Julie Hassett from Oracle - Leading Transformation from the Inside Out: Trust, Intuition & Culture

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

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Julie Hassett: Thank you for having me.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Super excited Julie's a seasoned enterprise transformation leader with a strong track record of driving cultural shifts, organizational change, performance, enhancement and operational efficiency in complex environments.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: skilled at translating high level strategic goals into actionable cross-functional roadmaps that align diverse teams, she brings a unique blend of entrepreneurial insight having successfully founded and scaled the business and deep experience, leading large-scale transformations in the tech management, consulting healthcare and government industries

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: recognized for delivering innovative, measurable results, that position organizations for long term success in dynamic, fast-paced settings. And what I hear in there is this like amazing Swiss Army knife of skills that I think are aligned with a chief of staff role. But I'd love to have you tell us a little bit about your career, how you got here, and especially your focus on your career as a catalyst.

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Julie Hassett: Sure. Well, thank you. And I I know that that was a mouthful to say as an interest. So I really appreciate hearing that back. So thank you very much.

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Julie Hassett: And Swiss army knife is definitely a great way to maybe, you know. Start with. You know what the heck is a chief of staff, because it does mean a lot of different things to different people. And there's a really fabulous if anyone's interested article in Hbr about the chief of staff role.

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Julie Hassett: And it talks about kind of the different flavors, different different forms. And you can, you know, have everything from, you know people who are in very traditional kind of chief administrator roles, you know, to more of a chief advisor kind of role. And then everything in between

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Julie Hassett: and I think you know, the reason I was hired into the role that I have 6 years ago was because of my transformation background. The person that hired me came in from outside of Oracle, and is a change maker. And so he wanted someone he could work with as a trusted partner who had kind of been there done that.

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Julie Hassett: So I, while I do have some more traditional pieces of the chief of staff role, I also mainly focus on transformative programs.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing. Yeah, I think it's also like, there's this translator. There's often a catalyst executive with a catalyst sort of number 2 lieutenant who's helping to do some of the translation for the organization and bring the people along, which I hear in your story.

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Julie Hassett: That's a great way of framing it. You said that better than I did. Yes, yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So tell us a little bit more about how you got there. I mean, like the amount of transformation you've done the success throughout your career. Tell us that story through the lens of, you know, a catalyst and some career. Highlights.

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Julie Hassett: Sure. I'd probably, you know, start with how I even

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Julie Hassett: this even occurred to me that this was a field that you know I I sort of would be naturally have a natural affinity for and it, you know, I I'd probably look back to even you know my childhood, and growing up.

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Julie Hassett: and that I was an only child of divorced parents, who both got remarried, and so, from a very young age, I was navigating between my family of origin, my stepfamilies, my mom and dad when they had to interact with each other. And so, you know, I really had to move around all of these Mini ecosystems that were all different.

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Julie Hassett: And I wasn't even consciously aware of that at that point, and what it meant to kind of come in and out and be part of different family systems. And so that really started a fascination with human behavior and behavioral sciences. And I found myself as a psych major in college. And then I really

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Julie Hassett: really got involved more in. I became a teacher after I graduated college, and and that led to wanting to study adult learning, you know. So those were sort of the early roots of how I ended up

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Julie Hassett: getting into management, consulting after graduate school.

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Julie Hassett: and once I landed at Accenture in the change management practice. I was like.

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Julie Hassett: Oh, okay, this makes more sense to me.

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Julie Hassett: I they decided that I was supposed to be in that practice, and I understood why. And you know, then things started to take off, and that was really mid nineties. I started there, and I'd really kind of paint. My career to date, and probably 4 chapters.

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Julie Hassett: Accenture was chapter one where it was boot. Camp. I became an implementer, which is what you become. You get trained. You learn what change management is. You? You know everything from working on big systems, integration to mergers and acquisitions. I did huge training programs. I developed training. I mean, I probably had like

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Julie Hassett: 9 to 10 different roles in 4 years. You know, it was, just

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Julie Hassett: learn, get thrown in. I mean, it was an amazing experience being surrounded by really smart people. I mean, it was so much fun traveled all over the country.

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Julie Hassett: and so I'd say, you know, that was really that implementer phase, and I didn't have a sense yet that I was a catalyst per se, but it laid the groundwork because I saw so many different environments. I worked with so many different people. I was across industries. I went in and out of, you know different situations. So I just was a sponge, and

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Julie Hassett: I got engaged in in 2,000 and moved back to the east coast. I moved to DC.

