Elizabeth Manning, Change Management Leader: From Dancer to Change Leader

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon Lucas, one of the co-ceos of catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalyst to create bold, powerful change in the world. This is our podcast move, fast, break ship burnout, where we speak with catalyst leaders about ways to successfully lead transformation and large organizations. And I am thrilled today to have time with Elizabeth Manning. Welcome.

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Elizabeth Manning: Thanks, great to be here.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Elizabeth is a transformation catalyst who has repeatedly shattered traditional career boundaries, boundaries in the global pharma industry. For 17 years

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: her superpower connecting seemingly unrelated dots with surgical precision and artistic creativity and the relentless pursuit of what's possible. She transforms the most complex challenges into pioneering solutions, fundamentally reshaping team collaboration and industry-wide innovation. Her multidimensional approach blends design thinker with organizational therapists. I loved that framing so much.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's true

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: unleashing potential and leaders and cross functional teams buckle up. Elizabeth doesn't maintain system. She revolutionizes them driving both cultural transformation and business results for the win win. I'm so excited for this conversation today. But let's start off like that's the high level. But we'd love to hear about your journey through the lens of being a catalyst. Maybe some of the things that you're out of that help us see your catalytic nature.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah, thanks, Shannon. I'm excited to be here very much. So, because, like you said, we have to be able to change the system, so it can work better for us instead of

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Elizabeth Manning: Trojan horsing everything like I call it, where you have to sneak in and change without them noticing, like we really need to be able to thrive. So my journey actually started pretty randomly. I was a dancer and choreographer first, st

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Elizabeth Manning: and thought that was my career, and I had day jobs. And one of my day jobs was just an administrative role in a pharma company. And while I was there my body decided it wasn't going to be able to dance for long term with my back and my knees collapsing. So I just had to pivot and say, Is there something here that I can make out of this? And I had a conversation with the manager. I was

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Elizabeth Manning: overqualified for an admin role. But

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Elizabeth Manning: I said, what if I keep adding value? Because I had already started finding new ways and new questions, and you promised to challenge me, and we just see what happens, and he bit every role after that role for 17 years. Every 2 years. Approximately, a new role was created for me out of

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Elizabeth Manning: the new value proposition that I was able to discover and then deliver. And then they realized, oh, this is important. So let's institutionalize it. And then I moved on, obviously to the next.

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Elizabeth Manning: So I really turned into that go to person through a progression of

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Elizabeth Manning: project management type solutions. And then there was a turning point when I was working with a cross functional team who was responsible for

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Elizabeth Manning: the largest global epilepsy regulatory submission that had been to date.

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Elizabeth Manning: and our chief chief medical officer came to the team and said, You have to accomplish it in half the time. So a 12 month

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Elizabeth Manning: usual, which was hard to do anyways, you had to do in 6 months, and yes, Christmas was in there, so

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Elizabeth Manning: was in the 6 months. It was impossible. Everyone knew it was impossible.

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Elizabeth Manning: I ended up, pulling from design, thinking as kind of alluded to, I pulled from some project management principles. I pulled from my background and interpersonal communications. I pulled from emotional intelligence and really guided that team to a reimagination of all the processes. And I was doing this from a coordinator role. To be clear.

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Elizabeth Manning: they reimagine their processes because we open up the safe space for them to switch from a functional escalation model which was much more the traditional specialized. You know, you check with your manager, cut off 5 days. Come back.

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Elizabeth Manning: I got them to create a shared accountability approach and got them to feel safe with each other, to brainstorm the what's possible without the limitations of what's realistic yet.

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Elizabeth Manning: And when they started doing that and started feeling safe with each other, they came up with solutions that totally changed everything, and we hit the 6 months with one week to spare.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Wow!

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Elizabeth Manning: Even over the holidays, and that was a huge pivot for me, because there was a lot of visibility, very high profile, and a lot of functions were are involved in that kind of work. So they started to realize they can trust me to guide them towards the impossible. How do we solve when it really does feel impossible. They also saw the necessity

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Elizabeth Manning: of reimagination.

