Leading when you don’t have all the answers: Shelly Swanback on culture, vision, and continuous learning

Speaker A: It doesn't matter if you have a great vision and a great business idea and great market position, etc. If you cannot get your organization to rally around taking things forward. And so I think you have to have a pulse on the people. Um,

Speaker B: Hey everybody. Welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. I'm your host, Tammy Soares. At launch, we get to work with some of the most incredible companies and organizations to create digital products and experiences, uh, that improve lives, solve problems and make a difference. But our show isn't about what we do, it's about people, the leaders, making it happen and shaping the future. So each week I dig deep to find out what makes them tick, what drives and motivates them, and of course, what they're most excited about right now in the world of technology. My guest today is Shelly Swanbeck. She is a board director and a transformation executive who has spent her career helping global organizations navigate digital disruption and the large scale cultural change that comes with it. She co founded and helped build and scale Accenture Digital and later led organizations like Western Union and TTEC through major transformation. She's also an author, having just published a chapter in the book the AI Edge, which we'll talk a lot about. But most importantly, she was my first female mentor, y'.

Speaker A: All.

Speaker B: So I worked for her in my past life and she is awesome. So Shelli, I am beyond happy to have you here with me today. How are you doing? And thanks for joining me.

Speaker A: Uh, uh, well, it's great to be with you, Tammy. You, you always brought a smile to my face and uh, always will. It was, we had great fun together. So I, I always felt lucky for having to have an opportunity to work with you because you always brought kind of the, the flair and the sizzle and the fun to everything, um, as well as just a lot of great advice and work for our clients. So it's great to be here.

Speaker B: Tell us about you. Who are you? What makes you tick? What, what, what's your origin story?

Speaker A: Well, let's see, I'm married, I have two kids that I'm very proud of. Andrew, who's working at SpaceX, um, he's not exactly a rocket scientist, but pretty close. And uh, my daughter Lauren, who is going to medical school at NYU in starting in a couple of weeks and so super proud and connected to them. Steve, my husband and I love the outdoors and love nature and love to travel and most recently that's what I get to focus on because I retired from full time operating roles about a year ago. But before that, career work was a big part of my life. I spent the first 30 years of my career at Accenture. Probably the most fun, most difficult, most everything I did at Accenture was working with you and others building Accenture Digital. And then, as you said earlier, I went on to help a couple of other companies with large transformation efforts. And, you know, in 2024, I found out I had thyroid cancer. And that was a big moment for me. And, uh, I looked at that as a big gift. I found it through a very preventative executive physical. And I said, hey, hey. I think this is a sign my universe is telling me to slow down and do something different. So, um, that's what I'm in the midst of doing, that I'm a board director on Willis Towers Watson. I love disruption and cultural change and all the things that are going on in the market. So some days it's hard not to be, like, in the middle of it all the time. But fortunately, I'm doing some advisory work and enough things to stay in what's going on, and I don't have to do the grind every single day. So it's been really fun and doing a lot of travel. Just got back from Nepal, you know, so it's been good. Uh, it's a new chapter.

Speaker B: You know, I mentioned at the beginning, like, you were the first female executive that I would say not just my mentor, but that was in my sphere, like having grown up in the agency world and there just weren't a lot of female role models. And I remember in one of our, I think it was in the interview, I was asking you about how you balance that, because at the time, you know, I was in my mid, late 40s and getting. Were still home and still trying to figure all that out. And you gave me some advice. Do you remember what it was?

Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. Maybe better if you tell me.

Speaker B: You said, no one needs to know what's on your calendar at work, and they can just see that the time is blocked and you don't need to make excuses, you don't need to give reasons why you're not available. You're just not available. And I was like, that's so mind blowing to me that I didn't have to apologize, I didn't have to, like, say, this is what I'm doing, I'll make up for it. It was just like, no, I'm not available. And I think it was the first time maybe that I heard no as a full sentence.

Speaker A: Well, that was a lesson that I had learned a, uh, few years earlier as well, Tammy, where it was like, you know, not to make it about male and female behaviors, but I think in general, lots of women think they need to over explain things.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. All right, what is it about you think that your values, the way that you approach leadership, the way that you think about leadership, that really set you up for being able to lead just large scale, I mean, building from the ground up, but within such complex organizations, like, what is it about, do you think, inside of you as a leader that really made that the right thing for you?

