Structuring Chaotic Minds

The Power of "And": Leadership Lessons from Sarena Diamond

• Melissa Franklin

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Sarena Diamond, with 30 years of corporate leadership experience, shares powerful strategies for thriving amid constant change and defining success on your own terms.

• The world is genuinely more chaotic than ever, requiring leaders to develop "new muscles" to thrive in continuous change
• Success should be defined personally rather than by traditional metrics of promotions and titles
• The "Power of And" helps leaders integrate different approaches rather than choosing between them
• Resistance to change typically stems from fear - of obsolescence, unknown paths, or losing expertise
• Building clarity in chaos starts with understanding the people involved and analyzing communication patterns
• Change is like ocean waves - sometimes you're at the calm shoreline, sometimes in deeper water, and sometimes in the breaking waves
• Women should embrace that they are "enough as they are" while recognizing their power to choose their paths
• Communication is leadership and leadership is communication - they are the same conversation

Schedule a free pathway preview at structureinnovations.com/preview and let's explore how your next chapter begins. Find Sarena Diamond on LinkedIn or visit diamondsolutiongroupllc.com.



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Speaker 1:

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:

So, serena, thank you so much for joining me. Before we jump into your story, I want to ask you what does structuring chaotic minds mean to you right now, in this season of your life and leadership? Wow?

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me. Melissa and I got to say probably the most common conversation I have with leaders and I think it comes from my own experiences right now is that the world is really chaotic, right, even if you do not watch the news. It is so hard to be focused on your company's core value, your mission, the objectives that you set up with your individual teams. There is so much chaos just in thought, process and things, and I think that that's an important acknowledgement that we say that never before has there been something right, acknowledgement that we you know, I we say that never before has there been something right, this unprecedented thing, time of change. That is now, but it really is a time that that, if you think about chaos, often there's such a negative thought, but it really is about constant change. There's constant motion going everywhere in our world. You can't go home and think it's not. You know, turn the news on, you can't stop. There isn't any pause button, there isn't a place where you can have quiet things that are not.

Speaker 3:

So being able to find your structure or find your pace in change is the part that's really an important thing, and I spend a lot of time with leaders, helping them to say of course you're distracted, of course your team is distracted. It's part of the way we work today. So the question is, how can you team up on that, how can you the structure that you talk about right? How do you find an ability to come together and really look at that as it's not a moment in time. It is about developing new muscles to allow yourself to be able to change, to allow yourself to thrive amongst chaos or continuous changes. You know is really where, where that makes me think when I hear it and when I see it, that that's really where the superpower is going to be. You know, certainly for the future.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited about our convo for our audience, my whole concept of ruffling feathers and in a previous conversation it's in our previous podcast episodes, if they want to check them out we literally talked about ruffling feathers to innovate change instead of just stirring pots. But you brought insight to me on making sure that I'm reflective in how I'm showing up and how that message is coming across. So one of the things I have to say is you had a powerful 30 year long career in corporate leadership. What was the moment that you actually realized you were no longer in alignment?

Speaker 3:

It's an interesting question because I think that I was, sadly, I think I was always aligned to what was important to me. So throughout my entire career, it was always about being true to the people with whom I've had relationships, whether those be work relationships or certainly in the last half of my career, it was always alignment to doing what was the right thing to do for those people that I had my children and the people that work for me. So it's interesting my choice to not stay in corporate America and corporate leadership had much more to do with the ability to say I'm defining how I'm successful. What success is? You know? There's that traditional you want to continue to get promotions and titles and all those things.

Speaker 3:

I never defined success that way for myself. I always looked at it as was I raising good kids? Was I having balance? Did I feel fulfilled in what it was that I was doing, in alignment with what corporate expectations were thinking for me at the point at which I was succeeding beyond what a more senior level leader was expecting, and internal difficulty, internal insecurities, created an opportunity for there not to be alignment. Thus my company was formed and I think we hear stories of that all the time. Right, there's, there is. I wish that I was some really odd duck, but the cliche it's almost cliche at this point why people are out on their own and I say you know what? It's a great opportunity for people to define success on their own and making sure that that's. You know their words, that's really powerful.

