The Failure Gap

Julie Williamson, Ph.D. (00:00)
Welcome to the Failure Gap, where we talk with leaders about navigating the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people, and today we're joined by Monica Radulescu. Monica is a senior leader at TELUS, where she helps support their signature leadership development programs. Monica is fueled by her passion for helping people to reach their highest potential. She's able to help people navigate ambiguity and complexity, and she's inspired by the amazing people that she meets every day. Monica?

Welcome to the Failure Gap. Hi Julie, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to have you here today because I know that you work with people who are all across TELUS working so hard to close the space between agreement that something is a great idea for TELUS and for your customers and for your colleagues and alignment and actually making it happen. And I know a lot of the programs that you support help leaders with that space. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

But first I want to hear a little bit about you. would love it if you would share with our listeners a little of your journey to leadership. Sure. Thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for our chat. And yeah, my journey, I think we would have to probably go all the way back to kindergarten. A little Monica. love that. A little bit of me. I think, you know, back.

My first experience in the school system was back in kindergarten. It was in Germany before we settled here. And my teacher's name was Monica. And so I immediately knew I wanted to be a teacher. And I wanted to really focus on learning and growing and helping others do the same. think at that time I already knew from a young age how important it was to impart knowledge, to...

help others and I thought that teaching was like the most honorable way to do that at the time. I don't think I knew what honorable meant at five years old. But I think, know, that kind of like really set up my path and I went to school and it was at college where I wanted to decide if I wanted to go into sort of the adult education world or focus on the kiddos and I had decided.

Adults was it for me. But I was a little stuck. I wasn't fully sure yet. So I decided to work at TELUS for a little bit while I figured out my next steps. And 18 years later, I'm here. Really doing what I would say is like my dream job. I run a leadership development program for our high potential leaders and

I don't teach, I'm not a teacher, but I help people really, really kind of get to that place where they are working towards reaching their best self, developing their skills, breaking down their barriers, and really preparing for their next role as a leader. So how did I get there? One step at a time, I started as a call center agent, and I took on a lot of different roles.

was very intentional about it and really got here through lots of hard work, lots of different learning opportunities and just kind of putting yourself out there in different places that help you get to where you are. One of the things, that has been so interesting to me as I've talked with people on this podcast is how few people have had a linear path to leadership, to their roles.

And it sounds like you were also one of those people who was willing to say yes to doing things, to continue to learn and grow, but maybe that wasn't exactly like the linear path to leadership for a call center rep, right? As you come into the call center, like how do you explore and be open and think about those opportunities and say yes to things as they come? I have the feeling just from knowing you that you're a say yes kind of person. Yes, totally.

And I also said no to staying stuck in one place. think that, yeah, I started out as a call center. It was supposed to be a temporary situation. And I said, there's no way I'm staying here for more than a year. I need to move and progress. And so either I progress within the company or I go back and progress towards the ultimate goal. But I said no to staying as a call center agent. And I just took on every opportunity to

kind of to step outside of that, step beyond what's easy and getting to that next level. And you know, let's just give a shout out to Telos as well, as an organization that has that potential, right? Where there are the possibilities to do that for somebody like you who's willing to push yourself in that way. Yeah, honestly, I am so grateful because through every job that I took on after that, I had the opportunity to get.

really, really thorough development, thorough learning opportunities and stretch assignments and leaders that really pushed me to go there. So it wasn't all me. It was a lot of amazing leaders that pushed me in the right way and that gave me those opportunities. Wow. And now you're designing those programs for other people. How wonderful is that? I know it's it's honestly it is the dream job.

