation, like with every client that I work with, right and I talk about it probably every other week where they've given a task to somebody and they've gone here. You go, here's A to Z, but you've got to come to me for M, n and O, and at that point you're like well, why did you even delegate if you're not giving me that autonomy to go and do that? And that's the point, because then all of a sudden they fail at M, n and O. So the leader just goes okay, I'll take that back, and it just screws the pooch on all of that. Yeah, make total sense. I totally agree.
Speaker 2:I love that. I feel like we have to respect that. We hire leaders for a reason and we hired them for that role. That's the whole point. You spend all this money to hire expert because you don't have to do it, and there's one particular organization I'm thinking about specifically on what you're saying doesn't quite do that, and I was in charge of different programs and different things with them.
Speaker 2:It was really annoying that I would do grant compliance and keep up and honest agitator. Here I literally have that reputation. Honest agitator Okay cool, I'd rather be honest than a liar. But if I'm an honest agitator, I'm going to ruffle some feathers along the way, and you're too honest sometimes. Okay, well, I don't know what to tell you in that space because I need to make sure that we're still growing and adopting. And they pushed it down.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of bottlenecking and it was cute because I was told that I was bottlenecking. I was like no, I'm the one who literally understands what they're saying for grant compliance, but what you're not saying is what you don't want the board to find out. Got it Understood? I can't work for people like that and that's it's fine. But it comes down to if there's too much of it. Why'd you hire me there's, I'm sure there's somebody else who's better at it, cause I'm just going to make your life difficult. Next, like seriously and I've been in rooms with other people in here before where they've seen me do it I've been like, okay, cool, not gonna work.
Speaker 2:Next, set Like, and that's okay, because you have to do what works for you and you have to be realistic on just the way Oliver was saying, like, did it get delegated or not?
Speaker 2:So I love when I bring people in and I ask them. We do a synergy triangle, some of my groups to connect with collaborations with my people. When they come in for the organization, though, I end up asking them so what do you do? Who do you serve, like as far as, like in general, not clients, but organization, your purpose, what do you want to be here for? Now we can understand where to place you. Here's the project that we have coming on, here's the goal. Now you guys tell me how we're getting there. That's the whole point of hiring you, so I don't have to figure out all other stuff and they feel much more empowered when they understand what the mission is or what we need to do, and then they're more empowered, that they have basically permission to do it and then step out there in that space, any common challenges you guys think leaders might be facing adapting to change but.
Speaker 4:I think I want to back off. You want to back off. Add on to what serena was saying about like the communication part. Adding on to not being able to completely articulate what your vision is to other people. Or like how you had said that some people who have went through certain things might find the challenge less daunting than others. So it's like we're not fully communicating what our strengths and weaknesses are.
Speaker 4:So when we're trying to adapt to the change, it's like, well, how come you can't do it? I was able to do it. It's like, well, that's great for you, but we're not meeting at the same point. Like we we're both agreeing that we want to get to this spot, but we don't know the sandbags that we have to carry along the way, the other baggage that we have. And it's like the communication when it's, I guess, when it's breaking, it's not the best. And then that's how you get people who lose motivation because they're feeling like, well, they're just going to push me through to this and I'm not even going to give it my best effort, because they don't see this is where I'm struggling, that they just automatically think that they were able to do it, I'm able to do it, and it's just like things like that. So they're like it's clear and concise communication. That is emphasized in every point and, I guess, at every quarter. Whatever you're trying to do, that doesn't get fully.
Speaker 2:Um, I guess exercised so well guys, how comfortable are y'all with change in leadership? Don't just vote yes because you got rid of the boss you hated, but be real how comfortable are we with those changes? And then audience you can start putting final questions you would like our speakers to address in the chat so we can start answering those for you. I'm going to share this results. What are those you and about to share this results? Hmm, what are that? All they're actually going to be waiting for is but I'm just reading that. Um, so yeah, I have to train and make a new one, alissa, perfect. Is this not the project you were supposed to be working on? Trying to figure out how you can get all the branding for him aligned in one?
Speaker 4:pretty much I want to see if I can get one with the, the speaking bot, and figure out how to get it with the british accent.
Speaker 2:That'd be awesome that's hilarious that you say that. That's funny because, uh, at the same time too, what you can teach him how to do is how he can can ask that bot to go do the coding for him that he needed to build the website, so he doesn't need you either.
Speaker 4:Don't worry, oliver, it will be done. You will have a best friend in technology, I promise.
Speaker 2:Any questions from the audience, guys, aside from Oliver needing a bot?
Speaker 6:you know, melissa, when and as we're looking for audience questions, I I have always um reminded my my clients who are in leadership positions that are struggling with change. When, when the new thing comes whatever whatever that is, now it's AI it always feels like it's the biggest challenge, it's the mountain, okay, and I can't tell you how many times I've had people say can we just find the pause button? I just need like a little while to just get caught up. And I say to leaders all the time it's our responsibility to find the commonality that allows people to be able to talk eloquently about networking, meaning the cabling that was in buildings and then, all of a sudden, mobility was the new thing and everybody was up in arms. How are we going to overcome this? We just got trained on and when we were able to find that the same concepts applied it's just whether the cable is actually in the wall or in the air they were able to get it, the concept.