Speaker 2:

I love that you yourself have already spoken openly about overcoming corporate and personal trauma. What did the healing process really look like for you?

Speaker 3:

Thank you for that. I would love to say that it had, you know, some great out-of-body religious experience. It honestly came from going on vacation. We had a family vacation planned to Hawaii and a normal human would have received their walking papers two weeks before Christmas and said probably not a good time to spend that kind of money. But I didn't. We went anyway and I openly talk about being able to go for a run in the beautiful nature of Hawaii and watching sunrise over Oahu and getting clarity there.

Speaker 3:

That said, I'm going to work for the one boss I can always trust, and that was myself and that was really healing for me being able to define my next step and choose who I work with. Making sure that I'm working with and for leaders, clients who are value driven, that they are growth oriented, that they are very much about how do we move forward together as opposed to how do I succeed. And if they're an individual leader that thinks that delivering on this great initiative is going to earn me more points with the board and put a boat in my, in my dock is not my, it's just not who I am Good for them, right? They're not going to. They're not going to. You know going to find alignment with my. My approach is to to helping leaders to transform.

Speaker 2:

Well, your chapter in becoming an unstoppable woman is called the power of end. What does that phrase mean in life and leadership for you?

Speaker 3:

So there's a whole backstory in the book about me being very one, almost to a panic level, of needing to get a job or find a job or get work, and it really came from an approach that said, what if there were lots of options? What if I didn't choose between one thing or another? But that I truly focused on bringing things together and merged different approaches. I oftentimes will use the analogy you know, putting a lot of lines in the water. Eventually you're going to catch the fish, and some of that power band is really about, about what it is that you're willing to try different approaches, that you're willing to try to succeed.

Speaker 3:

I will also say that a lot of times I share that with leaders who are going through cultural transformation is very hard for some, and because lots of leaders have been drilled over and over and over again about meeting objectives, delivering against business objectives what is it that your performance objectives and metrics are supposed to be? And there's always this side note about how we show up, how we do the work we do, not just what we do, and so I actually have a whole program where I help leaders to reconcile those two, the what we do and how we deliver it are not separate, and making sure that how you are achieving the outcomes that are the best for the company and, at the same time, also building relationships with your team and building engagement that drives greater success and predictability for future. Success is really what that power band has grown into. For me, as I've gone on as well, it's gotten bigger and better. You know, as I've from, even from when I wrote the book.

Speaker 2:

I love that you help leaders bring visions to life. What makes a vision worth executing in your experience? Why get up and do it?

Speaker 3:

You know what? That is the best question that leaders need to ask themselves before they start anything, because if they are doing it for a metric, for a number, for a board approval, for some kind of an aspect, it'll be very, very obvious that it is not an internally motivated reason. I tell leaders all the time. I almost always get called when things have gone south or they're stale. Right, they haven't really gone anywhere.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

And I often ask that question about what is it that you've done and communicated to bring the vision to existence? What's the powerful why behind there? And that aspect when leaders can't necessarily do that. I spend a lot of time then sort of pulling out some questions why is this important to you? And I always joke OK, sometimes you need more than five whys, right, but lots of times five will get you there. But really it has to be a bigger why. And when you really truly understand what that is, what that vision, the reason, the purpose behind the vision, and you can articulate it.

Speaker 3:

I also will say to people at the point at which you think, oh my God, if I have to say this one more time, then we're one away from being able to be done. Right, you have to say it until the thought of saying it again is going to make you roll your eyes or throw up a little bit in your mouth or something along those lines. But it really is truly about helping that vision be something that really matters. I love that. It's not supposed to be for a poster, right? If it's supposed to be just for a poster or the banner on your hiring page on your website, you think again, there needs to be a better reason for that.

