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Episode 35: Helping Leaders to Operationalize Growth

Susan Odle is the Founder & CEO of 8020CS — a strategic consultancy that helps leaders and leadership teams learn how to successfully operationalize strategic plans and change initiatives. She is also the author of a new book, Successful Change: A Field Guide to Operationalizing Change that Drives Growth, Profitability, and Operational Efficiency. In this episode of Change@Work, she and host Chris Thornton, discuss her career journey through the tech and private equity industries, how GenAI is disrupting the workplace, and the importance of humanity and transparent communication in business. As an extra bonus, enjoy her Sara Bareilles Spotify playlist here.

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated with artificial intelligence. It’s in the queue to go through a review with human eyes!

00;00;09;28 – 00;00;43;26

Hello, and welcome back to Change@Work. I’m your host, Chris Thornton. Today we’re talking to Susan Odle, founder of 8020CS and author of Successful Change Your Guide into the 30% Club in the midst of Ottawa’s tech boom. Susan found herself moving up the ranks from business development to operations and eventually becoming a specialist in change management. In today’s discussion, we talk through the latest trends in change management, how change in tech differs from other kinds of change, and the importance of continuing your passions outside of the workplace.

00;00;43;28 – 00;00;49;05

So I hope you enjoy the conversation. Here she is. Susan Odell. Susan, how are you?

00;00;49;08 – 00;00;50;26

I’m doing great. Chris, are you doing.

00;00;50;27 – 00;00;59;06

I’m good. Thanks so much for joining us today. I’m excited to get into your book, into your expertise. But first, we have to get to know you as a person, if that’s all right.

00;00;59;09 – 00;00;59;26

That’s great.

00;00;59;29 – 00;01;05;03

So one of the things the team told me is that you studied music in university.

00;01;05;05 – 00;01;05;21

And you did.

00;01;05;26 – 00;01;12;12

You put out three albums of your own music, So you got to tell us all about that and what your inspiration.

00;01;12;15 – 00;01;33;27

Sounds great. Yeah. So I would say my music sits at the crossroads of Tracy Chapman and Neil Young. wow. A bit more aggressive than the folky stuff Tracy puts out, but I have musics in my family’s blood. My great, great aunt was a concert pianist in Guyana in South America a long time ago, And and I bent for a drum kit when I was like eight years old.

00;01;33;27 – 00;01;49;06

My parents said no, finally got a piano at 12. Self-taught on the guitar. And yeah, for at least three albums, I have a fourth one on the back burner. So music is like air for me. Yeah, and that’s what I’m doing. I’ll always be writing, always be creating.

00;01;49;12 – 00;01;55;12

Do you have a favorite singer or musician that that you look up to?

00;01;55;14 – 00;02;01;08

Well, I love all genres except for EDM because I find it repetitive and boring.

00;02;01;09 – 00;02;02;20

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

00;02;02;24 – 00;02;26;21

Yeah, I go on to something on for far too long, but I would have to say my my favorite singer songwriter is actually Sarah Barillas because I think she’s brilliant. Yeah. The the her breadth and her technical chops and she just amazing her voice. I just love her. So I wouldn’t necessarily call it an inspiration for my style of music.

00;02;26;22 – 00;02;33;20

Yeah, I think she’s like the best female singer songwriter actively working today.

00;02;33;22 – 00;02;43;06

So I know her mostly through the musical that she’s responsible for. Waitress. Yeah. Anything else that I should be listening to from her?

00;02;43;10 – 00;02;46;14

I’ll share my Spotify Sarah Burrell’s playlist with you.

00;02;46;14 – 00;02;48;09

Where you really can share it with the audience.

00;02;48;12 – 00;03;08;12

Absolutely not by her. And it covers like a bunch of her albums. She’s brilliant. She’s incredibly brilliant. Like her her breadth of ability to write for different like, how can you write for Broadway? And then also write like a song that speaks to women and love like. Yeah, she’s. She’s great.

00;03;08;15 – 00;03;28;19

Well, thank you for that. Okay, listeners, check out the episode notes down below on your phone or wherever you’re listening, there will be a link to the Spotify playlist. It’s fantastic. All right. One more question. It’s getting a little chilly right now as we’re recording this, but you got any favorite activities to do in the wintertime?

00;03;28;21 – 00;03;29;15

Downhill skiing?

00;03;29;16 – 00;03;30;29

No, seriously.

00;03;30;29 – 00;03;37;01

Yeah. I don’t know what they in the U.S., we don’t say Alpine. I don’t know who says that. We just here we go, downhill skiing.

