Let's Talk, People: Episode 29

LACK OF INNOVATION ISN'T A PEOPLE PROBLEM

IT'S A LEADERSHIP ONE

[00:00:00] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hi, I'm Emily Frieze-Kemeny, host of Let's Talk, People, where leaders come to bridge humanity and profitability. Informed by a couple decades of work as a head of talent and leadership development, I'm here to amplify leaders so they can exalt everyone and everything they touch. Are you ready? 'Cause it's about to get real.

[00:00:28] Let's talk, people.

[00:00:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I'm really excited to introduce you to Jessica Begley. She is a Technology Executive and the Chief Operating Officer of Very, a services firm that builds connected hardware devices and their complimentary digital products. During her time at Very, Jessica grew her role from Head of People, to Chief People Officer, to her current role as COO, where she oversees Operations, IT, Product, Marketing, Finance, People, and Internal Communications. She has a passion for business growth, she not only has helped Very, but she also is an advisor to early stage tech companies, helping founders scale their operations, build strong cultures, and achieve product market fit.

[00:01:22] Her leadership is driven by a commitment to innovation and a belief that technology can transform business and society. Whether she's developing teams, helping to optimize strategies, or exploring new markets, Jessica, you will find, focuses on creating outcomes that drive business and lasting org change.

[00:01:41] In this episode, we chose to dive into innovation because we both are passionate innovators and creators who have an HR background, which may not always seem like it goes together at first glance, and because of our HR backgrounds, we know that organizations want innovation, but may not always define it in a way that makes it seem feasible or permissioned, which we are ready to jump in and unpack. 

[00:02:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Jessica, I am so happy to have you on. Let's Talk, People.

[00:02:18] Jessica Begley: I'm so excited to be here with you.

[00:02:20] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think we're gonna talk about a topic that is very near and dear to both of our hearts. 

[00:02:24] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:02:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I always think about the dichotomy of being an HR leader, because we are responsible for trying to create the conditions in the culture that people want, as well as what leadership expects. And we also are employees ourselves.

[00:02:39] And for you and I, when we think about one of our happy places is to be creating, and what a lot of people in corporate like to call innovating.

[00:02:50] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:51] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think it's been, at least for me, and I'm curious to get your take on it, what has been the best part of my career and the sources of the greatest frustration and learning, when I had ideas and I couldn't do anything with them, or I thought I was being innovative, but it wasn't innovative enough because maybe it wasn't what they wanted.

[00:03:10] So I think we have a very interesting relationship with innovation at work and what we expect of people. But give me it from your perspective, how have you seen innovation surface and what has been working? What's made it frustrating? Break it down.

[00:03:28] Jessica Begley: You know, you can track on Google the frequency of word use and you can look at it over time. In the last decade, usage of the term innovation has become a buzzword. It's so funny, it's not a new word, but it's become a buzzword because what every company has realized is they have to instill this innovation, right? Because people are coming for them. AI is coming for them. We have to stay fresh, we have to stay new. And I have lived in an enterprise company. I've lived in a mid-size tech company. I advise brand new tech, startups and what's really interesting is I think they all talk about innovation, but what they actually mean is completely different.

[00:04:07] And I think what you were just alluding to in your little synopsis of what you've experienced, a lot of times the biggest issue is there is a mismatch of expectations. So when enterprise companies say, "Innovate something", they're like, "But don't break anything."

[00:04:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. Or maybe don't even change anything.

[00:04:26] Jessica Begley: Or, make changes so slight that no one will notice, but it'll make it better. Right? 

[00:04:33] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally. 

[00:04:34] Jessica Begley: And this is one of the things that I think is so interesting. But meanwhile, if you go the whole way to the other side of the spectrum, innovate means break everything.

[00:04:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:04:42] Jessica Begley: Innovate means no stone unturned. Break it until it can't be broken anymore. Go for it. And so I think part of why this term is so controversial in so many people's minds from an experience as an employee at work is because the definition and the expectation varies so significantly. And this is where I think companies have to define their ethos in this area. When we say innovation, what do we mean?

[00:05:14] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:05:15] Jessica Begley: One of the biggest things that I think about a lot is just the definition of the word itself, because a lot of people when they're like, "I can't innovate in my job, what would that even look like?" You hit this wall. It's because they've conflated the terms of innovation and invention. They are different. Invention is something brand new that has never existed before. And actually, if you look at the Latin roots of the word ‘innovation’, innovate, you have 'In', into 'Novus', new. Into new. It's not making, creating, it's taking something that already exists and making it better. And we see absolutely huge milestones in history, of brilliant people and brilliant companies. They were not inventors, they were innovators. 

[00:06:05] They took ideas and things that already existed, like think of Netflix.

[00:06:09] Netflix is not an inventor, they're an innovator. They just figured out a better way to do something that was already happening. Right? 

[00:06:17] And so I think that's a block for so many people who are like, "I'm just not an innovative person". It's because they think they have to invent, they think they have to create.

