Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Lift As You Rise: Purpose-Driven Approach to Leadership with Ellyn Shook

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

What does it take to create a workplace where people thrive—where leadership is human-centered, purpose-driven, built for the future, and knows how to get results?Today, as part of our Modern Leadership series I’m excited to sit down with Ellyn Shook, the former Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer at Accenture, to explore the evolving landscape of leadership and workplace culture. Ellyn is at the forefront of shaping environments where people do more than simply work—they grow, connect, and thrive. She’s been instrumental in driving Accenture’s people-first approach, supporting people in becoming their best, and cultivating human connection in high-performing organizations.In this conversation, we unpack the key ingredients of modern leadership—how to build trust, foster resilience, and create cultures that unlock potential. Ellyn’s insights are not just for business leaders—they’re for anyone looking to lead with purpose, empathy, and impact.This is the third installment of our Modern Leadership Series. If you haven’t listened to our first episodes with Matt Breitfelder and Rhonda Morris, I highly recommend you go and listen to those as well. These are conversations with the people who are helping to define Modern Leadership and what it takes to build the next generation of leaders._________________Make sure to check out the full Modern Leadership series at:https://www.findingmastery.com/modernleadership _________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Leadership is contextual. And I think leadership has to change as the context changes. But I have certain beliefs that leaders have to continue to learn. And I do believe that leaders have to be able to advocate an inspiring vision to move people and the world forward. Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training a high performance psychologist. This is a series of conversations

we've been having with global leaders in human resources. They are at the forefront of helping define modern leadership and what it takes to attract and retain and build the next generation of leaders. From the shift to and from hybrid work to the integration of emerging technologies like AI, these conversations highlight the leadership capabilities

that will help teams thrive in the modern workplace. Today, as part of our Modern Leadership series, I'm really excited to sit down with Ellen Shook, the former Chief Leadership and Human Resources Officer at Accenture, to explore the evolving landscape of leadership and workplace culture. Ellen is at the forefront of shaping environments where people do more than simply work.

They grow, they connect, they thrive. So we just started saying progress is greater than perfection, so that the expectation is we're going to keep moving. She's been instrumental in driving Accenture's people-first approach. People becoming their very best. And the power of human connection in high-performing organizations. We engage the most influential people. And it's not like the people up here that are the most influential.

It's the most influential people. Who has influence? That's how you make things work. Ellen's insights are not just for business leaders they're for anyone looking to lead with purpose and empathy and impact so with that let's dive into this week's conversation with the powerhouse ellen shook ellen i'm so excited to have this conversation with you i've been wanting to do this for a really long time. And so thank you for spending the time to be able to do this together.

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to do it with you. Awesome. Okay, so let's just start at the beginning. Okay. What is important about your journey for me to best understand who you are and how you've arrived here? It really started when I was in second grade, which is really odd. But when I was in second grade, my dad was superintendent of schools and he signed the integration orders on the school district I went to school in. And what does that really mean? That might not even mean anything to people who are listening to this thing. What it meant was before that happened,

where I lived, which was 60 miles outside of New York City, white children went to one school and black children went to a different school. And my dad signed the integration orders at the request of the commissioner of education. And it meant that we were going to have black children and white children go to school together. And not only did he sign the orders, but he made sure that the orders were executed. And that was super hard for him. And it was super hard for our family. The white families were not happy and neither were the black families. And when I look back on my own journey, that probably was something that did really shape me, but I never really fully understood it in that way.