Speaker A: Just like you, I grew up in a world where there weren't a lot of female executives. And I learned pretty early on that who I was, I just had to be my authentic self and just do things the way that were, I guess, meaningful and true to who I am. And that was different because, you know, I communicated differently. I was a lot more transparent, maybe, than some others. And I think the other thing for me is I just guess I got this from my mother and father. I just every day approached work as like, I have to earn my keep today. It's like, I'm not the boss sitting on top of everybody, just telling them what to do. I have to earn my keep every day. And so I think that was helpful for me because it just made me, I think everyone always felt like I was part of the team and part of the problem solving. I wasn't there just to boss everybody around. And I think that people talk a lot today about empathetic leadership and people being more connected with what's going on. And, um, fortunately for me, that was just kind of how I grew up and how I was. That was authentically who I was.

Speaker B: You know, I know for me, seeing you as an example of doing that and showing up that way created space for me to do that. Is that the secret or just how do you create the space yourself that then allows other people to show up their authentic selves?

Speaker A: We could spend an hour telling some funny stories, right. Of bumps and bruises along the way. But I suppose they all taught me that, you know what, actually I could do things differently. And actually people liked it, right? People liked having some variety about how people led.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I remember one time I took over a big organization, and the first thing I did is I gave everybody personalized, um, stationery. And they had to. We spent an hour and a half over lunch. I said, you have to use all 20 cards, write a thank you, write a congratulations, write whatever. And I remember the silence in the room because it was all men and me. And they just looked at me like, are you kidding me? I said, yes, we're going to connect with our people. Um, and of course we had a big organization. It was a moment where I was like, oh my gosh, this may backfire on me. And it turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done. And at the end, about an hour through, somebody raised their hand and said, hey, I just have one question. I said, sure, what is it? And they said, can I get another stack of cards?

Speaker B: I m love that.

Speaker A: So I think part of it is you just have to experiment what works well for you. And like you said, I guess as leaders we gotta make space for everyone else to do it.

Speaker B: And I think doing it and you showing up that way in its own way makes space for other people to do it. I think the level of confidence, you know, for me has come with age and has come with experience. I certainly wasn't this way when I was in my 20s. I think as I matured and got older and got more comfortable in who I am. I remember I led a visioning session one time with a large group of very senior executives, mostly technologists. And it was a visioning session where I asked them to close their eyes and imagine they're in a time machine and they're a year from now. And what would that feel like? And I just remember it was a similar feeling to your postcards. I thought there were some folks who were. You know, it's like when someone says to close your eyes and pray and you open your eyes and there's people who are looking around. Like there were the people who had their eyes open instead of closed, but by the end of it they were just like, all in on it. And so I think maybe for me it's those moments, like maybe it's the moment of them asking for another stack of paper where you're like, okay, this, this works. And it's like little achievements like that build confidence to. To be able to do it.

Speaker A: I think also just recognizing, maybe just lots of conversations with your teams around, everybody brings something different to the table. And to try and sit back and appreciate that. I remember back in the days when we were, you know, had, huh, doing a lot of acquisitions of creative agencies. That was different. As you say, you're working with a bunch of technologists that don't understand that language and don't understand what you're trying to do. I had many people call and say, what do you want me to do? Shelley, I'm afraid they're going to ruin the client meeting. And I'm like, do me a favor, put on a pair of jeans, a comfortable pair of tennis shoes, and just go sit in the room and listen. And so just getting people to, like, in that conversation, to people to realize difference is actually good. Like, it's the diversity of thought and ways of doing things and just appreciate people for the strengths they bring.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that that is so important right now in this era of disruption. I mean, it's disruption like we've. What we've probably seen, maybe not at this level yet, but it does require that disruptive, bold, creative kind of thinking where you're not afraid to say something that turns the room on its head in a good way, you know, but it does take. It does sort of take that sort of personality and confidence, that ability to do that.

