George White, Director at Slalom: Walking the Catalyst Knife Edge

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon Lucas. I'm 1 of the co-ceos of catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalyst to create bold, powerful change in the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: This is our podcast move, fast, break ship burnout where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation in large organizations. And I'm thrilled today to have my good friend George White, with us here. Hi, George!

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George White: Hey, Shannon, how are you?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm good.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm excited for listeners. Yeah, our conversations are always super fun. I'm super excited. George is the director at Slalom and former chief innovation officer at Katina. He also is an adjunct at mass art, where he teaches prototyping. He's worked on a wide range of products and services. I love these examples from 401 K providers to Internet connected dog collars. He's also the board chair of the code design collaborative.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and you cannot have a conversation with George without learning something, and being, you know, a little bit provocative, so thrilled to have you. But that's just like this baby intro. I'd love to hear your journey and your words in a way that might share your catalytic nature along the way.

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George White: Yeah, absolutely. So. I think I was destined to do something catalytic. Probably from the very beginning. I've always been kind of, you know. Catalysts are interesting, right? They drive change, but they don't get consumed themselves by that change, and I think I was always that way. I was reflecting the other day on a memory I have of being. I think it was 1st grade, and the teachers reading to the class, and me crawling off to go read a comic book.

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George White: right? Or something that was like more interesting to me. I've always been kind of a little bit different, a little bit focused on different things. I think I see things a little bit different than folks do, and that's been good and bad from a catalytic perspective. It's both helped me make the progress I've made. It's helped me help others make progress. But at the same time it's also set me apart. Sometimes it sets me outside, and I think so. One of the challenges always is figuring out how to bring myself in line enough

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George White: while still keeping that catalytic behavior. And I think that that's that's always been an interesting challenge. So happy to talk more about the the exact journey. But you know, I think that's that's how I think about it broadly.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that last piece, and I guess maybe just share with us. Then a time or 2 along your way where that's been a challenge, and how you've dealt with it.

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George White: Oh, yeah. So I've got a lot of those. But I actually remember one very specific thing where there was a company. I was at a few years ago there was a sort of an idea that we were going to go ahead and create some new change in product, and I was very, very, very much against it, and I had a very, very clear idea of why I was against it. And I remember in the meeting people saying, Yeah, but I kept saying, Yeah, but no.

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George White: And I realized that I was trying to direct them in a new way of thinking about what they were doing, not saying no, but saying, Okay, I see what you're saying, but there's a better way to accomplish your thing, and I got very, very heated about their particular way of thinking about it.

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George White: and I remember afterwards I went to several people who were in the meeting, and I apologized for my, you know, being overly heated about this thing, and several of them like, you know, I get it. You're just trying to redirect us and trying to think about you're really trying to catalyze the change we want, like, yes, absolutely. And then I went to other some other person, she said, no, you know you're so smart, and you're so capable we really appreciate it. And we really need to help us figure out how to make it. The thing we want to have happen happen? I went. No, no, no, you misunderstand. I'm apologizing for my attitude about how I tried to change what you're thinking. I'm not trying to apologize for trying to change your thinking

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George White: so like. That's 1 of those those things where.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I think it.

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George White: It's come up a lot. And I also think there's a lot of things where

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George White: I had something the other day. Happen where I was in a meeting with a with a client, and we were expressing sort of how to talk about desirability, viability, feasibility in their products. And what could happen there, and at 1 point I'd laid out several different models in this huge whiteboard they had in their office, and all of which, trying to again get her to think differently about exactly how her product could go to market.

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George White: And you know some of these were very clear things of sort of lining up the feature set with the customer need, and lining up the value with the way the customers want to do things, and all that very like, and I love frameworks. By the way, for anyone who's ever met me. And Chen, you know this about me, I think, in metaphors, and I love frameworks. I want to hang all my thinking off of models, I would say.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Encyclopedic knowledge about frameworks. And yeah.

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George White: I try, although I'm I'm starting to center down on a few that really matter to me. And actually one of the ones you mentioned. My adjunct course at Massart is around prototyping, and there's a framework called the Hode model of prototyping. And basically, it answers the question, what do prototypes prototype

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George White: essentially breaks the world down to 3 things, roles

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George White: look and feel, and the implementation, all of which head towards integration.

