Jessica Crow - Adjunct Professor, University of Denver: The New Rules of Change Management

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas, and I'm 1 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, shit, burn out where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation and change in large organizations. And today I'm super excited to have time with Jessica Crow. Welcome.

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Jessica Crow: Hello! Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here, and for our conversation today.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I am super excited for it, too. For our listeners. Jessica Crow is the founder of apogee. A business Transformation Solutions company specializing in change, management, training, coaching, and consulting.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Jessica is passionate about empowering people to power, organizational change through conscious change, leadership, a mindful approach to modern change. Leaders who want to lead and work in a more balanced way while still achieving success. In addition to apogee, Jessica is an adjunct professor, a Yoga instructor, and a keynote speaker. So I'm guessing our audience can see why I'm excited for this conversation.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Let's just jump right in, I mean, I sort of quick snapshot of what you do, but I'd love to hear about your journey through the lens of your catalyticness, and maybe some of the highlights or challenges that you want to share with us.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I spent some time reflecting before we connected. And it's so nice to see you again. Thank you again for having me on this show. I love what you and Tracy are doing, and how you're helping organizations and the people that work there really understand themselves, and how they can be better contributors and drivers of innovation by, you know understanding what their nature is, and how to work with others. So kudos to you. And again, thanks for having me on the show.

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Jessica Crow: I when I spent time reflecting, I was thinking back like, when did this really start for me? And I was thinking about in college, where I sort of realized that I was willing to be a black sheep, willing to kind of go against the grain to get what I wanted, or to, or to be different, or to do things in a way that I found more effective. And

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Jessica Crow: you know just more, maybe even more fun for me. So my example is that I had a really wacky summer summer job. I sold books door to door. I was.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Wow!

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Jessica Crow: Or a salesperson. Yeah, so this was 20 years ago. This is like, right when the Internet well, you know, it was around like people were still relying on encyclopedias and homework manuals, and I was at probably at the tail end of that industry, you know, really going away. But I sold books, and the reason was because I wanted to make money quickly, so I could do the things that I wanted to while I was in college, because I went to a school where

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Jessica Crow: it seemed like everybody had affluence, and I was like lower middle class. Here I am ready to ready to learn. But I also wanted to play too, and so I was willing to do the job. That

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Jessica Crow: most people would not do. Door to door sales is really hard. But I learned about resilience. I learned about failure. I learned about rejection, and that was such an important part of my journey to where I am today it really built up my capability.

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Jessica Crow: And then, after college, I had several jobs, and in each role I found myself being attracted to the projects that were really gnarly. They were really hard. Most people didn't want them. It seemed like too much work or effort, and I was like, Sign me up. That seems like a good idea, or that seems like something I want to try to figure out. I can see the value. I can't necessarily explain why I'm so attracted to it. But I want to go on that

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Jessica Crow: direction. So, for example, helped launch one of the 1st sustainability reports for the organization I was in. I've helped create, you know, the 1st Internet in one organization and then at the organization I was at before I left

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Jessica Crow: to start apogee. I was brought on to do change management for the largest and the the 1st digital, you know, massive digital transformation for the organization. So I found myself really being attracted to those types of projects, and actually, right before I left and started apogee I was. I was. It was a project that nobody had wanted. They tried it multiple times and failed.

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Jessica Crow: And I was like, I think we can crack this nut. I think we can do it. It was hard to articulate. Why, but my intuition was like, I think we got this. I think we're going to figure it out through trial and error. I was more than happy to go through that learning process.

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Jessica Crow: and unfortunately I left before I got to see that project come to fruition. But a year later one of the, you know, directors on my team. My previous team was like, Hey.

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Jessica Crow: it worked. We did it. We finished it. We saw it through like it was a big restructuring of 200 people that were supporting thousands of clinical you know, clinicians and technicians. And it was a really big undertaking, huge change management, huge culture change. And I, you know, while I didn't get to see that happen. I love that. It actually ended up happening after I left, and probably with a lot of changes. I don't know. You know what kind of unfolded after that. But you know, you mentioned

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Jessica Crow: earlier. You know, change management change. It's intersection. Part of the reason why I started apogee, which is the firm that I have today, and and bringing in this concept of conscious change. Leadership is because I wanted to. I see I saw a better way to do change management in the workplace, everything we do, everything, you know, in all business strategy gets executed through people that is change. And so getting better at implementing change is really

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Jessica Crow: a requirement. I think, of organizations that want to be agile and innovative. But what was missing is that the change, management, training and teachings were very systematic. There wasn't a huge emphasis on leadership development, which is as you talk about in your book. And through this podcast who you are and how you show up will have a direct impact on your ability to actually

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Jessica Crow: analyze what you're trying to do. And there was absolutely no conversation around. Well-being.

