Stephen Kelner, President & Tiffany West, Head of Programming at Ascent Leadership Networks – Aligning Motivations to Drive Change

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And I'm Tracy Lovejoy. We're 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.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And today we're thrilled to have time with not one, but 2 amazing catalysts. Tiffany West and Stephen Kellner.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Tiffany oversees the development and delivery of ascent's programs prior to ascent, Tiffany spent 11 years at the World Economic Forum, where she had multiple roles. She oversaw the program for the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, and regional summits around the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: She began her career in brand management with roles at the Walt Disney Company and General Mills. Steve is a president and co-founder of ascent. He brings over 25 years of expertise in the nature of top leadership and how to evaluate and develop it, advising global firms, including creating the leadership evaluation process for 2 leading executive search firms. Welcome.

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Tiffany West: You great to be here.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: All right. So let's jump in, because that just barely scratches the surface of the amazing things that you guys have done in the world. So we'd love to hear about each of your catalytic journey sharing a few career highlights that you're proud of. That helps us see your catalytic nature and Tiffany, why don't we start with you.

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Tiffany West: Sure I would say that there are a couple of things that have always guided or motivated me in my career, and it's many twists and turns that it's taken over the years. The 1st one, I would say, is achieving. And Steve, being a motivational psychologist, will not be surprised by this at all, but I just love to get stuff done.

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Tiffany West: Nothing is more satisfying to me on a molecular level than crossing things off on a to-do list.

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Tiffany West: love it. And the second thing is really making positive change in the world. Very earlier in my career I shifted from the For profit world to the nonprofit world, because I always felt like so what at the end of the day, when I was done with my work, and when I made that shift and joined the World Economic Forum. This whole new world opened up to me.

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Tiffany West: and rather than being responsible for one brand or one product, I was suddenly in this position to influence global leaders and drive real large scale change.

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Tiffany West: And that was mainly behind the scenes. You know, there were these leaders out there in front of the TV cameras. But I was one of the key people behind the scenes helping to drive that. And

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Tiffany West: it was

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Tiffany West: this idea of, you know, being able to run sustainability projects with C-suite executives across multiple industries like you mentioned running the Davo Davos program.

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Tiffany West: being able to catalyze real change from behind the scenes was a totally new experience for me.

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Tiffany West: and it's very addictive. It turns out so.

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Tiffany West: That in that addiction to wanting to catalyze. This real change actually eventually led me to leave the World Economic forum and go down the entrepreneurial path because I wanted to make more of a direct change rather than being just fully behind the scenes, and I wanted that entrepreneurial experience, and liked that I could help leaders improve even more so they could affect even more positive change in the world with the work that we do as well.

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Tiffany West: And just one thing I want to mention here is that I think there are different kinds of catalytic leaders. There are the out in front catalysts, and then the behind the scenes, catalysts. And so far in my career. I've been more the behind the scenes kind, and I think it's

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Tiffany West: kind of an underrated and like understudied area of change in a lot of ways.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's so true. Thank you for calling that out. And I think a lot of times, you know, even when we 1st started our company people were like, well, if I'm not out in front, and if I'm not playing out of my swim Lane, or lots of different ways that people be like. I'm not sure I'm a catalyst. But to your point. We need them across the sort of the spectrum of the business to amplify and activate that change. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, Steve, how about you.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So I guess my my checkered path started because my late great mentor, David Mcclelland, who was a hugely influential psychologist and

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): impacted the whole Od. Field

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): introduced me to the firm. He founded Mcburr and Company when I was just finishing off my Phd. And he said, You know I've introduced a lot of my students to Mcburr.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The problem is that they get excited about consulting

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and lose sight of the research.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and I turned to him and I said, I'm not going to do that.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and I never have. A lot of my career has been living at the intersection of

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): better ways to do things of innovation and research with practical and pragmatic application.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And that's my form of catalytic action is to enable people to do things they couldn't do before.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And like Tiffany, I've worked behind the scenes a great deal. I've been a management consultant for much of my career. I eventually decided I had to go learn to be a manager for a while.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): so I went off, and I thought it'd be a little more credible.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and went off and became the head of a small training and consulting organization.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): where I also got to the intersection this time of learning about processes and structures and improvement.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because it was actually an old total quality management. If anyone remembers that anymore.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And I was bringing in motivation and people.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): so that combination of the structure and the process and the people and the drives all came together.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and then I spent a lot of time sometime in the.com world. So I got to be an entrepreneur which gave me experience in building