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George White: All this is basically to say, when you're asking a question with a prototype, right? All prototypes are used to design things. You want to know which of these areas, generally speaking, and then it may be some overlap right? It may be something that's look and feel and role which is really about like what it's for. In other words, what does the audience need? And what do you want to build feature set wise? Some may be more look and feel implementation, more implementation like, Oh, is it made of metal or wood. That kind of thing, anyway, I had said to myself at the beginning of this, when I was laying out all these different frameworks. I'm not going to put the Hode model in there

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George White: and then, late in the conversation, the customers, yeah, but I really want to know

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George White: what my customers are doing.

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George White: And I said, Oh, okay, well, and now I have to show you the hood model. And I started to show it to her. And she said, Okay, that's great. I get look and feel, I get implementation. But what's role? I don't understand role. And almost nobody ever gets role the 1st time. And I said, Okay, so the way you tend to think about prototypes is, probably you're going to build a prototype, and then you're going to give it to your customer. They're going to validate something for you.

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George White: But what if you change that relationship around? What if they gave you a prototype? And you learned from that about what their hopes and dreams are.

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George White: Hmm!

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George White: And she went, oh, okay, wait. So I said, All right. How about this for your thing, which let's just say that it involved a large language model Chatbot. Essentially, I said, Well, how about this? What about your prototype is? And I drew 2 boxes, one line and 2 words.

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George White: The outer box was the sheet of the whole interface.

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George White: The line had the word prompt next to it, and then the word result underneath that with that second box I said, what you do

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George White: is you go to your customer and you say, write your prompt for me.

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George White: Tell me what you would ask this machine. I don't need to know if the machine really works or not. I just need you to tell me what you would say, and then draw for me what the machine resulted in telling you. Write that out, too.

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George White: And now, even with that just simple piece of paper, you've learned a lot about what your customers needs are, how they think and what they want to do and what's going to happen. And she said, You know, and I'm going to sound like I'm I'm patting myself in the back here. I'm not. But she said, oh, that's brilliant.

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George White: I say all this, and that extends to what I just told to say, that is being a catalyst

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George White: that is basically saying, Hey, I have in my tool set a whole bunch of different ways to think differently

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George White: about not only what you want to accomplish, but how you're going to think about the tools that you already know and have.

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George White: And then how to simplify that down to something that's going to be so valuable. You're going to learn a lot from something as dumb as 2 boxes, a line and 2 words.

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George White: That to me is a is a big driver of sort of that. That catalytic behavior is is really being able to move

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George White: up and down the ladder of abstraction to be able to say, Hey, I've got some really interesting thoughts. Well, not interesting. I have some thoughts.

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George White: And then, being willing to expose your thoughts so actually like, I said, not necessarily interesting thoughts. But when your mind goes down interesting paths or different paths, you find interesting share that with others.

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George White: That is, a driver of being a catalyst is saying, hey, I've just got a different thought that that's in here. Maybe let's see if we can explore it together.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: One clarifying question, Hode, how do you spell? What is the Hode model? I've never.

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George White: HOUD e.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: HOUD okay.

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George White: And it can be found in a paper online called, What Do Prototypes prototype.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Awesome.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I want to go back. It's it's sort of like a circular question. I want to go back because I think it's so. It's such a good insight and description. It's you're like, I sort of had one foot out. I was on the edge and one foot inside, and that's like where catalysts. That's what you're talking about. This tension of. I'm scanning out here. I'm learning all of these different things.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Need to be able to bring it back into my customer, my organization, whatever and you shared a story which I love which deeply resonates with me about like how we cannot do that well sometimes, and like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Away. So I'm wondering if you have examples or or tools that you've used to navigate that balance and not go too far in one direction, and import.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Bring people along on the journey, because no matter how right we are, if we've if they've all left the room, and they're never gonna talk to us again. What does

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: right?

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George White: Well, so I think part of the reason I like frameworks, so much is frameworks. Help me to explain

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George White: what I'm thinking

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George White: right. My brain goes all over the place all the time. I mean, you might have even heard it in this call right? I had to dive way down into that model to come all the way back to finish telling my story. So my brain is moving all the time in all sorts of different things. My thoughts are not linear. Nobody's thoughts are really linear. But I know.

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George White: as you and I have discussed actually in the past, I know enough about my own thinking to know that my thoughts aren't leaders. So for me, the frameworks are a tool to direct my thoughts and theirs.

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George White: They basically are a model that sits between us to facilitate communication.