I love it. It's been the longest time I've been in a role because this is where I wanted to land ultimately. And I don't think I could have ever imagined like being in this space when I was five years old, dreaming of being a teacher. Right. Right. Looking up to Monica, your kindergarten teacher. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all of our journeys include some personal spaces where we're trying to move between agreement and alignment. And I know I've got a few of my own.

but I'm just interested to hear, are there ones that have fueled you where you've had to really push yourself to agree that it would be great if I did something, but you gotta do a little bit of work sometimes to get yourself there. Anything come to mind from your personal experiences? Yeah, I think, know, and we've talked about this in the past. For me, in order to get to where I am today, I needed to work on my presentation skills. It's great to wanna become a teacher, but if you can't really stand in front of a group.

comfortably, you you got to work on that. So I think I, like a lot of different people have this fear of public speaking or had it. still have the discomfort there, but I think as soon as I became a call center agent and I saw the opportunity to get involved in little projects that forced me to present, as much as I dreaded it, I knew that that's what needed to happen to develop the skill that I needed.

to ultimately be in a position to teach or present or help others, you know? And that was a hard process. I had to take on a lot of uncomfortable projects to get there. And is it perfect? No. But I think I've gotten to a place where the practice and the work and just getting in that uncomfortable space enough times makes you

comfortable in the uncomfortable, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I think there's something about putting yourself in that uncomfortable space when the stakes are a little lower so that when the stakes are higher, you can be more confident in that. And so it sounds to me like you look for sort of where you found some opportunities to push yourself a little bit so that when it was time to push yourself a lot, you had some

experience with it. Is that fair to say? Totally fair. Yeah, I think and that's that's as much as I say the word uncomfortable. It's also exciting to me to be in that space. So, you know, it's one of the things that a lot of people don't want to do the uncomfortable, but I really enjoy that space and I enjoy the same feeling that I had when I was a kid trying to play with something new and figure out a puzzle or figure out how to do something new. I was just

excited about the whole process and figuring out how to figure it out. You know, so I have a find who likes to say she renames her dread excitement. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's what you're saying too, right? It's like if there's a little bit of both. So if you feel that dread, sometimes that can be a cue that something could be really exciting if you can push through the fear.

I couldn't agree more, honestly, that's, you know, it's that thing, the thing, whatever it is that we're afraid of, we're dreading or avoiding is the thing that's gonna actually push us to the level we wanna get to. We're dreading it because we're afraid to fail, right? Yeah, well, you know, and sometimes also we just, you know, blow that completely out of proportion. So I'm gonna put you on the spot here, Monica, and I'm gonna ask you just what comes to mind when I say...

What was your worst public speaking experience? When did it go as bad as it could go? And I bet that it's not that bad. No, it was terrible, I would say. It was. I look at it, it's horrible. So I look at it fondly now and I think again, know, those situations happened as a kid when I had to do an oral presentation. But this was a really unique opportunity I had prior to taking on the program.

program that I have, the person who ran it previously is now my leader. And she gave me the opportunity to present. She pushed me to be the person who hosts the launch event for the program, which is a big event. In the smaller locations, it was 20, 30 people. In Vancouver, for example, it was 100 people. And there were

VPs there and senior leaders just waiting to kind of see the presentation, get kicked off, get excited. I wouldn't say I'm the most animated person in the world to begin with, but I got on stage and I just froze. I didn't just get nervous and fumble. I froze. Full freeze, full stop, no words.

No words. And it took me, I don't know, a few minutes to collect myself and admit that I was very nervous in front of 100 people and giggle it off like a little kid. And it was quite embarrassing, but also quite freeing to just like, yeah, I'm super nervous. I froze right there. This happened. And let's move on and just.

you know, get on with the day. And as soon as I pass through this, like most people, right, it's just those first few minutes that freak you out. But the full freeze, full freeze. Well, you froze. However, however, the earth did not open up underneath of you and swallow you whole, right? You know, you figured it out and you got through it. And I think that's so important for all of us to remember that we can we can get through those moments. And I so appreciate you sharing that. I mean,

That's a really vulnerable moment to share, but so many people have had that experience. And if you can just stand in it and you can find your way through it, then wonderful things open up in front of you in that really catalytic moment. All right, so I asked you about your least favorite memory. So I have to give you the opportunity to share what's a public speaking moment that you're really proud of, where you feel like, yeah, that felt great. And I'm like, feel good about that.

