The Leadership Shift You Can’t Ignore | Dave Westgarth | #iolglobal

What does it take to lead effectively in a rapidly changing world?

In this episode of the Lead with Legacy™ Podcast, Amanda Chambers and Sloane Lott of IOL Global sit down with Dave Westgarth for a powerful conversation on leadership, adaptability, and navigating complexity in today’s environment.

Dave brings a unique perspective on how leaders can move beyond rigid systems and embrace more dynamic, collaborative approaches to problem-solving and organizational growth.

In this conversation, you will discover:
• Why traditional leadership models are no longer enough
• How to lead through uncertainty and constant change
• The importance of collaboration and visual thinking
• Practical ways to improve communication and alignment
• How leaders can create clarity in complex environments

This episode is packed with practical insight for leaders who want to stay effective, relevant, and impactful—no matter what challenges they face.

🔔 Subscribe for leadership insights, honest conversations, and practical wisdom you can apply immediately.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Lead with Legacy, the official podcast of IOL Global. Here we will explore leadership that outlives titles and trends. Through conversations with faith-based and marketplace leaders, we will discuss integrity, conviction, and purpose. To learn more about us, visit us at iOLglobal.com. Hello, and welcome to the Lead with Legacy Podcast. I am so honored today to have Mr. Dave Westgarth with us. We also have our director of operations, Sloan Lott, on there with us today. So we should have a really great conversation. Dave is one of my very favorite people, and I tell this to everybody. He's like my top three favorite people. He's so much fun for a lot of different reasons. One, because he's super, super intelligent. I've learned a ton of stuff from him. I don't think that I would be where I am right now if it wasn't for some of the things that I've learned from Dave and the things that he's pushed me to do. And so I'm just forever grateful and so grateful to have him on the show today. I am gonna let Dave tell a little bit about himself, but before he does, I'm gonna let you know that his intelligence level is far above mine. He has over 250 certifications that he has completed. He is incredibly brilliant. And to add to it, he is British. So that makes it even better. So Dave, tell us where you are and tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, thanks a lot, Amanda. Thanks for the very kind introduction. And it's verge on the side of flattering to deceive, but thank you very much. Yeah, my name's Dave. I'm based in the northeast of England in a city called Sunderland. We're right next door to Newcastle. And I currently work as head of delivery at Unify, which is a data and AI focused consultancy focusing primarily in the Databricks ecosystem. And I think I first met you a couple of years ago when we collaborated on a certification program of our own. And it's just been incredible to see you grow since then because I still remember you being incredibly nervous about being on camera and wanting to be behind the scenes all the time. So this is a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Still incredibly nervous. Still incredibly nervous, but yeah, I'm doing it now. So you're working at Unify, you're doing doing this work with AI and Databricks and all this. So to the lay person that isn't um that high level on intelligence like me, what is Databricks? Tell us what that is.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

So I think I'm also one of those lay people who's not that intelligent, but I'll try my try my best. Um so Databricks is, in my opinion, the the latest and greatest data platform available in the market. And if you're an organization that has access to a lot of data but can't necessarily unlock the value from that, Databricks can really step in and help you do that. It comes with all sorts of good sort of features, tools, and technologies attached. Number one is sort of the governance layer that allows you to apply over your data, you get that really great thousand-foot view of everything that's in your estate, and it can start giving you an ideas and sort of strategies how you can start connecting that in interesting and unique ways to get more decision-making sort of cannon fodder for more ideation, for more sort of experimentation in your organization, and you can really leverage this data for everything that's worth. Half the story with Databricks now, it's also trying to frame itself as a bit of uh an AI enablement platform as well. And the foundation of all these AI products is good data. So having Databricks is a really solid data foundation, allows you to build on that and then get into the world of machine learning and AI development, which is flavour of the month every month of the last year and this year, I imagine.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