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Jessica Crow: Part of this is about burnout right? I left because I burnt out. I didn't have the awareness or the tools to really understand what I was feeling or or experiencing, and it wasn't until after, through coaching through therapy, through tons of Yoga, through a lot of research that I realized this is all connected well-being leadership development change management. So that's why I created apogee as a way to provide people with

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Jessica Crow: a more well-rounded holistic approach. And the idea is that it's going to have a positive impact on the people that you know you work with and through and organizations can really start to build environments where culture and I'm sorry change and innovation and people, everyone's thriving. So that was a very long winded intro. But that's the whole. That's the whole story. That's the.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But.

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Jessica Crow: So many things to respond to. Okay, let me see, I wanna start with.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I? Okay, it's hilarious. I did the door to door sales thing, too, and I think.

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Jessica Crow: Did you really.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I did I I did it for a nonprofit, but it was like one of the hardest, most character building things you.

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Jessica Crow: Totally I I love that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I also really like the the way that you talked about. You know, there was this wicked big problem that nobody else was even willing to tackle like we just had this conversation with the customer, and I get excited about it, like everyone else, is running right. And I'm like. But I was like, what's your chance of success? He's like 40%. I was like, let's do it.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, sounds good.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I also wanted to compliment you on the the kind of owning with the caveats, the owning, the impact that the change management process that you started that got realized after you left. Because that's

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: hard for catalyst. And I'm wondering if you can maybe talk a little bit about that experience, because almost by definition as starters, we're not there when the thing is fully realized. And so a lot of catalysts have like. And I used to do this too like, can I own the fact that these 2 major acquisitions that happened at the organization after I built out the strategy happened after I left. And it was like, yeah, because the same thing happened. Someone called me up. And we're like, you know, that thing that we were doing. They did it? Right?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Do you have advice for people? Because it can feel a little bit awkward sometimes.

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Jessica Crow: I mean. I like that. You said awkward it ultimately it made me feel kind of down I was. I was bombed. I was bombed when I left, like I didn't get to see this through

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Jessica Crow: through. You know it's been years a lot of self reflection. I think the advice I would give is just accepting and being okay with that, because you're starting it. The whole point of catalyzing. You're kickstarting the conversation, and whether or not it's yours to see through. I mean, only the universe will show you that when it's time. But I think where we can for catalyst the place that we can really

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Jessica Crow: take comfort and confidence in is knowing that we got the ball rolling when other people weren't even willing to start that push. And so that has been my sort of self

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Jessica Crow: healing journey of I. And part of the reason I was bombed, too, is that I chose to stay on that project, and in the role that I was versus take a promotion going on another team. That was all about change management, which years ago had been my dream job. And I was like, Okay, we'll never follow a project. But, however, for someone like us, I was more motivated by the potential

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Jessica Crow: of that change than the title and the role of change management within the organization. So it really is recognizing that

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Jessica Crow: we're doing so much good just by starting that conversation and being willing to be the person who gets in the ring. Whether or not we see how it ends is.

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Jessica Crow: I think it's just accepting that. That's maybe not our path all the time, but it took a time that wasn't easy. I took a lot of time to get to that point, but it certainly is something I feel comfortable with now

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Jessica Crow: awesome. It's really strong advice, and I encourage people listening to like go back and rethink potentially their resume their bio whatever and be like, you know, you get to take ownership because, like that thing wouldn't have existed

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Jessica Crow: right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Weren't there, and to your point it might have looked very different by the time it got implemented from the original.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But it would have if you had stayed the whole time anyway. So exactly

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: there. Alright. So I already have goosebumps. But diving in more into the change management interest

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: right and, like. One of Tracy, was here last week, and one of the epiphanies that we've been talking about, which is not particularly revolutionary, but it's like

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: there's no like when we talk about change fatigue now.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: getting our hands around change like there's so much change. It's actually just, not humanly possible for us to take it.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right.

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Jessica Crow: Yep.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And I am not a change management expert. So this is why I would love your thinking around this. But it's like, you know, change management programs were developed in days where that was not exactly true, there was change, but it wasn't like all variables were changing all the time at this speed.

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Jessica Crow: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Wondering for catalysts, you know, who are working with organizations to leverage change management tools while recognizing the emotional toll.