But it did shape me because I looked at my dad as a role model throughout my whole life, professionally and personally. And, you know, I talk a lot about compassion being the combination of empathy and action. And my dad believed, believed in his head and in his heart that education was the great equalizer. And by doing what he did, he was able to make a difference. And to me, that was really the beginning of my journey. Okay, so let's open that up just a bit here and we'll work backwards that you've got a really clear definition of compassion, empathy, and action. Yep. And it sounds like your dad embodied those. Yeah. And you tied it to the story about him making a decision and then being responsible to put that decision in action. Yeah. And I do remember like not as a kid, not

understanding it, not like it's fine, you know, but I didn do remember like not as a kid, not understanding it, like it's fine, you know, but I didn't understand like how I couldn't, why I didn't get to go to school with kids in my neighborhood. But it was, that was kind of the, the only issue. I like playing soccer with these kids. How come I don't get to play, you know, with them at school. And I remember learning about it later, like the grand idea is that we're just going to all be one larger melting pot. And we're going to know people from our neighbor, our sister neighborhoods. And you're suggesting that there was more attention than maybe I was aware of at the time. But more importantly, your father led with empathy and action. He continued to do it. You know, coming over here today to prepare for this, I was thinking about him because I always do when I

think about myself because he was such a role model. He passed away more than a decade ago. And I read, I know this sounds really weird, but I read his obituary again for the first time in a long time. And I was reminded that he not only did that, which is always the thing I remember, because I remember sitting at the dinner table that night that that happened. But I was reminded that he put a high school education program into our jail system, our county jail system. He also created an education program for pregnant and parenting teens. So he really believed that education was an equalizer, and he took those beliefs and he created things that enabled people to have an equal and level playing field. And frankly, that's what I did my entire last decade of my career or tried to aspire to do was to create a level playing field for people.

Very cool. Okay. So when you were younger, what was your idea of leadership then? And I'm wondering if that changed over time or if the original spark stayed true for the last, you know, handful of decades. It definitely has changed. To me, leadership was being the first one to do something. You know, fast forward to my career. I was working on a project when Accenture was going public back in 2001. I was selected. I was pretty young at the time, much younger than I am now, obviously. And I was working with one of the most senior partners in our company, a super smart guy named John Conahan. And we were tasked with figuring out how to distribute the equity to all of our people in the company.

I had very low self-confidence in math because I had a seventh grade math teacher who told me I was stupid in front of the whole class. So, I chose a major in college where I had to do very little math. I hid from math. I lived with that limiting belief that I could not do math. So, John and I were sitting in a conference room in Accenture's New York office. And he said to me at the time, were you a calculus major? Five words. It changed my life. It changed my life. John Conehan, in five words, changed the trajectory of my entire life. Because he recreated belief in myself that I could do something that I didn't really know or believe I could do. And that became leadership to me, which was helping people unlock their potential. And so for a time, that's how I

modeled my own leadership. I wanted to unlock people's potential too, because it felt so great. And I suddenly became something I could never imagine I could become. I moved to Paris, I worked in France, and I brought my family there and we became, we learned so much and we did so much. You know, it was just such an enriching part of my life. And then when I became the chief leadership became a whole new paradigm for me, seeing great leaders, experiencing leadership, having to define what I believed great leaders were. And so, I know this might sound shocking to you, having been the Chief Leadership Officer of Accenture, but I don't think there is one static model, because I do believe that leadership is contextual, and I think leadership has to change as the context changes. But I have certain beliefs that leaders have to continue to learn. I have a belief that leaders have to practice compassion, which is my definition of

empathy and action. I believe that leaders have to, I have this research that I did called Net Better Off. I believe leaders have to leave people net better off to be great leaders. And I do believe that leaders have to be able to advocate an inspiring vision to move people and the world forward. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success.

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And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so

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And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Would those be the three or four consistent

skills and variables that you would look for and to cultivate within people to be great leaders at Accenture? And just to repurpose, like I heard learning, I heard compassion, I heard net better off. So, you know, leaving it just a little bit better than you left it and then making sure that they had a vision and could advocate and mobilize towards that vision. Are those the four big ones for you? Yeah, they are. And Net Better Off has its own. Net Better Off, if I may, just explain what that definition is. We actually did a piece of research. I did it together with David Rodriguez, who was the CHRO of Marriott at the time.

