Katie Blum, Associate Vice President for Strategic Innovation at the University of Illinois Foundation: Overcoming Objection Fatigue

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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.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: This is our podcast move, fast, break, shit burnout. Where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation in large organizations. And today, I'm very excited to have with us Katie Bloom, one of our catalyst leadership trust members.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Katie, is a catalyst and an innovation coach at the University of Illinois foundation, where, in her role as associate vice president for strategic innovation, she's reimagining the business of philanthropy from the inside out, she spent the 1st decade of her career in athletic communications and small nonprofit work before entering into Higher Ed, where she served both on the business and tech sides of the house in her various roles. Over 18 years

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: she created and manages the nation's 1st higher ed advancement accelerator. So cool we'll have to unpack that develop software to re-envision daily fundraising work and build partnerships and experiences that inspire innovation in philanthropy, which is a place that needs a lot of inspiration. Thanks for joining us, Katie.

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Katie Blum: Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing. Well, so I did your bio. But we would love to hear about your catalytic journey, maybe sharing a few career highlights that help us see what your catalytic nature is, and what you're proud of.

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Katie Blum: Yeah, absolutely. So. I think you touched on a couple of them in my bio that I think, probably put me on a catalytic trajectory. The 1st one was my experience working in athletics, and I think everything in athletics is fast. It's moving fast. It's constantly changing, working in athletics, communications. You're working on deadlines all the time. So

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Katie Blum: from a pace of change or a pace of movement perspective, I think that really framed just who I am from a work ethic perspective, and also how quickly I expect to be able to get things done and then working at a small nonprofit.

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Katie Blum: You do everything you're involved in every single component of that nonprofit organization. So I think

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Katie Blum: for me, it's something I even coach when I talk to younger folks coming up in our industry in terms of what some next career steps could be for them.

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Katie Blum: You you create a lot and build a lot of

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Katie Blum: understanding of a variety of different ways for how a business operates. So you're going to pick up things from front facing sort of sales, the marketing side of things. The financial side of things, events and engagement for us, acquisitions.

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Katie Blum: stewardship, all of the kind of work before leading up to through a gift beyond a gift. Annual activities, all of that sort of stuff. You really do everything.

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Katie Blum: And it helps you just have a much broader perspective coming into then a really large organization like a university, where, instead of you doing everything, there's an entire department that does the one thing and an entire department that does the next thing. And you just have ways to connect those dots, I think, which is something that catalysts tend to do. Very, very well. So I would say, I started in that, both of those spaces.

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Katie Blum: and then and then, as you mentioned as well, I I worked both on the business side, and I had enough understanding of tech to be dangerous, and got in and actually worked on the tech side of the house for for a number of years. And I think as soon as you can understand how

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Katie Blum: data and technology not just can be a tool for you, but can help drive your work and drive transformation. It really completely transforms how you think about

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Katie Blum: possibility, future efficiency, and everything else going forward. So for me, I've always sort of played in both of those spaces.

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Katie Blum: and can sort of flip from one to the other, and I feel like that's that's really been what's driven my career forward. I never want to stray too far away from either one of those 2 things, and and really like, I said, keep one foot in both.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's fascinating. I love the intentionality behind that, because a lot of catalysts, myself included, have kind of these like meandering like. We'll go really deep in one thing in our career, and then we sort of go horizontally, etc. But no one ever sat me down and said with intentionality, like you're talking about like, think really deeply about the roles that you might get especially early on in your career that are going to help. You see, sort of the 360, and understand the 360 of the business.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm just wondering if you have any advice for how they can think about finding those roles, because that's not always obvious. At the beginning.

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Katie Blum: Right, you know, I think there's there are a lot of those those roles in.

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Katie Blum: And again, maybe in the Higher Ed space. I think there's there's a little bit more of them. The world is your oyster on a college campus, right? You can touch in every single discipline you could possibly want to go into. But I do coach a lot in that nonprofit space where I think there's a lot you can learn from a small nonprofit versus a large nonprofit that, I think, is a different direction for folks to go in.