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Jessica Crow: Yep.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Even the catalysts are getting change fatigue now, right? I mean.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So how do you think about that intersection right now? Advice where it's headed.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, this is a great question. And I'm really glad you wanna approach this. This is so catalyst of you. Right? Let's talk it through. So change. Management is a and I know, you know intellectually, you know this, but it's a it's a practice, it's a it's, you know, almost a multi modality. You, you're bringing lots of concepts and theories together to create this approach that leaders can take in an organization. And to your earlier point in the past. It was something that allowed you to

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Jessica Crow: implement changes sort of systematically, like one at a time. Now, there was lots of changes happening all the time. I'm gonna say, back then, using air quotes back, you know, 1020 years ago now changes happening iteratively, and it has been going in this direction. But there's lots of big changes as organizations are trying to keep pace with all the different innovation. AI tech.

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Jessica Crow: you know, geopolitical. It's just it's all over the place. So what I will say about change, fatigue, change, fatigue is not just due to having too much change in the workplace.

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Jessica Crow: It's due to multiple internal factors and external factors. So you could have all of these changes happening in your organization. But if you also tie in like a lack of clarity, lack of prioritization, lack of leadership engagement that's going to amplify your feelings of stress which create change, fatigue, what wasn't talked about historically and what I'm hoping we can start the

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Jessica Crow: conversation on is that whether we like it or not, we're bringing all of our outside world into this, too. So for me, when I went through Burnout I was trying to raise a family. I was a foster parent. I was doing all of these different things. That also created stress. So I had change and disruption in every area of my life. And I did not have a way to like.

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Jessica Crow: So like, stop and be like, okay, what is actually going on, what is the most important. So I'll my advice to people that I talk to, that I teach is a couple of different things. One, you do need to get your self leadership under control. So what I mean by that is, what are the practices that you're doing to bring yourself back in balance because I'm guessing. And having read your book, Shannon.

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Jessica Crow: this is exactly what I did. Instead of prioritizing meditation and fitness and sleep, I made the trade off of working more because I thought I'd get ahead. I thought I'd

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Jessica Crow: you know, reduce my to do list, and instead, I just made myself miserable. So you really have to be good about creating boundaries. So you can stay in balance, and then you can be more effective in the workplace. It does require responsibility on the leader who is in the workplace to take a look at all of the changes that are happening. If someone says, you know

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Jessica Crow: everything is important, then nothing is important. There really has to be a rigorous conversation around prioritization and a lot of organizations. It's like, sure we want to prioritize. But you know I hate to say this. The reality is organizations especially publicly held companies. The priorities of the leaders will likely be more siloed than not, because they are caring about their team.

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Jessica Crow: their objectives. And so if they have a change, they need to see it through. But then you've got a leader over here on a different team, and they have the same sort of mindset. And so

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Jessica Crow: it really is going to require a big

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Jessica Crow: culture shift. I think, in many organizations that how can we change and innovate in a way that keeps our employees well-being our employees productivity in mind, and not just like what's best for the team, but the collective that's going to be hard, I think, for a lot of leaders, because I know when I had my team back. Then I wanted them to be successful. I wanted our project to, you know, to to see it to be seen through. And it took.

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Jessica Crow: You know, it's gonna take some.

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Jessica Crow: some real deep, I think work from leaders. It's necessary to really think about. Okay, how can we behave in a way that one. We're taking care of ourselves. Our team are taking care of themselves through that self leadership. But also we're thinking really broadly about all of the different things that are happening in the organization at the same time? And are we giving those

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Jessica Crow: top priorities really the space and birth for people to accept them to adopt them, to continue those ways of working. Otherwise you're just gonna keep rolling things out, and people are gonna stick with it for a short amount of time, and then probably go back to what they were doing before the path of least resistance, right? So hopefully. That was responsive to your question. But that's how I sort of think about it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So what I the. There's 2 key things here. And I and I love this intersection. It's the self leadership which is such a great term totally going to be borrowing that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yes, please do.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Putting your your oxygen mask on.

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Jessica Crow: Yes.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: What your capacity is at any time just like being really clear and resourced yourself.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And then the actual leader in the organization's role and not just the business side, but also like showing up understanding that as a whole person who's in front of you every day.

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Jessica Crow: Yes.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And there's an interesting thing when we're like this comes up so often now in the work we do, which is the, I would say the partnership between those 2, because as a leader, you don't always know, and it's not even always appropriate to ask or talk about what's going on.