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Elizabeth Manning: Which then validated the approach I typically come from with questioning things, you know. Is there a different way? How else could we do this. What else could we do with this?

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Elizabeth Manning: It used to be annoying now that it delivered this kind of result. Then all of a sudden there was a lot more buy in.

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Elizabeth Manning: so that accelerated my growth, and it accelerated me, becoming a go to person when those shifts were needed. So when the industry shifted they would come to me and pair me up with a physician or a Phd. And say, you guys go figure this out. What are we going to do in response to this? Or what's the next move that we need to get ahead of.

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Elizabeth Manning: So I did data sharing. I did patient engagement, digital business transformation

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Elizabeth Manning: de and I employee engagement and activation. So I ended up in all those spaces as that catalyst

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Elizabeth Manning: that helped pull the pieces together that we're never touching

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Elizabeth Manning: to see what was slipping through the cracks, and to see the opportunity that could never be realized without bringing those pieces together. The puzzle, the whole puzzle. You know you're missing all the connecting little joints, the little you know, round pieces. It's like this, the cut, the culture had cut those pieces off.

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Elizabeth Manning: and they need them to to connect. So people like us see that.

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Elizabeth Manning: and have to figure out how to make them see see that.

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Elizabeth Manning: But it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Oh!

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Elizabeth Manning: Fun, and it was hard. Yeah, all at once.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So much to respond to. And thank you for the story. And it really, I think it's such a great example that demonstrates the power of tapping catalyst

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and the innate skills that they have to solve wicked big problems. And you outlined a number of like the key skills like creating a sense of safety, being able to use your Eq. To manage and bring people along, and all of that stuff. We could spend a whole conversation talking about that. But what is super interesting is about like the personal branding that you got known for, and the fact that you kept having to sort of like

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: articulate or pitch your next role, or great great clarity about like how in this next problem, solving where you were, gonna sit in the organization and what that looked like. And you know, I remember when my, when my, when I got picked to do the you know the innovation program, my boss was like this. It might have a 2 year lifespan like you. You might not have a job after this. Do you want to do this crazy thing, and I was like, Yes, please.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: but for me I didn't have to create that role subsequently I did. But it's something that I think more more catalysts should think about is like helping companies understand the value and actually pitching how they can best help. So how did you do that? I mean, I hear you also got results. So like, let's not forget that part.

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Elizabeth Manning: Well, and I think that is actually it's a laughable, but it is a key element of it. It's also a key risk that, looking back on it, I make sure people are aware of when they're hearing my story, because one of the problems for me was that I was always solving a new problem.

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Elizabeth Manning: Then the role was created.

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Elizabeth Manning: So what happened was, at 1st I was like, this is awesome. I'm getting rewarded for what I've accomplished. But at a certain level, when I should have been

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Elizabeth Manning: 2 levels higher in terms of organizational. The types of decisions I'm making the types of, you know, executive thinking and and activities that I was managing.

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Elizabeth Manning: I wasn't able to get there because the policies in the organization were that you can't jump more than 2 levels at any given promotion, and you can only get promoted on these cycles and blah blah blah! At the end of the day I never fully recalibrated

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Elizabeth Manning: to where I actually deserved to be in terms of pay grade in terms of level of authority and decision, making responsibilities that matched up. So I want to make sure. That's clear as a risk for this approach. But one of the key aspects was

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Elizabeth Manning: create, and I didn't realize this at the time

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Elizabeth Manning: getting an advocate in Hr. And visibility

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Elizabeth Manning: with Hr. Particularly to one, the benefits person

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Elizabeth Manning: and to just someone that is your lead at the site that can see you

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Elizabeth Manning: visibly in the space locally, but also start seeing you globally and realizing that that's different than the typical. Whatever your role usually is.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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Elizabeth Manning: But really it was the benefits person that kicked the whole journey off, because she told me.