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Katie Blum: But I also think there are leadership training programs. Whether that's somebody graduating with an Mba. There's a lot of those in the engineering space as well, where you spend 2 months at a time in particular departments, or it's a multi-year program. And I think those things really

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Katie Blum: help to create catalysts. They just bring different perspectives that maybe you don't otherwise see. And I think there's a difference between a small firm and a large firm. Right? So. And that's the specializing, maybe versus being more of a generalist. And for me.

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Katie Blum: I I think that generalist side has always been something I've gravitated towards, I think. When we're looking to hire, I think some of those generalists can do a wide variety of things that maybe specialists like you said can go deep on those specific things, but don't necessarily have the connections to the other areas. So we tend to coach in those spaces. And I think, like you said, and as a catalyst, you do have to learn how to go deep and go wide, both at the same time.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, I love. I think the leadership training programs or Mbas, like, I remember when I started my Mba, I was like, How how have I like, survived in businesses long, without understanding so many of the different aspects.

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Katie Blum: Great, absolutely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: what does it mean to you to bring your catalytic nature into your executive role, or, like, set another way? How does, being a catalyst, support you as an executive.

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Katie Blum: I think there are a couple of things the first, st and I sort of touched on this, but

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Katie Blum: really catalysts, I think, have the ability to connect dots across a really vast network effect where others sometimes can't even see that there are points of connection that exist. So it's almost like we see in 4 d.

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Katie Blum: And I think we also have the ability to identify and process risk

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Katie Blum: risks, objections, roadblocks faster than other people.

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Katie Blum: and in ways that you know. That's just what our mind does. You're seeing who's going to say? No to this. What are going to be the objections? How do I get around those things? How do I need to make this fit in order to get past those roadblocks? I just think we process those things quickly.

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Katie Blum: I think we're also eternally optimistic, and also perhaps somewhat delusional in our commitment to a future path that we can maybe see really clearly like we. We have this strong commitment to. I can see what's coming, or I think I can see what's coming. And even if that's not the thing, it's in that direction.

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Katie Blum: So you have to constantly stay, I think optimistic to move in that in that space. And I also think

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Katie Blum: we don't really stop at? No, we are constantly a find another way, sort of people.

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Katie Blum: So if this is a no, how can how can I get that to a yes.

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Katie Blum: or how can we sort of take a little bit of a different approach that would get to that? Yes.

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Katie Blum: or change the time, or change the people, or whatever that is. I think there's always a way to see. We see no, as a constraint, not as a roadblock. In some cases.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'd love for you to unpack a little bit. That you know the very fine line of optimistic and delusional like. How do you know, when you're too far on one side.

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Katie Blum: It's that's a great question. I think sometimes as catalysts, we.

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Katie Blum: you feel like you're delusional because other people aren't around you thinking the same things in some cases. But

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Katie Blum: some of that comes in reading. Some of that comes in understanding what other, what's happening in other industries? What's happening in the world, and and really leaning into that.

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Katie Blum: what is the reality that other people aren't seeing? And that's to me sort of the affirmation of the delusion. If that makes sense, we other people might look at us and think that we're delusional in that forward looking space.

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Katie Blum: But you can see the markers, and you can see the milestones. You can see the trends that are happening in specific places. And I think there's part of that

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Katie Blum: affirmation of we just have to keep marching. We just have to keep moving in that direction. We might not get there super fast. We might not get there. The pace that a catalyst might like.

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Katie Blum: But you can see that path opening up in front of you, and just knowing that

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Katie Blum: that path is going to lead you to greater things. And I like, I said, I think it's affirming the affirming the delusion, and through other means, what's happening in the world? What's happening in articles that you're reading. What are you seeing in trends both in your industry and somewhere else?

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Katie Blum: It's just affirming that, in fact, this is a real truth, even if others around you don't see it yet.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm wondering if the catalyst Leadership Trust, or having a community of catalyst peers like that can help you with that

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Katie Blum: 1,000% does.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You know.