Speaker A: And I think what's different this time than the last, maybe inflection points we've had with technology disruption is. Feels more emotional this time, I think, because people are more worried about their own job, their own situation. Where is this AI stuff going to take us in the world? What are the ramifications, not just as an individual, but for society and people? I think it's impacting people in their daily lives, not just at work. So I think it's just a more emotionally charged situation, which makes that communication even more important. Right. I think. And, um, we'll probably get into this, but I think one of the things I've definitely learned is it's not really about having all the answers as a leader. It's about creating an organization team that can thrive inside the questions. And it's about being able to communicate the things you do know and also being able to communicate the questions that don't have answers yet and how you're working on that.

Speaker B: Well, I think, too, it's the first technology that is basically being created to replicate our intelligence and us as humans. There's not another technology that has done that. I mean, certainly digital transformation was about, you know, a lot of efficiency, new ways of working, but not in the same way. Like some of the voices out there are literally saying, it is designed to do that. It is designed to replace us in our work. And so I think that that doesn't help.

Speaker A: Agreed. And that's why I think it is just more emotionally charged for everybody.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, let's. Let's get into your book. So, uh, the title of the book is the AI Edge how to Thrive Within Civilization's Next Big Disruption. And it was created by Eric Severin. How did that all come about?

Speaker A: Eric found me online, I guess, looked at my profile, I'm not exactly sure. And we had a conversation and I thought the same thing. I'm like, what an interesting way to do a book. Like 34 different authors on different dimensions of AI. You can read them in any order that you like. Some will resonate more than others, but what an interesting way to do this. And so I picked a topic I'm passionate about and have a lot of scars and bruises and successes from in terms of just the AI, the human side of transformation, and just this whole idea of creating an always learning organization and culture and just being curious as a leader and having a team that's curious all the time.

Speaker B: So the title is Leading Through Inflection, Culture, Curiosity and the Human side of AI Transformation. And one of the things that I loved is that you didn't start with AI as the technology story. You started with culture. You started with curiosity and like, thinking about what it takes to lead people through this moment. So what are the kinds of things that you've seen that made you choose that? Like, why was that your topic?

Speaker A: Because that was what was so important for us when we were building, uh, the Accenture digital business, not just for our team internally, but also for our clients. And this was back in the day when people didn't even know what digital meant. Right. We were just barely getting past the whole smack social, mobile analytics and cloud. And so it was an environment where we were trying to define the market and try and lead in the market and try and help our clients, you know, navigate through something that was still kind of ill defined. There were some new technologies. You could do marketing differently. Hey, there's this analytics thing, like, and I just found that for all of our clients and for us internally, it was just such an important thing. And I think one of the biggest things I remember when we started was we just decided, like, we're going to have to learn a lot and adjust a lot and, uh, we're going to learn our way through this and we're going to learn faster than any other organization. And we just kind of set that out from the beginning. I don't know if we knew exactly how we were going to do that, by the way, but when I was approaching this chapter, I'm like, you know, I guess I'm just going to make this very practical because I think there's so many leaders that are like, oh my God, what do I do? In this whole AI thing, I don't understand everything about AI. Oh my gosh, like, what's the smartest thing I can do? And, uh, I don't know, Tammy. I feel like a lot of the lessons that we've learned as leaders through other inflections, certainly in the whole digital transformation era, they apply to today. And sometimes it's not about finding the fancy thing or the fancy idea. It's just about doing some fundamental things. And so that's how I approach the chapter.

Speaker B: It's just one of those moments around just being able to challenge thinking, to come up with creative ideas and be disruptive. And I think it's about if you don't have environments or cultures that allow you to challenge the status quo, that allow you to ask questions like the safety required to do that, I think it makes it really difficult. And you know, it's funny because you mentioned this is practical. And I think we even chatted a little bit earlier about this. Like, it seems so obvious to you. I think one of the things you said to me was like, is this too basic? Was this too like, duh, you know, And I read it and just went like, no, it's not. It seems simple and obvious, but I don't think that it's really is. It just seems really obvious to me because that's the way that I operate under your mentorship with some great leaders around me. But I don't think it's as obvious to a lot of people that it's okay to not have the answers that you do need to be curious, that you do do this through hands on, that it takes a high degree of EQ to help lead through this kind of transformation. And I don't know that it's as practical and obvious as it maybe seems like it. I mean, when you look at being a curious leader, when it's okay to not have the answers when you're leaning into something like this, like, what are some of the things that like, make this real for people to go? Like, how do you frame it?