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Julie Hassett: And 3 weeks before my wedding 9, 11 happened.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Oof.

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Julie Hassett: And yeah, and and that really marked a big pivotal time for for me professionally, in that I had an opportunity to move into Government consulting, and

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Julie Hassett: and at the time I went to work for Department of Justice as a consultant with a small company, but I was asked to help stand up the Department of Homeland Security.

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Julie Hassett: and that was my 1st foray into what it felt like to work in a mission centric environment

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Julie Hassett: and a startup environment. You know, this was the early early days where

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Julie Hassett: the the department was 20 different agencies needing to become one agency. You're so, you know, even though it was this massive merger it was having to build from the ground up. And it was a it was a.

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Julie Hassett: you know, huge catalyst moment.

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Julie Hassett: you know, in in the government, because we had just experienced such a horrific act of terrorism. And and the, you know, in Congress essentially gave Dhs 4 billion dollars to go fight terrorism.

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Julie Hassett: And so no definition to that.

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Julie Hassett: So it was a lot of smart young people, and we were all designing as we went. And that's when I really moved from that implementer into designer. You know, designer implementer

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Julie Hassett: strategy plan strategic planning, you know, all of the all of these more kind of

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Julie Hassett: sharp end of the spear kinds of roles and

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Julie Hassett: they asked me to come on independent of of the company I was working for, and then they just started giving me more and more work. And I decided, You know I can't do all of this by myself. And then that was the 3rd chapter where I started my own firm.

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Julie Hassett: and really over the course of the next 10 years. I grew my own consultancy, and that was

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Julie Hassett: That was a whole other ball of wax and

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Julie Hassett: bootstrapping learning as I went, I used every skill I had in my own toolbox, and and really relied on the 1st cadre of people that I hired. You know we all wore 8 hats, you know. It was all the startup

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Julie Hassett: components that you know most people think of. I went through that, and then, 10 years later, had about 100 people. And then, you know we were all over the government doing a lot of really interesting work, and I'd say, you know, that was where I got to work with some of the top thought leaders in the Federal Government specifically around really trying to understand what the future of emergency management

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Julie Hassett: looked like, how to bring best practices for treating traumatic brain injury was another massive program, you know. So at that point I started getting into what does it mean

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Julie Hassett: to help to drive the strategies that have societal impact.

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Julie Hassett: you know. So there was sort of that private industry then, helping to build this new government agency, then building my own company, understanding what it meant to be able to really have, you know, to benefit the public.

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Julie Hassett: So those were just amazing experiences that then, I decided. You know

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Julie Hassett: I've I've been working in such big systems. Change.

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Julie Hassett: What I really want to understand is how I can bring back the behavioral science piece into this. So I can understand what drives people

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Julie Hassett: more so than on, you know, having to push big systems change. And that's why I went back and got my coaching certification. I went back to an 18 month program at Columbia, which I can't recommend enough to whomever is interested.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: What's the name of the program?

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Julie Hassett: It's it's Columbia's Columbia's program for executive coaching. So it's called the Ccp program. It's their executive coaching program. It's

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Julie Hassett: I just had an unbelievable experience.

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Julie Hassett: and I. I left the company that I founded, and I went off, and I hung my shingle after I got certified, and I started coaching founders.

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Julie Hassett: and that really allowed me to bring my catalyst. And you know all of my change management, and you know all of all of the experience I had, and help others, both coaching them personally and behaviorally, while I was also helping them build their business.

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Julie Hassett: And that's when Oracle started knocking on my door.

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Julie Hassett: And so I always had this this question in my head, and a friend of mine knew it.

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Julie Hassett: Which was, You know. What would it look like to take all of this in house.

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Julie Hassett: you know, into a big company and tech. I had never worked in big tech before. I mean, I'd worked adjacent, and I worked, you know, in implementing big tech

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Julie Hassett: with accenture. But I'd never worked inside of a tech company, and that's where, besides tech and healthcare. I mean, that's where all the change is happening.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yep.

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Julie Hassett: And

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Julie Hassett: So I took the leap and we moved our family across the country.

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Julie Hassett: Just said yes, and I haven't looked back. And I'm I'm I'm still here and did some really fun work. And yeah. So so this is my 4th chapter. And I'd say, You know, okay.