00;03;37;03 – 00;03;44;25

Yeah, I think that’s what we say in the U.S. I’m not sure what they say in the UK. We go listeners all over the world. So whatever you whatever you say, it’s going down a mountain. Is that fair? we’ve.

00;03;44;25 – 00;03;49;14

Got a mountain on wood. Kind of a little terrifying.

00;03;49;14 – 00;03;51;17

What do you love about it.

00;03;51;19 – 00;03;59;00

The speed. So, I mean, I can ski black diamonds, but I don’t choose to. I choose to ski very hard down blue France.

00;03;59;06 – 00;04;02;10

What are black diamonds of blue runs? Tell me more.

00;04;02;12 – 00;04;22;10

So green is easy. Okay. And then blue is intermediate flat black diamonds. You can have a double black diamond in some big hills. You can have a triple black diamond. So it’s the pitch of they’re cool. And then the turns. Yeah. And so you have to think too much on Black Diamond runs, but you don’t have typical autumn blues.

00;04;22;13 – 00;04;34;23

So I’ve been skiing since I was in grade eight and my daughter has been skiing since I was able to hold her between my legs and go down doing a bit together. And so it’s a big part of our our winter lifestyle.

00;04;34;25 – 00;04;49;11

Let’s say you were talking to someone who has never done downhill skiing and might be terrified to do it because he’s pretty convinced he will break something. What? How do I get started?

00;04;49;13 – 00;05;07;13

Well, some people might advise you to do snowboarding instead. Okay. Apparently it’s easier to get going on a snowboard than it is on skis. But I would just say get out there and try it. Like maybe you go to a hill for a day and you try like skiing in the morning, rent some skis, and then you try snowboarding in the afternoon.

00;05;07;20 – 00;05;11;03

Yeah. Which one you hate less and then keep going.

00;05;11;06 – 00;05;24;02

What’s fair? Which one? I hate less. Thank you for that. Thanks for meeting me where I am. What’s your favorite After the skiing activity?

00;05;24;04 – 00;05;28;12

definitely a good meal with a glass of wine or four of wine.

00;05;28;15 – 00;05;29;11

yeah?

00;05;29;13 – 00;05;32;21

Yeah. To get into the chalet. Or if you run, you know, if you.

00;05;32;27 – 00;05;33;21

Yeah.

00;05;33;24 – 00;05;53;01

I’ll do. Sometimes I’ll rent. We’ll rent a cottage with friends and go for a few days and you get back to the rental or you get to the chalet and you have a good meal with a drink and conversation and then you pass out by about 9:00 because you’re so exhausted. But it’s it’s it’s a great way to spend the colder part of the of the year.

00;05;53;04 – 00;06;21;24

Thank you for that. I may just jump to the after skiing activity. Thank you. That’s good. I’m going. Fair enough. Fair enough. So getting into your book just within the first few pages is such a compelling story that you’re sharing. You’ve accomplished so much already and you never graduated from college. You’ve been so accomplished and the taxpayers become the founder of your own firm.

00;06;21;26 – 00;06;27;08

Tell me about that journey, if you would. How did you get into specializing in to change?

00;06;27;11 – 00;06;50;01

Yeah, So I studied music. I didn’t finish my degree, but it would have been useless for my tech career. Okay, So I went to school for for music. And then I was working at a high end retail furniture store in Toronto, and I was reading The Toronto Star an article about this industry that was about to take off, and that was CCAC.

00;06;50;03 – 00;06;58;28

And I’ve always been a I’ve always been a nerd, proudly so. My dad, my dad lined up a radio RadioShack when the Commodore Vic 20, came out.

00;06;58;29 – 00;07;03;22

Okay, I remember Commodores. I don’t know if I remember that exact line, but yes.

00;07;04;00 – 00;07;22;24

The Commodore 64, the Vic 20, was made by the same company, was a predecessor to that, where you literally you saved your your code on tape. and you played it back to run like math calculations. My dad lined up at RadioShack to buy that. So I’ve been around technology my whole life and and always have had a passion for it.

00;07;22;25 – 00;07;50;04

I’m like, I can do that. So I started applying for jobs and no one really responded for a long time. And then these two founders, ex executives from Rogers, which is the equivalent of Verizon, big, big communications company, had left Rogers and started an OCR company, optical character recognition. So at that time you could do surveys, automated survey collection through the fax like they were colored in right up.