[00:06:29] One of the best pieces of advice I heard recently was if you were rehired into your job, what are the first things you would change?

[00:06:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mmm, that's such a good way to look at it. 

[00:06:39] Jessica Begley: Right? 

[00:06:40] And I say this as a person who would consider myself a really strong innovator, if I step back and I'm really honest with myself, there's low hanging fruit in my job and the things that I do today, that could totally be better if I just would step back and be like, okay, let me focus on this. Let me do that. And a lot of times I don't do that because my energy gets pulled in so many directions and I've gotta go do other things. But I think actually, if we're honest with ourselves and good self reflectors, there are things in all of our day-to-day existence that we could do better.

[00:07:13] And that's innovation. That's taking a process that already exists, and just make it better. And so I think back to the enterprise world, that's actually what most of them mean when they say innovate. They're not saying. Change the way we do business. They're not saying, come up with brand new product lines, unless that's your job, what they're saying is, find the ways continuously to make you better, your job better, the output better. Find those things, that's the part where other people may not even notice it, but you've made it better.

[00:07:47] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Hmm.

[00:07:48] Jessica Begley: And I think why so many people get frustrated, those who are the visionaries, the 'super innovators', is because they go into those environments, having someone who hires them saying, we want you to come in and look at this with fresh eyes. We want you to come in and change up how we're doing things. And they come in and they have this list a mile long of all the things that you could do and change. And the company's like, "Ooh. That's not exactly what we wanted you to come in and do."

[00:08:15] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right.

[00:08:16] Jessica Begley: But they verbalized in the conversations, in the interviews, "No, no -we want you to come and look at this with fresh eyes ". And so people hear that and they think, okay, great. I can mix things up. But that's not really what they meant. That mismatch of expectations is where I think the frustration lies.

[00:08:32] So I think you have some people who think, 'I can't innovate, I don't know how', not realizing there is opportunity, and then I think you have people on the other end who are the mega innovators who feel stuck and blocked because their expectations are mismatched.

[00:08:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, that so resonates with me and it's so well said because when you look at it from that perspective, it makes innovation accessible.

[00:08:54] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: As well as, let's say we've had an experience where a leader has not liked our idea.

[00:09:00] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: We take that and we go all the way to the extreme of well, obviously you don't want innovation from me.

[00:09:06] You say you want innovation, but you don't want innovation. But there's such a wide range of how it can present and where you probably still have permission.

[00:09:15] Jessica Begley: Yes. I think a lot of times, at least my experience has been when you have a really powerful dominant leader, and let's be honest, there are dynamics in the workplace and a lot of times people who are their direct reports, they might be an independent contributor, they might even be up to Senior Director level or VP level. What they don't stop and do is they don't stop and ask questions because their expectation is, my leader is going to tell me what to do and I will go and do it. 

[00:09:45] Instead. Something I've always done, always in my career to the point where people would laugh about it, is I ask a ton of questions.

[00:09:52] "Tell me more what you mean. What does that look like? What does success in this scenario look like to you?"

[00:09:59] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:00] Jessica Begley: What is your ideal output here? I think the reason why people get so frustrated in that moment, "Oh, you don't want me to innovate, you didn't really want that from me", is because they have probably put in so much time, effort, energy, not only working through that ideating process, and the brainstorming, and sounding board off of people, and building, and then coming back, and packaging, and curating, because they're probably coming back to that leader with some sort of presentation or document, and they're sitting there thinking, I just wasted what a week of my life for you just to say no.

[00:10:35] So you don't want me to innovate. And the reality is some clarity upfront would've saved everyone the frustration on the other side.

[00:10:44] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Exactly. 'Cause there's always guardrails and boundaries in life and at work.

[00:10:48] This is extreme, but I think even sometimes getting one ‘no’ becomes this overwhelming, “You don't want this from me. I'm gonna stop. Just tell me what you want me to do”.

[00:10:58] It's amazing how we calibrate to our leaders so sensitively, which means we take things very literally.

[00:11:05] Jessica Begley: Yep. And I think that goes deeper in what you're saying. And listen, I have had those relationships, several of them in my career, where I would just get that pit in my stomach, right? Where you're just like, "Oh, okay, well what am I even doing? Why am I here? What's this look like for me? How am I growing?" 

[00:11:23] And I think the biggest thing that I've realized, the places where I've been able to be my most innovative, my most creative, I think the best version of me, because those are strengths of mine, is when I have the highest levels of psychological safety in the relationships around me. And I think what you're describing is those 'Nos' and those relationships with the manager that you're like, "I don't know where we stand. Am I allowed to fail? Am I not allowed to fail? Are you gonna put me on a PIP tomorrow? Am I magically gonna be in the next restructure because you didn't like the ideas that I brought to the table?"

[00:11:58] But when you have that space of very high levels of psychological safety, where you know you can fail, you can make mistakes, it's gonna be okay. You can take bigger swings because you feel safe.

