Marcia Daszko 00:00
A healthier way is to have frequent conversations, one on one with the people that you work with, and get away from judge and blame and criticize individuals for the results of the system.
Adam Baruh 00:31
Welcome to The Change, where we share stories and inspiration from business leaders and people making positive work life changes. I’m your host, Adam Baruh. We all have differing belief systems, some belief systems developed over time. Other belief systems derived from our environment, our interests, our upbringing, or we inherit them from family. Questioning a belief system implies a strong sense of self awareness. We have belief systems, in our personal lives. And we also build belief systems in our professional lives. Often these different belief systems align with one another. And sometimes they contradict each other. In leadership, having the self awareness to question our own organizations, belief systems, is a strong factor in successful companies. Because in doing so, these types of leaders become more open to change and transformation. Here to talk about leadership, belief systems. And what leads to successful outcomes in business is Marcia Daszko, a pivot provocateur who has helped guide many organizations out of crisis. Hey, Marcia, welcome to The Change.
Marcia Daszko 01:37
Thank you, Adam. So happy to be here this morning.
Adam Baruh 01:41
Yeah, thanks for joining. So let’s start with a bit of background about you if you would tell us a bit about yourself and the work that you do.
Marcia Daszko 01:48
Oh, so that quick summary is I was first in marketing, communications and have my master’s in marketing and corporate communications area. And then I started working for a consulting company, owned by Dr. Perry Blackmon and he helped organizations learn and apply the leadership principles of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who went to Japan, World War Two, at the invitation of General MacArthur and helped Japan become a global competitor, then came back to the US and worked with the CEOs of Ford, General Motors, Procter and Gamble, and others. And those his principles are what I help organizations, executive teams, boards of directors learn and apply so that they can actually transform themselves and their organizations as well.
Adam Baruh 02:55
Yeah. So what encouraged you to go into this line of work, consulting, working with executives in business.
Marcia Daszko 03:02
It was a revolution. Not quite an evolution. I was. I was working with Dr. Perry, and Dr. Deming as my mentor, and they both so I learned and studied for several years and helped organizations working with them apply the transformation principles. Then in 1993, both of my mentors passed away. And we’ve been with some major organizations. And I thought, well, now what do I do? And well, they still needed help. And because I had learned the principles and how to help organizations apply them. We I just kept working with them. And that’s how in January 1994, I kicked off my own practice then to go forward and help organizations so I was working with Dow Chemical and Pepsi and a chain of car dealerships in Hawaii, and then PBS television network on consulting.
Adam Baruh 04:21
Um, so yeah, you mentioned transformation. So it might be important to just kind of set the stage a little bit. So can you just describe in your own words, you know, what is transformation as it applies to business and why is it important?
Marcia Daszko 04:34
Transformation is not mere change because some people talk about transformation and they think it’s improvement or change. And though there are different types of change and transformational is one of them. The most important I think, because it does lead to not only survival, but for organizations to really scale. And so transformation is first a change of mindset. And if we, if we think about a transformation, it means going forward, but you cannot go back to the old ways. A simple example is a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, it cannot go back. So to apply it to business, if you learn new principles of leadership and new methods of management, which is what Dr. Deming taught, then, once you learn some of these, this, these new ways of thinking, you will never go back to the old ways, because you can see and feel, how dysfunctional toxic they are. And then you want to create a workplace that is robust, where everyone is self motivated and can contribute by working together they can achieve goals, experiences that they never before even imagined. Transformation is going to a place you’ve never been before. And being able to have a theoretical foundation of management that you, you have a new lens from. And you can see through this lens, to be able to continually transform yourself and your teams and your organization and make an impact on your industry in society. That’s transformation. That’s going where you’ve never been before. Because you are not only improving, but innovating as well.
Adam Baruh 07:01
Yeah. Okay, so you’re the author of the book: Pivot, Disrupt, Transform. And we’ve been just discussing transformation. So can you tell us about pivoting, and you know, how pivoting is different than transformation.
Marcia Daszko 07:16
So a pivot is, when a leader sees that there is a need for severe change, abrupt change. And they quickly envision what can be different, they pull a team together, they communicate, this is our new aim. And working with a team, they say, okay, by what method? Will we accomplish this and they do it very quickly. It’s, it’s a swift response. They, they sense and respond, it’s a very quick response to a need. So we saw that with the pandemic, especially we saw General Motors and Ford pivot, and go from making cars to ventilators. We saw it with in luxury goods with Louie Vuitton, shifting from making handbags to the mass and the things that were needed in the hospitals. So there are some examples of people who pivoted in telemedicine in virtual learning, and virtual speaking and so on.