Speaker 6:So one of the things that I challenge leaders all the time with is imagine it's the same. Only you're responsible to find that step that gets them over the chasm. I actually said to somebody for AI, ai is not that hard, it is Google on steroids, like if you could just be on Google all the time and Google could be really, really, really smart. That's all that you're talking about. They're like, oh okay, okay, I can do that, and it is. I think it's the responsibility of leaders to find something, even if it's not exactly right, but find some commonality so that their team can overcome that fear of change, that the innovation isn't that far-fetched. Now I mean, I'm sure there's going to be something in my lifetime that is going to be so far-fetched that even I'm going to have a hard time finding the thread. But I do think that's a leader's responsibility, certainly to help their teams overcome that. And if they need to help, you know they can come to me and I'll find the thread for them.
Speaker 2:Be sure to drop your information down in the chat so that they can reach out. So the questions actually were here and I just didn't pay attention to them. I apologize so if you guys want to tackle one of these three questions as we wrap it up for the night. But how do you encourage innovation in structured environments? And I feel like that's kind of what Serena just tapped on right now, like it's already so set. This is where we would encourage it, but what leadership strategies help in uncertain times? And then, how can business balance innovation with risk management?
Speaker 4:I think what she said covered pretty much all these questions and snippets. Like she's like what strategies? It's google on steroids, like trying to pretty much, I guess, make it similar to something else that they're already familiar with, to like ease the risk, to ease the, the fear, and she's balancing innovation with risk management by saying, okay, we're gonna try this out, but we're gonna take it like with baby steps, because we know we're not all there yet and that's fine. Like, if you can use google, you can use this chat, gbt, we'll just figure it out. And it's like that's encouraging the, the innovation in the environment, because, like, we all got it, we'll take time and we'll do it.
Speaker 4:And then I really do like that, um, what's it called? I guess an analogy now, because I normally call ai like a child that you're trying to train or whatever, or like as simple as a really, really smart baby. Sometimes it's like it's just a baby, like be nice to it, and she's like fine, okay, I'll be nice to it, but it makes it easier for somebody to see it as, oh, it's like a child rather than something that could take my job away. You know, it's like something that's much more, I guess, digestible. So I think that was a cute way of saying it Google on steroids. Or maybe, if people don't have Android, it'd be Safari on steroids, I don't know, but yeah, I think that's cute.
Speaker 3:I love that. Please, alyssa, take my kids, train them Please.
Speaker 2:Just do it. One of the preparations Alyssa's actually going to be doing is collaborating with Nestor right now, working with some kiddos in his group to actually grow out that community and they are going to be. Nestor, do you want to share a little bit more about what those kiddos are doing, sharing their stories? And, Alyssa, you can talk about the podcast?
Speaker 5:Yeah, and actually I just wanted to mention, like, as far as like the strategies, I wanted to just kind of have like two keywords almost one adaptability and collaboration.
Speaker 5:So it's, you know you point out this collaboration, but yeah, just, we are engaging our youth in the advocacy that we're doing and trying to have them really drive the advocacy not only through their stories but also through their direct input on you know how to present those stories or who to present those stories to or in which context. And at least I was visiting the Puro Community Studio some weeks ago and tomorrow I'm actually meeting with the students to post the invitation to go on April 1st to the mayoral youth-led forum. So hopefully we'll see you with the three of them there. But yeah, we're excited about that and collaborations of that sort, because then that starts translating into youth-led collaborations, which is even more exciting, especially for those of us that work in education and working with youth. That's really great. But I think that's why collaborating is like you know, it's a strategy that, whether the times are certain or uncertain, you know it's a good strategy to have. But yeah, I'm looking forward to that, and the students are too.
Speaker 2:So Be sure to tell James hi, we're looking forward to connecting again. Alyssa, you want to emphasize what's off of that too?
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, I mean, aside from being able to connect with other like-minded kids, it's um, for what I do with my podcast is I pretty much just use uh, I break down ai into simple conversations for people to understand.
Speaker 4:I I try to mainly get people who don't like AI, as weird as it sounds, to make it easier for them to understand it, because if people who are so opposed to it can understand it, people who like it are obviously going to understand it. So I try to get those as my target audience, to make the I guess, the content simplistic for everybody, because AI in itself is not an easy topic to express and explain. But when I was able to meet James and then talk to him about certain projects, like on his own branding and stuff, it was like being able to speak to him as if I was speaking to something I'm really interested in. So it just made it a lot easier to like connect with him and I can't wait to actually have him on the podcast and we can just talk about that stuff and do the advocating piece. So I am looking forward to meeting with you guys again and talking about all that stuff.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so I had some students that are in here, that are in college right now, who had me when they were in seventh grade, and I told them at one point or another you guys are gonna be collaborating as adults, you're gonna keep this going, and alissa and dominic are actually launching a non-profit that's partnering here in san Antonio to bridge trade, business and education Super excited about those next ventures. You guys will start hearing that a little bit more after the actual mayor elections and city council elections, and then you kind of want to not make opinions for anybody before they vote, if that makes sense, and then after they vote. Well, we got a lot of surprise coming, guys, lots of surprises. So thank you so much to our panelists for joining us tonight. The conversation on innovation was definitely a fun one. I really started enjoying this.
Speaker 2:This is a monthly thing that we do. It's the fourth Monday of every month. Next month we're going to be talking about ruffling feathers. Guys, this is a kickoff conversation. This is my second book that I will be releasing later on in the year and this will start the pre-sales and the conversation about it. Because I am an honest agitator, I like to bring to light different things that might ruffle feathers, but the purpose is to innovate change. The biggest thing is to highlight what's best for everyone and how can we grow together, so I'm super excited about that topic.
Speaker 1:And next month we'll actually be talking about collaboration and leadership. If today's episode resonated with you don't forget to subscribe share and leave a review. Remember the key to success is not getting chaos, but learning how to structure it.
Speaker 4:Stay inspired, keep growing and Thank you guys for coming.