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): a, you know, a training and consulting organization and being a leader, a startup leader.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And then I went into the Executive Search realm.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): where I was the secret weapon behind the scenes to help 2 of the top 5 firms

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): move from kind of insightful but intuitive approaches to understanding leaders

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): to structure.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I had helped build the 1st valid set of scaled competencies back at co-developed, actually back at Mcburr. Back in 1990

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): we applied the same things to executives, which meant we could not just say, This is bad, this is good. We could say.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): This is good, this is better. This is future

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): right? And and that's informed a lot of what we've done as a firm

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): in terms of development and growth. But I said, my focus as a catalyst has been very much around

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): enabling people to do things they couldn't do before

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): rather than just doing it myself.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): my opportunity at

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): to come to here to ascent, was being able to kind of step out of the behind the scenes and actually lead an organization to do it.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because also, I wanted to get back to developing

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): clients directly I did work with clients. I've always worked with clients and with colleagues.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): but a lot of that was behind the scenes, and it's like I miss developing leaders.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And so here we are.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing. And the the threads about a just your superpowers connected sound incredibly powerful. So I can see how you're, you know, driving impact in the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: but also illustrating that, you know, while our focus is mostly right now on catalysts and large organizations as catalysts will go wherever we think we can make the most impact, or wherever that burning need starts to become, you're like, no, I need to go start having direct impact again and

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: and let that guide us.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You guys have both worked with so many catalyst leaders from some of the world's largest companies. I'm wondering what key insights you've gleaned about what it takes to be a successful catalyst leader. And Tiffany, why don't we start with you.

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Tiffany West: Sure. You know I when I think back through my career, I think there are kind of key insights from each step along the way at General Mills, which was my 1st role. I really learned the value of having a CEO, and it was Steve Sanger at that point.

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Tiffany West: who clearly and consistently articulated a vision, and then, most importantly, let everybody else execute on. It didn't get get in there and meddle with it, and I really think that part of being a catalyst at that level

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Tiffany West: is setting that clear vision and getting everyone else behind it, and then off and running

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Tiffany West: at Disney. I really learned

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Tiffany West: the power of partnerships in catalytic experiences. At this point I think the partnership between Michael Eisner and his president at Disney. Frank G. Wells is legendary, but it really was fascinating to see how powerful a catalyst like Michael Eisner can really become with the right people behind him and supporting them

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Tiffany West: all the way through

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Tiffany West: and at the World Economic Forum. I got to work really closely with people creating change on the largest scales, you know, whether they're heads of State or Ceos of Fortune. 500 companies or Nobel Prize winners. And

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Tiffany West: a couple come to mind in particular, one Paul Pullman of Unilever.

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Tiffany West: Yeah.

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Tiffany West: yeah, yeah. You know, he made sustainability the rallying cry at Unilever and actually walked the talk.

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Tiffany West: Absolutely incredible. Leader.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): At the footnote, I knew the guy who placed him at Unilever, so I've seen Paul Pullman's assessment on the scales that we talked about, and he is

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): scientifically proven amazing. Even before that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Got the data to back it up.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, exactly. And another one was Beth Comstock, of Ge.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You're literally picking my favorite people to.

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Tiffany West: So, you know, working, working with her was just absolutely incredible. She, you know, she co-founded Hulu. She was someone who was able to, you know, bring together traditionally warring factions with these broadcast networks and put them on a platform actually working together so that they could all survive in an online world. And you know, I think

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Tiffany West: across the board, the lesson there was, you know, working with people who really know how to operate inside and outside the systems they were handed, and how to change change those systems from within once they're in there.

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Tiffany West: And you know, now, at ascent, we've been able to help people catalyze changes that they never saw themselves making. I'm thinking of one project, Steve, that we worked on, you know, a group of executives working together to address Dei issues in their company

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Tiffany West: the most unlikely group of executives you would have imagined for that project. It was a group of

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Tiffany West: mostly male

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Tiffany West: white people.