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Elizabeth Manning: we need to reassess your role at this point, because what I'm seeing you do

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Elizabeth Manning: is far beyond what is appropriate within an admin role.

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Elizabeth Manning: So she started the process of assessing. She said, write out everything you do, which, of course, is the most daunting thing to ask one like us to do. It's like, just forget it. I'll quit. But I did it. And that started the process of us being able to create a new role. And that's 1 of the things I'm proudest of, because that role actually did get institutionalized.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thanks.

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Elizabeth Manning: 1st role was the missing piece for non-traditional generalist type of talent. Within a hugely specialized organization there was 0 career path

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Elizabeth Manning: for anyone that wasn't a scientist, a physician, a data. You know it very structured functions. This created the first.st So office managers started getting career paths and administrative assistants. And we created this

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Elizabeth Manning: project management type of role that was outside of the study project manager and that created career paths for people in all different directions in the organization, and it still exists.

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Elizabeth Manning: But it also inspired specialists, which I thought was one of the coolest things for me. When people there experts world experts, you know, coming and saying

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Elizabeth Manning: you're inspiring me because I never would have thought to connect

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Elizabeth Manning: this with that. And I'm really passionate about that. I'm kind of curious about that. I didn't realize there could be an opportunity for me to explore that. And so they saw it getting done. And so I was then coaching. You know, people 4 levels up for me, just brainstorming. How they could put different pieces of their skill sets and their passions together to see what new value they could offer. And so that grew. But

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Elizabeth Manning: that was the initial process. And then from there it was the okay. You solved this problem. You evolved it, and then you get to the end of the year. You try to do your end of your reviews, none of your objectives from the beginning match. What you actually did. How do we solve this? Oh, we create a new role. So that was what happened for

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Elizabeth Manning: probably 3 or 4 rounds of the evolution, until finally, at the end, the

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Elizabeth Manning: the person that had really been sponsoring me in essence the whole time kind of said, I need you to do

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Elizabeth Manning: change for the digital business transformation, the board reporting the this, the that I'm just gonna call it strategic initiatives lead. So we can stop.

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Elizabeth Manning: That was where I landed and partnered with the Executive Committee, partnered with steering committees, advised, created a whole training structure for other change. Managers developed, you know, different infrastructure. So

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Elizabeth Manning: that worked the best, and I would make that recommendation to anyone trying to do it, to go ahead and think

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Elizabeth Manning: generally, once you've established yourself as that go to, because then they they can actually see the necessity for

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Elizabeth Manning: the diversity within a role.

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Elizabeth Manning: And then you can create specific

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Elizabeth Manning: actions and and measures for it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So much to respond to strategic initiatives. Lead is so fascinating because it's like, instead of let me see if I if I have this right just for clarification, instead of creating, like the role for each project that is, then time bound, and all of that there was a recognition that, having this generalist, with all of the skills that you articulated as like a a resource that the organization can tap into for subsequent strategic initiatives

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: was a Epiphany for them. Is that is that what I heard.

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Elizabeth Manning: Very much so. And I became that person then enterprise, level risk management. You're our represent anything that was in that cross, functional

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Elizabeth Manning: cross, disciplinary space. I was then the perfect person for that, and I partnered well with the Chief of Staff for the organization that my position actually sat within. So it was also really helpful for that person who's in charge of kind of seeing what's going on, but never has the bandwidth to actually drive the strategy for it all.

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Elizabeth Manning: So it was a good way of flow insights from other groups, insights to other groups. And then, for instance, in the risk management.

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Elizabeth Manning: I joined that committee, Shannon and I sat there in the 1st meeting and said.

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Elizabeth Manning: I think this is the 1st time where I might be saying, Who is this? Why am I? Why are you at the table?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm kidding.

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Elizabeth Manning: The level of specialization that they were talking about.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: I had not been exposed to, nor honestly did I want to be

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Elizabeth Manning: to to the depth that I was hearing about it. So I started, say, asking questions. I can't

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Elizabeth Manning: get into the weeds of what you're talking about, but what I'm seeing is.