And we were kind of in search of how do you unlock potential in people at work? And there were four things that unlock two-thirds of people's potential at work. Are people healthy and well, physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially? Do people feel a sense of belonging? Belonging and trust, really. Do they feel a sense of belonging and trust? Do they wake up every day and have a purpose? So not are they connected to the purpose of the company per se, but do they have a sense of purpose every single day? And do they have market relevant skills? So if you can fire on all four of those things, you can unlock two thirds of someone's potential at work and

leave them net better off. So that has a very specific definition. And I believe that leaders need to look at people holistically like that. So this is under net better off. So the company or the leader is helping others be better than when they started the relationship with you. Correct. And there's a wellness component. There's a belonging and trust. You help them with their purpose, and then you made sure that they had some relevant skills that were transferable into other markets if they wanted to go into. Does that sound right? Yep.

Okay. So it's really close to self-determination theory as well, which is that people are internally driven and motivated when there's a sense of competence, they have a sense of autonomy, and that one isn't quite kind of listed in yours, and the relationships are well intact, both the relationships with self and others. So there's some crossover in there. And then on the purpose side, if we drill into that just a little bit, how do you help people or what is the best practice to help people know their purpose in life? Which is a really, it's a big monumental bit of self-discovery that goes in my mind so far. So how do you, how did you help people do that?

People at Accenture anyway, seem to like figure this out like what their purpose is and it was it was really intimidating to me because I never could say like oh this is my purpose and it was like made me embarrassed of myself like I couldn't say what my purpose was. I remember like the first Fortune Most Powerful Women's Dinner I went to in New York, and it was at the Mandarin Oriental, and I was so excited to have been invited. And lo and behold, there was a sports speaker, and I am not, I'm not a sports lover. It was Courtney Banghart. She was at the time the winningest coach in the NCAA, men's or women's basketball coach. And I was not that interested. So I kind of picked my phone up looking at the

phone. And I heard her say something about her dad. And I like, put my phone down and started listening. And she said that when she was 12 or 13, her dad said to her, hey, Courtney, you have something special you need to remember to lift as you rise. And I'm like, oh my God, lift as you rise. That is my purpose. That is what I do every day. That's why I go to work. That's what I do for my family. That's what I do in my community. That's my purpose. And I like literally went home that night and just, I feel it now. Like I started to cry. Like I figured out what my purpose was. And it was like a lightning bolt moment for you. Yeah, it was. It was.

Sometimes that happens. And what is happening in your body right now? What am I hearing? You are hearing, like, I'm back at that. Like, why did it take Courtney Banghart? I don't know. I think, honestly, the one, I don't want to call it a regret, Michael, but the one piece of advice, and my friend Arianna Huffington tried and tried and tried to get me to do this more and more and more, but I couldn't figure it out, and I didn't see it until now, is to give yourself more space to be. I never had it. I never took it. And I don't know. I think that's why, Michael, that I never could find my purpose. And I think it's why I had to have the lightning bolt moment because I didn't have the space to figure it out. Okay. So slightly shifting gears. Okay. I mean, Accenture is a massive organization,

700,000 employees, 774,000. How do you think about bringing the best of 774,000 people? How do you think about bringing the best of themselves forward? I try never to think about the mass, you know, like the number of people, because that really does not matter. And I think knowing yourself and being able to know others is super helpful. And so it's a hyper individualized approach in a very, very large company. We also, you know, listen deeply to our people. We have a very sophisticated listening framework that allows us to listen, you know, to individuals, to teams, you know, bringing that aperture out wider and wider and people are empowered to take action on what they hear which is how you make things move forward in a very large company and you know we have a um we have a few sayings in in hr and accenture first is progress is is greater than perfection

you know the greater than sign is part of the accenture thing and so we say progress is greater than perfection you know the greater than sign is part of the Accenture thing and so we say progress is greater than perfection because there's a lot of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of engineers that work at Accenture who like perfection so we just started saying progress is greater than perfection so that the expectation is we're going to keep moving. But with that comes the requirement to listen and get the feedback and adjust as we're going. And then the other thing that we put into place that I love, and it seems so obvious, but no, it really wasn't.