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Tiffany West: and but they came together and they did it. They drove it through, and it has been a huge success for the organization. So

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Tiffany West: I think that's

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Tiffany West: what. What made that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Group successful. Do you think.

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Tiffany West: Steve feel free to jump in here. I think one

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Tiffany West: We were able to take them on a journey and really help them see how important it is to listen to people differently.

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Tiffany West: And so that was the kind of catalytic change that we were able to instill into that group of people.

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Tiffany West: We had them have conversations they had never even considered having with the people that they worked with, and it made them think think about everyone around them in a really different way. And, Steve, what else would you add to that?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Yeah. And I'll build on that that. You know, too many people think that creating change is just telling people this is wrong.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and sometimes they get to the point of saying, No, but this is right.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and that shows up in Dei by kind of lecturing people as to how bad it is for some groups, and how that's, you know, and that's true.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But that's not how you get people motivated to do something about it sometimes that actually grazes defensiveness.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So what we did was something different. We taught people to listen to what was going on with their employees, and then you get an emotional engagement with it.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Because managers don't want to be bad managers

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): right? They want their people to be excited, and our belief is that if you are a good manager. You are making the best use of all your people, which is

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): a simple definition of management, but it's also inclusion.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So teaching them to listen

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): meant. They got emotionally engaged in making change to help their people, and if everybody did that

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): there might not be a problem.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And we had people telling us things like

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I thought I was pretty cool. I mean, this is actually a direct quote. I thought I was pretty cool. I talked to my Hr. Guy and I thought I understood his problems, and I was wrong.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And and now I feel like I know what I'm doing. And years later, now

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): they're still leading the effort in their firms

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because they've got engaged in it. So that's a big trend that's a big theme for us is we try to get involved with people's emotional drives.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): not just the intellectual value, but get people excited.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And and.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): You know this is the joke I always tell about development in general, which is how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Only one. But the bulb has to want to change.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): That applies to catalysts. You have to be someone who can get someone to want to change.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hmm!

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Any other thoughts, Steve, for you about? You know what's what you know, what you've gleaned from other successful catalyst leaders.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I mean, we can build on this, and and Tiffany feel free to jump in. But you know we both talked about kind of influencing people. And if you want to be a catalyst executive.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): we think that's key. We see 3 key abilities, and Tiffany gave examples of each of them. The ability to collaborate, to create relationships across boundaries.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): the ability to lead a team and empower them to act.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And then, you know, basic change leadership, aligning an organization to get excited about doing things differently.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): All those things are about multiplying your impact across people

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): right

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): now, if you're driven by the desire to have an influence on people, then that's going to be fun.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But there's another category of motivation that drives people which is known as the achievement motive, which is, I want to fix things. I want to fix this myself.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and if it's a bit with Tiffany's, I like checking things off my list right? So if you're driven by achievement.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): it's much more about.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I enjoy fixing it myself, and I see better ways of doing things, and I'm constantly innovating.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But I'm not always thinking about bringing people along.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): whereas the influence motivated people

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): are all about the people, but sometimes they're not always thinking about better. Sometimes they're just thinking about. I got everybody lined up. That's that's the good thing.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So a great catalyst, I think, kind of can bring both together. They can bring the value of achievement.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But the excitement about getting people on board and moving.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and a lot of what Tiffany's talking about is partnerships. The partnership with Disney, I think in some respects, was

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): the creative innovator. Let's change the world coupled with. But what's going to work

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): with, you know Frank Wells was the one who

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): kind of was the rational one, whereas I guess Eichner was visionary and correct me if I'm wrong on that, Tiffany. But.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So bringing those together literally 2 people.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I love. I love the combination of your lists right from vision partnerships really listening differently. It's a big one. It's a big one. We identify speaking and and doing research with catalyst executives, and then kind of bridging that into influence, the and the balance of achievement and excitement.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I'd love to bounce from this to talk a little bit more about challenges which has been in the seam of what you've been talking about. And, Tiffany, I want to go back to something you said as we bridge into this is, you made the shift from Disney and General Mills into the World Economic Forum wanting to work in nonprofit.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Can you talk a little bit more about the difference between the making change in organizations versus behind the scenes? I'm so curious what that means for our catalyst audience, and how they would make that choice in their career.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, it's it's a really great question. You know, when you are in a traditional Cpg consumer, packaged goods company like a general Mills, or an entertainment company like Disney.