I think it was maybe a couple of years down the road where I hadn't had enough of those because it wasn't the first, it was the first of many. And I think I just sort of cracked the code for myself. Everybody has their process, but I cracked the code for myself and I didn't worry so much about the perception or the way that I was coming across. I just worried a lot more about just showing up.

and being present and being out of my head. So, yeah, I presented in front of 100 people. It like the exact same situation two years later. And I rocked it. I was comfortable. I was really in my element. I was excited. I was feeding off of the crowd and making the eye contact and doing all the things that I used to look at, you know.

people doing Ted Talks, being like, there's no way, there's no way I could feel that level of comfort on the stage. And I did. And so full circle. Yeah, I got in the flow. Yeah, I got in the flow. Exactly. Yeah, I love that. And I think that's such an important reminder to everybody that there can be these things where you get anxiety. I love that you mentioned that it was the first, but not the last time that that happened to you. But you

persevered and you kept showing up and that took the edge off of it, I'm sure over time until you got to the point where you could be in front of a hundred people and be in the flow and really feel that energy and feel that confidence in that space. Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of times people make the mistake of thinking that we get from agreement that something is a good idea to alignment and actually doing it in one giant leap. we just or magic happens, right? Like it just happens that we get there. But

It is that hard work and it is taking those opportunities to continue to get into that discomfort and to get into that space until you can hold that space in a different way and until you can start to feed off of it instead of feeding it. Right? There's that pivot that happens. Yeah. I love what you're saying because it's creating the momentum through these little opportunities you're taking on that move you to the final goal. think we all understand that concept, but in practice, it's so hard to do.

And if I would have said, you know, I want to get to the place where I got to two years after, by the way, it's two years after taking on this program, it's 12-ish years of actively looking at opportunities to present and getting better and better and more comfortable. And some people take longer, some people take a year or a few months of active practice. For me, it took me a very long time. But it's.

through the little steps that I got there. It wasn't going to happen overnight for me. It wasn't going to happen through that magic project or the program that I got. It happened through taking small steps consistently and getting to a place where the big impossible goal actually became quite easy and possible for me. You know, at Caracas Group we like to say small steps done consistently over time change the world. Right? That's really what gets people.

where they need to be. So I think it's such a wonderful, wonderful example of that. And so let's pivot a little bit and talk about professionally with Intellis as you think about your work with leaders and trying to help people navigate this space between even as you're building your program, right? Feeling like this would be a great idea to be able to do this. How do we get aligned as a leadership team to have the right investment, the right focus, the right attention, the right commitment to

building these signature leadership development programs or any other space within your professional world as you think about it. Where do you see that navigation happening between agreeing that something's a good idea and doing the work to make it happen? That's a big question for sure. Where do I see it and where?

What do I see in the organization or in most organizations is, know, thankfully in the space that I'm in, we get to see a lot of trends outside of our organization as well and we leverage a lot of that to understand what we need to focus on as an organization in terms of development and culture and all that stuff. I think...

Where we really tend to focus on a lot is strategy, right? It's what is the strategy? What's the plan? Where are we going? And what we often don't focus on enough is the why and the people in the strategy and where they are at in that space. so, you know, what

And I'm not sure if that's gonna answer the question. I'm just sort of rambling, but what? I think it's actually something that a lot of organizations and teams struggle with, right? Is they can know what they need to do, but they struggle sometimes with this idea of the why. And we also, as you know, at Kerikans Group talk about the how. Like, how are we going to do that together? Not the how that is like the nitty gritty plan, but how are we gonna come together as a team and make that happen?

And I think that's where a lot of the magic happens in terms of collaboration and alignment and the power of teams working together to make the strategy happen. And I'm just curious because leadership development programs in particular, they need the support of senior leaders across the organization to be both investing in it, sometimes financially, often with time, but also having their people, giving their people the time and the space to attend.