And I don't think it's obvious everywhere. Nothing for our people without our people. Well, it really wasn't. And I don't think it's obvious everywhere. Nothing for our people without our people. So everything we do for our people is designed with our people. Like we don't like sit in a back room somewhere and make some design of something and then roll it out to our people. They're involved in the creation of whatever it is for them. And that's how you make things work. The other thing is, is how we do change at Accenture.

We engage the most influential people. And it's not like the people up here that are the most influential. It's the most influential people. Who has influence? And we bring them into whatever it is that's going on, tell them all about it and send them back out. And so they are armed and equipped with the truth and they can share the truth and bring back the reaction so that we can really make sure that we know what's going on. And again, make adjustments if we need to, or if we can, we can't always make adjustments,

but at least we know the reactions. And that is very valuable to trust in a very large organization. What was the big, the large hurdle for you? Was it the, was it middle management? What people call the frozen middle? Was it alignment of leadership? Was it cascading ideas and relevant trainings to make those ideas true? All of the above, but is there something that sings above the others that was really important for, or really challenging for you to you to get your arms around? I think the biggest thing was, you know, when we repositioned ourselves from being a fast follower to being a market leader. positioning changed in the market trying to figure out how do we build talent ahead of the market you know how do we do that and how do we become a destination for talent before

you know we're really even doing big business in that area look at what we're doing in generative AI right now. Doing this agentic workforce with NVIDIA and all these amazing things that we're doing. We had to build gen AI talent ahead of the market to be able to do that. That is super hard. Intellectually, it's hard. Investment-wise, it's hard investment wise it's hard um you know it's just it's just it's really hard to do and uh the good news is is that um you know that fourth piece of net better off people want to have cutting edge skills and so they run after that stuff if you make it available to them,

but you have to be first and you have to be fast and it's hard. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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you have to be great as well. Because when you think about human resources, you know, if I just started with like, what is a human resource? How do you answer that? I think for me, it's a hard, it's hard to reduce it down to a couple sentences, but it's your expertise, not mine. So when you think about human resources, what does that mean? There've been like five times where I thought, should I just change the name of this? Because I don't like the word resource.

I don't like the word human capital. I don't like, I hate like chalk, like nails on a chalkboard when people call their, when leaders call their people assets, the most important assets. People are not assets. They're human beings. So I stopped wasting cycles on what my team and I called ourselves and just focused on what was important, which was our people and their humanity. So I don't really know what human resources is or are. I know that our human beings in Accenture are amazing. They're smart.

They're ambitious. They're caring. We care for them. And I don't care what we call ourselves. Yeah, I appreciate the tone because like early on, I think human resource meant like, how do we help the humans be a resource for our productivity? And what I hear you saying is, no, I want to provide resources to be able to support people to be their best. And that extracting the best of people and at the altar of productivity feels like that is long gone. And I hear it in your tone, I hear it in your language that I really want to resource people properly so that they can flourish in their life.

And was that hard to get through across Accenture when there is a high stakes, high pressured condition to make sure that the bottom line is met and the whole thing is productive and profitable? Was that hard to do or was the leadership team well aligned with that? Well, it did start a true decade ago with our previous CEO, Pierre Nantier. When he was shifting the company from being this large-scale systems integrator to being, his vision was to be the leading provider of digital related services. And we needed to dial up our innovation. We needed to become more diverse so we could be more innovative.

And, you know, I said to him, we are not known for innovation. We are not known for diversity. And, you know, we need to change who we are as a company and an organization to become worthy of attracting that talent. And he said, he was a super smart guy. He said to me, Aline, he was French, we are going to be the most truly human company in the digital age. We will help our people achieve their aspirations professionally and personally. He said that just like that. And that paved the way for everything. And you know what? We wrote a talent ambition around that. And, you know, I'll just say, because this is something I'm super proud of, going back to the very beginning of the discussion about my dad. We said at the time we were going to be the most inclusive and diverse company on the planet.