Speaker A: First thing is not having all the answers is also not an excuse not to have a vision and not to be able to paint some sort of picture for your organization. And so I think the messaging and communication around what you're doing right now, right, With AI and just talking honestly about, you know, having an inspiring vision, talking about what you know and what the organ that you want the organization to rally around and also being honest about where there's some uncertainty. Right. And keeping everybody posted on that. I Think is really important. And you know, one of the things that I've certainly learned is that the messaging and communication, it matters a lot, right? It's kind of like the story that you tell and the language that you use. It shapes the reality for the teams underneath you. Right? I mean, one of the things we certainly learned in the digital ages is the teams and the organizations that could describe what at the time, digital now, today, what AI meant for them and their teams. They were the most productive, they were the most effective. And by the way, again, that doesn't have to be some big fancy vision of the future two years from now. It could just mean practically what it means for them today. And so I think you don't have to have all the answers, but I think at a company level, you got to be able to paint a vision and one then that all the leaders can take that and then talk very practically to their team about, here's what this means for us, here's what we're going to start with. We're going to get more efficient here. No, it's not meant to replace your job, but it is going to change the work of these teams. And, um, let's lean into that and here's how we make that better for all of us as an example. So I think the messaging and communication and you know, I remember you saw me, Tammy, so many times up on stage thinking, oh my God, if I have to tell the story one more time, people must be bored with this. And what I learned was they were, they were just barely understanding it. I was bored with the story. But it was that constant repetition in what we were doing that was super powerful. And so I think that would be the first thing is like messaging and communication.

Speaker B: It matters, I think the vision as well. When everyone has access to the same technology, the differentiation is going to be how you are leveraging that technology to show up differently. Whether that's showing up for your employees or showing up for your customers. How do you translate our corporate values, our customer values, our, uh, brand values? What does that look like now in the age of AI? And that means we don't have the down to the way you do your job today, but it can have the intentionality behind it. And I think, you know, when you think about the fears and concerns, if you have a CEO that's saying we're going to use AI to reduce our staff by 40% and create productivity, that's going to be a different set of like, feelings inside an organization than the CEO or leadership that comes out and says, we are going to use it to amplify. We are going to use it to amplify our customer experience and our employee experience. And here's what that looks like at a values or level, maybe governance level. And then you make all the decisions around that. Right.

Speaker A: I mean, I think most leaders are trying to take a optimistic view, right. Of what AI can do. And I think the ones that are having the most success are also just being practical about it. Right. And they're, they're being honest about the questions that are still need to be answered. But I guess the other thing I'd say, Tammy, is just one way communication is one thing. Two way communication is way more powerful. And so I think part of the communication has to be allowing employees to participate in shaping how the company is going about AI and uh, an opportunity to ask questions, right. Honest questions and get straightforward answers. Even if that straightforward answer is I don't have an answer for that one yet. I'd love to hear what you have to think. And so I do think having two way communication channels is critical.

Speaker B: I mean that's really hard as well. I mean I think that there's, especially when you're a leader, there's always a bit of ego. And so to hear that people don't understand what you're saying or don't understand the strategy or have concerns, I mean there's, there's a lot of even generational now concerns starting to come out around AI and the use of AI. And you know, I interviewed one of my podcasts a while ago is the CEO of the Everest Group. And he, it's been about six months now and he brought up AI vegans and this idea that people are like, I'm not doing it. And at the time I was like, I hadn't heard that yet. I hadn't heard that word, tell me more, what is that? And now I'm like, you are starting to see like even just the generational and attitudes towards it because it can now be so polarizing.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's new territory. I think like you said, right, this, this time is a bit different. Right. You know, I remember, you know, probably one of the most powerful things I did, leading an organization through a transformation, and I didn't really probably have a perspective of how it was going to shape things is I had this idea of like a question of the month and I would just send this out to the entire organization, from the frontline workers all the way up to the leaders. And part of it was I was trying to Get a feedback channel going. Part of it was I was also trying to get the organization to step back and think about how they would need to learn. Right. I remember sending it out, saying, what are you using ChatGPT for in your personal life? And how. Do you have any ideas of how we could apply that at work and how that would look at work? It was fascinating. The answers that I got back and I think, you know, for some people it was sort of similar to what you said, which is like, I don't use that and I'm not going to use that.