One of the things I've seen, by the way, and I'm sure you've seen this too, is leaders are like, yeah, that's a great idea. I love that program design. But they don't give their people the head space to actually fully engage in the program. So that takes a lot of conversation. And I'm wondering, I think you guys do at TELUS a really good job of having those conversations with your senior leaders so they understand how they can participate in their people's success as they participate in these programs.

Anything that stands out to you about your process or how you get senior leaders aligned to support the programs that you're developing? Yeah, I think the senior leadership support is key, truly. you know, I think generally speaking, if there is alignment, it's because it's coming from the top. And if there's agreement, it's because we're all agreeing, but...

We're lacking some support from the top to align. And I think at TELUS, we do a really amazing job of getting the support from the top to agree to what at the bottom makes sense in terms of learning and development. know, and I hate to say top and bottom, because really we all operate that way, necessarily.

I think unanimously there is an alignment and agreement that learning and development is a priority. a strategic priority for TELUS and it has remained this way consistently over every big hurdle. We're struggling currently like most companies with major organizational changes and big disruption in the...

industry and so to continue to invest in the same way that we always have in terms of learning and development speaks to the support that we get at that level. And by having this support, when we get to talking about you need to create space for your team members to take those courses and they can't be dropping out of the courses because they have an important client call, you need to come up with a strategy to

delegate or to come up with a backup plan that resonates. There isn't as much resistance for us because we have alignment across the board and across all levels. Is it perfect everywhere in TELUS? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's 80-20 roll it. can get 80 % of the way there. You can make a lot of progress. I think one of the things, Monica, that I've noticed is that

You do a really nice job of involving senior leaders in the programs as well that gives them, I think, a sense of ownership or connection to the work. Can you talk a little bit about that? think you've I've seen people like where you pull them in for a guest speaking spot or you ask them to contribute in different ways. And I think sometimes we forget the value of asking people to contribute when we're trying to get them aligned to something. Yeah, I think, you know, for

For the program that I run, we unfortunately haven't had the opportunity to bring in a lot of senior leaders in the last couple of years. But in the past, the program used to actually include a project component. And it was a little bit run like an MBA type of program. A lot of high potential programs function on this type of structure.

The senior leader investment was around supporting or sponsoring one of the projects. Today and in the future, the involvement is going to look a little different. And what we really want to do is empower the participants in the program to really create a robust career development plan and hold the leaders of these participants more accountable for really

supporting the participant in that process. And so as they go through the program, they're going to be expected to be a lot more engaged and a lot more active in having conversations about the program with their participant, putting together plans, ensuring that the actual goals are achievable and that they provide the support needed for them to achieve the goals. And in terms of speaking engagement too, think, you

Ideally, what we want to do is just bring a lot of different speakers from different parts of the organization to share their journey. A little bit of this type of conversation, excuse me, that we're having, where we talk about the failures, we talk about the successes, we talk about the things that we often don't talk about in a more vulnerable space where people can find it a little more attainable. And maybe they can push themselves in that space.

You know, we talked earlier about how important it is when we're asking people to align to do something differently than they've done it in the past. How can we create that space for them to experiment and to try and to play a little bit even, right? Like, God forbid we should have fun at work, right? But that would make it a little bit more easy for people to have that experience and start to take the edge off of the anxiety and start to ramp up the excitement. I love that.

play a little. think that's, my VP loves the word play and she likes to play and I think that's what helps to drive that culture in our organization or in our part of the organization. It's really not that serious. I think that if we take that mentality of let's try, let's try and see. Let's see what happens and if it doesn't work, let's pivot, let's go and find another option, but let's have fun with it and...

through that curiosity and the playfulness of trying and innovating, we align because we learn together and it's okay to make some mistakes occasionally. Yeah, yeah, and you know, they can be things that you look back on fondly. As you mentioned, I used that word with your reflection on your speaking example. And I think that's such a wonderful word to remember that you can become fond of your failures. I think.

there's space in there to explore. And in the moment, it might not feel great, but I think most of us have experiences like that where we do look back on them fondly. And we say, you know, I'm glad I went through that. I'm not talking about like big traumas. I mean, things like getting up on stage and freezing in front of a hundred people and realizing that the earth is not going to swallow you whole. Like that's the kind of thing that you look back on fondly. And you say that was a good learning experience for me. I couldn't agree more.