And we were not diverse at all a decade ago. We didn't need to be. Everything was standard, standard rules, tools, and schools. And I think it's five of the last seven years, we've been number one on Refinitiv. Oh's footsie now refinitive change to footsie number one on their inclusion and diversity index it takes those almost like my dad like an audacious statement and then working the building blocks and like every decision you make and every action you take has to be taken through the lens because it is in service to what you want to be as an organization. And we wanted to be the most truly human company in the digital age. So wait, let me pause there. You want to be the most human company in the digital age, truly human.

And you also want to be the most human company in the digital age, truly human. And you also want to be profitable. You also want to create change for your customers. So is this a and statement? I mean, we have the proof to show you cannot be innovative. We have to innovate to be a market leader. and you cannot innovate if you are not diverse okay so that truly human is um uh sits above the diversity idea or the diversity idea sits above okay so truly human and what does that mean that means that we've got diversity of A, B, and C. And we need both of those pieces. Yeah. Cognitive diversity, thought, experience, lived experience.

Geographic experiences. You know, gender, race, ethnicity. And those two together creates innovation. Yes. So if you have those two, then you create um with the right systems and practice processes you create a profitable business yeah am i oversimplifying it you have to oversimplify it in a way else people don't understand the equation and if i mean if you look at what we do for our clients, reinvent, working to reinvent their companies, it's all about innovation. What's a working definition for you for innovation, part one?

And part two is, I want to go back to diversity, is I'm finding it hard to find the diversity that I would like to have at Finding Mastery. And we're doing okay on some metrics, but not great on others. So I'd love for you to just kind of open up what maybe one of the unlocks for diversity is. And then equally as important is how are you defining innovation? First, you as the leader have to believe you need diversity to do your work for your clients. And then you need to be able to have a place where people feel like they belong, where people feel like they can be healthy,

where people feel like they can trust where people feel like they can be healthy, where people feel like they can trust you and that you trust them. You know, all the things that we've been talking about this whole time. And that is, that takes work every single day. And it takes a lot of humility. There has to be a lot of humility because things don't always go right. And you have to be able to say, I made a mistake or I thought we were on the right path, but we weren't. And we're going to change course.

And that happens. Okay. That's, it's really reinforcing. And if you need help, I will help you. I will spend time with you. I love that Ellen from one of the gurus in the field, like, yes. I am definitely going to take you up on that. So thank you. and most of them are technologists, and we just rang the bell 50% women in India.

And when I started going to India in 2003, everyone was saying, there are no women in technology in India. And my colleague Bhaskar Ghosh, who was the head of technology, said, nonsense. There are women-only engineering schools. And he created these relationships, and our leaders went and taught at those schools. And now look at that 20 years later, we're 50% women.

Okay, innovation. Okay. Innovation. Okay. I mean, I think innovation is new ideas that can be executed to move organizations or products or services to a place that they weren't before that can help them win in the marketplace. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that.

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for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. I'm so glad you answered that. I mean, the shorthand for me always like the, you know, creativity is new to you, innovation is new to others, but the sophistication that you just added that you can execute against it and put it into a marketplace and went against like um that's a good sophistication so um you're definitely swimming in innovation and human flourishing at at a century okay so all right so i've just got a handful of other questions that i wrestle with and there's one okay so one is about um engagement so aspirationally everything that you're talking about,

I'm like, oh, beautiful, amazing. Yes, yes. Okay, very cool. And then we see numbers come back on engagement. In an elite sport, if you have a 80% engagement rate, you'll get laughed off the field. And in big business, it's somewhere between 20 to 50%. And I'm being generous and I'm not going to ask for a centures engagement rate.