[00:12:13] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Completely. The image that comes to me of when I have helped teams or facilitated people through innovation or when things have come to me, there's a spaciousness to it. 

[00:12:24] You know, you've stepped out of the fray. You're maybe in a different environment, or it's framed differently or you're being more playful.

[00:12:33] You need some conditions to allow that to surface. And to your point, Jessica, it's not about perfection. It's not about getting it right. It's about let's play in this, let's explore this. There's a very childlike quality of looking at the world around us, and asking the questions, maybe asking too many questions and throwing out ideas and trying something. And it not working might be where the next best idea comes from. But you're right that you have to trust in people that they can practice, experiment, what I would call play, and find their way to a better place, versus they're not performing, they haven't gotten it done, why hasn't this been figured out yet? Because then you start to feel how that causes the contraction to happen.

[00:13:20] Jessica Begley: Absolutely. And I love how you say that 'cause I always think I have that brain, like that childlike wonder and imagination. And I think what happens, and I've certainly been in these rooms, and you know, I'm not hating on large enterprises, but it's typically where this happens, where you go into a room and a senior leader says, "Okay guys, we're gonna use a whiteboard and we're gonna have a brainstorming session, and this is what we're gonna focus on. Now, here are the five things I want you to consider as you're brainstorming. These are the constraints we're working in." 

[00:13:50] I've literally been in those rooms and I'm like, so we're not brainstorming. We're working inside of the constraints.

[00:13:57] How different would this conversation sound if we started with, "Take the constraints away. What should we do? What's the right answer? How would we change? What would look different? How would we proceed? What would that mean?". Then back into the constraints, "Alright, listen, we know we're working up against this. What would that look like? Let's talk through that." 

[00:14:18] But instead, what happens is so many of these conversations can't even get to that wonder. It can't even get to the 'what could be', because you're trying to function within the constraints that already exist, which is limiting of itself, so now you're forcing people to think 'How do I change every day, in the life that I live', and not 'What could it be?' 

[00:14:43] And to me, that's always how I think about it, is not like, 'Oh, this is how it is'. I think about 'What could it be?' 

[00:14:49] Then, what would it look like to get there? What would change? What would stay the same? What would the evolution be? And I think that's where a lot of those conversations get so stunted before they even start.

[00:15:03] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's so important to name that. It's like the symbolism of how we start things is how they're gonna play out.

[00:15:09] I think that's such a good illustration of it is, open up the aperture at the beginning, create a bigger sandbox to play in.

[00:15:17] Jessica Begley: Yep. And that's, I think where you talk about, at the beginning, the expectations. I think it's also defining your ethos  as an organization.

[00:15:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:26] Jessica Begley: What is your ethos? Do you want big thinkers? I definitely spoke to a company once were like, "No, we want people to really come in and own and drive and be business owners".

[00:15:36] And then you looked at what they were putting in terms of these very tight lanes on people. And I was like, that's not a business owner. They can't be entrepreneurial. You've put so many constraints on them. So now you're hiring people and you're hiring the persona that does not match your ethos.

[00:15:53] So listen, be who you're gonna be. There's a reason why there's such a range of different types of organizations in the world. Just define who you are, what your ethos is, match the persona of the people that you're hiring to that ethos, and be honest about who you are. Because otherwise you're gonna end up hiring the wrong people, because they're gonna be really frustrated based on whatever it is. Same thing, imagine hiring someone who is unbelievably risk averse to go work at a five person startup.

[00:16:22] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right, exactly.

[00:16:23] Jessica Begley: It would never happen. But meanwhile, enterprises hire people that have super high risk tolerances and love to experiment, test, and try. They love working in an agile approach. It doesn't work. It's not the right persona for your ethos and as much as you might say, but we need those people 'cause we want to change. You haven't changed the structures that are in place in order to meet those people where they are. So it's just gonna end up being a frustrating experience for everyone. 

[00:16:50] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right. And we as leaders need to own that. If someone can't do something. Either we mishired, which is possible, but more likely is we didn't surround them with the right conditions to be able to bring that part of themselves to work.

[00:17:06] Jessica Begley: Yeah. 

[00:17:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So that's right, and that's so important. 

[00:17:08] Jessica Begley: Now listen, I do think that there are ranges of us as humans. I was just having this discussion with a couple of girlfriends the other night where, they are just generally more risk averse people and they're like, you are so risk tolerant and it's so interesting to see how you approach things versus how we approach things. And it was a supportive conversation. 

[00:17:28] So I think yes, you have to have the right conditions, but there is a piece of do you have the right person? Based on some of those factors, and that's not a right or wrong thing. Again, it's just matching what your expectations are.

[00:17:41] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That's right. Expectation is everything.

[00:17:45] Abigail, we are gonna turn it to you to see what we've got.

[00:17:50] Abigail Charlu: Yeah, let's dig into it and already what you've surfaced, some of the frustration, some of the "You don't really want me to innovate", that flavor is really coming through in several of these questions. The first one, a leader said, "My team is overwhelmed just keeping up with our current workload. Every time I try to introduce a new idea or suggest rethinking a process, I get resistance. How do I encourage innovation without adding more pressure?"

