Reflecting on Progress and Embracing Change

Ever wondered how turning points in business can shape your future? This episode promises profound insights into business growth and the transitions that accompany it. Join us as we reflect on our recent mid-year review at Catalyst Development, diving into what’s working well and pinpointing areas for improvement. With mixed emotions, we announce Emma's departure from Catalyst Development to pursue new ventures, while she continues to play a pivotal role in our branding and website. Her contributions have been invaluable, and we invite you to follow her ongoing music journey featured in our show’s intro and outro.

We also spotlight the incredible journeys of mid-career leaders who completed a transformative six-month leadership program with us. Hear about their profound growth, increased self-awareness, and the significant impact these changes have had on their engagement, productivity, and profitability. As we take a short summer break, we emphasize the importance of community and mutual support among entrepreneurs and share our plans for expanding our leadership development programs. Enjoy your summer, keep leading with excellence, and stay tuned for more insightful conversations coming this August!

Follow Catalyst Development on LinkedIn @catalystdevelopment, @drkatieervin, @jennascott

www.cdleaders.com

Learn more about Supervisor 101 at www.cdleaders.com/supervisor101

Learn about LEADERs Institute at www.katieervin.com/leaders

Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/

Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on Business Growth and Transition
• 11:39 Reflections on Leadership Development Program
• 17:15 Words of Encouragement and Support

Transcript

Dr. Katie: 0:40

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Path to Leadership. Hope you are having a fantastic week and I appreciate you always tuning in and listening. If this is your first time listening, welcome. I hope you enjoy this short little podcast that I do today and then I encourage you to go back and listen to past ones. This is our 38th podcast. It's also going to be the last one of the season. We're going to take a little break over the summer and come back in August. We're going to do some revamping. I've got some really cool guests lined up. We've got some really neat conversations we're going to have.

Dr. Katie: 1:23

But, as I talked about in the last episode, we just went through our mid-year review at Catalyst Development. It was something that I encouraged everybody to do, my team encouraged everybody to do, and we did that ourselves just about a week and a half ago. In that mid-year review, we really took a hard look at the work we're doing at Catalyst what's working really well for us, what our clients are really enjoying and going well, and what are those things that maybe are pet projects that aren't necessarily sustainable or things that we can keep up and keep going. So we did our own little start, stop, continue piece. We also call them rosebuds and thorns, and it was just a really great reflection but just also a look forward to the future.

Dr. Katie: 2:17

Unfortunately, through those conversations, emma shared with me that she is stepping away from Catalyst Development. It's not that she doesn't love the work that we're doing. It's twofold. One is for those of you who've ever started a business. We're only two years old and we'll actually be to July 1st and it is a grind and I've had a lot of people throughout these two years say you know I can't believe that. You know you're carrying three salaries and you know that's a lot to carry for a new business and it is, and I've always been very transparent about it.

Dr. Katie: 2:55

Building a business is very, very hard and I've also been very transparent that I'm very fortunate my husband has helped me invest in the company. It's been very hard at times to make salary for Emma and Jenna. I've never taken a steady paycheck, which is okay because we keep reinvesting in the business and we know it is coming. And when I hear stories about client impacts, when I hear stories about how whole departments and organizations are really impacted and changed from the work that we do, I know we're on the right track and I know that we are going to be fine. But I say that because you know Emma came to me and said you know, I have other ventures that I'm looking to do and I just don't want you to have to continue to take on the burden of three salaries, which I appreciate, and she knows that I would have never done myself.

Dr. Katie: 3:55

So we love Emma so much and we will always be so thankful for the work she did, but also, she will not go far. She will still continue to help us with our amazing branding and website and all that kind of stuff. So we just I have to say thank you so much to Emma and then also encourage you all to check out her music. Her information is in the show notes. Her music is part of the intro and the outro. It's my favorite song by her, which is Walk, but her website is emmajoerocks and so you will want to check out her music and follow along on her journey as she goes along her next steps.