And all the good stuff that you can do around that, things like training and models about management, about creating AI products to go with your data products, and really the sky's becoming the limit in terms of what you can do with Databricks once you've got that solid data foundation in there. So for a technical person like me, this is really the the arena beat right now in terms of data AI, so it's an incredibly exciting time. And yeah, exciting to see what comes out of the side for some of the ideas that you get are just frightening. Like we even spoke to a pizza place that wanted an AI solution so they can automate creating pizzas. And the idea was they'll have a camera watching the pizzas, and the camera will report to a a signal that'll move the pizza through the oven when the cheese is cooked enough to move it along. And just these that you never really thought of before, but like there there is scope for everyone to have AI coming in to revolutionize the businesses. So yeah, we're in it we're frightening well to think.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It is, it is. So I was on a call last night too with a guy who um who does a lot of AI training and stuff like that. And so we were talking logically, one of the questions that I would ask you is like, how are how are we best to navigate that? Because there's like a lot of fear, right? There's a lot of fear, people are like, I'm gonna lose my job, the pizza guy is not gonna make the pizza anymore. So, how do we best navigate that? How do we go into this age of AI or get in the middle of it now and not be fearful and not be afraid of of what we're facing?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Really good question. And I think there's there's definitely some work that's going to change in its current guise. I don't see AI being able to outright replace people though. I think if I think it was Andrew, one of the CEOs of one of the big AI organizations, recently said, if your if your job is the functionality of what you do, for example, you're doing a single function day in, day out, like factory work, for example, there's a chance that AI can come in and replace that. But if your job is more in the knowledge worker field and you're doing a lot of different roles and pulling lots of different stuff together dynamically and creatively, that's where AI is hitting the limitations at the moment. And what I encourage people to do is a lot of people think of these AI solutions, especially LLMs, as being almost like oracles, really, really clever, really, really intelligent, know everything and can can solve any problem. And in some ways, they are really impressive and intelligent, and it gives us knowledge on demand in a way that we haven't had before. But when you understand at a technical level how these LLMs are really working and how the the sort of inner architecture of these is set up, it really does disarm them quite a lot because you realise they're probably not smart in the way that you think they are. They're incredible pattern matchers, especially within language. But in terms of real intelligence, I could make a pretty compelling argument that they're not very intelligent at all. They're just incredible at making those pattern matching. So I'd encourage everyone to do a little bit of a deep dive in terms of how they work technically behind the scenes. And I think that that'll allay a lot of fears. But the most important thing of all is I think ultimately I can't see a future now where, especially in my line of work, we're gonna be have delivery managers, project managers, scrum masters working and not having access to these tools. I think ultimately they're gonna be in our future somewhere, somehow. Understanding them technically not only gives you that sort of security around what you're good at, what the what these machines can't quite do yet and how they work, but that allows you to use them more effectively. And I think that is the future. It's not a case of is this gonna be an AI job or a human's job. It's gonna be how good can these two do this job, how much more quickly, how much more effectively can they do this job working together. And I think that's the key sort of dynamic change we're gonna see. There's gonna be an AI tool for every job. And I think in future we'll just be expected to be able to use them the same way we're expected to be able to use a net browser or Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah, I agree. And that's that's the conversations that I've been involved in as well. In fact, last night I were talking and I said, you know, there was a time when we didn't know how to use this computer, right? It was foreign and it was scary and it was crazy, and like what and now we've got three screens and microphones and speakers and you know, all this stuff going on. And they keep getting smaller and then they get back, you know, it's like genes, like they change every five minutes. So, you know, I think I think you're 100% spot on because I think especially what we're doing with IOL as well, we have so much going on, and those tools are helping us. The better we learn them, the better we learn to use them, the more equipped we are to do better work faster. Now we have to check it, right? We have to look at what we're doing, you know, what it's putting out. Um, so I I just recently um I'm gonna say forced. Um, I wasn't forced, but I was I was highly encouraged to start using like um notebook L and um perplexity and stuff when that really hasn't been in my wheelhouse yet. But it's once I jump into it and I start using it and I get some understanding and some knowledge base about it, I'm like, oh yeah, this is cool. This is helpful to me. I can get this done or that done, or it's a resource that I can I wouldn't have otherwise had. So I think for what we're doing and what we're going and like you said, like knowledge work. I don't, I don't see Dave going away or Amanda going away or Sloane going away. I just see that we need to learn the tools and we need to learn them well, which ones work well, which ones don't work well, and and have good training on that. Find good people to show us how to utilize those products correctly and well, because I'm sure that we don't even like we haven't even scratched the surface. So that that's I I love your take on that. That's really good.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