But let's say it's an issue across many companies. Is it an issue that you struggle with? And if it's not, how would people that struggle with engagement do better based on what you know? This is my true belief. I don't think you can engage people at the enterprise level. I only think engagement happens where you show up to work every day. Have you ever heard like HR people talking about moments that matter?

Yes. Okay. it drives me nuts drives me nuts because moments that matter may happen like once or twice in someone's career like when they're hired and when they leave like it may they might never get promoted they might never have a baby. They might not have another moment that mattered. So when we re-looked at this, we said, okay, there are signature moments like those things, like you get hired, you have a promotion, whatever those are. So those are signature experiences, but it's the everyday experiences that are the difference makers. So I tried a little experiment. My office is on the 67th floor of our building. And every morning I'd get on the elevator. I go to the office every single day, get on the elevator, and no one would be talking. So I thought, I'm going to start talking to people out of the elevator.

It was like game changing. People were so happy. Like, what did you do last night? And people just started to come alive. And so I know that's like a weird example, but I just think engagement doesn't happen here. Engagement happens in the moment when you're working. enterprise-wide engagement survey and figure out how to give your frontline leaders or managers the tools to measure engagement and act on engagement every single day where they work. And I think you would see a big difference.

What you're pointing to for me is the relationships. Yeah. And I love the differentiation you have between big moments, signature moments, and this moment. And I make a case, and it's not a very popular case in elite sport, and I try to cross that into enterprise companies, is that there's no such thing as a big moment. And in the sporting world, it's almost blasphemy when I say there's no such thing as a big game. They go, what are you talking about?

This is a defining game. This is the Super Bowl. This is the finals in whatever, or this is a world championship. I say, if we're going to see that, if we're going to frame that this game is the biggest game of your life, now the day that you arrive, you're unprepared because you haven't practiced being in any situation that's even going to be remotely as big as this one because you've made it to be so big. And so I used like this reverse chaining idea, which is if there's no such thing as a big game and every game has equal weight, this is an idea that I hold, not everyone gets down with it. So, you know, and every practice there's no such thing as a big practice

this is the most important practice there's no such thing as a big moment it's this moment and so the job is to be fully tuned to this moment and when you do that you end up stringing together being great in the present moment whether it's a practice

whether it's game day whether it's a game that has a lot of people watching and a lot of media, or it's just another game. If you're practicing being in this moment, well, then it all kind of takes care of itself. And I know that not everyone does agree, but that idea that every moment is equally important because it's the only one you get helps me be at home with this moment because I can be here now. I can do this moment and I don't have to worry about it if I can do a later moment. I can just keep practicing doing this moment. I love, love, love that. I've worked across four Olympic games and lots of world championships. And I do ask athletes early

on, I say, how do you want to frame it? This is my philosophy, but how do you want to frame it? Do you want to see the Olympics as the biggest game of your life, or do you want to see it as another game? And let's talk about the pros and cons of it. And, you know, that we train accordingly, if you will. And not everyone wants to see it as just another game because they feel like it'll take the specialness away from it. But I do want to go back to your big statement about being the most truly human company in the digital age. And how would you integrate psychology, good old basic mindset skills, mental skills, psychological principles, how would you take that and infuse that into the rhythm of your business?

I do believe that psychology, whether basic or not, plays a very significant role in, I would say, individual, but more importantly, team behavior resiliency. Just look at these last five years. Forget about a decade. This last five years, dare I say, the country we're sitting in right now, what's going to happen over the next week i mean resiliency um at an individual level at a team level at an organizational level at a country level is important and i think if i'm not mistaken psychology plays a big role in resiliency is that that right? Yeah. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yes. Building a resilient organization and building resilient teams is super important,