Dr. Katie: 4:39

But I couldn't be more thankful for the work she did. I couldn't be more thankful for the work she did and as for Catalyst, as we go into year two, it's really us leaning into, like I said, the work that we have been doing and that our clients really enjoy us doing, and so we're going to continue to do our leaders program, which is the intentional skill building work that we do. I was just talking to a client recently and she said, you know, we just were growing so fast. We've got so much going on. We have an amazing learning and development department, but they can only do so much, and there's some of the expertise things that they don't have, that they can't do and they can't hire another person to do it. And that is our ideal retainer clients. Those are the people that we love to work with that either have a learning and development department or they don't, and we come in and they buy hours from us to be their learning and development department when it comes to leadership development skills, supervisor skills, management skills, things like that, and so we either come alongside the learning and development department, we come alongside the HR department or we come alongside the leadership team and every combination they're in and it just really is a cool opportunity that we get to do, and so we're really excited to expand that business.

Dr. Katie: 6:07

I have been able to do a lot of really neat things around my book. You might be an asshole, but it might not be your fault, and I'm excited for us to expand some of those offerings. We've had several clients ask us to do book clubs for them or book talks. We are working with a leadership team right now to do some book talk work with them. And then also we've been doing a lot of work with different ERG groups in organizations. A lot of times these ERG groups are really fantastic, but they're looking for some curriculum or something to go alongside it, and so we've been taking a lot of the things that we teach and bringing them into the different ERG groups in different industries, different organizations, and not just in Kansas City, just really all over just the country either. We have some people that are Zooming in for some of these from other countries, which is really fun, so we're going to continue to be doing a lot of that and really leaning into those. And then the other thing that I'm really excited for is we're starting to launch some asynchronous programming.

Dr. Katie: 7:27

Okay, and I struggle a little bit with asynchronous programming because I really feel like so much of the impact of the work we do is by sitting in a room with a cohort at an organization, whether it be for four weeks or six months or even a year. It's watching that growth, it's talking about that growth. It's really the that growth. It's really the application of the work. But we have had some clients say we love the corporate leaders program that we did with you we need some just basic common sense supervisor skills. So we've created and released what's called Supervisor 101. And it's really those just basic skills that you need to be a supervisor. So it's four modules, four lessons in each module and the lessons are about 10 minutes each. So it's you know, you go through a lesson and then you do some reflection, you do some work and then you move on to the next. And so it's really this four-week boot camp of going from super employee to supervisor and how do we really lean in and do that?

Dr. Katie: 8:38

So there's a lot of those kind of things coming along as well and we have a really exciting asynchronous program coming out. I can't really talk a lot about it because we just got our trademark approved and now it's in the process, but it is really taking leadership to an individual level and it's really going to be your leadership journey that you're going to be able to really go through at your pace and really journey through it at the stage and level that you're at. So it's appropriate for you know your 15-year-old to be reflecting on their leadership skills. Or you know a 65-year-old who you know may be retired but is in volunteer opportunities and is really looking to coach and mentor and influence the next generation. So we're going to be releasing some of that, probably in September. So when we come back at the end of the summer with the podcast, you'll get to see some of those kinds of things.

Dr. Katie: 9:42

But we just have some really, really fun things going on and we always tell people you know, catalyst development is not a why you should be a leader, but a how you should be a leader, and our big thing is measuring takeaways. You know, how have people's career journey, how have people's self-awareness, how has that changed by working with us, with us, and and I think it is just such a powerful thing when we can allow people to pause and reflect and grow in who they are as a leader, who do they want to be as a leader, how they want to grow, and I just think that that is is really really cool. So, and I just think that that is really, really cool. So as I wrap up, I have to tell you we do three assessments and post-assessments with our corporate leaders clients. So at the beginning of six months we will ask them to do some quantitative reflection and then some qualitative reflection. You know, what does leadership mean to you, what do you want to get out of the program and kind of go from there. And then what we do is at the end. You know, we also do the same quantitative piece, which is interesting because most people would be like, well, we want to see the numbers increase. But what we get excited about is when people then do the qualitative piece and say, hey, I lowered my scores on emotional intelligence because I realized I didn't know what I didn't know. And that is one of those things where it's like, if you just see the numbers and you don't hear the story behind it, you don't really understand the impact. And so I just I love reading it.