The people that think when when people tell me AI is gonna replace us, I'm like, I don't think you've used it that much. Because if you had, you would know, right? It's we're not there. You still you're still needed. And I think I really like what you said. It's it's a great pattern matcher, right? It's like it's a great mimic, but there's still so much human control that still needs to be exerted. As Amanda was saying, it's pretty obvious. If you're scared that it's gonna replace you, use it some more. It will allay your fear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah. Get get to know it, to train on it, learn it. So we were we were talking earlier this morning, Dave. So I have a this is a big problem for me. I have a problem with time zone scheduling. And I know we like ran into this and we were impure as well. Like, I don't know what's wrong with my brain, but it will not get this down. And I even told someone, I was like, I've got to take some classes or some courses or something because even when I use the AI and I'll be like, Can you help me? You know, like switch this to this. Um I'm in this time zone, switch it to this one. It's wrong too. And I'm like, you don't even know. You can't even get it together. And so we have I say that to say we have to be careful, right? Because not everything that's coming out of it is correct. We have to have this this human element, and will it get better? I think it will. And you could attest to that more, but I still think it's so important that there is a human behind it saying that's not right, or you know, I don't, or to challenge it, right? To to push back a little bit and go, um, no, we need to recheck that or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah, I mean another thing to think about with these tools is I I don't like to anthrop anthropomorphise them because ultimately they're not people, they can't think the way that we think. But these tools, especially LLMs, have a lot of hidden sort of values, principles, and beliefs baked into them because of the people who've created them or because of the data that they've been trained on. And what that means is they've got their own perspective, and you might have seen the sort of cultural map that's done the rounds on LinkedIn showing which culture your LLM of choice is most closely aligned to, and typically it's a European or an American-style culture. But this sort of comes back to one of my other points. Well, ultimately, you probably don't want an LLM that just knows the right answers to everything. Yeah. Because there are some questions out there that don't necessarily have a right answer, or even if they do have a right answer, you might not like it. And for example, and I I hate to lower the tone, I drag it down here, but there's a there's a compelling case that you could make for say um amputees or wheelchair users, we should get rid of them because in a socialist style society they're a drain on resources from the larger group. That's a logical conclusion, but not one that I think many people would really go along with in real life. And that's what I'm sort of getting at here. These LLMs have a bit of a perspective and a viewpoint of their own. It's not necessarily fact, and you're absolutely spot on. That's why we need to continue to provide that overarching layer of interpretation on that. It's just idea for it, it's not necessarily the stone-called right answer, depending on the question that you're answering.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah. We break it down really simple, like you were saying too. Like if we're if we open up Excel, Excel's no good without us, right? We still have to do the things, you know. It's not gonna just automatically do the thing or or PowerPoint or whatever. We still have to do work in it. So I I think that people realizing and really come to grips with that. This is another tool. This is this is another resource for you to use to get your job done. Um, I understand the fear, but I think a lot of the fear is coming from the media. I don't know how much you guys get there, but we get a ton of it over here. I'm just slamming everybody like, oh, this is gonna take every job you ever had, and you're never gonna be able to work again. And it's like, well, I mean, we really do need to be smart about it in the concept of anything, right? Learning and training, because is the AI gonna be, you know, the leader? Probably not, but is the AI gonna help the leaders? Yeah, it's already helping us, right? So, anyways, we won't talk all day about AI because I know like everybody's kind of getting sick of it as well. So let's talk real quick. So I've taken a couple courses from you on Agile and Lean. And I think like one of the funnest things that we did when we were working together before was the history of lean. So some people who know a lot about lean, some don't know anything about lean. And it was such an incredible course for me. I I learned so much. I also drive a Toyota, so I'm a little biased. I'm a diehard Toyota Toyota fans. Um, if Toyota wants to sponsor and put commercials, I'm okay with that as well. But so tell us a little bit about the history of lean. Um, and you don't have to go on the whole thing because I know it's long, but it's it's an interesting story, and I would love for you to talk a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, I suppose lean is one of my favorite things to talk about when you look at especially modern approaches to work, especially more agile focused um approaches or methodologies or frameworks. Most of those, if not all of them, I would argue you can trace back to having a root in lean somewhere. And you you've mentioned Toyota there, I'll just mention why for anyone in the audience who doesn't know. Lean was sort of a child of what was known as the Toyota production system, which was um uh a natural successor to Henry Ford back in the 1990s, doing his factory work and the scientific approach to work. That made its way into Japan, and some practitioners over there who founded the Toyota Company took that a few steps forward, which gets us closer to more of the modern adult practices that we see now. The problem with lean is a lot of it seems like common sense now, and that's what I often say to people when they're looking at lean ideas, especially from the Toyota production system. You need to consider it in the context of what was happening a hundred years ago, or maybe even further back than that. And I think unfairly, Ed Taylor, who defined a lot of the scientific word to prototype, gets all of the heat nowadays, he was operating in the 1910s and the 1990s. The world was very different. That scientific approach to management hadn't been tested, that was cutting edge at the time. It's easy for us a hundred years later to say why some of it doesn't work and why we're so much cleverer, but if we'd been in that position, we might we might not have got that far. And it's very similar. Lean you can trace back all the way to the Venetian navy in the 14th century, and potentially even further back than that, because a lot of the principles around things like continuous improvement, removal of waste, these seem like common sense now, and in some ways they are. And in some ways, I even think they line up with sort of evolutionary biology patterns that we see where gene pools diversify, the waste gets cut off, conditions change, the gene pool adapts. So much of it sort of has that sort of naturalistic element to it that it's it really feels more to me like a human story than a story of this is a framework that was invented on this date and then we changed it on this date. And that's what I that's the thing I really love about Lean when I compare it to things like project management, Scrum, and even some implementations of Kanban. It's not about embodying the letter of the law here, it's much more about the spirit of the approach and the spirit of the law. And I think that's the freedom that Lean gives you. And as a as a practitioner myself, that's it, that's much more exciting than thinking this is the operating book, and I'll just do what it says in the book. Lean empowers you to make intelligent decisions based on sound principles and bring those to life based on what you've got in front of you. Apologies, and that's a lot of words too, but I really do love lean, and I think it's for anyone working in delivery or knowledge work, it should be your first port of call when you're looking at how you're gonna work more effectively.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah, I 100% agree. I I I was already a fan prior to um your course on that, and then after I took the course, I was actually I watched it twice because I was like, this is so good knowing the history of it. And you get to listen to Dave, so who wouldn't want to do that? But yeah, I mean, the history is just really, really incredible um and and fascinating and the way that we can implement it now in our daily lives. And and I try to do that even in the work that we're doing to implement some of those things. And and I probably should be better about when I when I'm doing some training with Sloan and stuff, like say, hey, this is a link, but I don't know. I probably need to send her to a class too. Not not that she I don't think it's something that we've really really talked about in depth, like, oh, this because she she came from a very different background than the project management and all that. And so we're we're still kind of integrating some of those things, but she's highly intelligent, so that's why I keep around because she's smarter than me. Um and leaning in that, I'm gonna let her ask the next question.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yes, I would love to do that training. Absolutely. I'm gonna write that down that today you said that we would do that. I uh I would love some of that certification for sure. Um, I mean, I'm never going to have as many certifications as Mr. Dave here. No. Never gonna happen. But I would, you know, maybe try. So we have talked about how many certifications you you have because I would guess after probably 15, you don't really keep that accurate of a capital.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