I think there's the other element of connections that we have, know, the people that experience it with you. If you have strong connections with them, they're going to be there to support you or they're going to laugh with you about it a few years down the road. think that, you know, the other half is that it's the people around you that sort of support you in those moments of vulnerability or in those moments where you're, I'm going to try something new. It might fail miserably.

But I know I've got a team around me that's going to celebrate even just the attempt of trying this. And that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can think, I'll tell you a quick story. I can think of a time when I was working actually in Europe and this was before the internet. So I'm dating myself a little bit. It was in the mid 90s, but we needed to get some code from one country essentially over to another country where the developer was so they could work on it.

I won't go into all the details, we need like, we were just trying to figure out how to get the code over to him. And we ended up like jury rigging the fax machine so that we could send it over the phone lines, blah, blah, But the line that's rid of it is it worked. But what we didn't think about was that we ran up a huge international phone bill because it took like six hours. And the client was like, what's this enormous charge for this phone call to Germany?

And you know, we look back on that now. It was not a great moment in my career, but we look, my colleagues at the time and I look back on that now and laugh and we're, and actually feel like a little proud that we figured it out, right? Like we did figure out how to get the job done. It might not have been the best way, but it was the way that worked at the time. So what did you do? Well, I want to know now. No, I said, no, we don't have to get into the gory details of it. Tell us people would get very amused by it, I think. But, um,

It was one of those things where we were stuck and we had to figure out a solution and we just tried something and we got it to work. And we were able to deal with the fallout of it, which was an enormous phone bill. But, you know, I think in those moments you can't get too stuck on the what ifs, right? You just have to figure it out together and then see if you can make sense of it. I love that. We'll have to talk about the rest of that story another time. Another time, another time.

Yeah. Well, Monica, when you think about the people who are in your programs, are there any, when you think about around TELUS, are there things that you hear people say like, we should be doing this or if only we did that. Like one of the things we hear a lot with our clients is we really should collaborate more or we should be more innovative or we need to be more strategic or like there's a lot of what it could have should have that to get kind of bantied around in every organization. Are there any that stand out for you at TELUS where you feel like that's something that we agree with?

but we're still figuring out how to get aligned to it. Yeah, all of the above, I would say. You know, we're not different than any other organization, but I do think that maybe collaboration is one of those things that rely so heavily on connection and in a large organization like ours, especially when you're looking at so many acquisitions happening and comp-

completely different industries from one business unit to another, it's really, really hard to maintain those connections and to build a network and to do it consistently. So of course, collaboration suffers. That's definitely one thing that happens a lot here. Yeah. I think that idea of building your network across the organization, if there's something that listeners might take away, I hope it's that

It is so important because it is the fuel of collaboration. It's the fuel of innovation. It's the fuel of strategic thinking. It is the fuel for so many things in an organization that alignment relies on is building that network, building those connections and really investing in the relationships that you have across the organization. I agree. And not just building those networks, but building meaningful connections. I think that

We tend to stop halfway through. We tend to hold back. We tend to not take the time. But I think that something really magical happens when you really cultivate more meaningful connections in the workplace or at home or anywhere, right? Like, I think that they go hand in hand. The fulfillment you feel at work and at home goes back to how meaningful your connections are with the people around you.

And the more we cultivate those relationships, the more we stand to benefit individually in an organization at home, right? You said something really interesting there. You said sometimes we stop halfway. Tell me a little more about that. What does that look like? How do you know when you have to push yourself to go more than halfway? Like what, what, does that look like for you?