[00:18:19] Jessica Begley: I mean, this is every corporate environment on earth right now, right? Like everyone is saying, "You gave me these new tools, said it would help me with my job, but my job somehow got bigger and there's less people and there's less layers". Right? 

[00:18:33] I find with most groups who say things like this, "We're just overwhelmed. There's too much work", what they're not stepping back and doing first is saying, "What work are we doing that we don't need to do?"

[00:18:45] Because busyness does not equal productivity. When you think about, what's the true output here? And how are we creating impact? Because I guarantee you, there are analysts running reports that don't need to be run, there are frequencies that could change, maybe that hour long meeting week becomes a 30 minute meeting, time a week, and then the next week it's an hour.

[00:19:09] There are so many opportunities to find space. The first part of using that space is having the conversation. Okay, so what could we innovate? So back to if we didn't have the constraints of today, what would we do differently? And I think that starts the conversation. 'Cause a lot of times those types of things will come to the surface. Right?

[00:19:30] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. 

[00:19:30] Jessica Begley: Yeah. I think in those moments because people are so overwhelmed and none of us do our best work, our best thinking when we're overwhelmed. Let's talk about next week. What two things that we can try that are new? Just two, as a team. Let's try it. Let's see how this goes. Maybe only one of two, maybe zero out of two. If one works, we're gonna adopt that. The following week we're gonna try two more new things. 

[00:19:55] I think sometimes people see innovation as this just, absolute boulder you're trying to push up a hill, when it can be just small, simple things that you can really do. And then I think the big thing on the other side of that is. And I myself am guilty of not doing this, but celebrating incremental wins. When you make those changes, as small as they could be, and they work, and people feel better or there's a better output, or there's a heightened sense of community or relationship or whatever it is you're trying to solve for, you've gotta stop and celebrate it in a meaningful way so that people are like, "Oh wow, okay, this is important". And it gets people bought into the next cycle, and the next cycle, 'cause you're celebrating when those wins exist. So that's an experience that I think a lot of people are having right now.

[00:20:46] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I agree. 

[00:20:47] Overwhelm, that feeling shuts us down. Where I think that even for those who are less comfortable innovating or that's just not how they naturally think, and what they're drawn to. I do believe that for everybody, some of the sources of those incremental, let's say wins, maybe we call 'em innovations, as you said, Jessica, it could actually be in the things that we're most frustrated by, where we feel stuck in that hamster wheel. That's usually the source.

[00:21:18] I do think we keep giving up our agency and we blame our leadership, we blame the markets and it's not that those things aren't real. They are real. But if that is how we live, it doesn't feel very good. My belief is, as you said, Jessica, there is something in the way we are working that is there to be adjusted. And if anything good is gonna come out of the disruption of AI, it's an endless spectrum of tools that are being built and that we're gonna help co-create to get us out of the stuckness that we're in right now.

[00:21:55] And through the lens of leadership, the role of a leader is to have those types of conversations and then invite people along the journey to get unstuck. To create those windows and pockets of spaciousness to say, "Let's try this. Let's do a little experiment. Let's not send that report that we usually send." 

[00:22:14] See if anybody asks for it. Take five pages off of it and see if there's any consequence. Again, I call that play. And if you're in an environment that is not okay with that, then that's data, right? Maybe you have to back it up a bit, but I bet there's still a way for you to make some adjustments that nobody will ever see or know that will take some of the overwhelm out.

[00:22:35] Jessica Begley: Yep. I think a good tip if anybody's not sure how to use or leverage Chat GPT, one of the things that I think most people don't realize is you can do talk-to-text with it. So what you can do is, you just sit there and for five minutes just tell Chat GPT all the things that are frustrating you about your day. Here's the things that are going on. Here's the moments that I feel the worst. Here's the times where I'm feeling stuck and frustrated and say, "Hey Chat, what are your suggestions? Can you give me the top three things that you think I could maybe try to make this a little bit better?" And see what it says, and I bet you you're gonna be shocked. 'Cause I think there's probably things in there that you're just like, that makes so much sense. 

[00:23:15] So I think there's ways to your point where you can use these tools in some different ways. Like even if you're maybe not that person who feels super risk tolerant, who feels like, oh, I can make these leaps. I think there's a lot of those types of moments in people's days that they're just like, put my head down, shoulder through. You know? And it's like, wait, step back. Let's identify this for a moment. Why is that so frustrating to you? Are there opportunities to change it?

[00:23:40] Let's talk about it. Let's leverage tools to think about it instead of just knowing that every single day you're gonna have that feeling in your body, right, physically, that I don't like this moment. That's a terrible way to exist.

[00:23:54] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally. Ugh! I want to make that go away for us so badly. I mean, I think that's the whole purpose of what sparked us to have this conversation is, this is our life. You know, we get one go at it.