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Katie Blum: I think you get in that group.

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Katie Blum: whether it's the Clt or around other catalysts, and

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Katie Blum: in many cases there are times even that you think you're you're looking, you know, 3 miles out, and they're 6 miles out, or vice versa. You're a little bit further ahead than maybe where they are. And I think it helps to get you to kind of that. Yes, and it's this is happening. And this other thing is happening next. So surrounding yourself with those catalysts. Catalysts is just affirmation that you know the directions we're heading and the things that we're seeing with the way the world is changing

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Katie Blum: are applicable to any industry. In some cases even one feels so fundamentally different in the nonprofit space than maybe what a for profit

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Katie Blum: stockholder or stakeholder economy might might look like.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, it's so fascinating like having had peers along my way that could actually to your point, like I might have been at the 3 mile, and they might. They might have been at the 6 Mile, but also having people who can help you still like work back to execute.

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Katie Blum: 3! Up.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Vision, you know.

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Katie Blum: Absolutely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Katie Blum: Absolutely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So what are some of the biggest challenges that you've had as a catalyst executive especially, I mean, you know, Higher Ed has a different reputation than large organizations. So I'd love to understand that particular flavor, too.

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Katie Blum: Yeah, I think.

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Katie Blum: I think catalysts have to be in some in some ways heavily influential. And I just for me personally, that is not. It's not my nature to be incredibly visible. I I don't

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Katie Blum: want to be overly loud or center of attention in some ways, so I think for me as a catalyst executive. I've had to lean into that a little bit more, but also know when it's culturally accepted. I think, within your organization and know when it's okay to be visible when it's okay to be more visible, maybe, than the organization and when it's not and really understanding

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Katie Blum: what that looks like from a visibility. Perspective, I think for me is is just a challenge. It's a necessary challenge, but it's it's a challenge. I think, as any catalyst. You can run into some of that objection. Burnout you know you you get to so many no's, and like I said, where we see those often is like, Okay, that's just not yet. It means not yet or not now or not in this way. When it's a lot. It can also be a lot. And there's sometimes just a desire to be around.

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Katie Blum: I don't mean yes, people in the sense that it's people who are just going to agree with you. But the yes, and folks who are like yes, it is that thing, and if we could do that, then we could also do this. And if we just make this one tweak here, it's gonna have this domino effect for 12 next changes, I think. It's it's a desire to surround yourself with that, and to find those people.

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Katie Blum: either within your organization or outside. It's outside of your organization, I think, can be challenging.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: The 1st one is so I mean, they're all fascinating, and I want to unpack each of them. The 1st one is so interesting because we have to teach catalysts, like in our classes, sometimes to a learn how to articulate their value

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and then be actually do it, because we're often so in service of the creating the change, we're not doing it for recognition or or accolades.

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Katie Blum: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And we also know that bringing some people along and highlighting them in the work helps grease the wheels and make it more impactful. So I'm wondering how you've leaned into doing what feels uncomfortable for a lot of catalysts, and how you know when to do that culturally appropriate flexing or not.

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Katie Blum: Right? I think in some cases, the way we've built some of our programs.

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Katie Blum: we've done it in a way where I let the innovators lead. And I let the innovators be the the star. They are the star. They're the ones that have the ideas they're moving in that direction. So

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Katie Blum: the way I'm using my voice then, is in coaching and helping them see what their value is.

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Katie Blum: for me. I know my value has been around creating a bunch of little catalysts kind of all around and seeing what they're doing with their next big ideas. So

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Katie Blum: to me, it's it's letting them be the stars and the leaders of what they need to be, and being the ear and the shoulder when they're running into those objections and and helping them navigate through that particular thing, so that sort of pushes them into visibility in ways that I'm still coaching through it. But not necessarily.