Adam Baruh 08:42
So, you know, I’m just thinking, as you’re talking about this, of, you know, my own company that I run, and I’m, you know, much to the, probably much to the chagrin of some of my business partners. I’ve been known to pivot at the drop of a hat when I, when I detect that, you know, perhaps, you know, we need to move in a different direction, or reevaluate something we’re doing and, and so I wanted to ask you, you know, what, when I’ve done that, I mean, I, I feel like I do at least some adequate research to just, you know, make sure that I’m making the right choice, that I’ve informed myself of the need for the pivot, right. And so, if you will just kind of describe what the process of pivoting looks like. I mean, you know, I’ve just described you know, how, you know, I do it really kind of quickly, and I’ve done it often. Is that a bad thing?
Marcia Daszko 09:41
No, no, it’s, it’s, it’s not only not bad, it is. It’s essential. That is what a pivot is it is accelerated response. So you quickly scan the environment you sense what’s happened Do you see the need, you see the opportunity and possibilities, and you make that pivot, you have to of course, as the leader, you need to, I mean, there oftentimes is not much of, if any time for research, if you’ve got a little bit of time for that fantastic. But oftentimes, a leader just has to sense what’s happening, see the need, pull together a team, communicate with that team, and then say, okay, together, we’re going to go in this direction, how are we going to do it, get all the ideas and start implementing just like that as fast as you can, because the more that you implement, and learn, so you, you create your mini plan, it might be a plan for an hour might be a plan for a day or a week, and you but to make that plan, you do it, you study, like, it can be a short, you know, 30 minute meeting with your team, what’s working, what’s not, let’s keep what’s working and do it again. So you continually are doing a Plan, Do Study Act, which is a methodology that Dr. Deming used, and it came from his mentor, Dr. Shewhart, back from AT and T Bell Labs. And if you the more that an organization, leadership leads by using the PDSA model, the very strategic model, the more that they use that operationally over and over, the more learning takes place, and the more they have a competitive edge. Because you’re constantly learning and doing learning and doing, and you go through that. And in your implementation, you’re making such a significant difference.
Adam Baruh 12:10
Yeah, and you know, you speak in your book, you speak a lot about this. And so I’d like for you to just describe for us what the opposite looks like. What does it look like when leaders, you know, especially in these, you know, larger companies, these dinosaurs, I think you referenced, you know, when, you know, the falling to their knees and how it’s just a slow, laborious, but yes, what does the opposite look like? And why do you think certain types of companies and businesses leaders are slow to pivot?
Marcia Daszko 12:41
There are, there are two things that I look for in leaders to see if they have the potential to pivot and transform. And that is one they have to be committed. It’s who they are for continual learning, they continually are asking questions, because they’re there in their hearts, super curious. They, they’re, they’re lifelong learners. And they want to engage other people in that learning and actions. So one, they have to be committed to, and open to learning new things, things that are really, really bold and different and not a management fad, not a best practice. And secondly, they have to have courage. You have to have courage to try new things and listen to different ideas and be open to, you know, other people saying, well, what about this? What about this? And they say, Okay, I don’t know. But let’s try. Let’s try it. You know, here’s some budget, here’s some, some resources. Now go go see if it works or not. Yeah. And that’s great leaders do.
Adam Baruh 14:00
Yeah, well, I think you touched on a really good point, you know, sometimes as a leader, I’ve found myself thinking that I had to have the answers, and then you know, kind of, you know, instruct my team on the vision and what I’d like for them to do. But you know, what you’re describing is a little bit more of a collaborative approach where, you know, really, the, perhaps the role of leaders are just to, you know, set the vision and challenge the team to come up with the ideas because, you know, they’re going to more buy into it when everybody’s involved in the decision making process. Right?