Speaker 2:

No, I love that. The only process I was just thinking was I usually ask three wise, not five, and then five is like oh yeah, like keep going. Darn, if we can't align at that point then it's a lot more clear. But if we are aligning, then that is that purpose, that is the reason we need to change, and that kind of leads. That next piece Like what do you say to those leaders who are resistant?

Speaker 3:

to change, but just saw it's very necessary. I don't often say it this bluntly, but what comes to mind immediately is what are you afraid of? Resistance to change, in my experience, is 99.999%. Occasionally, every time, you do get that one person who's just like nope, nope, nope. Curmudgeons still exist, but the most common that I see is it's the fear. Now, it's not necessarily like fear of spiders, it's just fear of I don't see it, fear of I'm going to be obsolete, fear of I don't see what my place is or I don't know what the path is going to look like.

Speaker 3:

I've gotten very comfortable with what I'm doing. I really love being the expert, the mission, you know, of one kind of perspective. But when you ask that question, so what if it was to succeed? That's a really important way for leaders to sort of get out of their own way, and I challenge leaders a lot to say if you are not a believer, right, the CEO says you'll do something, the C-suite says you'll do something. And now I'm sitting with the senior leadership team that are supposed to cascade this and believe it. And if you don't really think that this is flavor of the month, but you don't really believe it yet, what do you do? Right, and I talk to leaders all the time about the.

Speaker 3:

I'm not a big believer in fake it till you make it, but I am a big believer in fake it and go get educated. Fake it and go figure out why. Like, what are you missing in this? And, and if you really truly believe that this is flavor of the month, what is that driving? Where is that coming from? Now, it does also rely on trust, right, you have to trust the senior leaders and the vision that's there, but I also I will give leaders a series of questions. If you don't understand it yet, then it's on you to go understand why. It's not the fake as you make it, but ask enough questions until you feel like you own it and make sure that the fear of change or your resistance to change doesn't come across as fear or obstinance, but it truly comes across as understanding, so that you can embody that change and then cascade it to your folks.

Speaker 2:

I love that and I know it's probably the most difficult thing for the senior leadership when it's like but I don't know the answer. So how can I select it? And I think that's it kind of ignites something that it just makes our nervous system rattle and it makes us feel like uneasy and such. So that can feel like chaos. That can feel great. Oh my goodness, what do I do? But you channeled it in and you said chaos isn't always a bad thing. I like to say that there's pockets of chaos. So if we have pockets of chaos, then we can learn and we can innovate. In a business, there may be chaos. What are the first things that you look at to build clarity and direction in that chaos?

Speaker 3:

It's funny I have sort of a hit list of things that when I first land into an organization, regardless of what the scope of work is, I almost always ask for the players. I don't care if it's an org chart, I don't care if you just want to rattle it off, but I always want to know who and sort of an official change management, a stakeholder analysis, right. I would want to look at who are the people and what are their perspectives on if there's a new initiative, if there's a driver, where did they fit in? That? And not because, but again, I think because people are always at the center, for me, of organizational change isn't about an org chart, it's about human beings adopting new ways of working, and so when I think of anybody being in chaos or struggling with that, in order to get clarity you need to understand who we're talking about and who is there.

Speaker 3:

Then I also almost always look at the communications that have happened to date, whether those be verbal, written email, newsletters, internal podcasts and video blogs or whatever those things are. I look at how is it that we've been saying what we've been saying? Because people can only know what they experience. So and words matter, right Communication. I have a whole workshop that I do with leaders where I convince them over the course of 45 minutes that communication is leadership and leadership is communication, and they are the same conversation and it almost always works, even with the most steadfast. It almost always works even with the, you know, the most steadfast, because I really do believe that when we figure out what it is that we're saying, we can figure out what it is we're thinking, feeling and doing, yeah, and that that's where we start to build that clarity and we get alignment around direction and those kinds of aspects no, I love that.