He does. He does. I would he has a whole board that shows. So if anybody's interested in knowing, he has a whole thing that shows you every single one. It's pretty cool. Is it on Miro?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

It is, yeah. It's a Miro both of trucks, everything.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Absolutely. Because there was a plan that you made available for free that uh Miss Amanda used, and it just changed the tra trajectory of her professional life. So we'll definitely share that with anybody with everybody. But I just have to ask, why so many certifications? Why pursue, right, not just the knowledge, but the certification?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Really good question. And it it's probably changed as time's gone on, to be honest with you. When I was first entered into the technology industry, I was a little bit of a late start there because I'd already been to university, got a degree in psychology. Turned out you couldn't get many jobs with that, so I had to work for a bit, go and do retrained at uni and got a technology degree, and then got back into the technology field. And to be perfectly honest, I felt like I was probably behind at that point. I was a few years behind where a lot of my peers were at that stage in the journey. So I thought certification, continuous LD, this is a really good way for me to start accelerating my journey and doing a little bit of catch-up. Ultimately, when I started it, it was more about having sort of good stories to tell in an interview, making yourself more of an attractive offer to employers, to other positions that could open up and just sort of trying to open as many doors as I could. And then what I found was as I was going through sort of um the sort of middle stage of my career, I would say it, it's very, very easy in an interview or in a in a job conversation to say that you're a lifelong learner. It's sort of like one of those throwaway platitudes, like, oh, I've got an agile mindset or I'm goal-oriented. And I really wanted to sort of show that I I'm I'm very serious about my life learning, and I wanted a way to evidence that. And certifications became a way of doing that. And this all culminated or really started for me two or three years ago now, where I thought one at the start of one year I was setting sort of my resolutions and goals for the year, and I thought, why didn't I really push this and see how far I can really go within a year? Um, and I focused primarily on agile approaches, project delivery, and cloud computing. And in that first year, I got through I think there was 50, 60 certifications in a year, and then every year since then, it's sort of just been a habit that I've kept up. The only thing that's really evolved is every year I'll try and give like a theme or a focus for the year. So it started quite broad, but then I did one in cloud computing, one in AI. Last year was data. I'm still trying to figure out what this year is going to be at this stage because I've I've I think after three or four years I'm entitled to a month off, but new direction now, I suppose, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