00;07;50;06 – 00;08;20;00

And so I took a straight commission job selling OCR services and my employer at the time offered me a lot more and base to stay and I’m like, No tech is where I need to be. And so I work straight commission. And then I got bumped up to $1,000 a month in base salary. Yeah, I worked my way up from there and everything I’ve done has been based on over 27 years producing results and building trust with founders and with executives and boards.

00;08;20;03 – 00;08;38;20

And I just have I keep getting pulled into different companies where they they just trust me as a person, but also trust my ability to produce results. And yeah, so I’ve gone from straight commission to CEO for an $800 million business over the last 27 years.

00;08;38;20 – 00;08;48;15

Incredible. I could ask you what the toughest part of that journey is, but I think I’m more interested in what have been the most fun moments of that journey.

00;08;48;18 – 00;08;53;18

that’s a great question. That’s a that’s a really great question, Andre.

00;08;53;18 – 00;08;59;05

I like everybody has struggles some harder than others, but like, what are the moments of joy?

00;08;59;08 – 00;09;18;12

I think it’s you know, it’s related to the second half of your question. It’s like how if I a specialized in change my whole life has been especially as Asian in change. And so I think the most fun part for me has been just getting pulled into brand new environments like, okay, do you want to go in and help us operationalize a business in India?

00;09;18;12 – 00;09;43;11

I’ve never done anything in India before in a completely new market segment. So you get to meet new people. Yeah, I mean brand new things. And you are applying the learnings of your life and your professional career to date that has some reference to what you’re doing next, but not completely. I thrive on something new. I’m very curious about absolutely everything.

00;09;43;11 – 00;10;12;16

So new challenges. I couldn’t imagine doing the same thing for ten years. And that’s what I love about change. Every single scenario is different, and so every single scenario you’re having to learn about that current environment and you’re having to use your experience and your gut instincts and the learnings that everybody around you, you’re having to take that on the fly to say, okay, we can get to point B, right?

00;10;12;18 – 00;10;29;06

And so I think that’s been the most fun. If you want to get examples of like tactically, what was the most fun like just sure Windows anti Yes. Okay. The conversion to Windows 2000. Yes so I.

00;10;29;09 – 00;10;30;16

Lived experience it.

00;10;30;16 – 00;10;52;03

Yes we were there in San Francisco for launch. Wow. Okay Santana I played the part the the the launch party. Wow. Okay. That was that was crazy in a room. I think that that bar might have held a thousand people. Yeah. We’ve got to see Santana play at that. That was a huge transformation from Windows 90 to 2000.

00;10;52;03 – 00;11;10;23

Going from that flat domain structure to this ability to create virtual domains and control things. That was super cool. And I can’t I don’t know, the gift bag for all the attendees at that time. We got some high end luggage. We got the first windows surface device. We all were given a surface. I mean.

00;11;10;25 – 00;11;13;01

Yeah, I remember when they came out.

00;11;13;04 – 00;11;15;18

That’s exactly totally fine.

00;11;15;20 – 00;11;30;05

Totally fine. Yeah. Well, you talked about things changing. What are you seeing change right now? Are there trends that you’re really paying attention to? Is this one for me to point out? Is Gen I? But are there other things that are missing?

00;11;30;08 – 00;11;58;18

Well, I think Gen AI or AI in general is absolutely the biggest disruptor in market today and is going to be ongoing. But I think that companies most companies don’t understand the data maturity model, the path from I have data and now I’m going to I’m going to leverage that data through Gen I, I practices in my business.

00;11;58;18 – 00;12;23;03

And so I think there’s a huge disruption that’s happening. I think tech companies are much better prepared to leverage AI than more traditional businesses. But I think businesses overall have to understand there is a maturity that that needs to be looked at. Like if your foundational data is crap. Yeah. And leveraging crap into AI is just going to give you more crap.

00;12;23;03 – 00;12;51;09

Yeah, right. And so however, you know, it’s going to continue to eliminate jobs, anything that is rote and can be automated, it will be just a matter of time. But I think the other trend that’s happening is our aging population. The workforce is shrinking. It’s going to continue to shrink on a global basis. And so you’ve got AI that it is automating things like, you know, basic accounting skills, for example.

00;12;51;09 – 00;13;09;20

There’s a really good example of where they’re going to automation, but then you’ve got the work force that is shrinking and those two things are putting massive pressure on businesses and they have to adapt, they have to change. And I think that that’s even more demand for what we do in terms of helping people navigate it for sure.