I think. And any organization would know that. Are they called limiting mindsets? Where people like, yeah, that is also, I mean, you can imagine in an organization like ours, I talked about mine. You have to understand and help people understand what that is, get them to understand that they might have them. We're not going to help them explore their own, but they need to understand that maybe they should explore their own and give them pathways to do that so that they can contribute fully. You are right on the money with like one of the great unlocks is to know where they get in, for me to know where I get in my own way. And if I can't see it easily, you know, limiting mindsets and invisible mindsets, they're just so tricky. And we end up looking outside of ourselves of why we feel a certain way or why something's not getting done in the right way. When oftentimes we hold more power than we even recognize or feel. And, you know, we are capable of high agency, high power. And oftentimes,

like the thing that gets in the way is not other people. It's the way that we navigate with our own thoughts and the way that we limit what we think we're capable of and limit the amount of, let's call it internal power that we feel to make the changes that we'd like to see in the world. And sometimes the world is in this team or in the, you know, the company culture or the larger world outside of the company even. Okay. Final, final, like little two-parter question here is you're a global leader and there's a lot of jobs that you're going to help prepare people for, for the future that do not exist yet. And I'm squarely pointing to AI and this new generation of roles and skills that we don't even really know where it's going. We've got some sense,

but it's unfolding underneath of ourselves right now. So one question is like, how do you prepare people for jobs that don't exist? And then part two of that is what are you considering to be the most essential or the most foundational or the most important mindsets for people to thrive in this new world? I think they go together in a way. So first, this concept of truly committing yourself to be a continuous learner and really seeking out all the opportunities to learn. And I don't mean just like going online and taking training courses, but like practicing things,

doing, learning, doing, learning, doing. And making a commitment to yourself that you're going to do that. Because it's AI or because it's generative AI, also make the commitment to yourself that you're going to do it responsibly, which means learning the principles of using technology responsibly. This is, to me, this whole next generation of leadership and responsibility that all people, all people, as you're learning new things, you need to couple that with the responsibility of truly understanding

how to use it responsibly. Because I'm an optimist, and I think there are going to be unlimited new jobs. I think the people who are willing to learn and do, so really learn, and people who are willing to learn how to use the technologies responsibly are going to be winners, but they have to come together. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked

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That's lisa, L-E-E-S-A.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off off and then plus an extra $50 on us because some point, we are the elders at the table. And to just honor that role, even though you don't necessarily maybe see yourself as an elder at the table, if you're leading, people are holding you in such a regard, for the most case, to take care of the future state. That's, to me, a big part of what leadership is. And that responsibility to commit to making sure that it's done right, quote unquote. Now, that's where it gets probably a little tricky, like, well, what is right? I was speaking to a global leader for a multinational corporation. And he said, at some point,

there will be people that don't know the world that we know. And that's normal that that's happened. You know, there's kids now that don't remember how to use, to have to get up out of a chair to go over to the TV and kind of turn a up. So how do we think about being a custodian for a world that has physical, tangible neurochemistry exchanges when we're already seeing our workforce go to a hybrid model where you and I are on a screen talking to each other and we're going to lose so much just of that neurochemical exchange that happens when you can see pupil dilation and you can see flush of skin and you can hear the tremor and voice and, and you can, even if you can't describe it, you feel something about being in the presence of another person. And do you think

that we counter rotate an incredible pull towards being in person? Or do you think that we counter rotate an incredible pull towards being in person? Or do you think that we're going to have to solve how to have this deeper connection through technology? Is the binary question about the custodian of AI? I don't think it's a binary question. I think we need to figure out the risk. I think everyone needs to feel responsible for the responsible use of AI. And there are frameworks and principles and guardrails already in place that are not regular, you know, regulatory. So I think that exists today. People just need to educate themselves and organizations need to practice it. I've not spent a lot of time thinking about it, but it did just worry me. You brought it up about what happens if people don't have human connection. I don't know what would happen in evolution if there is limited human connection. That really is scary to me. So I hope that there's a resurgence of the community

that people find human connection through things other than work. Yeah, there's a fatigue already taking place, which is, can we meet in person? You know, there's a fatigue, there's a comfort to be able to like a convenience and a comfort to do something digitally, which is cool. But there is, there's a fatigue of it. And I hope that that trend is accelerated in a way where I'm, and you hear some leaders say, listen, let's get back in the office. Let's get back in the office. And there's a,