[00:24:05] Jessica Begley: Yep.

[00:24:06] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It doesn't need to be this hard. We're inflicting some of our own suffering in organizations. 

[00:24:11] Jessica Begley: Yep. Absolutely. 

[00:24:13] Abigail Charlu: That's great practical advice. Another manager shared “One of my reports has a great idea for improving how we onboard customers. But the idea requires coordination with three other departments. I can already hear that "No" is coming. How do I advocate for a scrappy innovation when we don't own the full process?”

[00:24:35] Jessica Begley: Silos drive me nuts. It's one of the reasons why I left the enterprise world because I just think this is why when these big enterprises look at the small and mid-size companies, they're like, how do they innovate? How do they do it? I'm telling you the biggest difference is silos. And they can happen really fast.

[00:24:51] But it becomes this us- versus- them mentality. And so one of the things that I do as a leader of my company is I say, "Team, it is us versus the work. It is never us versus each other. Ever." 

[00:25:04] So I would say, one, you gotta get the buy-ins from the senior leaders first.

[00:25:10] The most senior leaders have to be bought into some of these ideas. So how do you do that? Let's say you're a more junior person on the team, you know you've gotta get the senior leadership buy-in and you know you need cross-functional alignment in order to make that happen. I think one of the things that unfortunately a lot of people do when they approach senior leaders is they approach it like, "I've got this great idea and here's why we should do it".

[00:25:33] And it's like, nope, nope, nope. You've gotta start with the end in mind.

[00:25:38] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. 

[00:25:38] Jessica Begley: What is your output? What are you looking to measure? What is the impact that you can gain? So, "Here's what I would like to do. I'd like to start this new onboarding process. Where I anticipate this having is, higher customer retention rates, longer or larger life cycles with clients.

[00:25:56] You know, what is it that you're trying to measure? And say, " Here's what I need in order to make that happen. I need these departments to be bought into this process because we all touch different parts of it. Here's the anticipated timeline and any costs that might be attached to it. I would be really happy to lead this process or co-lead this process with someone that you might designate from your team, but I feel really strongly that there's really great business opportunity here and this is why we should move forward".

[00:26:24] And so I think framing the idea, having measurable outcomes and mutual benefit is going to get that across the line instead of "I have this really great idea and I think we should do it."

[00:26:37] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. I totally agree, Jessica, and I think sometimes what we've done is we skipped the step at some point at work where we didn't build those relationships with our colleagues outside of our team.

[00:26:46] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:47] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: It's amazing psychologically when we like somebody, we're more willing to want to work with them, to help them.

[00:26:56] So that's one thing that's coming to mind. The other is this idea of the win-win, and what I've found is this idea of the outcomes. What if the outcomes you're incentivized on, or rewarded for or cheered on for, are different than the ones that I'm incentivized for? And sometimes we as colleagues don't talk about that.

[00:27:15] Jessica Begley: Yep.

[00:27:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I mean, this is the basics of negotiation or influence. It's like how do you get the win-win? Like I need to, let's say, drive efficiency in the customer onboarding process. You just want that customer to feel really well taken care of. That could seemingly be a conflict, that by me streamlining it, you're losing that high touch experience. 

[00:27:38] It's having that dialogue, as you said, that alignment piece, to see if we can find the win-win. And you're right, the ideal is that it's sponsored at the most senior levels and sometimes it's not. Maybe sometimes that's not the hot topic of the month or the week. But if you have that great colleague relationship, you can say, I've been thinking about this. And sometimes even the story like, here's a story of a situation that happened with a customer and it made me think blah, blah, blah. And then you talk about, how would this impact you and your team? This is how it's impacting our team.

[00:28:13] There's a feeling when you can tell somebody wants to make it work.

[00:28:16] Jessica Begley: Totally. I also talk a lot about the triple win, so instead of the win-win, it's the win-win win, because what I like to talk about is what's the win for the company, what's the win for the people and what's the win for the customer? Because then you have this triple win and if you can prove why there's three wins in this, it's very difficult for anyone, regardless of their seniority level, to look at you and be like, no, we're not doing that. 

[00:28:40] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Completely.

[00:28:41] Abigail Charlu: Love that. Another manager shared, "I have an idea that would require a bit of investment, but I believe it's what we need to safeguard our team for the future. Do you have advice on how to get support from my boss who seems to be more focused on his ideas?"

[00:28:57] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Mmm, we've seen these characters.

[00:29:00] Jessica Begley: I was gonna say, I think we've met a couple of these ones. Here's one of the things, and again, it's hard to fully know, right? These are very, very nebulous situations. If you are saying there's a required bit of investment, one of the biggest things, again, back to metrics, what are you trying to solve for? But I would say even step further back, how does it align with the business goals?

[00:29:21] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:29:22] Jessica Begley: So I think regardless of what the goals of that individual leader is, right? When they're saying, "Oh, they have their own ideas", what are the goals of the business?