Marcia Daszko 14:33
Exactly. Because I would say, Well, why would you have a company with 100 or 1000 or 100,000 employees, if you have to have all the answers #1, and why aren’t you getting your money’s worth? Why hire all those people and pay them so much money if you’re not going to tap in on their brain, get your money’s worth out of your people? And, and now, especially where we keep hearing out this great resignation. And people are revolving doors are leaving companies so quickly. And why is that it you know if the answers are not that difficult, but people have to be, you know, open to learning that there’s a better way, there’s a different way. And the way that they have led and managed in the past is not going to work for today in the future.
Adam Baruh 15:28
Yeah, and you touched on it a moment ago. And I definitely want to explore this topic further with you, because you wrote quite a bit about this in your book, the idea of best practices, you know, that how companies, you know, seek the best practices and make decisions based on what is the tried and true in our industry. But, you know, if you will, please describe for us how taking that approach really isn’t going to help you in the long run.
Marcia Daszko 15:53
So organizations are full of best practices and management fads. And when I go into an organization, I don’t care what size it is, or what industry, I have never seen less than 50 to 80%, waste and complexity. And so if you can imagine taking half of your work, slide it off your desk, throw it in the wastebasket, or delete it from your computer 50% of that at least, how much freedom you would have to learn and grow and implement new ideas, better ideas, new products, new services, new markets. So when I’m either speaking, or facilitating an off site meeting or whatever, I asked a lot of questions. And for an example, I will ask a group, how many of you have teamwork or collaboration as one of your company values, and almost all that came up? Because most people want to think about their collaborative or they’re a team? And then I asked them, How many of you have performance appraisals? And maybe 80% of the hands go up? How many of you rank and rate your employees, you know, another percentage, how many of you feel it is your responsibility, your duty, your right to rank rate, Judge, criticize, and blame people? Or the results of their work the results of the team, the results of the organization? But we try to, to oftentimes use these performance appraisals. As the, you know, it’s almost like the carrot and stick. And oh, and the excuse is, the reason is, well, we have to give feedback. Well, that’s not what performance appraisals do. It’s not just about feedback, if they just a healthier ways to have frequent conversations, one on one with the people that you work with, and get away from judge and blame and criticize individuals, for the results of the system or the processes. You can’t blame individuals are the results of the system that the leaders created. The the individuals, a team members cannot change the system, they work in the system. Only leaders can change the system. Because they created it. They work they need to work on the system to optimize it. That’s why their job is exactly transformation.
Adam Baruh 19:04
Yeah, you gave me the the perfect segue because I wanted to touch on this next. And in the intro of the book, you wrote a story about discussing performance appraisals with a company and in describing the concept of performance appraisals, you relate how, just as you just said leaders create the system and only they are accountable for optimizing the system. So yeah, if you would elaborate for us on the difference between this accountability and responsibility and how this plays out for a successful company versus a company that struggles with the system and that vision.
Marcia Daszko 19:35
So a leader who is accountable, understands that their role is to optimize and transform the system. And that means developing their people continually. There should always be education and forums for kids. invocation and townhall meetings and the job of the leader is to create the workplace where people can connect the dots break down the barriers between people and departments and teams, look at how certain best practices, or things like incentives and quotas and arbitrary numerical goals, pit people against each other. So internally, people are competing, you later leaders should never have that internal competition, because there’s enough to deal with with the outside competition. But if you create it internally, it is either a slow death, or, or a rapid death for your organization. And leaders need to focus on how can we help people support each other truly collaborate and cooperate internally, to help each other so that we can help our customers, our clients, our members, our students, whoever it is. Yeah, that’s the point. So you asked before about those dinosaur companies, and you know, what’s a difference, and the ones that survive the organizations that survive and, and thrive, and the ones that get stuck in flounder, and decline, and then eventually fail? When we look at. And then in the 1950s, the first fortune 500 list came out. And if we look at that list, now more than 60% of those fortune 500 companies, multibillion dollar companies no longer exist. Why is that? Is it? Was it an industry issue? Or? No, it’s when you look back at the root causes. It’s a lack of leadership, a lack of leadership thinking, where people were unable to disrupt themselves, pivot, as necessary, transform themselves and their organizations. So when those companies, you know, went down, it was for some slow for some very rapid, I can look at companies now that are on their way down, they’re in decline. And the only thing that can turn them around and is possible, is transformation, if their leaders transform themselves, and their organization, but it starts at the board level, many boards are stuck. And they just putting the same old thinking CEOs in place. And, you know, there’s that camaraderie between them sometimes the leadership team and, and the board, and they take down the whole organization, they they can take it down, they can, you know, it happens where, you know, over a period of time, that even the fortune 500 companies can, you can you can see the trend, you know, they they’re laying off, you know, 100,000 people over, you know, 5678 year period, stock prices cut in half. Well, when you see that trend, you have to look at leadership. And at the board level, the CEO level, what is happening, they’re stuck in their thinking, and unless they want to transform, they are going down. And some do it pretty quickly. In one day, they’re here and all of a sudden, oh, they closed 400 stores or whatever.