there's a primal craving, of course, you know, our brains are hundreds of thousands of years old that we need to be around each other. There's something primal about that urge and that request. And there's something nice about maybe not coming in on Fridays, doing some digital work on Fridays. I hope that there's a fatigue that takes place of the hybrid digital thing that starts to swing in the other direction. I don't know if that's just something that some are feeling, if there's enough of a critical mass. The thing that we learned is bringing people into the office and changing nothing else does not create human connection. People come in, they put their headset on, they get on teams, and there's no human connection. What we did was we created these,

what we call stackable experiences so that when you come in, there's on any given day, there's training, there's an open door session with an executive, there's a social thing, there's a community service thing. So when you come in, there's something to create human connection. Our offices are full almost every day of the week. And there's no mandate to come to the office.

Yeah, I love the insight that just being together doesn't create connection. I love that. Okay, so keep going. On mindset, you talked about a continuous learner, a beginner's mindset, if you will, a curious mind. What are some of the other mindsets that you think are really important? come together around something that happens where there may be disagreement in or differing point of views around a topic. The first one we did, for example, was when Philandro Castile was murdered. Julie was the North America CEO, and she and I did this thing called Building Bridges. We made it up because we had people that were very stressed about coming to work, and nobody was. We had actually one of my mentees, Darnell, said, I cannot come to work. I am worried I'm going to get shot. I'm worried my son's going to get shot. And nobody is talking about this at work. And so that was really stressful for me because he's such a great

employee. And he still is such a great employee that we convene this conversation. So that's what building bridges is. You need to come to a building bridge session with a mindset to listen and to contribute and that's not that easy but it's a mindset a mindset to listen and to contribute yes does that make sense to you yeah it does i'm thinking like the contribute part, a mindset to contribute. Is that about the relationship or is that about contributing to solutions? Is it about contributing to the relationship between the two people? It can be solutions also.

I mean, it can be whatever we make, whatever the people make it. And that's a rule. We have very few rules around the building bridges. We have that. Listen and contribute. Also, if it's a topic where you are convening a building bridge where you're not an expert, you need to ask for us to bring in an outside expert. So, like, we do that.

Yeah, because it has to be productive and what an apt title even for this this conversation ellen i want to say thank you i want to say thank you for you and the leadership that you provided the thoughtfulness and the wisdom and the the the sense of peace in this conversation that i felt and the clarity of your ideas to be able to discern the most essential pieces of a very complicated set of questions about things that are completely invisible. Not once did we talk about the measurement of the invisible. We talked a little bit about assessments, but to use those to be able to have better insights, to be able to have better relationships, to be able to have a deeper

sense of wellbeing. And so we can be great for each other. I've just really appreciated the way you've characterized and you've simplified ideas that are actually quite complicated to wrestle with. So it's not lost on me that you were leading 774,000 people doing that wild challenge at full scale and pointing to the intimacy between two people or small group of people in the conversations that happen between them for real connection. I just want to say thank you. I'm inspired by you in this way. And again, this has been a great conversation for me. And for me. Thank you very much for inviting me. I appreciate that. Okay, I know that we have Dr. Carolina Reese-Oliviera coming up. This is really good.

I'm really excited for this one because she's talking all things anti-aging. I needed this one. I mean, we're all aging. We're all definitely aging. You might not have heard of her work, but she's got an amazing story to tell. And she went from working as a stem cell researcher in Brazil to a biotech founder and CEO in Silicon Valley. And she's got this really clear, bold belief that we can slow and even reverse the biological aging of our skin. So I want to encourage you to tune in as we talk about the science of aging, purpose, self-talk, and the courage that it takes to leap into the unknown, to really go for it, to build something meaningful from the ground up. And we hope to see you soon.

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