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Tiffany West: It is very clear what the goal is. The goal is to make money for everybody right? Everybody knows what their marching orders are. They know what they have to do. And there you go.

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Tiffany West: That is not the case. At an organization like the World Economic Forum. We lived in a a realm of ambiguity at all times.

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Tiffany West: and I think getting really comfortable with that ambiguity, and

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Tiffany West: being able to step back and say, okay. I don't actually know how this is going to turn out.

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Tiffany West: but I'm just going to give it a try.

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Tiffany West: I'm going to figure out who the people are either inside the the organization or outside the organization, who do have that global stage to create that global change that I was talking about before

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Tiffany West: and really try to rally them around the cause that I am passionate about, and that I'm taxed, tasked with driving forward as part of this organization. An example of that is, I led a sustainability project at the World Economic Forum with a board of 12 C-suite executives across, I think.

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Tiffany West: 10 different industries. And you know, I did a lot of work to figure out who would be the right people with the right personalities from those industries and from those companies to drive that change forward.

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Tiffany West: There's there. It goes back to that behind the scenes. There's a lot of behind the scenes work and thinking about

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Tiffany West: how you're going to bring all of these people along in a way that I don't think you have to do as much in a traditional corporate setting. Of course you have to bring people along in a corporate setting. It's just it's kind of at a whole different level at an organization where

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Tiffany West: the mission is literally to improve the state of the world which could be anything right.

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Tiffany West: It's just

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Tiffany West: leveling up in a really big way.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Okay, that's really it's it's so interesting to think about that. Because I think what I'm hearing is that

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): in a place like the world economic Forum. There's

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): You don't really know who the actors are going to be, even though they've already raised their hands, that you have to really be doing additional sifting that maybe in a, in a corporate environment things are a little bit more clear. That's what we've never.

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Tiffany West: You're given, you know, in in a corporate environment, in a lot of in a lot of cases. This, I think, you know, is changing. There's a lot more matrix organizations and things like that now. But

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Tiffany West: in a lot of cases you're you know who your team is to get something done.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Tiffany West: Whereas, you know, in

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Tiffany West: in an organization like the World Economic Forum, or you know others that are a little bit more ambiguous, you're you're in charge of creating that team. You need to build the team to get the work done. And you know there has to be a lot of emotional intelligence to understand who those people are, what types of people you need to bring along on that journey with you, to really affect that change too.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): That's so interesting. Thank you. And I'd love to broaden it, too, to understand in general for you, as a catalyst across these different environments. What are some of the challenges that you find that you other catalyst executives commonly face.

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Tiffany West: Oh,

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Tiffany West: I think for me, the biggest one that I've experienced is.

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Tiffany West: you know, when you're in an organization that says we want change. We want change, we want change. And then it turns out they don't actually want the change.

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Tiffany West: And you know, that's.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Both experienced that. Yeah.

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Tiffany West: Yeah. And that's something that I've experienced at a couple of points in my career. And and that's tough. You know. You. You go out there, you prototype products, you prototype projects, you test them out. You think you have the support behind you from the organization.

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Tiffany West: And even if you get incredible results at the end of the day. The answer can be actually

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Tiffany West: just, no, no, we're just not gonna do it. And it is deeply frustrating. It is deeply demotivating, as well you know, both for yourself as the leader of the team in charge of this, and you know you've rallied your group around this. What you've been told is a really important project for the organization. And then the organization comes in and says, Oh, no, just kidding. That's we're not gonna do it, after all. I think that that is one of the

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Tiffany West: most difficult things to deal with as a catalytic leader.

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Tiffany West: just coming to terms with that, and learning not to take it personally. To be honest with you.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): If you ever can, right.

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Tiffany West: I have not mastered that. Yeah.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): this is a really common challenge that that our audience faces. And I'm curious with the benefit of hindsight.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Were there signs

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): like, what what wisdom can we glean from this challenge, as so many have this challenge ahead of them?