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Katie Blum: I'm not the one creating all the innovations. I don't want to be the star of the show in that particular scenario, so I think there's

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Katie Blum: I think there's that side of it in terms of leaning into it. And then from a cultural perspective.

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Katie Blum: I mean, I think most people generally know what's going to be, or I would hope most people generally know like in this meeting. This is not the appropriate time to bring this thing up.

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Katie Blum: in these other venues. Perhaps it is, and I think we do a lot of

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Katie Blum: coaching and inspiration outside of the traditional day-to-day operations of the business.

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Katie Blum: and those could be things where again we make it less about ourselves and more about the ideas and the concepts that are coming in. So we might do sessions

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Katie Blum: workshops around. What's changing in some other industry, and find a way to sort of tie that back to how that might affect us and bring people along through those conversations. So while I might be the one leading a session.

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Katie Blum: it's really everybody else connecting the dots in those in those meetings and in those workshops to really come up with those next level ideas. So I may be I may be center of a workshop, but it's not.

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Katie Blum: It's not my ideas, it's not my concept, that's sort of taking us to the next level.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay, you just beautifully illustrated my point. But I'm going to push you a little bit more because I was like the question behind. It is like you said, you know. We need to be influential and visible like. That's a challenge for us, is.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And you're like that's often not comfortable for me. So you shared 2 ways where you're like illustrating your impact through other people. But at some point Katie's impact on the organization needs to be demonstrable, so that you get licensed to continue to operate, or more budget, or whatever it is so like? How you know, especially when it's uncomfortable. How do you know when and how to do that?

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Katie Blum: When and how to be more visible.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, yourself, like, I mean is, you know, there's a there's a story of a friend of mine who was a really good servant leader, and all of he helped all of his direct reports get sort of, you know, promoted to be his peers, and he was leading the transformation. And when the C-suite transformation role opened up. They didn't consider him because he had done such a good job, elevating and making visible.

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Katie Blum: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Peers, and it's like that's great, and you still have to have license to operate. And so I'm wondering like, particularly when it's uncomfortable.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you do it?

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Katie Blum: Yeah, I think there are certain cases where I do feel comfortable doing it. And I I think it's it's necessary to do so. And and some of those are in

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Katie Blum: maybe a little bit more upwards, painting what the connections are from others, concepts into reality, and how this is going to drive bottom line, or how this is going to drive efficiency, whatever that looks like. So I think there are scenarios where

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Katie Blum: it's necessary, because

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Katie Blum: I have the ability to connect some dots in some ways that maybe others haven't. So it's.

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Katie Blum: you know. I'll I'll do it when it is necessary to do so I guess I would say and and or I think

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Katie Blum: oftentimes there are cases where that next vision and what's coming is

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Katie Blum: seen needs to be seen in a way that's a reality check. We talk about that pretty regularly with our team. Some of what you have to do is provide a reality check for what's coming. And I think those are cases where we do talk about this. This is what's changing. This is what has already changed. This is where we're behind. This is where we're already ahead. And and really finding those moments to celebrate successes that we've had, I think, even finding ways to celebrate the failures that we've had is another way that we have been pretty visible in terms of

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Katie Blum: talking about what we've learned from those and how we've been able to pivot from those particular things.

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Katie Blum: and really showing return in some cases. So

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Katie Blum: some where there are failures where we don't. That didn't necessarily generate exactly what we wanted as an outcome. There's never been a scenario where we haven't come up with

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Katie Blum: a million learnings from those particular things, and those are things that I'm very happy to be.

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Katie Blum: you know, loud and proud about.

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Katie Blum: This is how this is changing our culture. This is how it's changing, how we operate. These are the things that have fundamentally shifted the business of our day to day work because of a failure or because of a success.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I think it's an essential point which is being able to model and talk about the sort of the how you're helping to transform the way that you're showing up things like providing the reality check. Or, you know, understanding the vision or testing and experimenting and failure. And you were like, and you have to show the Roi like you have to show some kind of impact. And so sort of that, like constant dance of

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: it's not always easy to articulate what we do because there's new models. And it feels sort of like, you know, almost ethereal. But also you have to. You have to demonstrate the impact. Okay? And so the I want to unpack to the objection, burnout. Oh, that's so painful!