I find that a little uh convicting because for the last 15 years, my new year's resolution has been to drink more water. So I really feel like I need to up my goals. Yeah. Maybe you could maybe you could teach a certification on that one. And I can take it. So yeah. Um I do like that. The next thing I was gonna ask you was how do you think about these strategically, right? And it seems like you're doing it thematically, right? So you pick one, you pick a couple of themes and you go through it. You go through that theme for the year. And I think that's really great. And I think that's great advice because there's so much that you can get started on, you can get lost in the process. And so that really just narrows your focus and it and it keeps you on a on a sustainable path. But yes, you were entitled to a month off. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah, and I thought it I thought it was really interesting too, because last year you were doing you were doing the data, and then you get you land this amazing role working more in that. And so it's like, oh, and you didn't know it, you didn't plan for that, you know, it's just worked out that way. And so that was really interesting. And I can attest to this is not an easy feat because you had it, I think you had it on Linktree. Maybe it was Miro, but and we're gonna share both links, but you had a path for product development, product like learning about how to be a product manager versus a a project manager, which is the kind of realm that I have been in for so many years. And I was like, I really like product, I want to know more about that. And I was like, Oh, let me do this. So it was on Mind the Product, which we can put that as well. They did some fantastic courses, free courses. And I think that's the other thing I'd like you to speak about too is like most of the stuff you're doing is free, not all of it. Um, but a lot of the the courses that you're going through or have been through are free. And so Mind the Product did a fantastic job of creating these courses on being a good product manager, managing the product well and and really honing in on like what does that mean? What is the product? What is it defined as, and and how do we explain it to people and so on and so forth. So I can attest to the fact that it's not easy to make the determination that I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna go through six courses, right? Or or 10 courses or whatever it takes. Um, because I did those last summer and and although I enjoyed them, it was still um a big commitment, right? But let's talk a little bit about the different platforms that you've learned on. Or do you feel like there's a a value? versus like a paid certification or unpaid certification, what's the difference there?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Good, really good point. And you you're right, I do try and make an effort to sort of incentivize or sort of focus on the free and low cost sufferings. Because I want as a person who talks about lifelong learning who tries to encourage other people to get on a track like that as well. I want the the barriers for that to be as low as they possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And in the certification industry there was a long time where free sort of meant low low quality or useless and that has definitely changed I would say driven a lot by the cloud platforms because they ultimately this is sort of one of my hot takes on certifications now. I don't think it's a business in and of itself in the same way it was anymore. I think it's more of an arm of marketing for a lot of these organizations like the AWS certifications do a great job of creating a community around that of learners and ultimately that gets learners exposed to their tools so when they go to work they are asking questions like why don't we have these AWS tools that I've learned about some same for Azure same for Google Cloud. And I think that that's really driven a lot of high quality into these free and low cost certification journeys that you can take now. And that goes sort of hand in hand with the the value of them it's not just a case of by having free certifications on a resume or a CV anymore you look like you don't really know what you're talking about. You can still get credentials that have a lot of weight and show that you know what you're doing and don't necessarily need to invest. I think the last sort of the last differentiator that these paid certifications have that the free ones don't is that sort of accreditation feel. For example well even now the foundation ones they give away a lot but the cloud providers if you take a cloud expert level or even an associate level certification that's a a really good indication that you know what you're doing. There's a lot of ways to cheat these now with AI tools and there's a lot of questions going on around the quality of what these certifications are actually testing for. But in the marketplace and when you're talking to recruiters who don't necessarily have the technology that you do they still give you a lot of weight in interview and there's still a good passport to those interview discussions if you're on the hunt and looking to build out a career or make a career transition. But again I think that's that's sort of the last bastion of them and I think eventually that will go away. Yeah and I think there's similar conversations happening in the US as well maybe you guys can tell me but I think that this is also going to lead to a big shape up to the education system in the UK. At the minute it's getting more and more expensive to go to university to pick up a degree and ultimately the quality of the learning that they do especially in my industry technology and software development is so far off the pace compared to real industry work. And I think I even saw a stat last month or the month before the unemployment rate for graduates in the UK was actually higher than the general unemployment rate and you just the social contract of going to college and university is it leads to better outcomes and eventually you earn more than you would have if you didn't go. If graduate unemployment's below the national average that just blows that social contract up for me. So I think the education system's in for a huge shake up in this country.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Absolutely and we've we've certainly seen it here. In fact um we had Dr. LaFrance on and he works at university in Illinois and he has spoken off screen and on screen about that same exact thing. Like we're I think don't quote me on this that but he said yesterday and you might remember Sloan that his normal enrollment was like 12 and I think they're down to like four or five for a class. And so and they or that may not be exactly right but it was it was somewhere in that in that range and so they had X amount of instructors and now it might have been that they had 12 instructors and now they have 15 instructors in the entire department and now they're down to four. Four yeah it's been it's shrunk shrunk shrunk till four. Yeah because there's no need why do they need the instructors because we can you know there and there's pros and cons right it's just like with the AI thing we have we have to look at it objectively right because if I'm a learner and I want to learn something now I have a unique opportunity that I can just go on there and learn it. I don't have to go because like for instance I have a certification in medical billing and coding that I paid um almost $10,000 for right I don't even use it. Yeah. So and and I had to go to university for that and don't use it. And so but now I can just go online right I can go online and do the work and and and learn the stuff if I'm wanting to learn I've learned more in the last couple of years after I had that certification that I paid a boatload of money for than I you know and I've learned that stuff free or very low cost versus that massive amount. So I think you're exactly right and you guys may just now be feeling it but I know we felt it a long time. I know that my dad he taught for University of Phoenix the doctoral program for years like over a decade and and they just they still have part of that program but there's phasing out so many things and um just so much of the university stuff is phasing out. And I think it's good and bad because whenever we're transitioning for something that we were so used to and it's been around for eons and eons and there's pros and cons to both but I also think it's such a unique opportunity that we have now that if we want to learn we can go learn just about anything we want to. So you know it's just like with every you know everything else there's a good and a bad to it.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

I think it mirrors the shift in marketplace too, right? I had a a boss um several several years ago who said that college degree shows me that you can go to class long enough to pass. So you'll show up most every day and I can trust you. And so I loved college and I got my undergraduate at a degree at Arkansas at four year college and I loved it. I was there on campus several years later my masters through LSU all online you know and so as we're changing we don't have to so much go into an office anymore and sit there for eight hours and listen to the boss who was a teacher before that. You know it's so different and here I I'm working from home and so I need a different skill set than I did 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

It swings and roundabouts because I even like this is a stat that sort of blew me away when I first saw it but I think it was either in England or the UK there's more universities than there are cities and you're thinking that for some reason that doesn't add up to me. I don't think we should have more universities than we've got cities in the country. But yeah like you say it's it's not necessarily all good it's not necessarily all bad but I think change is inevitable at this stage.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah and change is hard right it's hard I mean it's just hard I don't like change. But it you know like I I have to I have to work myself into change. Like it's it's a lot it got obviously it took you know it took a long time to get me to this point. So Dave Dave was trying to get me on camera for like two years now and I'm like nope nope nope not gonna do it. And now she has a podcast. And now I have a podcast. So you just you this is just to attest that you never know you just never know um the Lord works in mysterious ways and he'll just move you right where he wants you to be is there anything you want to talk about do you have any questions? Do you want to go over anything?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I suppose what's your what's your podcasting journey been like because I'm seeing more and more people taking the plunge and I think another thing that's really changing is the video um stuff is just becoming incredibly prevalent and I think it's it's probably the future because it's going to get democratized to the point where it's probably cheaper and easier to record a video than it is to write something down. Like I think books have largely evaporate eventually because video and the quality of it's just continuing and continuing to improve.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