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Tiffany West: Yeah, I think for me in. So there's 1 example that I'm thinking of where I was tasked with creating new digital business models for an organization

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Tiffany West: turned out the organization was not at all ready for new digital business models. Just wasn't and

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Tiffany West: I thought I had done the influencing within the organization that I needed to, and I hadn't.

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Tiffany West: And so I think, you know, if I had to go back and do that again, I would be much more savvy about rallying that internal influence network around me. I was really good at rallying the external influence network. I did not rally the internal influence network the way

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Tiffany West: into, and so being able to to do both of those is really important.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): What would

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): like, as we think about kind of the magic wand to overcome this.

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Tiffany West: Yeah.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Take.

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Tiffany West: So for me. I think it was a few things one was like. I was based in one city. The the headquarters was in another city. I think I needed to be much more present in the headquarters location just given the politics of that organization.

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Tiffany West: just

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Tiffany West: because it was such a face to face organization, no surprise. They weren't so into digital business models.

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Tiffany West: They.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Tiffany West: I really needed to be physically present. And

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Tiffany West: that that really, I do think, would have made a big difference, being able to have the hallway conversations that you can't have from 6,000 miles away.

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Tiffany West: Things like that.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Could you have seen it in the moment? That's really the thing I'm curious about, right. This is this is like, did it take going through it to understand the culture?

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Or was there signs? But in your excitement we couldn't stop and see it.

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Tiffany West: I think I think there was some signs, but I thought I could overcome them, and I

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Tiffany West: I didn't.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Tiffany West: So, yeah, yeah.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): You, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I just want to jump in, because underneath this, and now I'm pulling from my own experiences, you're still getting. It sounds like you're still getting some verbal yeses.

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Tiffany West: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So it's like, when do you know that that verbal yes, or that head nod is not genuine, or, or in your experience, I guess follow up question is, I'm often curious. Did they really, truly think they wanted it at some point? So it wasn't even disingenuous. And then, when shit got real. It's like, Oh, not ready.

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Tiffany West: I think it was the latter to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. Cause why would they have put all the resources toward it? Right? So.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And so what's your advice to catalyst when that's the when? That's the reality? Because I think that is often true.

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Tiffany West: Yeah. And I think that's where the don't take it personally really comes in.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, it's it's not. It's yeah. It's the Ouch.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): So how do we deal with that? Right? You hit that moment as you said, it's not just you. You have a team like, what have you learned in moving through that moment? So I hear that. Don't take it personally.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): How do we do that, Tiffany?

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Tiffany West: Well.

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Tiffany West: you know, the funny thing is that after that experience I actually left the organization and started my own company.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): So what was the catalyst for you?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): to our benefit. So.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, I decided I didn't want to bang my head against the wall anymore. And like, I said, I have not figured out how to not take that personally left. And you know, I really, I learned that just because an organization says they want catalysts doesn't mean they actually do want catalysts. They think they might, they they might not actually and so I decided to go off and be my own catalyst with an amazing group of people.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Thank you for sharing that, because I hear a permission in that of like if you hit a situation that is really that hard, and it's hard to not take it personally.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Take the learnings from it and figure out what the next step is for you. You don't have to stay and make it okay, and continue to bang your head against the wall. That might not be the message to our audience. And so it sounds like for you. It was like, Yeah, no, this is a sign to some extent of being ready for a new environment.

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Tiffany West: Yeah.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Thank you for sharing that anything else that you want to share in terms of the challenges that you know we're all up against out in the world.

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Tiffany West: Not for me. But, Steve, maybe you have something you wanted to add.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Well, in Steve.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And I would add that.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): To add to Tiffany's, I mean, I think another way of looking at it is, you've taken them as far as they can go.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And sometimes people need to process before they can move any further.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So it's not necessarily that you've failed or you've made any mistakes. It's you've pushed them right to the limit.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and you can take pride in that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Well, I think what's also interesting, Steve, the pattern that I see there often is. Then there's this like pause, and then they'll pick up the things that you had started like. I'm guessing that that business that you were working for Tiffany didn't just reject digital forever. Right? And so you became this

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: the spearhead of some of the work.