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How have you dealt with it? Or if you had a magic wand. What would you do to sort of navigate that.

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Katie Blum: If I had a magic wand.

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Katie Blum: you know what? If I had a magic wand, I don't actually think I would remove all the objections. So there's my initial constraints put on it. I think those objections are helpful.

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Katie Blum: We we tend to call them.

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Katie Blum: We have a little character. We do in some of our programs that we call the yabbit rabbit, which is like, there's a little cartoon we actually use. And just it makes it more fun to realize, like I see those yabbit rabbits just a Yab. But

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Katie Blum: and I, I think we can try to work through those. So a couple of things in terms of overcoming those objections or dealing with the objection. Burnouts, I think

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Katie Blum: you're always going to have scenarios where people don't want to change. It's just. It's a given in life. It's a given in business that you're you're just going to have those

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Katie Blum: and generally they aren't in my experience fully blockers. There's just enough groundswell. I think you can get through

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Katie Blum: grassroots efforts, I think. You get to. There's enough inertia

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Katie Blum: enough requests coming in that those things start to boil up over the objections. Anyhow, it just happens over time. It just might take longer than you expect.

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Katie Blum: and I do think some of it is surrounding yourself with people who can be

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Katie Blum: in a year. In those cases.

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Katie Blum: people who understand what the vision is and can help walk through with you. What if you tried this? What if you tried this? And again, those could be in your organization? They could be catalysts outside the organization,

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Katie Blum: and in some cases, I think you're just going to get to. This is a terrible phrase. But I think in some cases you're just going to have haters gonna hate. You're just going to have some people who just don't want it. And you just have to decide

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Katie Blum: at some point that that might no longer be worth

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Katie Blum: my effort, and instead, I'm going to take it a different direction.

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Katie Blum: So you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them, so to speak.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Spot on, and and I've been guilty I mean guilty. I've been on both ends, but it's like, How do you? How are? How do you know how to actually clarify the appetite for change? And what I mean by that is, of course, you're going to get the no's like people are going to resist change. We have a normal distribution of people's relationship to change, but, like how many no's or too many no's. How do you know when to shelve the idea. How do you know when to keep pushing.

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Katie Blum: It's a great question. You know, I think over over the period of

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Katie Blum: years. You start to realize that

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Katie Blum: no's, as I said, are not necessarily permanent. Nos. They, in fact, almost never have been permanent nose. In my experience. Quite often there are things that somebody else has the same idea 5 years later, and it's just a better appetite at that point in time.

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Katie Blum: So in in terms of when to when to push through those nos, and when to sit with them. I think it depends on where the No is coming from. Is it a no, because of a budget constraint? And in some cases there's some really creative ways that you can get to funding

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Katie Blum: that maybe doesn't meet the exact specific needs. So, for example, we've had multiple departments pulled from across our campuses, pull together, funding to try to get something something accomplished as very junior people saying.

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Katie Blum: I can get a couple $1,000 here. I can get a couple 1,000 I can get, you know, just really to say, this is a thing that has to be done and and you like. I said, you're building that kind of grassroots, Groundswell. So I think there are some things that you can get creative with, how you can fund things from a budgetary perspective. Some are the not yet. It's not the right time, and some of those are understandable. But there's still baby steps that you can take along the way. And I think that's where we trend tend to try to focus a lot of our energy is

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Katie Blum: what's a pilot you can do. What's something that's accomplishable in 12 weeks. Not the giant, you know. We're gonna upend everything and and try to fix, you know, 20 ripple effects down the line. We really are gonna focus on a particular thing. So I think, refining that scope.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm.

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Katie Blum: There's a yes, somewhere in the.

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Katie Blum: Almost always.

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Katie Blum: And there are people who want to see that. Yes, in every single idea.