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Julie Hassett: Transformation, you know, at large. But from an internal standpoint, is this new Territory versus being an external driver of change? Now, I'm doing it from inside. So it's like performing surgery on yourself.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Ha!

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's an interesting analogy.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay, so implementer was, 1st phase, designer was second phase. What was 3rd one.

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Julie Hassett: Startup, founder.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay? And then, 4th one, how do you categorize it?

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Julie Hassett: Information executives. I guess I'll say.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, no, that's awesome. Was there a moment going back to the connection with catalyst? I mean, like, your story is so sort of reminiscent or embodies the catalyst narrative because it's like the way I describe it. My journey was always like, what's the next interesting problem that I want to solve. And what's the most fun way to do that? Or like, maybe there's a new way that I, you know, doing a startup. This is my 3rd startup as an example. But I've joined other startups. But I've been at big companies.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Was there a moment, though, where you were like I'm operating differently than other people.

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Julie Hassett: Yes.

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Julie Hassett: especially well, as a start as a founder. Well, okay, I'll back up. So a couple of things come to mind.

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Julie Hassett: One is that I could see connections

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Julie Hassett: earlier than other people I could understand like this leads to this, leads to this, leads to this. I could see the whole thing play out before anyone else had even taken Step one.

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Julie Hassett: And and in my young, when I was younger I didn't have the confidence.

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Julie Hassett: Have conviction about that like this is, this is how it's. Gonna this is gonna this is how it's gonna happen we don't do XY, and Z. This is what's gonna play out. I'll keep that to myself.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Julie Hassett: Then I would watch the movie like I would watch it all play out. And you know, as I got older, I you know now I'm I'm very much out there like this is how these things usually go. These are the choices we have. What do you? You know? It's very difficult.

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Julie Hassett: I think, as a founder. The oh, boy, yeah, I I the second to answer your question, the second answer. It's

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Julie Hassett: I knew you know I could. I could kind of

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Julie Hassett: tell the future before. That sounds a little bit like the 1st answer, but it's like I just had intuition about whether something was going to be successful or not, and I couldn't

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Julie Hassett: explain why necessarily. And then I had to get good at helping others understand and create a a poll

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Julie Hassett: towards that.

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Julie Hassett: you know, I here's this gray area we're going to go into. Trust me. I really think that there's opportunity here.

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Julie Hassett: let's go explore it together, and so I had to learn. So I I had the intuition, and I was convinced myself. But the

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Julie Hassett: you know, the way I had to show up was a learned skill, you know, and and helping pull other people along.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love. Thank you for ending there. The

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: you're like. Did I have the confidence? And certainly that's 1 thing that we, you know, because there are so many as you're like. And I watched the movie play over and over and over again when I didn't speak up. And so I think we can learn to develop confidence there. But I think there's also, you know, you used the word intuition was exactly how we describe the catalyst process of connecting dots, which is not to say that there's not data. We've internalized so much data from different sources, and

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: we are often also at the place where there's white space intentionally, and there is no data. And so it's this dot connecting that gets the one step ahead of time. And I want to connect that to like the bringing people along. And the storytelling piece, because that's another piece that can be really hard for us as catalyst leaders. It's like. It's so clear to us and yet intuitive. So we don't even have like we don't have the accenture report on why we should do that yet. Right. So I'm just wondering if you can unpack a little bit like how you navigated that

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I have the vision. I have the intuition. I know we need to do it, and like really, tactically like, how would you bring people along on that.

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Julie Hassett: I think it goes back to something you said earlier, which is going to where there are problems to be solved. I mean.

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Julie Hassett: so typically the industries I've been in, whether it's in management consulting. Now, it's you know, for what was in government. Or now it's in in Tech.

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Julie Hassett: where we've got all engineers, you know, these are people that are like, you know, bees to honey around problems to be solved. And so

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Julie Hassett: I began to tried to frame the problems that needed solving, and then appeal to those that I knew

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Julie Hassett: had the capability

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Julie Hassett: to solve those problems and and engage them in real work around them and and facilitate that problem, solving so that they could feel successful in getting to drawing conclusions and getting to some answers, or thinking about ways in which to solve the problems.