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Elizabeth Manning: where's the connection between this and this? You seem like you're talking about the same thing.

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Elizabeth Manning: you know, and when we talk about a trial, why, only one function has it. But then 3 other functions are seemingly replicating that because it's also a risk in technology, it's also a risk in it.

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Elizabeth Manning: So I ended up being that person that at 1st I thought I was way out of my league and ended up being the one that was the most visionary, and helped them really rethink about risk management at an enterprise level.

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Elizabeth Manning: That's right. So it's totally abort.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah, we totally went away from the functional only risks, and decided this committee was really for that enterprise level. How do we redefine those so that we can work together towards the same objective so that we can mitigate and inform? And

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Elizabeth Manning: yeah, it was crazy. So for me, I was like, this is obvious. Why are you? Why are you not doing it? But ended up positioning me as a really important strategic leader on that organization. Because again, they're all from that functional, specialized

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Elizabeth Manning: traditional model. They're amazing in their own rights and in that specialization. But the the systems, thinking beyond their function

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Elizabeth Manning: was one not normal and 2. They honestly didn't have the privilege.

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Elizabeth Manning: the luxury of being able to think

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Elizabeth Manning: about everybody else. You know, it's just.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: So much, and it's not right to expect every

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Elizabeth Manning: leader to be able to see everything. So I really think the partnership model and the collaborative model that catalyst typically bring is an advantage, not.

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Elizabeth Manning: you know, just a Band-aid. I think it's a that's a good model of partnering.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally agree.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: the I'm gonna recap a little bit. And then I have some specific follow ups I wanna

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: talk about. But so the one of the things that we're talking about right now is the difference between when people think about organizational structures like the old model is like you'd have an org structure, and you'd build it in concrete and cement. And it was like, you know, that would that would be the way that the organization was supposed to work for the next 3 to 5 years strategic cycle, or whatever. And the way that we're thinking about it now is actually you have to have Legos. It's a Lego structure, because you have to be able to. And this is what sounds like you do is like, pick up pieces of these

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: skill sets and the cross functional teams. And like, Okay, we're gonna pull these Legos over here now to solve this problem. And then you go back and and have that agility.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: There's some interesting questions there, though, or some challenges that I'm guessing you encountered, one is, how do we articulate value? And this is a challenge we know that catalysts have because we are both the convener. So it often feels inauthentic to be like. And this team created a billion dollar product. And you're like all I did was facilitate right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And we're often so in service of it that it feels disingenuous to even talk about the value, or it happened after we left. So like one is, how did you articulate the value? The next is connected to that like, how do you find executive sponsors who, especially in kind of maybe cement operating silos right now understand that value and and can advocate for it. And the 3rd one you talked about a little bit is like the impossible

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: syndrome. Like as we're creating these new roles or getting pulled into new roles where we don't have the domain expertise. And actually, the value is as a generalist. But like, I'm guessing the risk people at the beginning, you know, you're like, I don't know about risk. And they're like, we don't know about you.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So those are 3 things I'd like you to unpack, because I think that this is a like. It's a real ambition for catalyst to be able to do what you did. But I'm that there were challenges in those areas along the way.

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Elizabeth Manning: I'll start from the last, and then I'll ask you to remind me the other 2, I think, with the risk one, and to clarify it. I was coming in as the representative for all of clinical development. So if anyone knows anything about

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Elizabeth Manning: research, clinical development is huge and hugely regulated, it's everything has to be systematic, repetitive, repeatable, all of that. And so here I am.

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Elizabeth Manning: the dancer, the creative, the all of that representing that group which was an interesting evolution, anyways, but it does speak to where that sponsor. So I'll tease that answer where that sponsor was visionary in and of herself

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Elizabeth Manning: to latch on to me as the representative of that part of the group.