Speaker B: Right, right, right.

Speaker A: And others it. Huh. I never thought about this personal use case and how I could apply that to work. I would love to get rid of this part of the work of my job and be able to use a tool like this to do these things. We got some like amazing ideas of what we could do.

Speaker B: So it is like, I think that's again though, like why your chapter, I think is so important is because it's a leadership moment. Mhm. As much as it is about technology and recognizing that there are these wide range of beliefs and being able to, you know, like you said, communicate and over communicate and answer questions and being open and transparent about the way you're thinking about it today is super important. That was one tip. I'm sure you have a list. So what's, what's another one?

Speaker A: Well, I think just this idea of making learning part of the work. Not like some annual checklist item of like, oh, I have to complete these classes or my required training or oh, I can, I have a stipend to go do some learning outside the company or whatever the situation is. But creating this always learning culture and getting the organization to understand actually learning is part of the job. It's not like a side thing you do when you're not as busy. It's actually part of the work. And I think some of the things that we found back in the day when we were working together, at least I found that were actually most powerful were the simplest things. Right. Instead of just having a status meeting with your team. Right. Or getting a readout from everybody about what they did, have that conversation. But then the big part of the conversation is, okay, what do we learn? What do we learn from this client situation? What did we learn from this experiment? Okay. This thing didn't go quite the way we wanted it to. One question is what do we learn? And the second was what are we going to do differently because of it? And another favorite question was, what do we want to Learn next. And I think that it took a while, but weaving that into every conversation really helped our team understand. Oh, actually we're trying to learn like we don't have it all figured out. And this was this whole idea of closing these learning loops faster than everybody else. And, you know, you need everyone to do that at every level of the organization. This can't just be at the top of the organization. But once you do that, then people start to get the idea of, okay, well, we're learning. And by the way, this probably matters even more now because think about the AI, the large language models and everything else around us. They're learning all the time. Now, they may not always be learning the right stuff, as, um, we know, but we need teams to think about what are they learning from, the insights that they get, not just from technology, not just from AI, but just from our clients, et cetera. What's happening in the market, what's happening in our team.

Speaker B: The domain expertise is so important. I mean, I think that the way in which I can use my, either my ChatGPT or my Claude is very different than someone without my domain expertise. And I think that that's why it's so important for all this experimentation and trying is because we need people who maybe didn't see themselves as someone who had anything to do with technology to like actually engage in the technology because they're going to see things. Like, to your point, you use it in your own personal way and you figure out it made connections that you didn't think about it making and then having that light bulb go off and go, okay, I'm in finance. This is the role I have in finance. What if I used it to do these three things? It's that testing it, um, and I think that's the personal experimentation side of things. And then I think it's about where sort of people, where I see organizations being today, which is, okay, there's the individual learning and productivity and using these, you know, the LLMs and the tools to do my individual job better. But then there's now like using Agentix and Agentic workflows to completely reimagine entire business processes that have been created over time. And in some situations, I'm not sure organizations even know what those are. Like, how the people are actually doing the work versus the way they think that they're doing the work. And so that's the big shift from getting people to experiment personally, then to reimagining that work. So how do you think about that?