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Tiffany West: Yeah, then Covid hit and everything had to go digital.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Your point, Steve. I think it is really interesting. It's like it's a not right now. Moment they're going on their own journey. And so, you know, if we can go back with some sense of accomplishment like, and then they couldn't have done the next things that they did. I'm not saying that happens every time, but.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I'm curious. This is something that the balance between throwing yourself into it right? There is a lot of emotional work we need to do to be able to recognize the opportunity to do the networking that you're talking about, Tiffany and do it even more than really, you thought, you know, like flying out there being in person identifying these folks. And then to you, Steve, the clinical, like pullback of Recognize. It's not a fail.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): How do people toggle right like? What does it take to be able to be in it and throwing your energy and be able to pull back and look at the system and say, like, Oh, it was a positive impact. It's not a fail.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Years of therapy.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Well, that's why I asked you, Steve, to the, to the psychologist. Right like what advice.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I can play one on video. But seriously.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): it is very hard if you're the kind of person that wants to catalyze things

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): with the emotional commitment, the emotional drives we've been talking about. You know you're doing it because it feels good and it's exciting. And it's energizing.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But it's also the source of your frustrations if it gets blocked.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): it's very hard to disengage from your motives. And you can't really because they're a part of you.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So some of it is, I think, having a community around you and colleagues who can help

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): having the network of people who can act as your reality check or the kitchen cabinet they talk about for Ceos someone who isn't reporting to them.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): but can advise them.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Yeah, you know.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and we've built some of that into the way we develop leaders at ascent is, you know, we've built cohorts and networks, and we've also taught people to try to look for who's out there that can help you, because it's not just you.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and that can be the temptation, especially when it's about your emotional engagement that

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I want to do this because it's exciting to me, and you sometimes have to stop and say, Wait a minute.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Who else can help me.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): so I'll have a higher chance of success

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): or reality. Check me when I know I've gone as far as I can go.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): It's just so much good wisdom there. I remember during Covid reading research that, you know, helped us all understand that one of the reasons we were all

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): so frustrated. Anger we're seeing violence go up is exactly as you said is that when our goals are blocked

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): right it it we erupt in anger when we cannot achieve the things we want. And so this is a very normal physical, emotional response for us as catalysts in the moment that Tiffany is bringing forward.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Absolutely.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Anecdote of that I may not always be able to do the toggle, to pull back and look and look at it clinically, and come in, but a group of people around me

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): can help me see things from different perspectives can help me see the wins, and it may not be a fail, even if I'm feeling deeply blocked. It's a great frame on something that we hear a lot, but rather than just like Oh, it's good to have a mentor like that really grounds it in the science of why that's so powerful.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): We've actually known for decades that one way to deal with stress. People deal with stress better if they have a strong social network.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And I think one of the double whammies of Covid. Is it removed us from personal interactions with people? Or at least it seemed like it.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I'll just say that I had a group of friends that started meeting by video for Covid, some of whom I didn't know. It was like introduced through friends, and we have now met every weekend

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): for years

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): by video. Still, because we're all over the country.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And they're some of my closest friends. Yeah, right? So yeah, I mean, you need to. You need to manage yourself. It's not enough to just

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): drive in and beat yourself up.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah, I think it's 1 of the powers for Shannon and I, and being Co. Ceos, and I wonder if it's something you 2 enjoy as well. Right is that when we have moments of like that like oh, shame! I must have done it wrong, and then that you know the other person can be like. No, you didn't.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): But that was fine. Like, did, yeah, this thing happened, and you dealt with that. And and you have that instant feedback.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Of someone to help you reframe. So yeah, no, thank you. That's super helpful.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): It may not, should be me that says this, but we have a very collaborative culture by.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Delete.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Burn intent

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): that so you know Tiffany and our colleagues and me, and we will get together and thrash things out.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because, you know, nobody is. Nobody knows everything, anyway. So collectively, we might know a little less.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): What?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I know shocking, but.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I really thought I had that corner so.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): There's also a point.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Check on.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I was. Gonna say, I would love to kind of continue in here in your journey as a catalyst. What else have you found? What other wisdom have you uncovered for, fellow catalyst executives that we want to make sure that we name today?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So there's 1 thing that Tiffany has alluded to, and I want to kind of make more structured, which is

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and sort of a scale of change, leader.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and not even a sort of we have one right. We actually measure this in great precision, but I can describe it a little more easily, which is

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): early on you. You and you accept change. You think that change is good.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The step above that

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): is to be able to say, you know what

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I'm going to be active about this. We need to change this. This is wrong, or the status quo is not acceptable anymore.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And that's good up to a point. But you can become just a gad fly. It's just oh, the complainer!