Adam Baruh 24:13
Yeah, so you know, in the intro, at the beginning of the episode, I talked about belief systems, the holding on to dated ideas like uniform performance appraisals, being a good example, where companies have built a belief system that you know, based on best practices, you know, the way in which to hold employees accountable, again, accountable versus responsible, is by way of the performance review. And, you know, it’s the idea is that it’s going to drive productivity when you can perhaps steer an employee in a different direction. Right, you. I’m going to quote you here. In the book you state, “Poor management often fails to make a drastic and immediate commitment to question their organization’s current beliefs. assumptions and practices.” So how can businesses begin to dismantle such strong best practices, ideas and belief systems?
Marcia Daszko 25:10
So the, like Dr. Deming said, transformation doesn’t happen from the inside. The leaders, the managers cannot see through that lens. They don’t have the knowledge of transformation. At the beginning, many people will say to me, oh, Marcia, we’re we’re really smart. We can we can do it ourselves. We can read your book and transform it on like, okay, good luck. Try that. But they’re, they do not have the knowledge to even ask the right questions. And they are, they don’t have the knowledge. To think that differently, because they’ve got a pivot, they’re thinking, that’s why when leaders do call me and say, Marsha, this is happening, or we’re either in a crisis situation, or we’re growing so fast, we’re out of control, we need help. That’s when I do a quick assessment of the organization by talking to people across the board top to bottom. And, and I really want, I need to understand what’s happening. Once I get that understanding, I designed a two or three date off site meeting, and I take the leaders through a transformation process. And I guarantee when they walk out of that meeting, after three days, they are not thinking or feeling or they will not behave the same way as when they walked in. They cannot, because the quest like one company president said to me, Marcia, I’ve run this organization for over 20 years, it doesn’t bother me that we can’t answer your questions. Because we’re pretty smart. But what bothers me is I’ve never thought of these questions before. So that is what is amazing. Me. And, and that’s it. The team comes together. And I’m asking questions, and teaching them new concepts simultaneously. And they have to come up with new answers. And those new answers will take them to places they’ve never been before. Ie transformation.
Adam Baruh 28:02
Yeah, you relate a story to in the book about, you know, management, that it’s just purely driven from bottom line numbers. And the story that I was going to reference is, there was I don’t remember her title, but she was tasked the several years prior with creating some sort of a quarterly report and handing it out to all the department managers, and how stressed out she was, you know, with the days leading up to creating the report, and then getting the report out. And you go on to state how, you know, nobody really asked her, you know, does anybody ever question have any questions about the report? You know, in her world, it was just about creating the report, and there was a whole hallway of cabinets or something, you describe it binders of all the previous reports. So, you know, just as you were speaking, I was thinking of that story. And, you know, if you would, if you just describe for us that, you know, this is an example where, you know, proper management would have us look at that and say, you know, what, what are what are we doing with her time? Like, what is the value of this report? Is this something we still need, right, but she was just locked into this pattern and habit of doing it over so much, so many years, right. And much like management is just focused quarterly on, you know, running the quarterly reports and looking at the bottom line and the financials and kind of making decisions that way.
Marcia Daszko 29:37
Right. In that example, her managers said, Oh, why don’t you do this report. Some other managers might won’t be interested in that information. So he guided her to do that report every month. So I mean, she did it for more than 11 years. I on a basis. So there were binders of these reports. But then when they asked, well, would they asked her? Well, who uses it? She didn’t know, what would they use it for? She wasn’t sure. It was that her boss who had since retired, has hurt to do those reports in case, some day, someone would be interested in that information. So it took her two or three days to put that information together. So that was two or three days per month, or over, you know, 11 years that she put those, that those binders together, and that, so the focus would be okay, what’s the aim? You know, what’s the compelling purpose for doing this? Who is the customer? What do they need? How do we know? How do we, if we have a customer? How do we improve those reports? Can we make them you know, shorter, more concise, more full of quality, so that maybe that that report that she works on for two or three days, she could then you know, do in an hour, maybe it could be quarterly, maybe it doesn’t need to be done at all is, and that was, you know, the, the impact of that story? Was there was no aim? There was no customer, there was a what started it was a what if that, but this employee under extreme stress several days a month.