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Katie Blum: And it's just finding those right people

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Katie Blum: who can again, like I said, help build the groundswell move that create more inertia.

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Katie Blum: so like I said, I just don't think

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Katie Blum: it can feel like a lot of no's all at once. But

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Katie Blum: for me, sometimes they're fun, sometimes they're fun with a okay, how do you get to a yes,

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Katie Blum: How do you need to message differently? And we do this with our teams as well through that accelerator? How do you need to message that point differently? Okay, you tried it this way. It wasn't successful this time. Next week you tried a different way.

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Katie Blum: The 3rd time is the charm that's the one that you got now put it everywhere. It's upfront. It preempts a lot of questions that come later. How do they see? How does somebody else see themselves in this change in a really positive way. So I think for us it's in pitching

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Katie Blum: constantly. Tell your story constantly, pitch reframe what you're trying to accomplish over and over and over again until you get to the right message. And that message has to change regarding depending on your audience. So our is gonna have very different

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Katie Blum: things that they expect to see from an idea versus our tech team and what their interests are, or what they want to see out of it versus somebody on our front lines versus somebody who sits more in a services back office type role and our as an

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Katie Blum: as a catalyst. You need to understand that they all have different views on what those look like, and you need to address them them all

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Katie Blum: in some clear way.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: There's so much to unpack there. The

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: what's loud for me, and I don't know that I've ever had. This specific conversation is as catalysts, especially if we're sort of not self aware. And we're in our default mode. We can have this vision. And as we're getting feedback, we can iterate on the vision itself a lot to try and accommodate things.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But what I heard you say, which I think is really insightful is not that you're not taking feedback from the system on the idea. But what you are asking or encouraging or coaching your people to do is to iterate sort of the how or the story or so it's like you're not lost in a swirl of ideation. There, you're just troubleshooting like, how do I get this idea and articulate it in a way that maximum stakeholders can hear. It is that.

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Katie Blum: Yes, yep.

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Katie Blum: and they do that constantly. They do it over the course of it. Our teams do it over the course of a 12 week period. I do it. If I'm launching new ideas.

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Katie Blum: It is all about that story to me in some way.

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Katie Blum: And then sometimes, like you said, the vision does change the you're not going to know all the questions you should be asking until you get into the middle of it. By the time you're at the end. You're still not going to know all the questions you should have asked. But I think there's that

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Katie Blum: you know. How do you describe the vision. When you get some of that feedback it might tweak your vision. But most often you realize the literal words that I use to describe that thing really made that person mad. And I need to change the way I frame that thing.

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Katie Blum: you know to be to be teed up in a very different way that that has them nodding their head instead of, you know, scribbling frantically on a piece of paper about why they're mad about something.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Follow up question to that, because this is for me. This has always been the hardest part of the journey I can handle. When people come with objectives that I objections that I can understand. And I can handle when they're like, you know, 75% of the way. And I have to get them there. There's that weird sort of like silent middle people that it's like, you don't know where they stand like, how do you, coach? Or how do you handle navigating through the people who are just like sitting in the meeting, nodding their head, but not really leaning in or.

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Katie Blum: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thanks.

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Katie Blum: In in my world at least, silence is never a good sign ever, ever, ever

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Katie Blum: so when there is that silence, I know there's something behind it. And just because they're silent in that meeting doesn't mean that they're going to be silent in their next meeting, or with the next person that they're talking to about that particular idea. So for me, those are people you actually specifically need to go to and say

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Katie Blum: what you know. Let's talk about what your, what your concerns are. I didn't hear from you, hear much from you in those in that meeting.

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Katie Blum: What are you thinking? How? And I. Some of that's building cultural trust over time building the right relationships where people

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Katie Blum: can trust you to say that person who's coming up with the idea. I don't trust to do the idea. It might be that this isn't possible because of XY. And Z, or I fear that that's going to take away a portion of my work, or whatever those are. You have to build the right relationships. To be able to have those conversations. But silence to me isn't is a door, not an open door, not a

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Katie Blum: not an agreement or a closed door. I think it's those are the exactly the right people. You need to go to.