I don't like stuff halfway, but a lot of people do. And so I will push them quite often. go deep pretty quickly. If you've noticed anything about me, I like to just go straight to the deep stuff. so I think a lot of people, what I notice is that they stop right before the moment where it starts to become meaningful or vulnerable.

when it comes to everyday interactions that we have with people at work. It's not that difficult to do. You do not have to set up like a one hour coffee chat and get deep 45 minutes in, right? It doesn't take that much to go deep, but we somehow push that to the side because it's work or we push that to the side because there's business to deal with. And I'm not talking about small talk.

at the start of call. I'm talking about making those interactions meaningful and injecting a little bit of humanity in the transactions that we have every day with the people around us at work. Maybe moving them from transactions into more relationship based. Yeah. Yeah. Are there ways that you have that you do that? Are there questions you ask or things like lines of conversation that you pursue? I think

I love asking a lot of questions. My curiosity continues and it always continues. And so, yeah, if I sense discomfort in a conversation, I will ask why. I'm sensing you're being uncomfortable here. Let's talk about it. People just don't take the time to do that all the time. And I think that it's not so difficult. It seems like a very difficult thing, but.

really asking the simple question of I can sense that you're struggling here with this. Let's talk about it. Help me understand. Right. And like we've known this stuff for forever. Get to the emotional before you get to the business. really think that. Yeah. And that idea of just know we call it notice and name, right? Notice what's happening and name it. It doesn't mean that you have to accuse anybody or that you're being critical or dismissive. You're saying, hey,

I feel like there's some tension here. Can we talk about the tension? Not can we talk about what's causing it or why you feel that way, but let's talk about the tension. I think that's such a great takeaway for people to remember is going deep and moving from that transactional conversation to something relational is not always about, you know, remembering to ask about people's kids. That's a nice thing to do, but it's really about in the conversation and in what you're trying to solve.

How do you not stop halfway, as Monica said earlier, right? How do you not stop halfway, but really push through and say, hey, I want to understand how you're feeling about this because that's going to make the difference in terms of whether you're going to actually do it or not. Yeah. And often what gets in the way of even just doing that is our own fears. We don't want to offend. We don't want to worry. We don't want to...

create conflict and it's uncomfortable or maybe we don't feel comfortable with it, but it's our own barriers that get in the way. So breaking that barrier is key because as soon as you ask those questions, it opens up the conversation and creates connection. And before you know it, you get alignment so much quicker than trying to provide all the business justifications for why this makes sense, right? Right, right. Yeah, we, yeah. I had a young golf instructor coach

a couple of years ago and he and I, I said to him, I'm afraid of the driver, right? And so then what did he do? He started explaining to me all of the reasons why this particular club was, you know, a great club, right? And they were all very technical reasons. And I looked at him and I said, I'm telling you that I'm afraid of it, not that I don't understand it. And then I said, I'm going to give you a hint that's going to help you in all of your relationships going forward, especially with women.

Don't explain my emotions to me with facts and figures because that just doesn't work. No, no, it doesn't. I love that. Yeah. But that's, think what you're getting to in, even in the business world, right? Is that sometimes we have this discomfort because we feel like our organization is under threat or we feel like we don't know how to do something or there's fear or there's anxiety. And instead of dealing with that, we try and explain it away with the data and

or we try and solve it for the other person with data and that doesn't really help them all that much. No, certainly not. think in any human interaction, it's always about why, right? It's why are we doing this? Why should I agree to this? And it's not about the numbers. It's about the emotional connection that we want to make to that decision or that the person that's

trying to push that decision. It's always, yeah. I almost feel like that halfway point is when we run out of data, right? So we're explaining something to someone like this is why you should do this. Here's all the numbers and we stop there. And that's the halfway point you were talking about, right? We don't take that next step to say, how do you feel about it? What are your concerns? What are you worried about in terms of the impact this will have on your organization or on you personally? Who in your organization might

be frustrated by this or have a negative impact or, I know that we don't ask all those questions, right? We just keep pushing into the data, which is important. You need both, but you can't rely on that to motivate people to align and deliver together. Yeah, I couldn't have said it better. think we just want to kind of get that full circle. The numbers are really critical. I'm a numbers girl, big numbers girl, but I'm also a big emotions girl.