So what was the motivation and how we find that yeah it's a it's a it's an interesting concept and so I let me speak to to that one part of it really quick and then we'll talk about the podcast and like what what this journey has been like. So one thing that we noticed recently because we we felt very much the same because we're doing a lot of marketing and stuff that wasn't my initial onset but it initially was making money so I was like yeah I'll do it I'll do it I'll do it. And I think you and I have talked about so I think we're about how I've managed a lot of YouTube channels and now I think we're up to seven channels that we're managing. And yeah, because video I mean it's video right video is the whole thing everybody has to do video. And and actually I watched a really really interesting video a couple days ago that somebody sent me talking about doesn't even matter what the quality of video is, just make the video.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

You don't it doesn't even have to be good video. And one of the reasons to that is because you can take the video and you can take the screen the transcript of the video and put it into the AIs and you can create all these other resources. So just make the video is what he was saying. The podcast journey of it is interesting because of course it wasn't even anything that I was like even remotely thinking of considering. Being on camera was I'm a behind the scenes kind of girl. I like to do all the work and get it done and and also I hate meetings. Anybody who knows me well knows that I hate meetings. So I kind of like feel like they're a time suck and they don't let me get done what I need to get done. So I really had to kind of reframe my thinking and like this is value add and why is it value add? And so it came about that I just you know I was really thinking and praying about like what are we going to do? What are the things we had clients already on board um but I really we went to this this um training on podcasts and got to like just brainstorming and thinking about I'm like well it'd be really cool to network right it would be really cool to share what Dave does or to share what Casey does or um and just talk about it because everybody's different. And so we kind of threw around some ideas of like okay well what would it surround around and what it would it be and and a lot of what we do at IOL is leadership. And so we call it IOL but the original name is the Institute for organizational leadership. And it's no secret leadership's like the hot topic too so everybody likes to talk about it right now. But it wanted it to be more than that. And when we were really kind of going through the brainstorming because I've kind of taken over this company as a legacy company from what my parents were running we kind of morphed into that and like wanted to talk to people about the legacy of leading what does it look like to lead what and that's going to be some questions I'm about to ask you. And so different kind of leadership because everybody's leadership is a little bit different or everybody's experienced some bad leadership, right? And everybody's experienced hopefully some good leadership. So what can we take away from that because your answers are going to be different than everybody else's answers, right? It's gonna be different than my answer. And so it really just came about as like oh this is something that would be fun and we'll pre-record it. I mean I don't know how many people we have scheduled now but it's a little overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Sloan's pulling like politicians and all this um Miss Amanda messed up she said on a Thursday she was like hey I want you to start praying about a podcast and I was like okay I'll pray about a podcast. So I go home that day I leave her office suite I go home I'm on Facebook and Lion College that's local to us they are advertising that they're having this like four hour masterclass with this guy who that's all he does. So I screenshot it and sent it to her and she goes okay let's do it so that Saturday that Saturday morning we're there she goes and picks up everybody uh everybody's coffee her husband's there her two kids are there I'm there we're going to learn it is so cold in that room we froze so cold but we did not leave because he took away every blocker his name is Ty King he's great he was you know here's how you title it and then he told you how to title it and he was like and here's how you pick your audience and he did that and he took away every barrier to do it.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

It was it was great but what I I remember a lot it was a lot of information but I remember it was so cold he did not take his overcoat off yeah he was wearing like a big like um what do you call that like a like a peacoat yeah yeah and he never took it off and we were freezing to death and I don't even recall that it was that cold outside but for whatever reason it was very cold in there. Um but maybe that you know when I was in school they would keep it very cold so you would stay awake so maybe that's why he wanted us to be awake I don't know difficult it was a lot of great information it was so great yeah he's a phenomenal teacher as well like I would like just put it right out there for you it like the the four hours over up and we were like what what happened like how did you know it was it was that good. Yeah that just kind of solidified and we were like then we started that process of brainstorming back and forth and how would how would we do it right? And then it's like oh we gotta have like we had to get mics and then like we had to buy mics and then um my dad stole one of them and I had to buy another one cost of doing business you know so really it was just kind of like this I don't know informational snowball that just kind of came about. We haven't launched yet so as of the date of this recording next Tuesday will be the first one that goes out. We've pre-recorded how many six I think six yes yeah so this is the seventh I think um and so the the goal was and that we learned that from Ty was to like pre-record beforehand so that we could release quite a few um and kind of get a jump start and we were kind of reached I was panicking because I can do video editing but I cannot do this much video editing and do all the other things and so we were freaking out and so I found somebody to help out with that and then in addition to we're just doing a lot of stuff um because we are developing our own learning platform right now and we're going to have trainers I haven't hit you up yet but I'm going to um and so we're we're having trainers on that platform and that's another thing too all of what we're doing is really just more to be a collaborative effort. And of course we're making money I I wouldn't you know I would that wouldn't be honest if I said we weren't I would hope so but you'll not be doing it for long. We're not millionaires yet we have not booked our trip to the beach yet but we have it in our minds. In fact when I went to the bank to open up the bank account for the business which was you know like this scary step and here I don't know how it is there but the card that you get you can pick like a picture to be on the card. And she goes well which one do you want? And I said I want that one with the beach on it because at some point I'm going to the beach. So I've been landlocked in Arkansas for way too long. So anyways that's you know it's in the future but um what I say all that to say is like really my heart in it um truly is just to have this kind of network um of strategic partners and planners and and instructors and and teachers because I love to learn my dad instilled that into me my mom instilled it into me my mom was a writer so I'm so blessed. Like every time we turn around somebody's like I have a book can we make courses and I'm like another book really and so you should I can't show you because it's too far away but we have a stack over that's like this tall a book that we're currently going through that people want to work with us to make courses and so blessed like never expect any of it but every single person that comes along is just amazing. And so I really just want it to be a network and a collaborative effort of all of us I think where we are right now, everybody is so inundated right everybody is so overwhelmed with the AI and everything that's changing and there seems to be so much fast movement and we don't know what's real and what's not real, what's true and what's not true. But if Sloan trusts me and I trust you Dave and I tell Sloan hey this guy right here you can trust him you know if if you need to hire him or you need something done or you need to learn about this and he's your guy she's gonna know because she trusts me, oh, I can trust Dave. And I think that human element is something that's so really really important right now and that we all need to kind of build upon that's really where I'm at with is like I want to be able to have these partners and these collaborators that we're just helping each other out. And if I come across somebody like I did last night who's you know big in AI, I can go, hey, I know this guy you need to talk to this guy he's amazing or um I can say hey Sloane's got this degree she can help you proof this book and she can read through it for content and just help one another out. And I think that's just so important. And it's that's probably the heaviest on my heart is in what we're doing. And not that I don't want to go to the beach but um I would like to help everybody else go to the beach if that makes sense. So that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