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Elizabeth Manning: So within that space, how did that happen? I think what's really big on the imposter syndrome for me is when I went to Hr. And I could get the paper that said

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Elizabeth Manning: here because they have it. They have an outline of the types of accountability, the types of responsibility, the types of competency that mirror every grade level.

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Elizabeth Manning: And when I got that and was able to review it and see. Oh, wait!

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Elizabeth Manning: I am! I'm doing this. I'm not doing support help.

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Elizabeth Manning: you know. Follow on, follow up edit I was creating, and I was guiding, and I was facilitating, and I was challenging, and

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Elizabeth Manning: I was getting the important conversations to be had. I was finding the root causes that were actually the problems and avoiding us, you know, spending time in the symptoms. So

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Elizabeth Manning: that really helped me get the arsenal.

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Elizabeth Manning: The other thing that was outside of the company. I had a mentor that told me you're a rock in their shoe.

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Elizabeth Manning: and they don't want to rock in their shoe, so you just need to know that.

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Elizabeth Manning: And I thought, I'm gonna prove them wrong, and I didn't prove it wrong.

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Elizabeth Manning: and they didn't most didn't want to rock in their shoe. But I was a good one, so.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Awesome.

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Elizabeth Manning: I think part of that was, he suggested. I take the strength finder, which was the 1.0 at the time, but that also helped me a lot, because it really gave language that I could feel substantiated what I bring in a professional setting, especially as a dancer and a communications background. You know, those were things that aren't hugely

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Elizabeth Manning: thought of as respectable in a pharma space. So it really helped me start to see. Okay, intuition is an actual skill. I can say that out loud. I can say my intuition is one of the, you know, strong suits rather than trying to dance around it because of fear that people see it as too fluffy.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right.

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Elizabeth Manning: But, like you said, when you can combine that with

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Elizabeth Manning: the conversation you are able to help, people have, they see it.

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Elizabeth Manning: and when you see them see it? You realize, okay.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: The value.

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Elizabeth Manning: Actually doing that like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah. Totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: This is legit.

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Elizabeth Manning: They're shifting. So yeah, that that really helps. So I would say.

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Elizabeth Manning: really getting that hr, like, I said at the beginning. You know that that Hr. Partner? I like. I said it was not intentional. I didn't realize it until looking back, but those were key advantages. Having that relationship.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah. So we're repeating that back role clarity, which even if it's like the not tech, not the hard tech skills, but like what you are supposed to be doing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: having a mentor who can help you see what your role is for, better or worse, and being able to embrace that sort of the self-awareness and the self evaluation. Like, you know, the strength finder is a super good one, but it's like, what are my superpowers, and then how do you? And we work with catalysts a lot. We're teaching a class on this in a couple of weeks, like, how do you create a personal brand and articulate your value as a catalyst, because if you can understand how other people are articulated.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: your value when you're not in the room, that's a great thing for you to be able to do so. Those are the 2 starting points that I had like. How did you articulate your value? And how did your maybe? How did you find an exec sponsor? And how did they articulate your value.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: A big pivot was one year I was invited to the leadership Forum, which was the executive Committee, and then the N minus ones globally. That's they came together once a year to really hone in on the strategies, the key objectives that kind of thing. For the next year.

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Elizabeth Manning: Every year they invited different people as representatives of different themes, that they were, gonna be focused on that year. They invited people, they thought, were solid representatives of the culture they want to evolve into, and how bringing that culture to life really looks versus, you know, the slide sets and and all of that. And speaking of work.

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Elizabeth Manning: so I was one of the few that came for that purpose.

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Elizabeth Manning: But what it did for me

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Elizabeth Manning: having access to that conversation was a game changer.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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Elizabeth Manning: When I could hear how they at that level

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Elizabeth Manning: really talked about things and what was really important, and what questions they were really digging into, and what they were kind of not digging into and then seeing them define

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Elizabeth Manning: what they expect as outcomes to things.