Adam Baruh 31:40
Yeah. And I was thinking of just the system, you know, how in your, in the book you describe, you know, leaders are responsible for creating a system that is healthy, and creates an environment that, you know, where employees can thrive. And it affords that transformation and the ability to pivot and so on and so forth. So, you know, again, like when management is looking strictly on bottom line numbers, like, it doesn’t again, kind of describe what’s going on with the system, you know, so yeah, just to elaborate a little bit more on on what what you mean by the system that manage that leaders put in place and why it’s so important to be driven from a system perspective versus a bottom line perspective?
Marcia Daszko 32:26
Yes, a system is really a network of people on processes and resources, all of the things that work together to accomplish the aim. It’s very simple. It’s when you think about, let’s take a few examples. When you think about your body, what are all of the essential parts that have to work together for you to live? Now? I don’t, I don’t need my little finger. I like it, but I don’t need it. I don’t, I don’t actually even need, you know, my left arm. But I, I like it. It’s not an essential part. But what are the central parts that I do need, you know, to live in a robust life, you know, my brain, my heart, so on. So they’re essential organs? If you take a look at a school system, the same thing? What are the essential parts that have to work together? In order to have happy, successful graduates? Then you go to your organization, what are the essential parts that have to work together for you to achieve the results that you want? And I’m not talking just numerical results that are, you know, many results, happiness, success, collaboration, feeling that you are appreciated at work that you’re continually learning and developing, that you can contribute and make a difference? Things like that. Is that Yeah, they’re coming out more and more to, you know, post pandemic, we’re, we’re learning that what are the the things that people really value? And the one of the best lessons out of the pandemic, I think, was that people slow down enough to evaluate their real values?
Adam Baruh 34:33
Yeah. Yeah, that’s absolutely key. Yeah, and I’ve spoken on on other episodes about that. I think one of the big reflections that we’ve gained from the pandemic is this notion of, you know, we’re spending so much of our adult lives, you know, in our career, you know, where we’re taking that away from our family and our personal lives. And, you know, at the end of the day, it’s like, what’s the point? Well, when you Feel a purpose when you feel meaning when you feel valued towards that effort, that’s really where I see the workforce, going in terms of emphasizing what their own values and desires are is, is to simply, you know, feel that that purpose and that that mission?
Marcia Daszko 35:18
Exactly and have the freedom to contribute. I mean, like you mentioned before, the leaders don’t, if they’ve got a vision, a direction that they can also, through more and more learning, and, you know, sensing and responding to the customers, the environment, the possibilities, they will create the environment for everyone to contribute, they, they do not have all of the answers. So, you know, to your point, where is the meaning, because if people feel that they’re not happy and successful, and making a difference, and proud of their work, they and feel appreciated, you know, part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they will move on to someplace else, even maybe for less money. And now I was just reading too, that people are more and more less interested in promotions and less interested in becoming managers, they like to do the work where they can work together to accomplish, you know, great things be proud of their work, but not feeling that they have a dry, some people that they don’t have a driving need to be over other people that’s power over instead of, you know, a stronger concept is power with.
Adam Baruh 36:58
Yeah. So throughout the book, you reference, the strategic compass. So tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that term, strategic compass and why it’s such a pivotal tool.