Dr. Katie: 11:39

So as I close out the first season of the Path to Leadership, I just want to read you a few of the reflections from one of our latest corporate partners. They did the six-month leadership program. It was really neat because it was a group of mid-career men. They were all very high-performing leaders in the organization and they all had opportunity for growth, and when they first came in at the beginning it was kind of like, all right, I'm here. I was told to be here, and by the end of six months we watched through the program, just really watched people grow. And so we asked them how has your self-awareness of your leader skills changed through the program? And here's some of the reflection that was shared.

Dr. Katie: 12:33

One participant said I have such a deeper understanding of how to utilize my leadership. My biggest takeaway is my team's ability to perform is largely dependent on my expectations and understanding of both their and my strengths and our opportunities to grow my strengths and our opportunities to grow. That one really got me because that person he was a tough cookie at the beginning of the program. Another one said you know, it's been really important for me to understand my team's working genius and it's been very powerful for me to be able to reflect on what my people are doing and how they're doing it. I think my self-awareness is getting better, but it's going to be something that I have to continually work on. So that was a good one, um. Another one said uh, I am now so much more aware of my mind and body. Before I didn't know what I didn't know. I'm able to better cope with failure and stress. Now, keep in mind again, these are mid-career um, and most of them were sales guys, and, and it's in a manufacturing industry, and so being able to have them dig deep into their feelings was really, really cool.

Dr. Katie: 13:57

Another one said he learned to take time to slow down and reflect and engage my entire team. He said I am so fortunate that I get to lead people. They all have great qualities and bring great attributes to the organization, and I will pay more attention to where people are coming from and be more understanding of them. My empathy level is exponentially higher. And then the final one. Like I said, I'm not going to read all of these, but I just love this one. I learned that being a better person personally and professionally will make me a better leader to all that I come in contact with. There are many ways to see different situations and to grow as a person, and I see traits in people daily that I had never seen before this.

Dr. Katie: 14:55

This is why catalyst development does what it does. This is why I do what I do. This is why I think it's so important that we don't give up on people, that we, instead of just they're not performing, fire them we first lean into. Do they know? Do they know that they don't have the leadership skills? Have we given them the leadership skills? Have we given them the opportunity? And if we haven't, what would they look like if we did? What would their leadership look like if we invested in them? And I will tell you, our program's not for everybody. There are so many great programs out there. But I will just tell you, if you're not getting these kind of results, then you're just checking a box and doing a lovely, lovely lunch and learn. But when you are getting these type of results, you know that you're not just impacting the person that was in the class, but you're impacting the people that work with them and for them. And I will tell you this in particular client shared with me that their engagement scores have gone up the employees that report to these leaders and engagement scores have gone up, and that they're just seeing more production, more sales, more profits out of this group and more growth. And that is why you do development programs.

Dr. Katie: 16:25

So I'm so thankful. Again, thank you to everyone who's listened to this season. Thank you to everybody in the two years that Catalyst has been around, that has waved our flag, said our name, supported us, showed up, made referrals, made connections. I am just so thankful for you all and I'm just real excited to continue to work with everybody. So please visit our website, katiervincom. It's in the show notes. If there's ever anything we can do for you, please let us know. Also, I really am a firm believer that we are not for everybody, and so if you have a training and development need, please reach out to us, and we're happy to also refer you to other people if they're a better fit for you.

Dr. Katie: 17:15

I will lead with. You know, I'm a firm believer that rising tides raise all boats, and so I want to give a special shout out to all of my friends that are in this with me, that are growing their own businesses, that are doing this similar type work. There is so much work for all of us, and I am so thankful for you and the work that you do, so I hope you all have a fantastic summer. I will miss talking to you every week, but I promise we will be back very soon. In the meantime, continue to be the great leader you are. Continue to grow yourself and I will talk to you soon. Bye everyone.