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Elizabeth Manning: That was a game changer for me. I went from driving everyone crazy. That managed me with a 12 page year End review, because I had to explain every little thing and its value, because no one really understood, like we were talking about

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Elizabeth Manning: to the most concise one I ever had, and my manager going. What in the world happened. This is the best thing I've ever seen. I know exactly what what you're doing. This is exactly how we can build on it, you know. So, being able to find access

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Elizabeth Manning: to those conversations and really hear what's being said and how the conversations are going. Was huge for me. Because then I was like, Okay, I can see this. I can hear this. I know what it's really saying.

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Elizabeth Manning: Now I know I can tap directly all the way to what they're exact. That level is expecting as an output. And I know how I can impact that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's right. And I think what happens to us is we

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: the signals that we get from organizations.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: especially earlier in our careers. We might be showing up, as the really unfriendly rock in the shoe is, stay to the side like we might want what you have. But it's this special project or this thing here. But really, what we talked to catalyst about is, you need to understand what the top 3 initiatives are for the organization and not be peripheral and peripheral, and align your value, and what you're doing to how you're going to help them solve their top 3

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: initiatives, or whatever I'd love for you to talk a little bit, because I know you experienced that on the on the journey.

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Elizabeth Manning: Definitely and especially with my journey, being as a dancer and and communications person. So what I saw as important was not what other people saw as important, and what they saw as important I saw is ridiculous for the longest time. So that year in conversation was really painful. A lot of the time until I started to realize, like, you're saying, how what I'm doing actually does drive the outcomes.

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Elizabeth Manning: So that took me being very curious.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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Elizabeth Manning: And

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Elizabeth Manning: looking at that, not as something I resented because I did. I resented measurement. I resented Kpis all of that because I was such a people person. I am such a people person, but I had to realize what the utility of it is.

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Elizabeth Manning: and why they need that.

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Elizabeth Manning: And when you can see the the pressures

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Elizabeth Manning: on the leaders that you're trying to influence.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: The empathy? Totally. Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: And so then it really is still your same skill of empathy. But you're realizing, what are they getting pinned to the wall for?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: And how much are they trying to manage? And so that's a twofold learning for me, one. How to find what, how to help them do what's most frustrating, what they can't figure out.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's right.

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Elizabeth Manning: And that was my strategy at every level. I would say, you know, there's a lot of articles out there of how to do this, and I think the one Achilles heel to them is that they all say, ask someone how you can help.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yep.

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Elizabeth Manning: That's not a good question, because they don't know how you.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: No, totally yep.

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Elizabeth Manning: And they'll say you can go file this, you can go copy that. And I had one that I had to stroke his ego, and I was filing his

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Elizabeth Manning: his publications in his binder. Okay, fine. But over here

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Elizabeth Manning: I saw this other physician who was frustrated and time bogged down, looking through listings and listings, and I asked him, What are you looking for?

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Elizabeth Manning: It's like I have to find every fall

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Elizabeth Manning: like a fall, as an as an event that happened, and then I have to look to see if this is in the range of this and this, and I have to highlight it.

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Elizabeth Manning: And I said.

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Elizabeth Manning: Hey, lead physician on this huge global project. You probably have other things that are very aligned to what only a physician can do.

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Elizabeth Manning: Why are you doing it that way? Well, this is how I have to do it. I have to go through. So I found his frustration point. I understood. I got curious to find out what is really, what do you have to achieve?

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Elizabeth Manning: And then I went

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Elizabeth Manning: and talk to other people without him knowing. I went to the programmer. I went to the Stat programmer, the statistician, and said, Hey.

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Elizabeth Manning: is there really not a way we can reprogram this list to already have this parameter and this. And she was like.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah, I think I can.

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Elizabeth Manning: Can you try that? So we did. It gave it to him. Voila! He's got all the time, and then I was a strategic partner. Then I helped

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Elizabeth Manning: that report.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: What was the meat of his, you know. So I think those kind of

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Elizabeth Manning: really getting curious to figure out what they're accountable for, what's frustrating them, what they can't solve.