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Julie Hassett: It. It's a very different tactic than just telling people what needed to be fixed

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Julie Hassett: and say, Go, fix it, or you know it. It was just. It was much more inclusive. It was much more about building. May I use a lot of team building in that? And and it's about attracting the right people into the tent. I could spot

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Julie Hassett: spot talent. I have kind of a knack for for spotting talent, you know. So that really helped

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Julie Hassett: so you know, rather than putting, you know, you have to set people up for success. And so I had the opposite experience, where, for example, when I was in the earlier days of my business, I knew we had to start training everybody in business development, or else, you know, everything was on

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Julie Hassett: me to sell, and and we couldn't scale that way. And we had to scale because we were hiring more and more people, and

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Julie Hassett: I had people in tears unintentionally, you know, saying, this is a skill you're going to learn. Here's you know, and it it didn't it? Backfired because they didn't have

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Julie Hassett: they just weren't inclined, you know, that way. And it wasn't something that they believed they they just that was something they were hired to do and so, instead of of being able to say, Okay, who are the people that have curiosity about that?

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Julie Hassett: You know? How do I follow the curiosity

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Julie Hassett: and and the willingness. So

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Julie Hassett: so I think, using the pull method versus the pushing and the telling, you know, is really essential in creating a community of people that want to, you know.

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Julie Hassett: be big parts of implementing change.

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Julie Hassett: Hope that answered your question.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It totally answers the question, and I mean it might be a great pivot. I want to acknowledge that I sent you some questions, but this thread is just so interesting to keep going down again before we hit record. We were talking about the neuroscience of change, and I think something that you said there is so important which is making people feel successful like success breeds success.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And if we start to activate the flight or fight or freeze response, because people aren't prepared or ready, or whatever. It's the shooting yourself in the foot part.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: right? And so I would love to. So you can pick. It's a choose your own adventure, Julie. I would love to understand. One of the questions is so like, for now that you know that you're a catalyst. What does it mean for you to be an executive catalyst.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and or we will get to it? But this intersection of all of the things that you're doing in this like human behavioral component that we have to be so aware of as catalyst executives.

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Julie Hassett: Yes.

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Julie Hassett: Let's see, I think I think kind of pulling on that.

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Julie Hassett: You know that second piece of what are the. You know, the key concepts that resonate the most

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Julie Hassett: with me as a catalyst executive, I

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Julie Hassett: I think. What what is what's been constant across this entire, you know. 4 chapters

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Julie Hassett: specifically is, I cannot not see

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Julie Hassett: how we should be tapping the potential. We're not tapping, you know, where the assets are. The hidden assets in our organization, whether that's people's talents and skills, whether that's opportunities to improve processes, whether that's a whole new business model or a way of working that will serve the business and and bring about massive change. There's all sorts of gradations of that.

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Julie Hassett: But I am an optimist by nature. I'm I'm someone who's generative. I want

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Julie Hassett: people to have psychological safety. So I mean, as far as the things that have really made a difference for me

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Julie Hassett: most recently in this next change journey I'm in is becoming extra vigilant about

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Julie Hassett: seeing what's not being or hearing what's not being said, understanding the implicit belief systems or assumptions that are not being brought to the surface.

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Julie Hassett: And sometimes it's just intuition that people aren't being completely forthcoming in what they're

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Julie Hassett: worried about or what they're concerned with. And sometimes it's because I've heard little offshoots of conversation or a word someone says, and I'm and I'm like, Wait, what did you mean by that you know you have to become, especially in these executive roles so attuned to.

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Julie Hassett: You're in a room with 15 people who all have

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Julie Hassett: very different motivations. They all have very strong identities. They've they're very well respected. They've worked for a long time in their careers.

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Julie Hassett: Identity is everything, respect, trust all those things that they've earned.

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Julie Hassett: and you know you have to be attuned to ensuring that if I say, you know, if we all say our shared goal is X,

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Julie Hassett: all of those people are going to translate that goal according to their own lens.

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Julie Hassett: And if you're not aware of the different variations of that goal, if you don't bring those to the surface.

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Julie Hassett: You're gonna have a very hard time getting to the destination. You're trying to go and it becomes more complex and harder

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Julie Hassett: you know, the more senior people are, the more complex the problem sets.

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Julie Hassett: you know, it's 1 thing when you know I was in accenture, and we used to work with clients who invested 40 million dollars in a new, you know, customer relationship management automation tool. And they needed to get 2,000 people to use it.

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Julie Hassett: But still

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Julie Hassett: you had sales reps that were very seasoned that weren't going to put their own personal data in the tool, and you had to go figure out what it was you had to do in order to bring them along the curve, you know, so that you know the human element of the change and the unsaid is often.