[00:29:30] So one of the things that I will do when I'm going to talk to a client, if they're a publicly traded company, did you listen to the last earnings call? What are their big in the window business initiatives?

[00:29:39] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:29:40] Jessica Begley: How do you weave that into what you want to do?

[00:29:44] So you're saying, "Hey, listen, I believe this investment is the right thing to do because as we hear our most senior leadership discuss, X, Y, and Z is really big in the window. So here's what that would look like and here's what I believe the measurable outcomes would be". 

[00:30:00] And so again, pockets are not endless. Companies more and more are really tight with the belt on some of their budgetary decision making. You have to be able to weave the narrative of what the company is trying to achieve. And let's be honest, I think long-term investments are harder and harder for a lot of senior leaders. I was just having this discussion last evening with someone, because the way that the world works particularly right now is you have to be unbelievably agile.

[00:30:29] You have got to be able to pivot. You are lucky if you can see 90 days ahead of you. So I would say the other piece of this is I would also offer, what are your quick wins?

[00:30:40] What are the low hanging fruit? Where could you start? Because by doing that in low budgetary constraints, what you can do is you can start to prove the output, and then you can create that snowball. So like, "Here's the first couple things I wanna do. It's only gonna do X. It's not even gonna cost us money. It's just gonna cost us time. Here's what that looks like. Can I get everybody for an hour one day over the next month to do this thing?" How does that work out? How do you prove it? How do you show the output? Okay, now you can come back. So sometimes it's also not framing an entire investment over the course of six months or a year.

[00:31:18] It's about, here's the idea, here's where I think the general output could be. Here's where I think we start.

[00:31:24] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That really resonates with me. Again, it's this mentality that there is always a way, it's just getting creative about the how. Break it into smaller bits, where you may have some permission. The other thing that was coming to me, just because of the whole stakeholder side of this, so one of the pieces of data that's really important in this situation is that your boss has other ideas, right? Like this idea that their ideas matter more. I think sometimes when you are the person on the team that gives your boss a win, they are gonna listen to you more.

[00:31:59] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:01] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: That might be the strategy that you deploy. It's like, "Oh yeah, your idea is awesome. Let's make that happen. Here's the progress we've made against it. We've got it. We're on it." 

[00:32:12] As I was reflecting, something else came to mind for me and I wanted to see what you think about it. Let them feel heard. Let them feel like you're shining the light on them. And I find that in return, they're gonna take more interest in you and in your thoughts.

[00:32:27] So there's something, again, relational here, and strategic. Give your boss the win. That might be that example of a low hanging fruit. Get a win. Create again the space for them to say, "All right, this person seems to do a good job. They know what they're doing, they are listening to me". And then they might, in fact, listen back. 

[00:32:45] The other thing that's coming to me around this idea of investment is, like the same way in our personal lives, it's like, what's your love language? I do think there's an influencing language in organizations and it's not only cultural, I think it can be leader dependent in terms of what makes them feel excited and safe.

[00:33:03] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:04] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And there's a way of starting to get really curious, almost like a researcher, of when do I see my boss saying yes? When do I see them get uncomfortable? And starting to track those patterns so that you can use that data to help you to know how to present the investment thesis.

[00:33:24] Jessica Begley: Yep.

[00:33:25] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And make them feel either excited and or safe, depending on their style.

[00:33:30] Jessica Begley: Yep. I think even just the way, do you captivate them? Like how do people that you work with process information? When people come to me with a deck, I'm like, "Oh, why have you done this?" 

[00:33:39] I don't want a deck. Just talk to me. What are you trying to do? If I have more questions I'll ask you. 

[00:33:44] But there are also people in this world who love a deck. They can't imagine existing without a deck. So you have to know, what resonates with them? What's gonna be meaningful? How are you gonna have this conversation? What's really motivating to them? Are they a person who just gets motivated by the win? Are they a person who gets motivated by recognition? There's very different spectrums of all of us in this world. And so, you've gotta know some of those things and be able to use it to the best of your ability.

[00:34:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah, the thing you just sparked Jessica, is sometimes we can just ask. 

[00:34:16] When people have brought ideas to me and I've said yes to them, this is what it was. Use real examples. Tell me about a time somebody brought you an idea, what made you say yes that you said yes to recently? Or if I'm the boss, I'm gonna say, "You know what?

[00:34:32] If you have ideas, I wanna hear them". Every boss says that, sometimes it's not true. But this is the way to bring it to me that's gonna excite me and draw me in. This is what might make me shut down a little bit, even if I try not to, and I pretend, it's not actually my preferred way of engaging learning or what I need to feel comfortable.

[00:34:52] So again, relationships are two-sided. We as the leader need to extrovert a little bit more, and our team members and those of us who work for a boss who are trying to influence need to feel safe to ask even that type of question; “What do you like?" 

[00:35:07] I remember we did a lot of decks at one of the companies that I used to work at. But what would make me crazy is we'd spend all this time on the slides and then the senior leader we were presenting to would start flipping. And then you're lost! You're like, I don't know what to say! Am I still pitching? Do I try to look over and see that they're on slide 32?