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Katie Blum: And I think, even similarly, even the people who are nodding their heads ferociously, and they're very much behind it.

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Katie Blum: You need to understand why they're behind it. And yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yes.

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Katie Blum: What that thing is that's making them excited about it, and bring them along as champions. And the folks who are saying No, the true objectors.

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Katie Blum: Usually there's a nugget of.

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Katie Blum: you know, of truth, and something that needs to be addressed there in terms of what that looks like, and it might be that that person

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Katie Blum: may never come around.

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Katie Blum: but their boss might, or their peer might, or somebody else might, realize. This is still what has to be done, even if that person doesn't want it.

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Katie Blum: So there! There's an audience for each one of them just finding the right one. But I think those middle that like I said, silence for me is never consent, and it's never agreement ever.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love your intentionality about talking to them like outside of the room, cause there might be also just reasons why they don't feel comfortable, sharing their lots and lots of reasons, and like, I wish I could have told my like, you know, 30 year old self.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: pay more attention and listen to the objectors to your point, not because you're ever going to convince them, but like, where were the landmines, or where was the additional value that I potentially could have created. I I just got so excited about the thing I was like, oh, well, they just don't understand. They're not change people. They don't understand that they're always going to be that way, and it's like, Well, that might be true, but there's.

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Katie Blum: Everybody has a pain point. That's right. Everybody wants to change something. I also think we intentionally in those group settings build in.

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Katie Blum: We want to hear negative feedback, and we make that abundantly clear from the beginning that the ideas aren't going to get better. So you know, this is the sort of

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Katie Blum: contribute to make it better. But you don't just get to kind of come in and

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Katie Blum: share a bunch of negative ideas about it. It's really. How do you help improve it? That's sort of an expectation, at least in the in the meetings that we're leading around particular ideas. You have to find a way to up up level. That idea, then, or we ask, I like.

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Katie Blum: I like, I wish, what if those are sort of like

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Katie Blum: 3 things, and I think that's from Netflix, or I don't remember. It's from

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Katie Blum: a large company that does it that way.

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Katie Blum: and that really came directly from our team, saying, Man, all we're getting is all this negative like, we should change this. And we should change this. And they specifically said it'd be nice to have some positive feedback, so that came from

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Katie Blum: even the naysayers in the room have something they like about an idea across the board.

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Katie Blum: I like your slides. I mean, it might not be about the idea. It might be like, your slides are really colorful, you know, like there's something that they can add to it. And I think that what if?

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Katie Blum: And then I wish you get really, really framed well, feedback that is actually useful for the teams.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's super cool, and I love the invitation of

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: the positive impact from the resistors. I don't know if you're familiar with appreciative inquiry, but that's also a super fun modality to bring in. It's like, if not this. Tell me about a time when this did work for you, so that they have to connect with the positive experience.

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Katie Blum: I love that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So the last thing you said is, you're like, in terms of the challengers like it can be a lot. And sometimes it's nice to be around the Yes and people. So I'd love to hear more about what that's like, and maybe how the clt, the catalyst Leadership Trust is helping to provide some of that.

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Katie Blum: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think I built that certainly within our organization. And those are the people that you, you know, are going to get new ideas, or they're constantly have new ideas again. That's what I find is that the people have gone through this. They've successfully implemented something, or even unsuccessfully implemented. Something. I think

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Katie Blum: they they're it's like their brain chemistry changes to be idea people. And they start to see possibility, endless possibility everywhere. And instead of looking at something that's a pain point for them as a permanent pain point and an eye roll moment. They start to see. I can change that thing I might, even though I feel like I'm not the person who makes the decisions. I don't own the budget. I don't have the budget. They feel like they have possibility to do that. So I think

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Katie Blum: you just by doing, by innovating and by pulling. You know other innovators through that process, you start to build your own network sort of in that way where you have people constantly, you can go to and say, I have this idea.