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George White: and when I haven't had those frameworks, when I haven't had that moment of being able to run to the whiteboard or pull out a piece of paper, or just be able to take the moment to illustrate. I think that's when there's the most disconnection. So I think that's actually one of the reasons why I do it. And I think the same thing is true with the metaphors is.

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George White: I'm thinking, something, and it's easier

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George White: to give someone a parallel right, an analogy, or a metaphor, or something else that helps them to connect their known experience to the New World experience. Again, that inside outside piece. And so, as we spend all of our time as catalysts, often absorbing lots of information and synthesizing information, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly.

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George White: but constantly and always bringing that information. Every catalyst I've ever met is a information gatherer. They are all constantly trying to learn and gather so many things. They're always fascinated by learning new things.

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George White: We then channel that into

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George White: how do we turn that into something? And you need to. You need a good way to you need a process or a structure to do that, because otherwise you'll be all over the place. So I think that's that's 1 way that I've sort of helped myself and others

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George White: to achieve the goals I have for them.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, it's a powerful combination. I remember one of our first, st our 1st conversations when you joined the Catalyst Leadership Trust was about

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: storytelling and.

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George White: Hmm.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Masterful at like bringing the frameworks to elucidate the thing that you're talking about. But even as you were doing that, you were packaging that up in a story about how you were using

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and I'm curious like, because even sometimes when we do that, our our visions can be too too big for people, or they're still like the the they're not connecting their catalyst, their their non catalyst brain is not necessarily connecting. I'm just wondering what it feels like to have a place where you can be with people where their brains are working at speed with you.

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George White: Yeah, it's it's a good question. And oh, by the way, sorry podcast. Listeners, there's a possibility. You might be hearing my dog barking in the background. If you are.

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George White: she's just excited about this. Podcast

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George White: yeah. So sorry. Say that again, so really about the thought of sort of thinking about how I think about getting people into into sort of that same thinking, that same speed with me.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Well, I mean, it's like we we don't. We often don't have a lot of people in our organizations who are moving at speed. So I.

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George White: Yeah, yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I'm just so. I'm just wondering, like, how you know, how important is it for you to have people where you can just be like. Oh, my God! I don't slow down. I don't have to.

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George White: Yeah, it's incredibly important. In fact, actually, any. The biggest professional

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George White: challenge I have is finding people to play with.

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George White: Actually, I don't really like that term. I well, 1st off, you know me well enough to know that I like talking about play. I think play is essential to the job that we do as catalysts, but playmates sounds somewhat infantilizing, and this isn't. There isn't. There is a childish aspect of this. There's a childhood embracing that creativity of childhood that matters. But we're doing something as adults here. And so let's actually use a slightly different term. I think collaboration

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George White: is vital to all major things that people do right. It's what society is built on.

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George White: A big frustration for me, as a catalyst is finding those collaborators who are able to move at the speed I want to, as you said, who are willing to actually express their ideas as openly as I'm willing to express my ideas. They're willing to sort of play in that same sandbox of space that I'm willing to play in.

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George White: But actually, for me, what I found is, I need people who are who are better transitioners between sort of the the normal pace of things and what I do. So if you think about it, as I'm very good at thinking about

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George White: how we go far. I need somebody who can go with me, but not so far that they can't pull back.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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George White: And actually say, Wait a minute. How are we going to bring this into the rest of the organization? That may be not moving at our speed. So finding that set of collaborators, and I've always felt

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George White: that that is really important to have that set of peers. When I was at Cantina. I really didn't enjoy being a manager.

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George White: but I loved being able to help lead teams and my job. There wasn't really to actually pull them to something or push them to something. It was to support them in achieving our shared goals

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George White: and so building up teams that have that where we've got a lot of people that can work together to achieve those goals. And I'm just there to kind of like, Hey, nudge a little bit, maybe sometimes get out front a little bit, but always be collaborating. That's key. So yeah, that's probably my single biggest frustration is when I'm not in environments where that exists.

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George White: I've I have not done as well

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George White: when that lacks. And actually, it's part of the reason why I'm in the Talis Leadership Trust. The Clt.

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George White: Reminds me of many of those things, and actually gives me people who who understand those challenges and can give me some very clear ideas of exactly how

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George White: I can continue to build that team.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, it can be. It can be so lonely right? But I wanna I love where you landed at the end

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: about that, because

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: you know, especially as you're as we're coming up. We're taught by society like you should be headed up this hierarchical thing to achieve greatness.