Speaker A: I guess, first of all you need people to be curious enough to experiment and try things personally, because that's part of what gets them engaged in what's possible. But I also think that you have to have a vision and also some agreed initiatives, if you will, that you're going to work on. Everybody's working on pilots these days, and some are having some success and some aren't. But not all organizations take a step back to think about, well, what do we learn from that pilot or what are we learning right now and what does that tell us? Can we scale it? We can't scale it. We need to use, use AI in different contexts. Oh, to your point, we were trying to automate work. We didn't even understand what the work was, right. And so this didn't work out so well. I think it is also having teams, I guess, step back and think about their learning from these experiments, from customer feedback, from client feedback, from client engagements. You know, in the business that you're in, right. Sometimes you go approach a client about using AI or technology or some of your design services, etc. And you just, you think you've got the winning pitch, right? And then you show up and realize that somebody else is doing got their attention in a totally different way. Well, rather than just treating that as like a bummer and a loss is to sit back and think about what do we learn about that and how are we going to do that differently and doing that in all kinds of contexts. I think if you can get your organization to do that, um, it's super powerful.

Speaker B: And so just from a practical perspective, like it's one thing, I mean, I know you've been the CEO, right, President and CEO. And it's one thing to get like your leadership team, which is your next level of leadership, but then it's about getting their managers and then their managers and then like the supervisors. That is massive. Like, that is a massive undertaking. So you've got it figured out for you and your team. How do you get those folks who work for you to kind of line up around that and do that and then make sure it's moving all the way through the organization? Because you can't do it by yourself as the president or CEO of a company.

Speaker A: That's why I think you have to make it as part of those normal routines that happen in the organization. Right. And it does start top down, as we know. But this is, you know, one of my ideas is just like at every level in the organization, make your team meeting, make a learning segment in your team meeting. Maybe it's an educational piece of the meeting, but maybe it's also just like, okay, guys, we've been working on this project or this initiative. What did we learn this week? Okay, does that mean we need to do something different or we're going forward? Or, hey, invite a finance person or sort of a guest from outside your team sphere to come in and have a conversation about, you know, the initiative you're working on from a different perspective. What do you learn from that? And, and I think also you just have to show the learning in your cross organization. Do you have a town hall meeting? One of my favorite things to do is to thank somebody for teaching me something. Hey, I spent some time with somebody in the organization that lots of people don't know. Here's what I learned from them this week. And it was really powerful because now I'm going to take this learning and do this, and this is what we're going to do as an organization. And so I think part of it is you just, you have to live it as a leadership team and find some easy routines to push it down in the organization.

Speaker B: So I was at a Wall Street Journal tech event last year and, um, Brene Brown was on stage and was talking about some of these really difficult conversations, really about driving cultural transformation and changing the way organizations think. And I remember the gentleman on stage who was like leading the panel asked her about soft skills and eq. And I was the first person to stand up with the question. And, um, I asked her this, and I will ask you this, which is a lot of these things that you're talking about sometimes do come across as the soft skills, the EQ skills. Like, it's almost like you spend a lot of time trying to convince people that it's necessary. It's not just because I'm soft. It's not just because I'm a woman. It's not just because I show up the way that I show up. It's also because I believe it's necessary to the business. So how do you push that forward? It's needed now more than ever, I feel like, than in any reservation that we've been a part of. So how do you create that at the board level? How do you get those that are just like, oh, um, she's soft, she's got that high eq. She's great at empathy. Clients love her because she listens to them. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker A: I think if you really have the conversation, though, about what you're learning as an example, it becomes Very business oriented, right? I mean, as a board member, oftentimes, you know, we get into successions or ask questions around what is the competition doing? What are we learning about what they're doing differently? It's like, well, then what are the implications from these dimensions for your business? It becomes a very business oriented conversation. It's not just some fluffy conversation about, hey, what did you learn this week? Right? I think you do have to translate that into, well, okay, and what does that mean for the business? You know, it's not just the, uh, academic exercise.

Speaker B: I think that that makes sense for learning. I think when you start talking about things like safety and safe space for people to ask questions and you start thinking about how are people feeling about the technology? Like even just using the word feeling, people are afraid of the technology. That's a feeling. That's an emotion. That's recognizing that emotion and then doing something about it or shaping your communication to do something about it. Like, that's more what I'm talking about is like, we're talking about how people feel about it. And so how do you get people to care?