I think that's the beauty of this entire format like long form conversation because now you're getting shallached with reels and tweets and hot takes it's like can I just have something that's got a bit more substance behind it. And I think for people like me especially this is great for me to come out and sort of show like I'm not just posting on the internet things that I think you'll interact with. I actually believe this stuff and this part of who I am and it's my personality and I think that this is I think this is why podcasts are doing so well because there is a real appetite for not stuff that's so heavily cut down, so hard hitting, so immediate there is still space and appetite for long form conversations where you you go on that really contextual creative deep journey with people, which is I think why it's doing so well.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Yeah and learn yeah learning on that because you know one of the things too is like when these come out like you can just turn it on and listen to it while you're on your way to work or you know a lot of times we're sitting here working on stuff that you know is just kind of we're creating graphics or whatever we're doing or content or whatever and I can listen to and I do listen um I know you were on ja is what's Jack's last name? I can't think right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Jack Hughes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Jack Choes, yeah and you were on his and I know I I can remember the day I was sitting there and I had you on one screen and I was working on the other screen and just listening, you know. And so I think it's a unique opportunity that we're in that we can just listen to the realness of people like what are you really doing? What does it really look like? What does AI really mean for us or or whatever the case or or how how did you get to where you are and not some big movie production of it just really how did it happen?

SPEAKER_03 38:58

You know and and sometimes I don't know I don't know how it happened here I am um so yeah so much content right so much content but we don't have a lot of genuine connection and so I think I think that's exactly you know these long form conversations that it shows people we're connected to one another and again like Samanda said with the trust we trust each other enough to sit down and have these conversations and so we think this is somebody you should trust too. So yeah it's important.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yeah absolutely and I think too like I think what's important to note too is like we don't always have to agree on everything, right? That's right. My opinion of things is not always going to be Dave's opinion or Sloan's opinion or anybody else's, but we can have a good solid conversation about it, right? Um and we can talk about it and I we can learn from it because sometimes we're so stuck in an ideal like let's just say for example we're just terrified of AI and we can't we don't know or you know we're just literally this fear is consuming us. But then we can talk to somebody like you Dave and and listen to the heart of it and and that it's you know what it is and what we should be using it for and have a better understanding of the whole the situation of a whole as a whole. And I think a lot of times that's what happens when we get caught up in fear or anxiety or frustration is we just don't have a whole picture right we don't have all the information that we need or a lot of the information. So these conversations are really good. This is not easy for me. It's not this is not my wheelhouse. So we're just taking it one step at a time we're gonna see how it goes um and and I hope more than anything I just hope it's a good opportunity to collaborate with other people and get some good solid information out. We'll put pictures if we ever go to the beach so so I want to be super respectful of your time and I because I would stay on with you all day. So we have two questions that we ask everybody on the podcast. So I'm gonna let Sloan ask the first one today and then I'll ask the second one.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Okay to hear about a leader you admire and just a little bit why you admire them.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

That's a good question. So there's a lot of leaders I admire and in my career I've been really really fortunate especially when I was younger in my career there were a lot of people that really took me under the wing and showed me a lot of how to get things done and as I talked about with the learner really helped me to accelerate and get much further than I ever thought I would and it I I suppose I sort of frame this in basketball terms because I'm quite a big basketball fan but there's two large approaches that most people I think fit into either book but on when I think of good leadership there's and the the two basketball players I'm going to talk about are Kobe Bryant and Shigel O'Neill so Kobe Bryant I'll start with first who was more of a silent leader a leader by example who set the tone and expected people to follow and I've worked with a ton of people like that who are just incredible work horses incredibly generous with the time with the knowledge and sharing sort of explicit upfront in your face gregarious leaders that you might expect and there's something about that that I find really inspiring just sort of setting a setting a culture or setting a tone or being one of those cultural architects just based on who you are and what you bring with your core personality and your core skills. The other half of this equation was Shaquille O'Neal who's not quite the leader by example that Corby is but much more charismatic much more engaging much more gregarious in his approach and I've worked with a lot of leaders like that as well who you watch them operate especially in I think of a lot of the execs I've worked with over the years who you get them in a room in front of customers and they just mesmerise them with the way that they communicate and the way that they can inspire and bring people on emotional journeys and when I think of my leadership style I don't in as much as I do think about it I think that's probably the two camps I'm trying to sit between and try and pull the best from being one of those silent leaders who leads by example and sort of says this is what I'm doing it gets me results. If you want some other results maybe give it a try and then also bringing in elements of that more charismatic leadership where it's acquired the reason I sort of stumbled across this or the reason this thought came was was early in my career when I was an individual contributor that leader by example was exactly what I wanted to do and I thought that was the best but as you become more and more senior and more and more detached from actually doing the work and you become more responsible for the work even though you're not doing it you then more of that charismatic and various approach and I think that that's that sort of dichotomy is the bit that I think every leader wrestles with and trying to define their style and thinking about how they can evolve and become more and more effective in their leadership. I hope that answers the question.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