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Elizabeth Manning: and then, finding

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Elizabeth Manning: the channels to to go look for what's the best way? Is there a way to solve this rather than say he would have never.

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Elizabeth Manning: when I did say, How can I help? He said, well, you can go highlight. All these word falls when you see it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right? Oh, yeah, totally. And I love that example. Not I mean, not that that's not strategic, but it might not be solving the whole big initiative that he was doing. But like, when we teach the class, one of the things that we teach is like as you're bringing people along on the journey, you have to demonstrate credibility and impact. And so, like the ability to listen the empathy and solve a what feels like to them. A large problem right in the moment, and a small problem. And then you're given the sort of keys to the kingdom. So.

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Elizabeth Manning: Seeing the pieces to know.

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Elizabeth Manning: Here's the thought process that makes it strategic. I saw the lead physician not having enough time to do what everyone needed from him.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: The whole effort of hitting this 6 month in a 12 month work in 6 months time, all the other bottlenecks from that person not being able to hit it.

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Elizabeth Manning: the weight on him so he wasn't showing up at his best. The relationships between those other people was strange. So it's seeing the impact of all of that on this. We've got to hit this in 6 months.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's a great example.

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Elizabeth Manning: Not let me look at that paper and figure out how to make this small task better. Yes, I did that. But the the systems, thinking behind it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's right.

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Elizabeth Manning: Was that that's a route pro. There is a critical path. This is limiting the critical path. This solution can fix that, and it will peripherally ex accelerate the other things, because they will be showing up in a better headspace with, you know, more focused energy where they need to be, and all of that. So

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Elizabeth Manning: they didn't even see it strategically, like I was seeing it so really.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: Was looking at more strategic than they were. And then that was a replicable solution for all the future submissions as well. So yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I was. Gonna say, it gets people thinking differently about how they can do the problem solving, too, like you don't have to be in the room to unlock all of those other things they're like, oh, if we had just looked at it this way, we could have solved bigger problems or other.

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Elizabeth Manning: Like coaching for the statisticians to even see themselves differently.

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Elizabeth Manning: to not see themselves as transactional. You know. You tell me what you need as the listing. I'll give the output with no thinking as to

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Elizabeth Manning: what's that supposed to be accomplishing? Can I do something for you better?

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Elizabeth Manning: And through that experience those statisticians and those statistical programmers and the, you know, the Peripheral Service Internal Service providers

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Elizabeth Manning: started shifting from a transactional. Okay, I'll just do what they asked to understanding what was needed, and how they could deliver something better.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: Elevate, it elevates all the organizations. So ripple effects is how I measure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yes.

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Elizabeth Manning: That never worked. At the end of the year.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That leadership Forum was so important. I always was, you know. You'll never see the end of the ripple, but it is cool when you can see it over at least a

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: of working that are disseminating across the organization and causing, you know, creating efficiencies totally.

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Elizabeth Manning: Sticking.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's right. That's right. Because people like see the impact, which is, you know, super powerful for people, because it's solving something for them, too. They can go to their boss and be like, here's here's what I did for the business.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah, yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: All right as we come to a close. I would love to ask you about who your favorite inspirational catalyst is, past or present, and why.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah. And I think you had wanted me to talk about mentors, and we didn't get necessarily to that. I think I will speak to it briefly, because

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Elizabeth Manning: for me the strategy for mentors was never overt. It was

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Elizabeth Manning: tapping into who I saw as effective challengers

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Elizabeth Manning: and getting curious, just reaching out, What are you doing? What is your work, you know? And then saying, Oh, I see the connection here. Have you ever thought of that? And then

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Elizabeth Manning: those types of people like having partners, but they don't have the time or energy to look for them. So when you can bring yourself

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Elizabeth Manning: to them. And then sometimes they did come to me like

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Elizabeth Manning: my the Cmo. That ultimately helped me.