[00:35:25] Jessica Begley: Yeah.

[00:35:26] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Why couldn't I just ask and say "What would be helpful? Do you wanna have a chance to look at it?" 

[00:35:30] We just tried to figure it out and navigate, or ignore the signs and just keep pitching. 

[00:35:35] Jessica Begley: Yeah. We've all been there where you see that person at the front of the room just sticking to the talk track and no one's actually listening to them, 'cause they're already onto their next thing. It's like, "Wait, slow down". 

[00:35:44] And so I think it's a great way to start it. "Hey, listen, I know we've got a short period of time. Your time is extremely valuable. What information can I give you right now that's gonna be the most impactful for you?"

[00:35:55] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah. These questions that seem so obvious when we say them, but we don't do this.

[00:35:59] Jessica Begley: Well, I do, but not everyone does. You know, like, it's learned over time, right? And the reason why I've learned these things is 'cause I've had that happen to me where I looked over and I'm like, "Oh, they are not listening to what I'm saying right now".

[00:36:09] And it's like, slow down and let's ask. "What's most important? I want this to be meaningful for you. This is meaningful for me. How can I make this meaningful for you too?"

[00:36:18] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Totally. 

[00:36:19] Abigail Charlu: Yeah. And we as impactful leaders have to be able to pivot in those moments.

[00:36:24] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Exactly.

[00:36:25] Jessica Begley: Absolutely. 

[00:36:27] Abigail Charlu: Our last question to bring us full circle, a leader shared, "Our leadership says they want innovation, but when I bring our team's ideas, they shut them down or ask where we are at on our more near term deliverables. They can't have it both ways."

[00:36:42] Jessica Begley: Well, I mean, they don't think about it that way. So, let's step back. Here's the thing. What questions did you ask? In scenarios like this, if you're hitting this cycle, you gotta break it. So here's what I say to these types of leaders. I would go to them and say, "Tell me what keeps you up at night. When no one's talking to you and you're sitting there and just thinking about all the things, what are the big things that you think about? What are the things that get stuck in your head that you just wish you could fix them? What are they? If you could have a team of people to swat team onto a single problem that you're having right now, what would that single problem be?" 

[00:37:24] Ask them those questions. 'Cause my guess is, it's not that they don't want innovation, it's just the ideas that you brought to the table are not the things keeping them up at night. They don't see them as the big, in the window, important conversation. And so that's why they swat them down. The second thing I would say is like everything in life, timing is everything.

[00:37:46] If you are coming and talking to them about something, but you know there's two weeks left in the quarter and they specifically have deliverables that need to happen in the next two weeks or X, Y, and z breaks, why are you talking to me right now about this? I mean, I do this with my own child sometimes, he'll come up to me, "Mommy, can I do that?" And I'm like, "Bud, I'm in the middle of something right now. Can we please pick this up later?" 

[00:38:07] You know, we all do that. My brain can't focus on that thing right now because I've gotta stay focused on this, or bad things will happen.

[00:38:15] I bet you those senior leaders, they're under immense pressure and that's what's happening. I would say one, first, timing is everything. And second, the piece is, how are you asking them what they're looking for? I think, Emily, back to your whole thing, like let's make this meaningful. 

[00:38:30] You tell me you want innovation. What's keeping you up at night? What right problems can we solve? And then you go there. 

[00:38:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that's right. 'Cause the truth is, we as leaders have preferences, needs, worries, stresses. We're gonna make more progress if we have that alignment with them. The other thing that you were sparking for me as I was listening to you, about the near term deliverables thought, is sometimes all of us need to get those things ticked off on the list to create the space to talk about innovation.

[00:39:02] I even feel that, as a CEO, that I have these bigger things we're creating that I wanna talk about. If I'm anxious about something the next day or two days out, it's really hard for me to step back into that more spacious way of orienting to building for the future when I'm anxious about something that I know needs to get out the door.

[00:39:24] So let's be honest about that. Let's get through those near term deliverables. Let's check them off and then say, "Okay, after we get through these milestones, let's set some time aside. Would that be a good time to talk about X, Y, and Z?" 

[00:39:38] I just think it's unrealistic to be binary of, it's either near term deliverables or it's innovation.

[00:39:47] As you said, Jessica, it's about being sensitive to the timing and the flow, almost like how you braid, you gotta weave the strands together because you can't just do one and then wait, because there'll always be something more near term. But also be respectful that that is a distraction when there's pressure to get something done.

[00:40:03] Jessica Begley: And I think the other part of that is then if they're asking about innovation, but they're asking about near term deliverables, it's also like, tell me what innovation means to you.

[00:40:12] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Right?

[00:40:12] Jessica Begley: What does innovation mean? If you saw our team being innovative.

[00:40:16] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yeah.

[00:40:16] Jessica Begley: What would that look like? What would that sound like?