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Julie Hassett: That's where you gotta go when you're enacting change.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: one of the things we talk about that's so crucial. And also as we become more and more senior leaders, as catalyst is the concept of listening with humility. It's like we might have a clear vision where we're trying to, and it's well informed in all of the things. But we often talk about like the. It's not the best idea that gets done. It's the idea that gets done. That's the best idea.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: right? And I will say, Tracy and I have this philosophy that like when science catches up with catalyst, they'll explore, they'll find something in our like Emf field around us that gives us this extra sensing capability, because you're like, sometimes there's just a spidey sense, or that intuition. And

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: it's a skill that you can learn. And so I'm wondering, active, listening, making time. How do you operationalize that? Because it is the work I talk about, like the emotional labor of catalyst. That's the work that we're doing for the organization which is where you just landed. Why is that person resisting this change? If they? I have to convince them to change? If they don't want to change, and they don't change, they win right so.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But with the pace of change and the complexity and the changing nature of the complexity like, how do you do you have one-on-ones? Do you do it in meetings? How are you operationalizing that.

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Julie Hassett: Great question. So there's sort of I mean 3 dimensions. I'll talk about one.

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Julie Hassett: Some of the work that was really crucial to me kind of changed my whole way of thinking was in about. I guess it was in 2018. I went to a course given by

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Julie Hassett: oh, gosh! They're blanking on their 1st names. But it's Keegan and Leahy. It's it was all about resistance to change and

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Julie Hassett: the hidden resistance to change. So they have a whole framework on really getting at the underlying belief systems. You know. What is it that's creating that resistance?

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Julie Hassett: Highly recommend it to anybody in this field. It's it's fantastic. And so it it was that work, plus, I mean, my coaching background is everything because

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Julie Hassett: you learn how to ask questions.

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Julie Hassett: And you. So you and you know people really make mistakes in how they ask questions. And and when you learn the art of the good question

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Julie Hassett: you get to start to go deeper and elicit. You know what's really going on with people in a way that's very non-threatening. And it's not manipulative. It's simply seeking to understand without judgment

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Julie Hassett: whether or not people want to come along. A change journey is their choice.

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Julie Hassett: They are not being made, I mean, if you're in the military, and it's a mandate that comes from your commander, and you're, you know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Sure.

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Julie Hassett: That's a whole other story. And people that come out of militaristic, hierarchical, you know, backgrounds that struggle a lot with the gray working in the gray. But I I do a combination, you know. Sometimes I mean, I do do a lot of one on ones you have to build trust. You have to respect people's. You know, Maslow, hierarchy of needs, you know. 1st and foremost and psychological safety. You want to

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Julie Hassett: be somebody that can create that for others. I'm always honest. I don't beat around the bush. I don't tell people what they want to hear, you know, so sometimes, like it is a choice. You don't have to come along.

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Julie Hassett: I also have really moved more into team coaching methods. It's not. It's not obvious to everybody that that's what I'm doing. But often I am doing that.

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Julie Hassett: And

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Julie Hassett: so asking questions in front of the group that then elicit conversations between them that are really critical, where there's sometimes conversations they need to be having with each other, and I know they need to be having it, but they don't. So I just plant a question, and then they start having the conversation, and then off they go. And I've just asked the question like, I don't have to be the architect of everything all the time. I just have to create the conditions.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Julie Hassett: That's the operationalizing. It's like being very intentional about what are the conditions I'm trying to create to move this group along this process. And it's it's kind of, you know, blah blah and weaving a lot of, you know.

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Julie Hassett: Play by play, calling it when I see it, you know. Not sometimes going in without a notion of where I need to be with them.

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Julie Hassett: It's very fluid sometimes.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that last one, and I think that that's a great invitation for catalyst, because our predilection and it's almost like our wiring is like, of course, we're going to have a view of what the outcome should be when we walk into the room. But you're like, sometimes it's really good to go in and check yourself and be like. You know what I'm totally open to, whatever has to emerge in the room, you know, and I think we can. I think I'll speak for me. I can forget that as a tool sometimes, and also just being the catalyst for the people in the room like I love how you're like

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: you might have some back knowledge, or the stories, or some of the interconnections, but like helping to catalyze the collective co-creation, I guess, of what needs to emerge in that room.