Speaker 2:

I think when I first heard that, I was like so you want me to be fake, I can't do that, I can't say things, how they made me to hear it. But then I started realizing but are they even going to listen to you and are they going to actually shut down? Because that's how their nervous system is built. Why are you fighting it? Why are you still being resistant to that? Ask yourself, being resistant to that, ask yourself. And it was. It was a very big eye opener and I think for a lot of our listeners. They're high functioning. Most of them are high functioning women in transition, successful on paper, but tired, exhausted, is more the answer behind the scenes. What would you tell them?

Speaker 3:

I wish every woman, especially like young career professionals with kiddos that are in that you know older than six or seven, because they stop being really sort of pliable the point at which they get you know that third grade time. All of a sudden you're like where did my sweet child go? And then they turn into teenagers and you're like, oh, this is why some animal species eat their young. I don't advocate any of that, but I do worry sometimes that that thought goes through your mind and yet you're still needing to show up as a professional at work and if you're going through any kind of personal difficulty in your relationships as well. I was going through all of those phases of my children's lives and then a very contentious divorce and then changes in work, and I will say that probably the most important thing is that it feels very isolating, like you are the only one who's ever gone through all of this, and I tell women all the time reach out. I don't say you need to pour your heart out a lot over LinkedIn, but being authentic, finding people that are also going through what you are going through and not to say let's go find a wine fest Although, unless it's the red, go find a wine fest, although, unless it's the red wine or white wine fest, but not the whining, wine tasting, but not wine tasting Correct, because you don't need this isn't a misery loves company. But I think that women looking for solutions is very powerful, and so when you are struggling with something and you're tired right, you're tired behind the scenes, sometimes you're tired in front of the scenes right, but it still feels very alone and the ability to reach out to others and be trusting somewhat and say how else have you solved this?

Speaker 3:

I have learned more things from other women in the last three and a half years since I found my business than in all of the years previously, and I'm sorry to say, but corporate America does not necessarily support anyone, let alone women, who are hypervigilant and wearing too many hats already saying hey, can someone help me here? And that not being somehow a negative, but as an entrepreneur and being okay publicly, I'm supposed to be a thought leader and an expert and all the other things, and yet there are things I just don't know how to do. I had someone last week give me a really harsh and much needed wake up call about what it is that I've got on my website how it is that I'm showing up in my entrepreneurs that I hadn't thought about. It's given me some additional work to do to make me more tired, but had I not asked some of those questions, been able to say what else could I be doing? So I say to women all the time just don't go it alone, right, and I'm not saying that everybody will have done it the way you would do it, but they will give you food for thought and other ways, if nothing else.

Speaker 3:

Even on my worst days as an entrepreneur, when I'm feeling most alone, I have a couple of virtual coffees, typically with other women. Instantly I feel better. There is power in just talking through and someone else will have a different perspective.

Speaker 2:

I love that.

Speaker 2:

I think I heard something recently on how some of the most successful businesses are usually very forced and it's very masculine bros and it works and it's fine.

Speaker 2:

But that might not always work for women and there is a different approach for us, because we still do need to recharge, we still need to give ourselves the permission.

Speaker 2:

And that's so funny that you say that, because for me, I've been having to step back and say, as a mom, I'm showing up here for my daughter, I'm showing up here for my son, I'm advocating here, I'm still trying to make sure my business grows now so that my stakeholders and individuals in the business are also making money and growing and excelling. But in all those spaces I've had to give myself permission to be like hey, pause, you're wearing a lot of hats and you still got to give quality in how you're showing up in some of these other spaces. And I don't think that usually goes the same way for both sexes and it's often overlooked. And it's not to bash anybody, it's just to shed grace on people who don't give it to themselves sometimes. So, saying that you wear many hats mom, partner, founder, board member how have you learned to integrate all of those parts and not lose yourself in what society is asking for.