[00:40:19] Because you are not understanding what that expectation or what they thought that would look like is, 'cause you're clearly not meeting it. 

[00:40:27] And again, it's, so simple. Just ask them.

[00:40:29] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: And that goes back to your point of innovation's kind of a big word and term, do we know what we're really talking about? 

[00:40:35] Jessica Begley: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:36] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I think that was such an important baseline. Are we talking the same language here?

[00:40:40] Jessica Begley: Right. 

[00:40:42] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: So one of the ways that we like to close, is we believe that all of us have a purpose and a role that we play as a leader. Not to fix everything, we're just one link in a full chain. But when you think about Jessica, what is the pattern you believe you're here to break as a leader? 

[00:41:01] What comes to mind for you?

[00:41:02] Jessica Begley: Well, I think we talked about it, it was weaved through all of this and so thank you for giving this space to talk about it. And as a COO, I think this is probably what people don't expect from me, but I think it's rethinking operational rigidity and breaking down all of those barriers and making people think even in some of the most functional aspects of business, how do we leverage innovation and creativity? How do we do things in new and different ways? 

[00:41:30] I promise you, the way that I do my job would probably break the brains of a lot of COOs across the world because I don't do it in a traditional way. I am constantly saying, but what else could we do? How could we do it differently?

[00:41:43] Let's test and try. Let's do something new. And I love having a really agile approach to work where, let's fall forward. You know, let's try something, it breaks, cool. Next play. Like, let's go. What's the next thing? So I think it's really breaking up any operational rigidity.

[00:42:00] And by the way, companies big and small have them, you know, they fall into patterns quickly. And I really like to rattle it up. I really like to try, 'cause I think there's always better ways to do things than the way you're probably doing 'em right now. And, in my opinion, if you wanna be a really, really great business leader, there's no set and forget. For anything. You always have to be looking for what's next and new.

[00:42:22] And I think what ends up happening is that again, we conflate the concepts of busy and productive. 

[00:42:28] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Yes. 

[00:42:29] Jessica Begley: Because we have these things that fill up the day, we think, "Oh, I'm so busy. I did a lot today", and it's like, hmm, did you, did you have the best output you could have? Were you the most productive?

[00:42:41] That's the way that I think about it, and trying to encourage my team, take risks. Fail to learn. Be okay with it. 

[00:42:49] And that's one of my biggest things. I'm like, "All right, we mis-stepped. What did we learn? How do we move forward from here?" And that's how I wanna just live my whole life.

[00:42:56] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Which is exactly why you were here. I can feel the possibilities as I listen to you, right? How amazing it would feel for all of us to be able to lead in this way and to work in this way where it just feels uplifting and possible and this idea of being more expansive.

[00:43:15] So thank you, Jessica, for role modeling that, for living it, for challenging assumptions about what work and leadership needs to look like. And even as you said, even more so, certain roles like a COO role and what we think they're there to uphold. So thank you for being you. We really appreciate this time and the perspectives you're bringing.

[00:43:36] Jessica Begley: Thank you so much. 

[00:43:45] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: I hope you feel ready to take innovation to the next level and to get some of these key unlocks from helping people to understand that innovation is not about invention. You don't have to be an inventor to be an innovator. You could improve what's already there. Everything has a possibility to be improved.

[00:44:02] So one idea that came up was what if you rehired yourself into your same role, what would you do differently? It can be a shift that happens in your daily work, in a process, even in a mindset that leads to innovation. How do you set those conditions though? Innovation happens only if people feel safe. Because sometimes a new idea is not common, it may not be what people are used to. So you have to make sure that people feel safe, that they can bring it up, that the expectations around what it would take to try something out is clear and that there's enough room for things to be figured out through doing versus to be perfect from the start. 

[00:44:39] And last, but very much not least, it's important to figure out what you have permission to bring forward to your leaders, and that often stems from what they care about. So speak to them in their language. Meet them where they are. Understand what type of innovation or improvements would be most valuable to them and to the organization. What are they trying to solve for?

[00:45:00] What are they frustrated by? Your goal is to create within a context, and trust me, your boss's context is really important to know.

[00:45:08] On Let's Talk, People, what we love to do most is help you unpack your toughest people management challenges. So send them in. Send in the situations you're struggling with, the questions that you have about leading your teams, and we will anonymize them and give you answers and our advice on an upcoming episode.

[00:45:33] You can write in an email or attach a little audio message with your scenario to abigail@arosegroup.com. That's Abigail, A-B-I-G-A-I-L at Arose Group A-R-O-S-E-G-R-O-U-P.com.

[00:45:52] Emily Frieze-Kemeny: Thanks for joining today's episode of Let's Talk, People. For more info and insights, visit arosegroup.com and find me, Emily Frieze-Kemeny, on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you're enjoying the show, please follow, share on social and leave a rating or review in your podcast app- it helps other listeners to discover us.

[00:46:15]  Well, that's a wrap, friends. Until next time when we come together to talk people.