Speaker A: It doesn't matter if you have a great vision and a great business idea and great market position, et cetera, if you cannot get your organization to rally around taking things forward. And so I think you have to have a pulse on the people. Right? And I think part of it too is just showing up and being engaged in some of the experimentation where it's not a formal channel for people to answer questions.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I mean, being able to show up to a meeting or a brainstorming session and sitting back and maybe participating a little bit, it gives you a sense of what's going on and people get a sense that, you know, you're in it with them. Um, as much as it seems like such a soft thing, it's actually a very tangible thing. If you can't get your organization rallied around what you're trying to do, you're not going to have success.

Speaker B: I don't think there's ever been a more, um, difficult time to be a leader than right now, from my perspective. I don't know, do you think that as well, or can you point back maybe to another time? So I don't, no.

Speaker A: And I think it goes back to what, what we said from the very beginning, which is, it's a pretty emotionally charged topic. And you know, look at, look at. Even just as you said earlier, just the big leaders out there, right? It's like, oh my God, it's going to be the job apocalypse. Oh, maybe not, we're not sure. Oh, now there's examples of where AI has gone bad. And so maybe people are going to kind of reel back a little bit. But it's a very emotional topic in the context of a time when there's a lot of other things going on in the world already. So I think it's a difficult time as a leader, which is probably why that authentic honest communication probably matters more than ever.

Speaker B: Showing up, I mean, that's a good reminder to me is just being present and being in the room. Because I think a lot of times as a leader you can sometimes get distracted by being in other rooms. Whether it's with your maybe more senior leadership team or maybe it's in with clients in the market, which is obviously very important because that's how you're going to keep your finger on the pulse of what's happening. But at the same time, if you're not spending the time with your folks who are doing the work and that are part of your team, maybe more further down the organization than just your leadership team, it can feel like really disconnected because things can move so quickly.

Speaker A: Yeah. And also, by the way, when you do that, you can really help the teams move a lot faster. Right. One of my favorite hour and a half I'd spend every week when I was with Western Union and we decided we were going to build a digital bank in a year and a half. That was going to be a huge undertaking. Right. And I would sit with the team every week and there was no agenda. It was just their stand up meeting about where they're at, where they had issues, where they had concerns, where they needed things. And I would just, I learned so much about what was going on and there was always something where I'd say, hey guys, how about I clear this hurdle or do this or make that decision or go get you this or go get you that. And they're like, that's exactly what we need. And then we'd meet the next week and before you know it, everybody then starts to feel like, oh, A, this is important, B they're just adjusting. Right. And it is some m experimentation. And also it just gave you a sense of. Because you know, these were teams from different parts of the company. It gave you a feel for if people were buying into this or not.

Speaker B: I've always thought about spending a third, a third of a time in client, in market, a third of the time in the business and in the operation, and uh, a third of the time in the people And I think it's a natural sort of ebb and flow. And I think for me personally, I've been spending a lot more time in the market than I have back in with my people and within the operations of the business itself. Because I'm trying to learn, like, what's going on out there, what are people thinking about? Um, um. But, you know, it's a good reflection to just go back and look at my calendar and say, okay, how much of my time am I spending with our people, rolling around in the mud with them and bringing back what I've learned, what I've seen, what are they learning and what are they seeing on the work that they're doing every day? And it's really good to bring that back together. So that's a big aha moment for me.

Speaker A: You know, connecting the dots takes time, right? Connecting the dots between what you're learning in the market, what you're hearing from your team, bringing back to your team what you're learning in the market, vice versa, it takes time. And I think sometimes, and I've had this throughout my career, times where, like, feel like you're just spending too much time connecting all the dots. But what's the alternative? That the organization isn't connected and the dots don't get connected? Like, that's no good. Right? So that time is well spent.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, as I said, I think I've learned, ah, a ton, and this, uh, has been an amazing refresher. But also, I've learned a lot from you. So I really appreciate you joining me on the show today. It's been amazing to catch up.

Speaker A: Uh, well, it's been super fun, Tammy, to reconnect. I always learned a lot from you as well and had a lot of fun along the way. And so it's just really fun for me to see you having this, uh, podcast and all the things that you're doing in the market. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. All right. To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. We'll see you all back here next week. Week. But until then, people take risks and shine bright.