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Jessica Crow: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: In the employee's life. But conversely, when you're the employee, if the if the leaders giving you the like 6th high priority thing, and you just don't have the capacity for it. Self leadership at that point is about actually saying something, because it's like when I lead. And I tell people this because I want them to know. I will keep giving things until you say I'm I'm at capacity. I need help.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and I'm like, that's such a great conversation that just happened this right like congratulations for cause I don't know. I don't have visibility into your world, so I'm wondering how you help sort of both sides or organizations. If that's not a muscle that most organizations have.

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Jessica Crow: It's not a muscle, and it really is hard. If you're in a position where you're getting, you're a high performer, high potential. You will get the work sent your way because you deliver. And then when a leader

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Jessica Crow: relies on you, that's consistent pulling back and saying, Hey, I can't or no, that actually doesn't land well with your leader, unfortunately. And it's not that, you know, like I love, that your response to the person that you were talking to is like great. Let's talk about this because clearly you understand how all of this works. But leaders who don't have that awareness of

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Jessica Crow: the individual and

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Jessica Crow: how they're feeling their well-being, how they're going to burn out. If they don't deal with this, they're thinking, oh, you've been doing this for so long, and now you can't like what the heck it's a. It's a really important conversation for both. So let's talk about the person who needs to manage up right. It's not saying no, it's not saying I can't do that. It's saying, Hey, help me prioritize! I'm feeling this way. Here's what's happening. You know. What are the top 3 things, and if we had to have a couple of things drop, what could those things be? Or Hey.

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Jessica Crow: we can do that. But this is this is my top priority. This is my team's top priority. We may need to bring somebody else on. So it also helps you figure out how to negotiate for additional resources. So that's with middle managers. That's the conversation. It's how do you navigate that with your leadership who has expected you to be that.

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Jessica Crow: Go go and that's part of it. And then it's also creating boundaries and just being okay with. If you put this boundary in place where you're not responding on the weekends, or you're taking this time.

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Jessica Crow: and they don't like that. Then, like, that's a different conversation. You have to take care of yourself and be okay with that. And maybe you know that's not the right place. If they're not okay with you, not working or not not working. But you know what I'm saying like there needs to be some healthy respect there as a leader. It's drawing awareness to the fact that this is real burnout is real change. Fatigue is real, and they have a unique and special responsibility

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Jessica Crow: to care for their employees like people, that there is somebody not just a resource

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Jessica Crow: right? A cog in the wheel on the other side of the conversation, and I would imagine most leaders do feel that way.

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Jessica Crow: and I think there's still a huge opportunity for people who are leading teams, large teams, big projects to really

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Jessica Crow: invest in that self reflection of what is my decision? What impact is my decision making in my ambition and my goals for the team having on the collective like productivity. Well-being. Am I seeing people quit? Am I seeing you know what's the culture? So it's just it's gonna require some self reflection on that leader and awareness that

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Jessica Crow: they will burn out their best employees and they will leave, and then you've got you know, everybody else who wants to do good work, I'm sure, too. But

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Jessica Crow: yeah, I think that's how I approach it. How? How would you approach it? I guess if you're you know I know you work a lot with organizations, and you're probably providing coaching on both sides, too.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, I mean, these are the. It's all the same skills. And it's like having everyone in the in the training or conversation, like, you know, and bringing really basic tools. So you can like de-risk it and not make it personal. So I can either.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Matrix, right? It's like, Hey, here's my work like I can do these things up top. But the things that aren't as important and not impactful like I can't do.

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Jessica Crow: Right.

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Jessica Crow: What you helped me see, which is really interesting, and again, might not be profound listeners. But we talk a lot about accountability, like accountability, empowerment equals results is one of our catalyst leadership. Trust members likes to say, but the accountability is, I hope, leaders and the and the employees understand that accountability is really the 2 way street. Like, I think, leaders.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay, you are accountable for getting this done, and that's usually where their brain stops as they think about it. But the employees accountability actually is, I am accountable to tell you what's gonna impact me being able to get that done in the way.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right? Alright. I wanna double click. So like as as a change management expert, I'm gonna call you what are some of the trends that you're seeing around change management. Maybe the biggest challenge or the biggest wins.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: We're catalyst leading change management programs, especially in large organizations.