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Julie Hassett: Yeah. And then eventually, you know, decisions have to get made like at some point, somebody has to make a decision and land. And so it's allow it's that art of allowing enough

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Julie Hassett: engagement enough problem, solving enough discussion, acknowledgment that not everyone agrees on certain components, but a decision has to get made. And and so there's this tension you're always working with

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Julie Hassett: because if you make the decision too soon without incorporating and without acknowledging all of these very important inputs. Then you're going to fix it later, and it's going to slow you down later. We all know that.

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Julie Hassett: If you if you get into analysis paralysis. You're never getting to where you need to go.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you know that is one of my weaknesses? I sit in those meetings, and I'm like we have to make a decision. We had like enough talking already. But you're right, and that's what we teach is, if you haven't brought enough people along, and they don't all feel like they have their fingerprints on it like, how do you know.

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Julie Hassett: I mean, have you run the well dry

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Julie Hassett: with the people that you know you have to run it dry with like, have you?

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Julie Hassett: And and also so have you. Have you gotten everything on the table that you that's essential for the decision? You you may. You don't have to like, have this exhaustive list of, you know, hearing everybody's opinion about every single thing, you know.

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Julie Hassett: else you'll never get there, however, but you've you've made sure that you have homed in on the most important components of the decision.

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Julie Hassett: And can, you know, have you gotten enough?

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Julie Hassett: Have you used your spidey sense around what has what is not being said that needs to be where are the showstoppers like? Is someone holding on to something that could really be a blocker later. Yeah. So it's it's like a

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Julie Hassett: second.

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Julie Hassett: I don't know. Team sport it's the word I'm trying to look for, like it's

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Julie Hassett: the whole, there's like a choreography to it that I can't like. If I if I were to be forced to map it out for you, I probably could.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, no, we I like it. We use orchestration, too. I think it's like A or the choreography slash orchestration is. And I and I think one of the interesting fun parts for the catalyst is. It's different every time. Right? I mean, like, there's there's broad things that you're talking about there, and I think going back to just making sure we hit on like the what's not being said, because, like in my example, in my impatience.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I can like blow past that sometimes. And so just like giving ourselves the ability to slow down to be like, is there something that's not being said?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I want to just pivot, because maybe we've covered all of this. But I wanted to give you the opportunity to answer the question about like, what challenges have you had as a catalyst leader, and how have you overcome them?

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Julie Hassett: I think one of the biggest ones, especially being in the territory of change from the inside versus being a management consultant who's paid to bring a group of people into an act, you know, and be that

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Julie Hassett: other limb for an organization. This is so different, you know, this is

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Julie Hassett: our frame of reference is the way we do business today. You know, that's how we make decisions. That's our world. That's our life.

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Julie Hassett: and that to be able to mentally take yourself out of that environment.

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Julie Hassett: you know, fast forward in your brain and in terms of where you know you need to be

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Julie Hassett: and make decisions based on the way. You know, you need to be operating versus it. It's a really.

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Julie Hassett: it's a sticky thing. For all the right reasons, because it's the both, and you have to. You have to live in both the current state and the future state, and get enough traction in the future state to where you can, you know, move over, and I think

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Julie Hassett: not a lot of organizations. Do it. Well, you know it. It's different. I think it's different every time. Like I, I think

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Julie Hassett: the elements of transformation and change are the same in every organization. It's just different size, scope, flavor, you know. Culture. But yeah, I think the the both and

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Julie Hassett: challenge has really been, you know, a big one.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you? That's such a good one. How do you pick yourself up? We sometimes call it like in the river versus like on the river or in the business, right? So like, how do you?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you pick yourself up to look at the the future state.

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Julie Hassett: You have to carve out. You have to be extremely intentional about the frameworks that you're using

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Julie Hassett: with the teams you're working with and make a commitment to carve out the time to only focus on it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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Julie Hassett: You're trying to do it on the side. It doesn't work. I mean, you have to make a concerted effort to dedicate the right amount of time to it. I mean, you know, it's like, how do people who work full time decide? They want to become a doctor and go to Med school at night like it, you know, because they see the payoff. They see the benefit. They see it's worth it. So they.