Marcia Daszko 37:09
I think that if you have this underlying theoretical foundation of management and leadership, then this tool, the strategic compass that I developed, is a tool that a board or a management team or project team can use? And it’s it’s one you can can, there’s five questions, basic questions. If you fill those out together, if you answer those together, you can lead an organization or a team with that foundation, so I don’t care if it’s a fortune 100, company, local, nonprofit, a school district, hospital, a family on business, you can use a strategic compass with your team to help you focus and be on the on the same page. So there are five questions. And they are, what’s your compelling purpose? What are your values that are not only stated? But are behavioral? What actions are you all about in your organization? By what method? What strategies will you use to accomplish your compelling purpose, your compelling name? And who are our customers? Our members, our students? Who who are the customers? What do they need? And how do we know? And that’s just not by surveys and focus groups, but really being in touch with our customers? Knowing that customer experience, one major thing this is an aside is if organizations want to make incent not make sure but organizations want to really be in touch with their customers and provide great customer experiences. They will answer their phone one of my pet peeves I think many right now, they will answer their phone and not have the customers on hold for, you know, 15 minutes or an hour or three hours and then drop the call. And that’s so common now, where things are, whether it’s a call or even an online trying to order something can be so complex. And so what what did the What is the customer experience? What do they need to to get from us? Otherwise they’ll go to their competitor, and your company goes out of business. And you wonder why. And then the last question is about what are the measures of progress, and then the measures of success. So oftentimes, organizations, when I start working with them, they go from, they have a vision or mission statement. And then they go to, oh, let’s have a management team meeting and then want to spend a day or a day a quarter focused on forecast budgets, arbitrary numerical goals, the bottom line, what bonuses are we giving, and my pivot with my clients is in that in their management team meetings, they go from perhaps meeting once a month or once a quarter. And having a day focused on the numbers, too, we’ll do a two day management team meeting, where we focus on the customers quality, quality as a business strategy improvement as a business strategy, innovation as a business strategy. And come from those perspectives. Take a look at leadership take a look at how they’re developing people take a look at their systems processes. Take a look at the their culture here on the organization, or do they have trust? Another foundation is communication. What is their communication, because oftentimes, executives think that they’re communicating, if they do, you know, one or two, you know, push outs on their message, you know, once a month or something like that. And so the transformation is really about going from, you know, it’s not just about your mission statement, and to the bottom line, or to the profits and revenues, it is all of the essential parts of the strategic compass. That is how, if you use that, that is how you can be begin to transform your organization. But you just can’t, without knowledge, you can’t take the five questions, the five basic questions, answer those and say, Okay, we did that exercise? No, because you have to learn a new theoretical foundation of management. And, and so if you learn that, then you can use the tool, the questions, the strategic compass, but just go out and answer those questions is going to help you transform.
Adam Baruh 43:03
Right. All right. So in your book, and actually, throughout the this interview, you’ve you’ve referenced a few different names that were mentors to you Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Perry Gluckman, in particular, tell us about these mentors and how, you know, the impact of your journey.
Marcia Daszko 43:20
So as I mentioned, my first career was corporate communications and marketing. And I spent 10 years in that field. And then I was hired by a Perry to help market his consulting firm. And after I was there a couple of months, he said, I want you to do business development. I said, What am I selling. And he’s sent me off to Dr. Demings, four day seminar. And at the time, Dr. Deming after he had worked with Japan, and GM, and he was still working with GM, and Ford, and so forth. He started giving four day seminars to the public. And so I went to one of those came back to Perry said, I don’t want to have I don’t know what he was talking about. He’s using all these words that I don’t know. And he’s difficult to understand. He’s in his 80s, and was sitting in the back of the room of, you know, 2000 people. And so, Perry said, Don’t worry, I’ll teach you so I felt like I went through a Ph. D. program in, you know, in a matter of a few months, but I was reading five to 10 books a week, and I was having conversations for hours with Perry to learn. And also going out with him to our clients. Then he was working with HP and three common some small companies as well. And then Perry, I said to Perry, I think I want to go here Dr. Deming again and he said go And that’s when Dr. Nancy Mann who hosted the four day seminars. Introduce me to Dr. Deming and Perry and Dr. Deming were friends. And Nancy said to pair a to Dr. Deming, Marsha works with Perry. And he brightened up. And he said, Oh, fantastic. I want you to come as much as as many times as possible to learn. And I ended up going to 20 of Dr. Demings, four day seminars to learn. And yes, and then I co founded the Bay Area Deming User Group, which became that was in the 1980s. And that became one of the largest study groups in the world. And then that ran over 16 years. And then a group of us co founded into unthinking network, which was another, which was a nonprofit. And we had an annual conference, where we brought in systems thinkers and people who understood Dr. Demings philosophy. And then people attended to learn more about leadership and how to transform and how to how to apply all of this new knowledge.
Adam Baruh 46:23
Okay, yeah. So as we wrap up, I have a few more questions I’m starting with, what are the pivots that have inspired you through your life and career?