Speaker 3:

I love that question because it's so relevant. I don't think you can ask any single person. It's so relevant. I don't think you could ask any single person fill in those level of hats. Nobody is certainly not anybody that I have met that would say oh, yeah, yeah, I have like two, right, it's always so many. It's the thing that wakes you up in the middle of the night and won't let you go back to sleep. It's the things that make you. I will say, though, I think the piece that was really important to me, and really it's why I founded the company and why I have stayed with the company, each time I've met with a client that has offered me full-time, which is very, very enticing. It's enticing that the security of it's enticing. It's also very flattering, and it's also very firmly a no. It is because one of those things I had to do before I founded my company was to decide what it was that I wanted out of this one. As I've said, one precious life. I get right. This is all there is, and I can hope that I, my dad, is 91. So I can hope that I've got his longevity, versus my mom, who passed away at 76. I don't know Right, but how you show up for yourself and what is it that you?

Speaker 3:

I start every single day with this unbelievable anticipation for the great things that are going to come, the great things that I'm going to do. I, literally, every day, I'm the to-do list person. I'll write it all out and it's always way too many things because those many hats. It's important to me at the end of the day, to feel a sense of accomplishment, and it's one of the things that I help leaders to understand about themselves and about their people. Right Is how you show up every day in the morning with a sense of anticipation for all the great things that you could accomplish today and then giving yourself grace because something's going to happen and you're not going to accomplish it all. How many things didn't get checked off the to-do list? But there's also that what sense of accomplishment and how grateful am I for those things can really give you opportunity to do that.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. You just said that we coach in our space, saying that we don't do people serving religion, serving family centered, all those other spaces. Instead we're value centered and value serving and in that space it makes it easier to decide which ones you're going and which ones you're doing. But then you give yourself grace because you give yourself three priorities that day and your list has 75 things on there. But as long as you did the three things well, you got it done and you did that dopamine release for the day. So that that was just kind of sticking out to me about that. But when you think about your next chapter and the legacy that you're focused on building through Diamond Solutions Group, what is the legacy that you really want to focus on most?

Speaker 3:

You know I say this often that my whole reason for creating Diamond Solutions Group is to make leaders better at creating change. Resilience, creating change, muscle muscle, bringing teams along and engaged through the changes that happen in every business, everywhere. And what's interesting is, from a next chapter perspective, I spent the first three years doing what most consulting experts do is, you know, land clients right, do projects, do initiatives, and I have really focused so far in 2025 on increasing the impact that I can have to create more legacy. So I am doing much more public speaking. I am on podcasts, I am working on speaking Vistage workshops, public conferences, in places where leaders come to grow. Leaders come to grow and, if I can leave the stage, the mic, whatever that is, with one person saying they got something that will help them to be a better leader through the changes that are coming. There is nowhere in the world that changes. I wish that you could name a company that's like no, we're good, we're going to just pause. 're going to just pause today's status quo day. You know everybody wants a status quo day, but it doesn't happen, and I use this analogy with with teams. I just did it last week and maybe it's because I've just recently moved to an almost beach house, so I'm very much all about the beach. Standing at the shoreline right, you can stand with your ankles deep and the waves are gently lapping your ankles, but they are coming every few seconds. And then you can swim out past the break, where the water is calmer but it's very deep and you can't touch, so you're really having to swim. The hardest place to be in change is at that break line right, where the waves are relentlessly knocking you into you and sometimes you can touch the bottom and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you go under and it really is a point at which, for change, where is it that you're going to be? Sometimes you will be at the shoreline right, and it'll just be under control, and sometimes you'll be working hard, but it'll be smoother. Ideally, you want to try and get out of the wake, the breaking of the waves all the time, but it's really important that leaders find a way to survive in each of the different places, because change, like the ocean waves, is coming every day and it's coming. It's a consistent change. If you're in a growing organization, right. If you're in a growing organization, right. If you're in one that's not going out of business tomorrow, and even then there's some changes that are coming. So, yeah, it is really important that that's what I am helping leaders to be able to do better no, I love that.