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George White: And.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Part of that is usually, if you have to become a manager, a manager of people, and all of the things. But I liked the twist that you had, and I'm wondering if you have advice, for, like, you know, up and coming catalyst where it's like, you know, you were talking earlier about the difference between leadership and and management. And it's like you know, you can be a leader without managing the directly you know

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and I think it's a role that catalysts often find themselves in. But it's not a place that we get a lot of training like how to lead without having the manager role. So I'm wondering if you have any advice for.

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George White: Yeah. So so this is a good place to talk about, sort of organizational structures a little bit, and maybe actually one of my favorite metaphors, for this was just Gordon Mackenzie's pyramid in the plum tree.

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George White: So Mackenzie, in his book, orbiting the giant hairball, talks a little bit about sort of the traditional structure. Many people think of management as sort of pyramidal.

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George White: the management, Ceos and executive team at the top middle management. Basically, the people who are truly managers right? Whose job is to take the directives from the CEO and the rest of the C-suite and the executive team, and then make it happen. And then workers at the bottom. And Mackenzie points out that this is sort of

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George White: dry and dusty and dead, like all pyramids, right? And stuff rolls downhill, and nobody really wants that. And basically, people at the bottom of the organization are always wondering why they're doing the things they're doing. Middle managers are kind of caught in this weird position between leadership who has vision theoretically, and I usually scare, quotes folks for those who can't see this. But you know, and then. And the middle managers are trying to like, basically make sure the metrics are getting met

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George White: and Mckenzie inverts this in touch with the plum Tree, a living organization where management's actually the roots at the bottom of it. The leadership is at the roots and the management through management structure. The middle managers are really the trunk of that thing, they're supporting it. And then all the workers and all the people who are getting stuff done on the line are all the leaves and flowers and things that the tree produces, and the whole goal of that thing is basically to sort of move nutrients in

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George White: you know the growth comes from that from those leaves. Right? The photosynthesis is what's really creating the energy for that whole thing to work. And I love that metaphor

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George White: for catalysts. Here's a challenge

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George White: because of who we are and how we think and what we do. It's very, very rare for us to rise to the very top.

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George White: If you think about the pyramid structure of an organization, it's really really rare. We're not good as a general class at being the Ceos or Ctos of a business. We might be chief innovation officers. Occasionally you'll have a finance officer show up as the catalyst. It does happen, but it's very rare.

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George White: And so, if you're not at the very top, and you can't be in that vision setting thing in a traditional sort of pyramid structure, you end up, being sort of at the bottom of the top or at the top of the middle. If you will, you usually will rise to a level of not just being

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George White: a line manager. You'll actually be someone who will be put in charge of something, an innovation team, or some sort of new initiatives or something to help drive creativity in the organization, and that's great, except that you're still subordinate to that top level vision, and you don't get as much chance to influence it.

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George White: So in that traditional pyramid structure, catalysts are in a very

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George White: rough place, because we're not managers. But we're in with the managers.

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George White: And so I say all this to say that what really needs to happen is we need to change our way of thinking both as catalysts and actually, or as organizations as a whole is saying, let's relook at the role like with the plum tree metaphor so relook at the role of middle management as actually a way of bringing that energy and those nutrients in place. And yeah, you're there to make sure the structure of the tree still exists like a trunk holds the whole tree up right. But part of your job is to help to move things up and down.

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George White: and if that's the case, then now it becomes much easier for catalyst to fit in, because now everybody isn't a catalyst. But everyone is invested in this growth of the organization rather than structurally holding it up and trying to force things downhill. We're actually all seeing it as a two-way flow. And now it becomes much more natural.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I totally buy into that. How do we find the organizations that are using the plum tree model instead of the pyramid model?

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George White: Okay. So unfortunately, we have to create them.

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George White: And that's gonna be hard for us as catalysts. And actually for everybody to do, because it's not always a natural structure for human beings. We like hierarchical structures. There's reason for command and control, and all these other things. But it's not the only structure we have. There are other ways to think about it. Sorry, I'm going to say the Western capitalist way of doing it, which is like there's a boss, and the boss is in charge, and the boss provides incentives in the form of pay, and then workers do stuff

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George White: I have always felt for years. And and whenever I say this to people

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George White: the 1st time I say it, many people look at me like I'm like, I'm I'm basically jumping on a soapbox and talking about, you know Socialism or something. But in an organization everyone pays everyone else.