Marcia Daszko 46:34
Well, one pivot that I ended up having to make was I went from being excruciatingly shy. And I could get by with that in my marketing world, because that involves a lot of writing, and not any speaking. And then, so I, so I ended up pivoting when I was starting to work with Perry, because he put me in situations where I had to take a different responsibility. And as I learned, from Perry and Dr. Deming, the more I learned and helped organizations help to leaders, I then, and then when they passed away, I lost them, then I felt a huge responsibility to help as much as I could to help leaders to help organizations to achieve their aim. So those are personal pivots, I guess both. First, personally, my had to go from shy to Well, that too bad get up there. And, and, you know, speak or whatever, to, to having the pivots in my career. So now I, I’ve consulted for more than 25 years. But I also want to I also want to speak more to at conferences and with corporations, boards of directors, and help facilitate their, their meeting so that they can, so that they can learn and make a bigger difference.
Adam Baruh 48:30
Yeah. So you know, speaking of differences, what what kind of differences do you most want to see for the future?
Marcia Daszko 48:36
You know, one of the biggest differences that I think we need, especially in America is a commitment to transforming our education system. Yep, love to see that difference. And however, I can help, either the education system, the leaders of education, and corporate because corporate is so intertwined with education, what they ask for what corporate asks for sometimes, education wants to provide and sometimes what corporations ask for is the wrong thing, because they’re asking for bottom line type of results, when to think larger than that. But in education, we have to really focus on what are we trying to accomplish here? How are we trying to accomplish that? What bottom line focus do we have that’s actually hurting the system breaking down the system? David Karns, who is the CEO of Xerox really said it well, when he said, you know, if we focused on transforming our education system Then we would take care of a lot of other problems in society, you know, that the gangs, the drug, the drug wars, the like graduation dropout, or the dropout rates in high school, and so forth. There are so many issues that would be drastically reduced if we focused on transforming our education system. That’s what would make a huge difference. And that’s where we would like to help. Leaders, both in that education and and corporate system, transform their thinking about that.
Adam Baruh 50:39
Yeah, perfect. Okay, so finally, last question. What do you love about your work?
Marcia Daszko 50:47
Oh, deep, deep thought, making a difference, seen the huge aha was in people seeing people become happier and more successful, and more generous. I know, I had one, one client that it was a nursery flower flower nursery with over 400 employees. And I’m with managers and supervisors once a month. But then every time I went back to work with them, they would tell me stories about how they went out to their community, whether it was church or school, their PTA, their sports, they were coaches in sports, and so forth, and they would apply what I was teaching them. They would come back with these amazing stories of how how the concepts helped, you know, break down barriers and helped focus everyone on accomplishing their aim better and faster. Those are really InLight those were enlightening and really made me smile and be happy about the work that I do.
Adam Baruh 52:13
Yeah, well, Marcia, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you as we prepared for today’s interview and to speak with you today. So thank you so much for being a guest here on the change.
Marcia Daszko 52:22
Thank you very much. It’s transformational, right we get to pivot.
Adam Baruh 52:28
Marcia Daszko is an inspiring speaker who will provoke your thinking and elevate it for bold action. She’s a catalyst for strategic leadership, transformation and innovation. She speaks to and works with leaders to challenge their thinking to realize results never before achieved. For more than 25 years, she has passionately been guiding Strategic Innovation and Transformation in Fortune 500 corporations and private startups, school districts, government agencies and nonprofits. Marsha has taught graduate management and marketing classes at six universities across the US. She is a best selling author of Pivot Disrupt, Transform: How Leaders Beat the Odds and Survive, and also the co author of Turning Ideas Into Impact Insights from 16 Silicon Valley consultants. You can read more about Marcia on our website www.eiqmediallc.com/thechange. Our theme song and sound engineering was provided by Shane Suffriti. You can listen to more of Shane’s music at www.shanesuffriti.com. If you have a story to share about pivoting, disrupting, or transforming or if you want to tell us what you think about our podcast, send me an email at thechange@eiqmediallc.com Thank you all for listening. We’ll see you next time on The Change.
EIQ Media, LLC 53:51
The Change is produced and distributed by EIQ Media, LLC. Elevate your emotional IQ with podcast and constant focus on leadership, mental health, entrepreneurship and more.