It was great you did great and no one else has answered that. So no it's really good yeah very good very helpful because I want us to learn and everyone else that's watching and listening to to learn those different styles of leadership and and the pros and the cons and what works because like you're saying is like what works in one scenario doesn't necessarily work in another scenario and you have to learn to adapt right you can't always be the same leader in every single situation that you're dealing with. So that's really beautiful. I love that great job.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Yeah the the situational stuff's great because I've I don't like talking about my career before technology because Because it wasn't it wasn't much of a career to be perfectly honest. But I often talk about when I was delivering furniture outdoors in the snow, I wasn't talking to my colleagues the way I talk to them now. Um because we're talking about different people in different environments, if you can imagine the two sort of worlds that you're talking from there. And I think that your your point around situational is spot on, adapting your approach to what's in front of you right now and what you need to get done.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Yeah, absolutely. All right, last question, then we're gonna let you go. Um when you think about your legacy as a leader, what lasting impact do you hope that it will have on the teams or the professionals that you have worked with?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Good question, actually. I don't think I really think of legacy in terms of like thinking of me and wasn't Dave a great like delivery person, wasn't he good at this? But I hope, a bit like what I've done with a lot of my mentors and the people who I really respect and really learned a lot from. I hope, if anything, I can leave them with two or three things where they think Dave's really good at these things. I want to get a little bit closer to that. Because that's what I especially when I think of sort of the people who I've really admired and respected in my career, it's sort of a heartbreak when you realize you're not gonna be as good as they are at what they're truly special at. And I I talk about this a lot when you think of T and W shaped skills. Like there's some facilitators I've worked with, communicators, project planners, people who can really build effective teams. I'm never gonna be as good as all of my sort of personal heroes in every single one of these arenas. But if I can sort of take someone, look at them as like a bit of a judge or a bit of a target and say, can I get closer to where they are and motivates me to get there? I would hope that I can act in that in maybe one or two areas for some other people without trying to come across as sort of self-aggrandizing. But I hope I could be a good yardstick for people and hopefully they'll go on further than what I do. And anything I do, that would be my ultimate hope, I suppose, that they go further than further than anything I can pull together.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

I think I think so too. Yeah. And I I think you've hit the mark uh much closer than you think you have. And I think it would be interesting. You should do a poll of how many people have learned either directly from you or from the stuff that you've posted, because I bet it's astronomical. Because um, for everybody who doesn't know, Dave is a massive presence on LinkedIn, like several of other guests. Um, and so we will put his link down as well and you can connect with him. Um, but he's always putting up really value add stuff. Um, great posts, talks a lot about agile and scrum and lean, but also gives um paths to learning um that you can follow and go through. He has uh an amazing link tree and Miro that you can go through and and he'll kind of guide you through on that of different things you can learn. And and again, so grateful because I have learned so much from you. I remember I was thinking when you were saying about the legacy, it was like, I remember telling you, Dave, you got to get a microphone. And you were like, really? Yeah, you're gonna have to get a microphone and so we can do this thing. And so we've come a long way together. I think we've both grown a lot since we started that. And I'm just so I'm so grateful for you for your for the legacy that you are leading that I don't think you quite know. And that I, you know, uh it I think it's a little bit of that imposter syndrome as well. But I'm also grateful for your friendship. I'm grateful that you always answer the call. Whenever I send you a message, you you get right back to me. And I'm just really super blessed that I had the honor of meeting you um and that we've been able to stay in touch and and kind of collab on some stuff and do some stuff. And and I look forward to what the future brings too. And um thank you for your time. Thank you for being on. We didn't make you cry, so we'll probably have to have you on again.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

I think my face might make some of your audience cry, but uh no similar to you, it's just been what I really love about the network that I've built on LinkedIn is meeting people like you guys who are doing stuff, not necessarily in the arena I'm in, but just seeing the progress you make and then the sort of determination and the consistency, I just find it incredibly motivating. So having people at Young My Network is just incredibly inspiring. So thank you for everything you do and all the support and positive reinforcement that you give to everything I'm doing. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Yeah. No, I love everything you're doing. I haven't seen anything I didn't like yet, so and I would probably like you know. So all right, well, we're gonna let you go and we will keep in touch. Um, I thank you for being on. We appreciate you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Thank you very much.