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George White: I don't care if you're the CEO or the janitor. Your work, if it is in any way aligned with the business and it should be.

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George White: is work that will make that business productive. So some portion of your salary, whether you're making $30,000 a year or 3 million dollars a year is being divided up.

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George White: All the work that you create is being divided up to actually pay everybody else. So we're all in this together.

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George White: So we have to create organizations that understand that we're all in this together. So we need to be focused on impact. What is the organization going to be? And that has to be. Everybody in the organization understands what the impact is meant to be.

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George White: We have to be focused on the outcomes that we want to drive. What are the things that we want that will make that impact happen. Impact is and outcomes are often confused as being the same thing. They're not. Impact is the change you want to see in the world. Outcomes are the things that do or do not drive that impact.

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George White: I can go and do something in my organization, build a new technology platform or something like that.

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George White: And it doesn't, there'll be an outcome.

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George White: But if it doesn't achieve the the next set of impact, if it doesn't further the direction of the arrow of impact. Then it was useless, not useless, but it was. It was not in line with the impact I intend to have, and so

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George White: impact and outcomes all the things you build, all the outputs you build and all the inputs you have all have to be aligned.

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George White: And if they're aligned, then those organizations will be there. So finding those organizations is looking for organizations that are led by impact

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George White: that are led by their a true purpose, and they have leaders who understand purpose. If you're a catalyst.

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George White: you're going to love that job

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George White: because that person will put you in place. Remember to be the catalyst. You're not consumed by this thing. But you're going to drive something. You will absolutely love a purpose-driven organization.

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George White: If you are in a organization that is, that is less certain about its purpose.

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George White: Catalysts will almost always find that to be miserable quickly.

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George White: And what we'll do is we'll spend all of our time not not focused actually on the external part of how do we make the organization achieve its impact better? We're actually going to focus our energy on internal stuff

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George White: because we're going to try and make that organization purpose led so that it can achieve its impact.

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George White: And I'm telling them myself, because this is how I feel right now about my current role is that is that I'm spending a lot of my time more of my time, probably, than I should on what happens inside my business and less on outside my business.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Oh, my God, it's so true. Okay, but so does that mean that we all have to like find the Patagonias and Unilevers of the world to be happy or like, how do we? How can we see from the outside? Is, we're like, Okay, where's where am I gonna bring my catalytic superpowers to next where I'm gonna align enough with the organization that I'm gonna be successful and feel fulfilled.

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George White: So if you're blessed enough to be able to find a truly purpose-driven organization and go work there, it's great that's awesome, and do that and enjoy it while you do it.

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George White: But

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George White: also remember, as catalysts, that while everybody like we're all like all human beings, and that we seek satisfaction, there is a point where we also want to drive change.

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George White: And that means we have to leave those safe harbors. We have to go out into those organizations where it's going to hurt. It's going to be painful. It's going to suck, to be out there trying to drive change in those organizations. But we're

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George White: we don't have a choice, we're going to do it.

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George White: We're going to get dissatisfied sadly with staying in organization. That is just all bright.

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George White: Right. There's there's not enough challenge frankly in many of those businesses for the long haul.

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George White: And so so I guess the answer is, no, we're not. We're not.

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George White: We're not only exclusively looking for those things. But we are looking to create. If we could move

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George White: the 90% of businesses that aren't truly purpose driven. And I know that sounds harsh, but I'm pretty sure that that's right. Most businesses are driven by motives that are only thinly veiled in purpose. If we are truly dedicated to the world. I think that we want to have the change we want to have. Then I think we need to create the environment for ourselves. And that means going back into that 90% and making 10% of that

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George White: more like this. And that even would be a huge thing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, yeah, it's so fascinating. I was just telling this story to someone yesterday about like when I was going to the Presidio graduate school and working on a you know the green Mba. And like of those people, were doing social enterprise, which is great, and they would be, and like the idea of working with a Ge. Or a Walmart was like abhorrent.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: 1% change in those organizations gonna blow away anything that a social, small social impact at social enterprise is gonna do.

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George White: Absolutely the levers that you need to if you're if you're

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George White: okay. So if you want to affect a big thing, a global issue like like climate change.