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Katie Blum: Tell me all the ways this would break, or tell me all the ways this would be wrong who are going to be the biggest objectors. So I think it's surrounding yourself with people like that within your own organization. But from a Clt perspective. I think that very 1st meeting that I came to it just was a oh, my gosh! There's other people like me. I'm not on an island. I'm I am not in this delusional space of thinking like

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Katie Blum: I. It's the future seems so obvious to me in terms of these are things that are changing in the world. You just are around so many other people who not only think the way you do

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Katie Blum: but operate similarly, but also have a ton of tips in their own right, for this is what worked for us. This is what didn't work for us. This is what worked in a small company. This is what works in a large company. This was how we were able to pivot more quickly. This is what I've done in the face of

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Katie Blum: you know, a challenging leadership situation, or a or a, you know, scaled down budget constraint. I think it's just to have that regular check in and space with people who are

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Katie Blum: like-minded who operate, I think, similarly, and are constantly thinking in that future space. It it feels

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Katie Blum: it's just such an incredible environment to to have access to and to be able to tap into.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I learned something every meeting, too.

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Katie Blum: Every meeting.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I feel really blessed that I get to do that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thank you for sharing your wisdom. We have our final fun question as we wrap up. I'd love to hear about your favorite catalyst, the person who inspires you, past or present. And why? Why do they stand out to you.

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Katie Blum: So I have a I have a couple

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Katie Blum: and one is more probably I would say, a broad category, and then I will actually give you a few names, but you know I work here at the University of Illinois, and we are surrounded by

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Katie Blum: innovators, just constant people who go out and change the world. Whether that's in medical technology, whether that's in the creation of Youtube and Paypal Paypal, the 1st Internet browser. I mean, we're surrounded by it. And I think, being in this environment, it is hard to not have that. Be contagious

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Katie Blum: and feel like you, too, can do anything, or you, too, can change change the world in some way. So so I would say, just being in this environment is phenomenal from that perspective. And it probably has fundamentally changed who I am and how I operate because of that. But, I would say, going back a little bit further to my

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Katie Blum: athletics days, my early athletic communication days I worked for, and there I'm sure there were more than that. But there were 4 that I always heard of. There were 4 women, Sue Edson from Syracuse.

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Katie Blum: Mary Jo Haverback, who was at Penn State when I was there. Tam flare up at Wisconsin,

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Katie Blum: and Rosa Gaddy at Espn. And I worked. Those were women who were the groundbreakers in that field. There weren't women in that field at that point in time.

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Katie Blum: and I worked for 3 of the 4 of them.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So.

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Katie Blum: Just have this incredible to know how they would have had to have navigated

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Katie Blum: situations where they maybe weren't invited or welcome, or they had to

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Katie Blum: function a little bit differently in order to be able to achieve the objectives, but really

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Katie Blum: were trailblazers for all the rest of us who came behind them, you know, in the next generation in that space to see and and things that even I couldn't do

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Katie Blum: in the late nineties to see women now today being able to do.

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Katie Blum: It's because of those women, and I think they were catalysts in in industry. They were catalysts for the rest of us, and I think

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Katie Blum: you know, being coached by them and taught by them. Really helps frame.

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Katie Blum: I can. I can do this. I can move through these hard things, regardless of what the situation. So those 4 women again, one of them who I didn't work for but just was a known entity to me.

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Katie Blum: I think we're we're big catalysts, for certainly how I operate.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's always so amazing to be able to recognize, like whose shoulders we stand on that were the trailblazers that came before us. Even as we're.

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Katie Blum: Absolutely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Change for those coming behind us. So thank you for sharing that. I'm going to ask you to email me the name so we can put them in. The show notes will do. And just thank you as always, for sharing your wisdom and your story. Really appreciate it.

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Katie Blum: Thank you so much for having me. It was great to be able to chat with you today and looking forward to seeing you in our next Clt session.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Absolutely

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