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Jessica Crow: So this is super timely. I actually just participated in a webinar yesterday. Melanie Franklin, she's out of the Uk. I think her company is called Capability for change. She just

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Jessica Crow: launched a report where she had people from across the world. It's like 4 years into the survey, so she has a

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Jessica Crow: from change practitioners from people who are operations strategy leaders. And she was able to summarize the insights from the responses. And here here's what she's seeing, and I again. This is her work, but I'll be. I'll be sharing it. What I remember hopefully I'll send you the link to put it in the show notes. Yeah, yeah.

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Jessica Crow: So couple of things. One, the value of change management. What we're not doing a great job of doing is explaining the value period. So adoption has been this

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Jessica Crow: focus for years and years and years like, that's your Roi. That's your benefit. Well, that's part of it. That's a leading indicator. Your real value is the cost savings, the commercial metrics right? The increase in revenue, the increase in time efficiencies. Those are the benefits. But we're not doing a good job as change management practitioners of explaining how what we're doing actually drives business outcomes

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Jessica Crow: adoption is a byproduct of our effort. But then the actual business outcomes are what happen when people adopt the solution. So we need to do a better job because it's still hard for change management. There's a lot of organizations that have, like one or 2 people doing change management, which is a little bit crazy because everybody is responsible for change management. And

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Jessica Crow: my belief. And I think the growing acceptance is more people. If you're in a leadership role, you should understand change management theory and concepts period, it'll change how you make decisions. It'll influence your strategy, your planning. So just having that baseline knowledge is important. The other insights that came from it is that leadership engagement is

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Jessica Crow: really low compared to year over year. So having that senior leader and she actually mentioned that I don't know how this is gonna play out. But I thought it was sort of

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Jessica Crow: interesting. She, you know, in the United States we've now got Trump as our President, and she was suggesting that there could be a shift towards more of a top down leadership approach versus that distributed where we might have been going. I don't know if that will actually play out. But she was saying, we're seeing that she was suggesting this might be part of it. But also leaders are lacking engagement.

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Jessica Crow: We need to do better there, anyways. So it's almost a call to action. If you're in a leadership role, you can't delegate that out. You have to really be present and active and driving that change forward, if that is your you know your position. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Some of the other insights. Let's see, I'm trying to think

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Jessica Crow: Those 2 certainly stood out to me. But hmm!

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Jessica Crow: She

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Jessica Crow: oh, gosh! I'll just have to include the link. It was a really great I hopefully, I can get the link to the webinar, too. So it'd be really helpful for people to watch. I had took notes in my email. But I don't have them in front of me. Long story short, though, the big picture is that change management, we need to do a better job of articulating the Roi from what we're doing and linking it to business outcomes and leaders need to be more engaged in the process.

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Jessica Crow: Otherwise, we're going to have a lot of people trying to implement change, but not really having anybody driving the ship. So I think that's a call to action. Otherwise. Yeah, you're not going to get the value from from what it is. That you're trying to implement.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: 100%. It's like, you know, you need to understand the strategies, the direction of the organization and the Roi that you're providing. You know a lot.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Those things. I mean, it's like we can get really excited about like the thing that's right in front of us. But it's like contextualizing it for upper management and really, actually helping. I think the people around you like you said, everyone is actually responsible for change management. It says.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: like how the thing that they're being asked to do or they're suggesting that they do around change is gonna tie to those big strategic goals.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: We're important to decrease the resistance.

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Jessica Crow: That's been, and that's been elusive for change management practitioners that ability to tie what they're doing to the big picture business outcomes. And I don't. I don't know why it's been so hard for many people to do that. One person on the webinar suggested that they weren't as comfortable with analytics. I don't know if that's it. I think it is difficult to isolate the specific interventions that you're doing and saying, Well, we did training and communications, and therefore resulted in this.

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Jessica Crow: But I you know, I think maybe that's the opportunity area as we move forward is getting really discreet or specific about what we're doing and how that links to the business outcomes, because that has been a challenge for

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Jessica Crow: for people in the profession for years and years and years. And it's also why I think there's value in everyone understanding how to do change management. Because then at least, we're all running in the same direction.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And it's, you know, it's interesting, because it's as

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: as I was listening to you originally. What I was hearing was like about being able to articulate the Roi to the leadership. But it really is like, I remember, any new like system that gets rolled out around the organization right like.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: There's new Crm new Erp, whatever it is, the resistance that happens. People still have their little like spreadsheets on the side. Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: that's true.

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Jessica Crow: Ability to articulate the value to any of the stakeholders that you are trying to bring along. So interesting contemplation. And it's a lot of emotional labor, which is what ends up leading to the burnout. And yeah.