00;13;09;22 – 00;13;18;12

I don’t know how to answer this impossible question. I’m going to ask you, but do you think change is different within tech than other areas of business?

00;13;18;15 – 00;13;42;20

I believe it is. okay. I wouldn’t say all other all other areas, because I can’t I’m not a, you know, an expert in multiple industries. I think the difference with tech is pace the pace of the technology sector. Yeah, if it’s a mid-stage company, a scale up startup, they’re under a certain amount of time constraints to produce results.

00;13;42;22 – 00;14;08;10

So if it’s if it’s a series, you know, C to D company and there’s an exit target three years from now and they’re not hitting their metrics, then they don’t have a lot of time to change things around to get to what the shareholders want as an output. The competition is way more fierce, I would say in tech from a timing point of view, you don’t have a lot of time to kind of be a laggard.

00;14;08;10 – 00;14;28;16

You need to make things happen faster. So for me, the biggest difference, I believe, is pace in terms of operationalizing change to produce the desired outcomes that a tech company may may need. And that pressure of time is not necessarily the same in more traditional industries.

00;14;28;17 – 00;14;30;14

Yeah, fair, fair.

00;14;30;17 – 00;14;33;23

That’s my only contribution to that question. Well.

00;14;33;25 – 00;14;49;20

Yeah, it’s a it’s a really tough question, but I think you have a really unique view. And so I appreciate that when when you think about what inspired you or what motivated you to write your book, where did that begin?

00;14;49;23 – 00;15;02;06

That’s a good question. I was working for a private equity firm about five and a half years ago and I was VP of operations for the third largest holding company in that portfolio.

00;15;02;12 – 00;15;02;26

Okay.

00;15;03;01 – 00;15;26;23

And it really interesting experience, I think, working for a PR firm on the inside where you’ve got, you know, targets of 60% quarter over quarter provide you with a unique perspective on operations. And so we had a really challenging QPR and you know, the decisions were made to cut versus change because change would take a little bit longer.

00;15;26;23 – 00;15;50;02

Yeah, and it’s fine. That was the company’s business model. So I’m not I hadn’t I’m not disparaging that at all. You know, you have your eyes wide open in terms of where you’re where you’re working. But for me, it was a bit frustrating because I saw a path to systemic change that we could have taken. It would just just would have taken a bit more time that would have led to a lasting change.

00;15;50;02 – 00;16;16;20

And so after that meeting, I sat in this office and my whiteboard is sitting in front of me and I just thought, what is it that has made me successful over the years? I wrote down confidence. I’ve always been open to change, changing what I’m doing, changing where I’m going. Yeah, I’m resilient as hell. You know, I’ve had to be for many different reasons and I work hard.

00;16;16;20 – 00;16;27;08

I’ve been working since I was 13 years old. My first job was with my dad and then that got it. Got to be annoying. So then I went and worked at Burger King, my first job.

00;16;27;11 – 00;16;48;03

And so, you know, I looked at it and I realize that it is about this acronym CORE. And that was the beginning of the five gate methodology, the 82 year blueprint. And I flushed out the methodology and I thought, okay, great, now I’ve got a methodology. How dry and boring is that? So how do I make it interesting?

00;16;48;07 – 00;17;10;08

And so that’s when I, I started fleshing out the narrative around this methodology and it turned into the case studies and now you’ve got the book. Yeah, but it was that QPR working for that PR firm that made me realize that I could keep doing this time and time again for one company. But maybe there’s a better way that I can add value to the market.

00;17;10;09 – 00;17;40;10

Maybe I can transfer my knowledge and my experiences, and I can have a one to many impacts on businesses. And if I can do that, if I can help leaders do better for their businesses, then I can help businesses do better for their employees. Yeah, right. I’ve seen too many companies where a failure to change has led to companies getting sold too early or just falling because things just were not improved soon enough.

00;17;40;12 – 00;17;52;25

I don’t want you to give the book away, right? We want people to read it and buy it. But if you if there’s one key takeaway that you hope readers take from it, is there one that you would have us know about?

00;17;52;28 – 00;18;22;12

The question Change is hard. Yeah. And change takes time. So Don’t Rush would be my number one statement. I love that. It’s great to have a change idea, but if you run like a bull in a china shop through to execution and haven’t thought about the steps in between the ideation and the execution, you’re probably going to fail.

00;18;22;15 – 00;18;46;12

Yeah, I know we’re going to talk about this because, you know, I’ve obviously explored your website and I was I had a smile on my face. I visited the homepage. Yeah. Like we think the same way. Awesome about the importance of people. And the book is equally weighted between the business problem and the people. Because if you don’t treat them with equal weight, you’re probably going to fail.