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Right?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And and this has actually become the problem in things like Dei efforts, because people misinterpret what's going on as Oh, it's just complainers, which is one reason why we tried to make sure everybody was engaged that it's everybody's issue, right?

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): All leaders are trying to manage everybody.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The step above that, though, is to moving out of the well. This is wrong to.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): We need to carry a vision of what is right.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Let's get people positively excited about moving in a new direction. And that's where you start going from the criticism to the positive, to the excitement of being a change agent.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But for executives it's got to go a step further still.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So Tiffany and I have both been in internal situations where we could act at that level

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and and be effective

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because it wasn't our job to drive all the change. It was our job to get other people aware that we needed to do it.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The level above that for a senior executive is

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): to empower other people to be the change agents. So they carry the message, and they carry the vision. So you're generating this and and some of that is sometimes giving up a little ego that as long as the change happens, does it matter who's in front.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): 100%.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): It's a huge derailer we see for the catalyst executive and a big differentiator between the more junior catalyst and the more. And and folks who make it to the executive branch.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And that's why I said, the emotional component

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): right is, I'm excited about making this change, and I want to show it. And and sometimes it's like, Wait a minute. Is my real excitement about being the person in front or about seeing the change happen.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): That's right. That's right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: There is a nuance to that, though, because we often like that is, both things are true. But I'm wondering if you have advice for this other one, because it's like there's a lovely gentleman in our network. And he was definitely a servant leader. He's a hyper, catalyst, and part of his management style was, and this is what we teach you have to create change through people right?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: But he sublimated his own ego almost to such an extent.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Too far.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right. Everyone got promoted above him, and when the next, like almost C-suite level, happened, they hired someone else because they had associated this person with a transformation initiative that he had led. That was successful, and they said it because he went. And he asked, is like, I really need some feedback here, and they're like, Oh, we didn't know that you really had a role in that. So I'm wondering if there's like how advice that you would have to balance that for people.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): It's a tricky point, because

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): it's the issue that

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): sometimes, to make the change happen, people have to know

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): that you did it without you patting yourself on the back publicly all the time.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): It's a problem we've seen with, because great leaders are often humble leaders.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And right? So it's sort of the the drawback of that is, they're they're so humble that nobody knows they're the leader.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You don't get licensed to operate again in this example, right? Because it's like the demonstration of impact. Yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And after I can say that after a certain point in an organization, they may not have that opportunity again.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And that's unfortunate. But it's coming back to Tiffany's Point that

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): the way to establish that might be to go at least investigate other opportunities, because sometimes I will reassure you

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and let all those people you helped be your references.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): That you can do it somewhere else. That's 1 option. And there are other options.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But it depends on kind of how far back

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): the Div.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The influence cycle needs to be right.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): If people give you the credit, then you don't need to take the credit.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): If that makes sense.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It does. And it comes back to me about that super intentional network that you were talking about like the mentors and stuff. Because if you're bringing them into the trenches with you, and through your process.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: you know again, without, you know, an overdeveloped sense of ego. They become your spokespeople in a way. So I think there's.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): That's right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Interesting

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: intention around curating some of those people who will be sitting in the room talking about you when you're not there.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And it does matter who it is. So there was a point in my career, and I'm not going to be too specific where I had a colleague who was absolutely my advocate.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and pitched me entirely the wrong way, and had he told me what he was planning, I would have told him I knew it was wrong.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): that what he was going to do was arouse resistance.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): That that's what happened.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and that's ultimately a firm. I left

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because there was nowhere for me to go. And

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and that's you know, that was their culture, and that's something.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and it's possible I could never have gotten past that barrier. And, in fact, now they've changed like 10 years later. But