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Jessica Crow: yes, yes, yeah, no. And what you're saying is true and fair as well like that part is important to remember that people are wedded to their current ways. And that's why resistance does come up, and that does

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Jessica Crow: have an impact on how quickly you can capture that value. And yeah, so that's that's a very valid point. And something to think about as you're in that seat of leading people in teams through change. And how do we bring it all together? Because that won't go away? I don't think that's going to ever go away. It's just how do you accelerate that process through the interventions you're doing from a change management perspective. But

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Jessica Crow: as a leader, and this kind of to kind of bring this whole conversation full circle. What

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Jessica Crow: I see as the biggest call to action is that self leadership pieces one. And then really being mindful of

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Jessica Crow: the skills from a leadership like, I talk about connection, communication, collaboration and compassion. And that sounds maybe a little woo, woo or soft. I mean, those leadership skills are not new. They've been around for a long time. But we really need to lean into that interpersonal those power skills, especially as technology replaces more of these tasks that made us experts or specialists, or it's like, Oh, you know

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Jessica Crow: somebody who I remember again, this is a while ago. People who could do things in excel that I couldn't do. I'm like, Oh, my gosh! They must be so much smarter than me. And now I'm like wait wait a second. I just didn't know how to build Macros, but I'll just go talk to chat, gpt, or, you know, being AI or something. I don't know it'll figure it out for me. So if we are relying on our technical skills fine.

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Jessica Crow: the power the people skills are going to be so important, regardless of what you know. If you're going to lead and influence, you have to be able to connect with people, communicate effectively, work well with others, and then that compassion piece really does link to that self leadership

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Jessica Crow: and and respecting that in in yourself, and what your what your team needs.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amen!

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Jessica Crow: Amen!

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Landed the plane and did the mic drop all at the same time?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: All right. The fun, the fun question at the end as we wrap. We'd love to hear about your favorite catalyst, past or present, who inspires you, and why.

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Jessica Crow: So Sarah Blakely is probably my favorite catalyst. I don't know if she's been. I was listening to some of your past podcasts. I don't know if she's come up.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Name, has.

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Jessica Crow: The ones that I heard. Yeah. So she's the founder of Spanx. And now she's got this shoe that I don't know what I think about it, but I don't even know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That weird, sneaker thing.

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Jessica Crow: The weird snickers.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Jessica Crow: but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I love, I mean, I've got spanx. They're great. What I love about her, though, is that she was willing to follow this dream, this vision that she couldn't articulate to everyone effectively, and she went through so many no's and so many iterations. And then she kept seeing it through, and she trusted her intuition when she did not have the data, which I think is what

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Jessica Crow: catalysts do they blend a lot of information? Right? And this is again what I've gathered from what I've learned from you and Tracy, and you're following that thread. And so that's what she did. And then she became this incredibly, you know, 1 billion dollar. She's worth billions of dollars, and she's kept that compassion, that kindness, that thread throughout as well. So

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Jessica Crow: I'm inspired by her, I think how she's approached. Her life and work is very admirable, and I love that she's tapped into those.

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Jessica Crow: you know, soft skills, intuition, those things, too, to help her along the way. And I think that's just a template that I would like to follow. I don't know if apogee I know apogee may not ever be a billion dollar company, but at least I can model her.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I know.

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Jessica Crow: Ways of me. but anyways, yeah, she's she's who I who's who I think of when I think of catalysts. I admire.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thank you so much for sharing. And I just wanna say, like, even for maybe you. But certainly us like we know the importance of being able to articulate the vision and stuff. But it's like it's, it's so much easier when you're sitting outside. But when you're on.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Journey, and you're so connected to the thing. And you have this passion, and it's something that we continue to struggle with. So I just want to like, put throw that out there to people like that.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Journey is not easy and plus you should be constantly in sensing mode, and it's like when we started. We're like we want to help all the catalysts, do all the things.

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Jessica Crow: Great Great.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Plan, yeah.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, right? But it kind of clearly. You've kind of gone through the iterations to narrow it down and find the space that you play best in or can help the most people. So I love that. That's really that's really great advice.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Jessica. I could talk to you for hours. We might have to have you back on the podcast thank you. So much.

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Jessica Crow: Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This was a joy. I appreciate the time and everything that you're doing to help catalysts who are out there better under, understand themselves and how they can work with others and really be effective in the places that they work. So thank you.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thank you and to our listening audience, thanks so much for joining us. 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. And if you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, please take 10 seconds to write down itunes, spotify stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast. And of course, if you have catalysts in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way. Thanks again.