00;18;46;15 – 00;19;07;27

A lack of buying and a lack of alignment. You have one executive on the leadership team who puts their hand up and says, Yes, but they actually don’t care to participate right? You’re likely going to fail. And so skipping from ideation to like, okay, let’s get that operational plan on paper, let’s go get it done. It just doesn’t doesn’t work.

00;19;08;00 – 00;19;45;01

One of the things that I haven’t seen and would love please, like push back, disagree, agree, whatever, whatever feels right, I have been sensing more leaders, understanding the importance of people in change compared to when I started doing this work where sometimes hard to explain that people are actually worth investing in and you can’t treat them like robots or widgets and you can’t simply discard them and have a successful business at the end of the process.

00;19;45;04 – 00;19;56;03

If you don’t treat them well. ARE You’ve seen a difference in leaders awareness of the importance of people in change, or is it something different for you?

00;19;56;05 – 00;20;13;00

I’m definitely seeing it. I think we’re we’re becoming more the norm slowly then it just being about the numbers, which is what we’ve been used to see. I think the reasons for it have nothing to do with business. I think it has to do with COVID.

00;20;13;02 – 00;20;14;19

Okay, okay.

00;20;14;21 – 00;20;43;22

I think COVID has totally changed us as a as a species. I think being sequestered for a few years, you come out of that having a different perspective on life and business is included in life. And so I think there’s this opening, there’s this huge humanistic opening that’s happened. This is my opinion. I don’t know whether anybody studying this at a university or not, but my opinion is that COVID has totally changed us.

00;20;43;22 – 00;21;07;00

And then when you layer on top of that the state of the world right now, it’s just all this negative emotional pressure. I think people are more in touch with what it is to be human. And even if some leaders aren’t there, employees are. I also think Gen Z. So I’m Gen X, my daughter is Gen Z, I think Gen X rays, amazing.

00;21;07;00 – 00;21;28;12

Gen Z kids. I think I agree. I think check Z doesn’t take crap from anybody. And I think in this world environment you can be a leader that’s old school, but your your staff is not. And so it’s forcing humanity to be part of what’s on the table in terms of changing.

00;21;28;15 – 00;21;39;28

I think your book gets into that from how I view to in in talking about the human sense, not just business sense and human sense. And I. Am I reading that correctly?

00;21;40;00 – 00;21;41;28

Yeah, that’s right. Correct.

00;21;42;00 – 00;21;54;03

When you think about human sense and not just business sense, what are some of the things that you’ve seen the best leaders do and being able to bring both of those together?

00;21;54;05 – 00;22;28;09

I love that question. I think, number one is transparency, appropriate transparency. And I do talk about that in the chapter dedicated to communication. So there are some things that not everybody in the organization needs to know because it’s not helpful. Right? If there is a particular reason you’re doing, like, one of the examples I give is if if a change has to happen because it is going to help shareholder returns, a frontline worker who’s not going to benefit from that does not need to know that.

00;22;28;10 – 00;22;50;11

Right. But if that the other value of that same change is an operational improvement, that’s going to get efficiency up by 20%, then that’s what you would communicate to the frontline. Like it’s the both are true, but both don’t need to be communicated to everyone. But I think a superpower of a leader is to be appropriately transparent all of the time.

00;22;50;13 – 00;23;11;20

That’s how you build trust with your employees and your peers and even up to the board. I think that’s number one for me. It’s like be a human, be transfer parent, be have a conversation. I don’t look at every level of the organization as being like, more important, you know, the top End being more important than the front lines.

00;23;11;23 – 00;23;23;10

People are people. It doesn’t matter who you are or what position you you hold, at the end of the day, you’re a person. So, you know, have conversations, get to know people and be as transparent as you can appropriately be.

00;23;23;12 – 00;23;44;25

I have to believe, especially with a Gen Z child and I’ve got three in my Gen X, right? So our our involvement in our children’s lives, it may be different than what our parents was. One of the things that I struggle with a little bit is like who am I and my side projects and how do I keep growing myself?

00;23;44;25 – 00;24;06;01

And I’ve got this job and I’ve got three kids and I’ve got life and a wife and kind of, where’s me in the middle of all that and continuing to grow myself. And I’m wondering if you found a way to incorporate side projects or side passions into your life?

00;24;06;04 – 00;24;09;22

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s the only thing that keeps us saying.