So being able to do the two together and create that beautiful story that gives you the full picture I think is key. And it takes work to do that. It takes time to do that. it just like the presentations piece, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. I think if you have a big project or a big idea to push, you need to put in the time and effort to get all the numbers, yes, but also get all the people aligned.

before pushing it through. Yeah, for sure. Well, Monica, this has been such a good conversation. We have a couple of questions that we ask everybody at the end, and I'm so curious to hear what you have to say. If you were thinking about recommendations for people who are trying to get their team or their leaders or their organization aligned, what would be the two or three things that you would encourage them to really remember or to hold on to or to experiment with for themselves? What are a couple of takeaways?

for people to help them get people aligned to deliver together.

Three, two or three? Okay, I'm gonna, it's gonna be hard to keep it to two, so I'm gonna go for three. Okay, that's fair, that's fair. I think the first one is removing barriers, right? And it's a two part, first part. Removing barriers individually and relationally. So if there are interpersonal barriers or if there are individual barriers that you have, just creating a culture where

you foster psychological safety and people can safely talk about these things and have the conversations that are scary and difficult and uncomfortable. And also recognize within those barriers for yourself what you need to do to move past those barriers. So that's one, barriers. Second one would be just...

Creating an atmosphere of curiosity and playfulness and a good energy around trying different things. I think that that's so important and we forget about it. just reminding everybody that it's okay. It's okay to fail. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to try and see. And if it doesn't work halfway through, we move. That's okay too. We sometimes find out if a solution makes sense once you try it.

Don't commit to the solution too quickly. Play around the agile and just have fun figuring it out as you go. We don't have the luxury that we used to have 20 years ago of having a plan in place and sticking to it. Our world no longer operates in that space. So have fun, play. And third, I would say just

really, really focus on the connections. We're in a disconnected world. We need to really, really create meaningful connections and every interaction, every conversation, every email, every project is an opportunity to build a meaningful connection with those that we're dealing with. So step up to that. It's for you and it's for them and it's for the organization and it creates alignment.

those would be my three. I love that removing barriers, staying curious and being willing to take action and focusing on the relationships and the connections that you're building and how valuable they are to building alignment. Three great takeaways. Thank you for that. All right. The final question, Monica, which is if you could get a group of people, whether it's, you know, inside of Dallas or outside of Dallas or just in the world in general, any other community that you're a part of, if you could get people aligned to do something together,

What would it be? What would you love to see people really get aligned and taking action on together? goodness. Within TALIS? Sure. Sure. That's a very tough one. There's so many things. think creating space through the form of simplifying.

just simplifying. I think the world only gets more complicated with time. And so if we had one thing that we need to do is to make things more simple so we have more space. So we have the time to do the connection and the growth and all the other stuff that's important. But we can't get there without the space. Simplify the business in support of the connections. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Well, I do think that if people got aligned to that, we would see a lot of capacity open up because there is almost like a requisite complexity that people feel like has to exist. And if we could all challenge that a little bit for ourselves, I could see a lot of people having more head space and more emotional space to be able to have those great connections that fuel alignment to get other things done together. So I really appreciate that.

call to action to people to think about simplifying. We actually had a client who had one of their team commitments that we worked with them on was simplify relentlessly. Yeah. Yeah. It was a tough one for him though, I'll tell you that. Yeah. And we keep adding, we keep adding, but we don't remove. And I think, you know, we tend to complicate things. We are just naturally inclined to do that, but it's just so much more exciting to remove things off our plate. Yeah.

And not for the sake of working less. I think it's for the sake of focusing on what's more important. So yeah. Yeah. We need to be able to feel the things that are most important. I love that. thank you so much for being a guest on the Failure Gap podcast. This has been wonderful. And I hope that our listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, please remember to like and comment and repost and share it.

broadly with all of your colleagues and friends. We'd love your support in that way. Monica, I want to say thank you. hope you have a great rest of your day and to all of our listeners. Thanks for being here and we appreciate your support. Thank you so much, Julie. It was a pleasure and it was lovely chatting with you today.