Speaker 2:

I think you basically said it's almost like a decision of when you have to stand against the waves and when you have to actually start swimming. And I think, because a lot of leaders, a lot of hyper performers, high functioning men and women they're in that space where they have so many different hats the biggest weight is when they decide to swim in each hat or like. When they decide to like, nope, I'm still just going to stand against and resist it and it's fine. Thinking of that. That comes down to what's one truth you've reclaimed that you wish leaders, especially women, would have embraced sooner.

Speaker 3:

You know, we talk a lot about things that imposter syndrome, like things right, things where you don't feel like you are enough that you're confident enough that you're resilient, that you have enough marketing expertise or sales or business development, whatever those things are, entrepreneurs or others, entrepreneurs or others. I wish that I had, and I never. I will say I never had, probably because of my growing up in a strong, independent woman family household with all sisters and girls. It never occurred to me. I know it's such an incredible power source for me to not recognize I never got that I couldn't do something. It was much more about what did I choose to want to do, and so I always thought that I was choosing the kinds of things that I wanted to choose all those hats, and I think that lots of women, myself included, at the point I was choosing things that society said I was supposed to be doing, things that were supposed to happen.

Speaker 3:

I do think that I have chosen what it is that I want to. You know, I now live in this almost beach house where most of the people around are retired or close to retiring. I have no intentions of ever retiring until someone says, oh my gosh, well, that old woman still leave us alone. Because I love what it is that I'm doing. It brings me so much joy to make a difference in leaders' lives and see them reflect back something that they learned from me or that we explore together. I mean, I don't know everything, but I may ask questions and I've seen the light bulb go on with younger leaders when I'll ask a question that I don't know the answer to, but they somehow are able to work through it.

Speaker 3:

And I do think that if especially women, that ability to say I'm enough as I am and I am so able to be more than this as I choose, right that it is about our choosing. You know, at one point I said I just wish every woman, every 30 year old woman, could be 50 for a moment, because there's something about that sort of later, that confidence that comes, or the later that's like. You know what. This doesn't matter, this really doesn't, it doesn't affect today, I'm not worrying about tomorrow. It is truly about that power that you bring and the ability to be all that you are. You are enough, you're more than enough and it really is you enough for yourself.

Speaker 2:

And on that you've definitely inspired me enough that I would hope that my listeners could be able to reach out and find you. But they wanted to find you. Where can they find you?

Speaker 3:

The quickest way to find me if they actually spell my name correctly Serena Diamond with an S-A-R-E-N-A. I am the only Serena Diamond on LinkedIn spelled properly. Love it. So I've said that. I've thanked my mom every single day for having a unique spelling. There's plenty of Serena Diamond spelled incorrectly. As I say, the way their moms chose, but LinkedIn is the fastest. I actually do believe that that is the place to create a business community and it is very much the place that I am there. I show up there every single day and I believe in that power of building relationships through the community that LinkedIn is creating. So certainly, I have a website diamondsolutiongroupllccom but you can get to that from my LinkedIn as well.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I will be sure to share that in the show notes and thank you again for being here, more than anything, for being transparent and for showing us how to lead with both excellence and humanity. If this episode hits home to you guys, don't just sit with it. Act on it. Schedule a free pathway preview at structureinnovationscom. Forward slash preview and let's explore how your next chapter begins. If you're interested in learning more about Serena, please look in the show notes. And until next time, stay grounded, stay growing and keep structuring the chaos into something powerful.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to Structuring Chaotic Minds. If today's episode resonated with you, don't forget to subscribe, share and leave a review. Remember the key to success is not avoiding chaos, but learning how to structure it. Stay inspired, keep growing and join me next time as we continue to transform challenges into opportunities. Until then, take care and keep structuring your chaotic mind.

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