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George White: You're probably not going to do that at a small local level. I mean, this is the thing. It's almost a corollary to the whole individual action isn't really going to affect. You know, you can recycle all you want. I'm sorry, but it's probably not going to add up to the total amount of change that we want. We need to affect the bigger levers. There's a large range of motion to be had, and whether we're talking about something like climate change or D, and I or.

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George White: you know, advancing business, new technologies. I don't care what it is. If you want to affect change, you're better off trying to put more weight on the big levers than trying to get the individual small things to add up.

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George White: You know, as an individual.

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George White: not. And, by the way, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have community organizations. I'm not saying that you can't grow a community into something big that becomes that thing. But

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George White: it would be easier for us, as catalysts, to go to those social organizations, try and get them to change

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George White: ultimately than it would be to try, and, you know, just only do the ground up thing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: There's an interesting thread through this conversation that I really appreciate, which is like the it's almost like a weaving in and out like walking that knife's edge that you were talking about at the beginning. It's like I'm in, but I'm always different.

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George White: M.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: One of the things that you started to touch on was how few of us make it to the executive level.

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George White: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And it's, you know, partly we're called troublemakers and disruptors for a reason.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But you managed to get to a chief innovation officer role. So I'm thinking, like, what advice do you have for people to overcome some of the challenges that we bring as catalysts to get into those executive roles.

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George White: Yeah, it's a great question to be honest. Part of the reason I ended up in that role was because I had a CEO who recognized that what I was doing I actually came into that company originally from more technical role, more as a technical architecture role. And

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George White: at 1 point he actually promoted someone else into a role very similar to mine. And at that point he actually made me. I think it was the Svp of innovation. And before I was chief innovation officer. And and I said, Okay, you know. Sure whatever. And me being me, I'm like, Yeah, whatever I don't care titles or whatever man, just, you know.

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George White: Sure why not?

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George White: And there at the time there were no Vps or Svps in this business relatively small business at the time, and and he promoted me to this Vp level. So I became the first, st you know.

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George White: Vp. In this business, and he did say, I need to explain to you why this is what you're doing is different than what this other person I'm promoting into a role that looks like yours that we hired you for is doing.

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George White: And so so part of what we're doing as as catalysts is, we should be scouting for people who understand what we do.

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George White: who are not us necessarily, but are looking for people like us to shake things up a little bit.

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George White: and really recognizing that there's a collaboration, I want to be clear that CEO, who I love like a brother. We fought every day.

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George White: every single day. They're legends of how much she and I fought, but

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George White: we both always understood each other, and we always understood what we were trying to do.

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George White: Even when we didn't agree, we could actually have the conversation. So, finding those people who can be. This goes back to the collaboration theme, find people who can collaborate with you to challenge you.

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George White: And but also recognize that you're there. You're not being a troublemaker. You're there because of a genuine drive and desire to see change lead to better impact.

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George White: That is, that is the that is the difference between an arsonist and a catalyst.

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George White: Arsonists just want to burn everything down. They love change because they love to see things fall apart where a catalyst really wants to build things up and really wants to drive things.

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George White: Now that's not to say that sometimes a catalyst isn't accidentally an arsonist.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right. We sometimes come in and we break shit really badly, and we shake things up. And then we're not aware of how badly we've broken things. So that's the other part of it is, find someone.

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George White: In that management team and and

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George White: know this about yourself, that you might be on the path of breaking things and get someone who is your check. I have had part of the reason I've succeeded, for most of my career is I've always had a partner in my business.

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George White: Years ago. It was my friend Maureen O'donnell, for instance, who was always again more practically minded me, and always able to say, Wait a minute. You're about to set something on fire.

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George White: I know you think this is a good idea.

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George White: I'm not saying it isn't. But maybe just take a step back and ask yourself, am I setting something on fire, or am I? Am I building something new.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that, and I'm going to tie it back to something that you said earlier. And maybe you want to provide additional commentary on this. But here you were sort of talking about a leader who sees your value, who understands you, who isn't afraid to challenge you because they know that they're going to get productive outputs towards their vision. So that's 1 thing that can help us get to that C-suite or executive level to help us overcome some of the arsonist.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But also early you talked about this wasn't your word. This is my word. But like a translator, you're like someone who.

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George White: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Help me bring it back into the organization. Is that a fair synopsis of what you've been talking about?