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Julie Hassett: you know, they wake up at 4 in the morning and study between 4 and 8, and then they go to work like it, you know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally. I think it's really smart, like when we do the catalyst programs with organizations. We do this, we explore. And I love working with anthropologists and ethnographers. We're like, what is that cultural context that your organization is in right now? And what's really interesting is, I think, almost every single time they have their current culture, and they're talking about an aspirational culture. And they're not even clear that those 2 things are coexisting in a way.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And they're really not clear about the how to get there like you. If you don't see them as the 2 States, then you're not thinking about the how. So thanks for bringing that up. Was there another challenge you wanted to share.

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Julie Hassett: Well, I think I would just like to pull in the thread of this particular question, which is.

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Julie Hassett: if you don't win the hearts and minds.

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Julie Hassett: you know, and continue to combat this. The use of storytelling is so important. Along, and and keeping the conversation alive and and keeping coming back to it and talking about it, and you know it. It's so critical to have that, and also to involve

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Julie Hassett: all the right people along the way, you know, and and invite them in to the problem solving. So I think those are really key to that living in that both and place.

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Julie Hassett: I mean, yeah, I think the other challenge is keeping people's energy up when you are in that, you know. I I'm sure I'm not the 1st person to use this term. But that mushy middle, you know the the gook.

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Julie Hassett: the muck like that valley of despair when you don't see a way of getting there. You know that like you, you gotta believe

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Julie Hassett: you know. Sounds really Corny. But you know.

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Julie Hassett: I think when you've been on this side of of you know people more senior in their career. They've been through enough

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Julie Hassett: that you know you. You see how it will work, but when you you're younger in your career. It you know you're you're really needing to be willing to take some risks and

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Julie Hassett: put yourself out there and be willing to fail up.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Now.

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Julie Hassett: So.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you just quickly? How do you keep people's energy like, you know that it's probably going to work? How do you keep people's energy engaged.

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Julie Hassett: Sometimes I feel like a tour guide like I'll be like. And now we're heading into the the the area where this is what this is gonna feel like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: True, though, I think, pointing out like knowing, helping them see that you expect it like, when we do any kind of innovation work like theory, you. And there's this crunchy bottom, and almost it doesn't work. If you don't go through the crunchy part, you're probably doing it wrong, but people, if you prepare them for it. And then it happens they're like, Oh, yeah, we knew that was gonna happen.

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Julie Hassett: Yeah, I mean.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And it's.

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Julie Hassett: You know, like.

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Julie Hassett: when you're a parent, it doesn't always go over in the same way, because your kids, especially a teenager, is like, yeah, you know. But I mean, it's when they get a little older. And they're in their twenties, you know. Sometimes you can say like

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Julie Hassett: it feels uncomfortable because it is like this is hard. If it weren't hard we wouldn't, you know, we would have done this already, like it's all of those kinds of like. You're that coach, you know, in the in the the box with them.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Julie Hassett: So I think you know, you just have. That's where leadership comes in. I mean, that's just like basic leadership.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: 100%, and and also the basics that can be easy to blow by. All right in our final moments. Do you have a favorite inspirational, catalyst, past or present. And why.

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Julie Hassett: This was so hard. I really hated this question because there's so many.

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Julie Hassett: Well, I'm a i'm a big music file like music is very central to my life. And so one of the people I've been thinking about a lot and reading more about is Quincy Jones.

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Julie Hassett: I just think he has had, you know, such a massive impact on.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: The documentary about his life. I mean, like, I thought I knew. It's like, you have no idea what that man did. I mean? Yeah.

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Julie Hassett: And I love Rashida Jones. I love his daughter. I just think. He you know culture, social activism. He's launched. How many thousands of artists, he composed. I mean

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Julie Hassett: amazing person who just had, I mean, for for you know he'll have lasting legacy, you know, for generations. So I mean and he was self-made, entirely like. So you think about, you know. He followed his intuition, and and he knew he went out and created something from nothing, and look at what he did, you know. So I just think he's

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Julie Hassett: he's incredible. So I landed on him.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's a good one. He's totally a catalyst. And he reinvented himself every decade or more and opened up whole new genres. Yeah.

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Julie Hassett: No. Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Just seems humble, too, going back to the humble leadership which was just so nice. Yeah.

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Julie Hassett: That's such a good human, for sure. Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That, Julie. Thank you for this amazing conversation. Obviously I could talk to you for hours. I'm so glad you got to share a little bit of your story.

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Julie Hassett: Really fun. Thank you so much.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And to our listening audience. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to learn more about how to create bold, powerful change in the world, check out our book, move fast, break, shit, burn out, or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com. If you enjoyed this conversation half 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.