00;24;09;24 – 00;24;12;19

Yeah, that explains I got it.

00;24;12;22 – 00;24;35;05

Totally. Yeah. All we do is work and come home and sleep and. And we don’t have anything else that feeds our. So, I mean, look, I’m passionate about change or I wouldn’t be here having this conversation with you, right? Are you Chris? Right, right. But I’m super passionate about music and so I’m driven to play. I have I have a recording studio in my house.

00;24;35;08 – 00;24;53;09

So like one, I live in a split level home, one level of one half of the level of my home is dedicated to music. So that that feeds me whenever I feel like it, I can come down to slap down a song or pick up one of my guitars or whatever. But I also volunteer on a music industry board.

00;24;53;09 – 00;25;17;08

So Ottawa the Ottawa Music Industry Coalition is a group that is driven to get music into the fabric of the city of Ottawa. So we’re trying to create an Austin of the north of here. Yeah, and so like the board, because I’m really driven to be a part of the community and to give back and to bring my business experience into the creative space.

00;25;17;10 – 00;25;44;26

So I think that’s important. My daughter developed a passion for horses and so I’ve supported we we’ve had ten years of being around horses together and this year she actually made nationals she’s talked about in the country and her division. And so that’s been a passion play with my daughter. Yeah, the last ten years. And so my, my life is very busy, but it’s full of things that I care a lot about and I love writing.

00;25;44;26 – 00;26;07;19

And so I added writing a book into my my passion play. And so I think when you when you take care of yourself from a human perspective, as well as being the best that you can be professionally, you’re just you’re just feeding both sides of your life. Right? And I think I think that that helps you have a healthy mind and a healthy body.

00;26;07;21 – 00;26;21;17

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Any final thoughts you’d like to leave our listeners with about your book, Change Life Passion Project, recording studios, horses and anything else?

00;26;21;19 – 00;26;54;11

Well, you know, I think more than anything I think people and it’s interesting, Chris, I had a meeting with a with an investor colleague friend in the industry here at Tech Industry a couple of days ago. And we were talking about authenticity and how it’s so important to be authentic. However, what point in your life and your career do you feel like you’ve earned the right to be authentic and how that’s really subjective?

00;26;54;14 – 00;27;19;05

And so I would just encourage people to have confidence in their track record at whatever stage they’re at, you know, and to trust their gut and to be bold enough. If you have confidence in your position in anything, whether it’s your profession, whether it’s around change, whether it’s around your passions, and your gut is also telling you that this is right.

00;27;19;07 – 00;27;39;00

Have confidence in that and put that out there in the world because you’ll be surprised at like 95% of the time, you’re probably spot on, maybe even higher than that. You know, that’s one thing. And I think you have to add value in everything you do. You know, like, why are you doing something early if you’re writing a song?

00;27;39;00 – 00;28;02;25

Like what? What message are you trying to convey? If you have an opinion in the office, like how helpful is it and in what way? Like think about adding value. And if you can’t add value, then, you know, maybe hold back until you can and maybe adding values, making people laugh. Yeah, you know, maybe values like asking somebody to go for coffee, maybe somebody is having a bad day.

00;28;02;27 – 00;28;25;08

I just think just try to focus on positivity like we’re all only here for a short time. Not a long time, Right? That’s it. I think I would go back to Calvin and I’ll go back to the state of things right now. Like, I think the more we can help each other, the more we can set egos aside and try to just benefit the audience in which we’re sitting in.

00;28;25;11 – 00;28;27;10

Everybody wins.

00;28;27;12 – 00;28;38;03

Absolutely. Susan Odell, founder and CEO of 8020CS and author of a brand new book called Successful Change. Thanks so much for joining us today.

00;28;38;06 – 00;28;41;08

Thank you so much, Chris. It’s been a week. Just a wonderful conversation.

00;28;41;10 – 00;28;46;24

Thank you.

More in the Series

Chris Thornton is a Senior Principal and member of the global leadership team at Daggerwing Group. In his role, Chris serves as a source of strategic counsel for Senior Executives with client firms, advising them on how to help clients achieve Executive alignment, transform their cultures and equip and enable people managers to lead and embed change. An expert in the people side of change with both client-side and consulting experience, Chris has worked with leading companies including Nestlé, Pfizer, and GE Aviation to do change right and make it stick. He is also an active speaker on business transformation, a driver of innovation in Daggerwing’s breadth of change consulting services, and the host of Daggerwing Group’s podcast, Change@Work. Chris and his wife were featured in the New York Times for their love of pie.