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Elizabeth Manning: She said that she noticed me constantly asking the right questions, good questions that led to solutions, whereas the majority of her people

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Elizabeth Manning: look for the solutions and are trying to come up with answers.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: Do, at least because she's innovative enough herself.

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Elizabeth Manning: She knew at least that that was a big difference that was really important to be as innovative as she wanted to be.

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Elizabeth Manning: So that was a way that she ended up, starting to trust me before I realized I was on the radar kind of thing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's that's that's amazing. And it's a super important point. Because, as we're especially as we're thinking about carving our own path through organizations, having someone at the C-suite who understands the value that you're bringing. That's not afraid of the ripples

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: that you're creating potentially, and can be that voice in the room. That's both, you know, talking about you when you're not in the room, but talking about your value when you're not in the room. I think that's super important. And it's like, you know, if you if if after a while, as a catalyst, you can't find that executive sponsor in your organization, I think it's a good moment for that sort of strategic pause and be like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: what does that mean for my future? Here? Yeah, thanks. Thanks.

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Elizabeth Manning: Because I'll say she is actually the person. That is the answer for your your roundup question of who is the.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing.

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Elizabeth Manning: It's really because I know so clearly that it would have never all of that. All this evolution in my own life, and my own thinking and my own learning. I saw the world I

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Elizabeth Manning: trained in Japan, you know, all these different things would never be possible if she hadn't seen something, and she hadn't herself been a innovator at heart, and just not know how to get the organization to do what she knew could be done. So she saw me as a person that could help get

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Elizabeth Manning: the you know, the connection between A and B, where? Where? She saw B very clearly and struggled with the connection. Iris Low, Friedrich.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay, we'll put a link to her and.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah, for sure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And maybe have conversation round 2 to get the 2 perspectives about what that looks like, you know, for the executives who are like, you know, catalyst executives that are out there, even catalyst allies and be like. Look if you can find and support even one of these people in your organization. Look at the impact that it can have. Imagine having a cohort of 30.

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Elizabeth Manning: And she did. She had to go for bat for me a lot, because you make people uncomfortable, and and especially leaders. I was able to get the broader organization to go bold, much better than leaders were willing to. And really, yeah, she she was willing to defend her vision and my ability to help get us to her vision.

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Elizabeth Manning: So she was also able to educate me on when

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Elizabeth Manning: I needed to start pulling back. And that's something that reflective after being there. That's 1 of my personal key learnings is that

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Elizabeth Manning: I felt so much pressure because of I was in this isolated role.

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Elizabeth Manning: Yeah.

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Elizabeth Manning: still organizationally supported. So I went hard, hard to try to deliver the value. I knew I could, because I thought I was, you know, so much at risk being isolated. So

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Elizabeth Manning: there's there's a lot that happens there, whereas now I realize I should have given them more grace. Not that I should have quit because I always struggled with the you should let it go.

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Elizabeth Manning: That was the worst thing, but now I see it as you should.

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Elizabeth Manning: But now that you can see what they're facing and what they're up against. You can better understand where they're coming from. So yeah, I think.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Super fine line.

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Elizabeth Manning: Critical.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, we we talk about it in class. It's a super fine line between the driving and the empathy and the bringing people along. So also self compassion for yourself, like you were on your own journey, and we do the best that we can and drive is something that organizations profit from, you know. So

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: yeah, Elizabeth, thank you. This was such an amazing conversation to all of the generalists and catalysts out there. It is possible to carve your own pathway.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and and again, a good idea, because you get clarity on what you're, you know, an alignment on what you're bringing to the organization. So thank you again for being part.

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Elizabeth Manning: Thanks for having me.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And to our listening audience. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to learn more about how to create bold, powerful change in the world. Be sure to check out our book, move fast, break, shit, burn out, or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please take 10 seconds to rate it on itunes, spotify stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and of course. If you have other catalysts or generalists in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way. Thanks again.