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George White: Absolutely translation is really key. I think that that runs through a few things that like when earlier, we're talking about frameworks, framework is a form of translation. Yeah.

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George White: what's in my head? What's in your head? Can we get them out in between us and then see how they fit?

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George White: Yeah, right? And then, yeah, having a human being to help you translate what you're doing and refine your thinking. Because another thing, let's be honest.

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George White: Catalysts are often systems thinkers. We're very good at seeing and identifying and understanding the complexity of a system. But there's a problem with that, too, which is, we see it all right. It's like that famous, you know, always in Philadelphia. There's Charlie Day is up there, and he's explaining thing, and there's a gift of this of him like, you know. And there's like all the lines, and we all know that that board right, that vision of like

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George White: yarn everywhere, that's often what's in our brains is all this yarn everywhere. And

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George White: so, you know, when someone we're like this is why so many catalysts are consultants, I think, is because or fit into a certain level of consultancy, because we, we do naturally see the world in grace. We see it as interconnections. We see all these things, and we follow all these things, and we can happily follow them down these divergences and everything else. And sometimes you need somebody to go. Stop stop following divergences

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George White: make this simpler come back to it. I know it's in there. I just need you to

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George White: pull it together, Buddy.

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George White: And so that translator is is a translator and a coach.

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George White: and sometimes that can be the leader, your boss. Sometimes it can be a partner, but it's always going to be somebody. It's maybe somebody outside right? The Clt. Is a good place for that where people go, hey, man like, come, come to the clt and tell them what your problem is, and quite often you'll get advice like, Hey, you're just being a catalyst. Stop being a catalyst just for a minute and come back to reality.

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George White: So.

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George White: So I think that that's translators exactly it. Wherever you can get that, it's it's vital.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I think you're so good at that. All right. I could talk to you forever. I love your storytelling, but we have our last final question.

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George White: All right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Your favorite inspirational, catalyst pastor, Present. And why.

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George White: This question. I was thinking about this question, when when you guys asked me to do this, podcast and I have no great answer for this. But actually, you know, I was trying to think of like, you know, who's a big figure out there in the world, someone who, you know and like, I really like the thinking of George EP. Box. My favorite quote is actually a misquote of his, but it's all models are wrong. Some are useful.

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George White: Real quotes closer to something like having said that all models are in some way incorrect. The main question is, how wrong must they be before they are no longer useful. I think that's a beautiful thing, and I love that. I quote it all the time. It's it's great, but actually.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Really fast. I didn't catch.

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George White: George EP. Box. He was a statistician, did a lot of work, I think, between him and and Godel is probably all the people you need to to think about about the fact that everything you're thinking is just a model of the universe. The universe exists.

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George White: It's it's as we've often talked about accounts. It's Vuca, right? Volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, real human beings, human beings like to be linear, anthropocentric, mechanistic and ordered. They're lame-o right

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George White: but again, even those are models right, not everybody's like that. And everybody works that way. So Ep, box George Ep. Box is probably my favorite. But actually, I think my answer is going to be really sappy. It's probably my mom. My mother is an amazing person who has done a ton of different things over her career, and she set me up.

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George White: She recognized

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George White: that kid from 1st grade, going all the way back to the beginning. That kid from 1st grade, who was thinking she recognized that it wasn't me being distracted

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George White: or

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George White: weird. She recognized that this was me, thinking differently and encouraged that different thinking. And I think that is what set me up on the path for for catalysts.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So sorry about that.

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George White: No no worries.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: What's your mom's name?

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George White: Barbara White. She is just on the path to retiring after several decades of doing all sorts of things, everything from being a personal trainer to a Cpa. To working for digital equipment corporation to help figure out finance. She has been a consultant herself for the last several decades and a coach, and she is. Whenever I have to figure something out.

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George White: I love you guys at the Clt. But the person who really, really, I mean it's not like a total mama's boy, but but the person who really helps clarify for things for me my whole life has always been my mother.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that so much. Thank you, Barbara. We really love having George on this planet, solving all the problems that he's solving. So thank you for the gift of your son, George. Thank you so much. That was an amazing conversation, as always.

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George White: Thank you, Shannon. My pleasure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Also, I just have to say that was my mom calling. So I'm a mama's girl, too.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: to our listeners. Thanks 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, burnout or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, please take 10 seconds to rate it on Itunes spotify, stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast and of course, if you have other catalysts in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way. Thanks again.