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): that's right.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It is what it is, and and is that.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): It is.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Go back to then. Are we staying or not? All right. What I'm feeling right now is from both of what you guys have just shared. It's like it's a lot of emotional labor and toll on us personally. So if you could really briefly.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Steve, how do you manage your energy? Or how have you seen people manage their energy to avoid, like the total catastrophic burnout.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Well, part of what we teach is that you want to align your motivation as much as possible with the role that you have.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): you enjoy not just the outcomes, but the day, the day-to-day process of what you do. So if you enjoy it.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): then it's going to generate energy for you

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): if you're having to force yourself to do everything that you know it's important to do.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But you don't. You don't really want to. That's what's exhausting, and that's what's draining over time.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): So that would say, understand which emotions you have. So I mentioned. You know the achievement mode of wanting to go fix it and do things better myself. Versus influence you can have both.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): The 3rd is affiliation, which is, I like to be part of a friendly group.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): I'm just going to say I'm high in all 3, which means being an entrepreneur in a small group that is creative and has an impact on developing people is perfect because I've had hyphenated titles. My whole career.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): because I'm trying to appeal to everything

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): that's that to me is is part of kind of. You have to understand yourself versus the role you're playing. You can do something different.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): But it must be conscious.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Okay.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): That you are choosing to do that, and then you can kind of propel yourself long enough to get it done

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): awesome. And I think there's also a point. And I'm making this. And

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Jim and I have been talking about this because we have. I have a book coming out next summer

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): on stages of leadership and categories of leadership. And one of the things I think a lot of leadership books leave out is sometimes you have to stop.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): There's a point at which you are as far as you should go.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and after that you're not going to be happy anymore.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: We don't talk.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I totally agree.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Because our culture is so focused on the achievement is gotta move up. Got to keep going. It's like.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): why.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): if you are satisfied, happy, productive.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Coming back to my late mentor, David Mcclellan, they founded Mcburr in the sixties. Their motto was to make the world happy, productive, and free.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): And it's like, you know I'm not. I'm good with that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, totally, Tiffany. How about you? How do you manage your energy through those ups and downs?

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Tiffany West: Yeah, I I think what Steve said is so important, just making sure that you personally are aligned with the work that you're doing. I mean that when I talked about like the so what that I felt at the end of every day. That's why I left where I was and went more into the the service side of things. So I think that really is the key one on a day to day basis, though, to be honest with you. It is something I need to get a lot better at.

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Tiffany West: because I am that achievement person. I am the person who is always driving, always trying to achieve whatever goal is in front of me, and I think what what tends to keep me sane is being able to

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Tiffany West: pull back a little bit and say, Okay.

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Tiffany West: let's forget the day to day goals for a minute. What's the big goal that we're really trying to achieve right now? I, I can get very lost in the in the

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Tiffany West: just checking off the list. And so it's like, Okay, but what's the what's the big goal? How do we move toward the big goal.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, and it's going back to something Tracy pulled out earlier. It's like the zooming in the zooming out and being able to do that on a pretty regular basis, and what I hear is the network can be a support for that.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: All right, Tiffany, I'll call on you. Do you have a call to action for our listeners. What are you hoping that you know they'll achieve in the world.

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Tiffany West: call to action for your listeners, I would say.

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Tiffany West: if you are the behind the scenes, person.

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Tiffany West: you are just as valid of a catalytic change leader as someone who is out in front.

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Tiffany West: And I think that is, it's in

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Tiffany West: underestimated role that a lot of people play. And so I think it's 1 that everybody should be proud of.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Steve final call to action for Listeners.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Gosh! I don't know how to beat what Tiffany said. Catalysts are where you find them, and part of it is to understand what kind of catalyst you are.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): and to find your peace with that, and then you can enjoy it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing, amazing! Yes, yes, yes, this was a fantastic conversation. We could talk for hours and hours, but thank you so much for sharing the depth of your wisdom with us.

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Tiffany West: Thank you so much for having us.

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Steve Kelner, PhD (he/him): Indeed, very welcome.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: 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. Be sure to check out our book, move fast, break shit burnout, which I have to throw in here. Beth Comstock also recommended, or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And if you enjoyed this episode, the way that Shannon and I definitely have, please take a few seconds to rate it on itunes. Spotify stitcher wherever you're listening to your podcasts. And if you have other catalysts in your life, hit the share button, send a link their way. Thanks again.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thanks! Again.