Folks are asking better questions to find out
and probably through that process
encouraging people to know more about themselves.
What motivates them? How do they succeed?
What kind of recognition do they want?
Growth gets over simplified
more often than we'd like to admit.
Amy Henderson is an experienced executive,
who helps organizations drive enterprise growth
by aligning, talent, technology and data.
All while operating with financial discipline.
Her work focuses on designing strategies
that can actually be executed.
And building the culture
and leadership capacity required to sustain them.
What sets Amy apart, is how deeply she understands
the gap between strategy and reality.
She spent her career working inside that space.
Translating vision into action
balancing ambition with rigor
and ensuring growth doesn't outpace
the organization's capacity to deliver.
In this episode we unpack why misalignment
not lack of ideas is what stalls growth
and why sustainable scale only happens when culture,
talent, and technology are built together from the start.
So let's dive right in.
You know
I wonder if chaos isn't the standard and organization
is the exception
in almost everything. So, you
when you
step into an organization and contribute
like you have, it to
at one moment it might feel like chaos
and then you get this sense of we're
we've we've got direction and we've got organization
and we're getting the right people involved
talk talk to us about something you're celebrating
when you've gone from chaos to order
chaos to order it's more like chaos to organize chaos
I feel like a lot of times
when you're in that fast paced
um you know
business that we're that we're in
I I feel like honestly celebrating teamwork right when
when all of that has come together
it's because people on the team
folks on the team have played their part
they've engaged they've understood the direction
there's been clear leadership
and that that is not simple
that is not easy you guys both know that
I know a little bit about your backgrounds and um
that that is something to tremendously celebrate and
you know people uh
can be the biggest obstacle
but they can also be
the biggest contributors to success
and um
and yeah I
I think I think it comes back to people
in AI and we talked about chaos and ever changing
and ever evolving the
the necessity to to unlearn
mm hmm what does unlearn mean
yeah that unpack that
oh yeah
that's a that is a really tough one unlearn
I think it's you know
stopping yourself
from approaching things in the same way
and it and it's
you know
if you've been a leader and you know
organized teams in a certain way for so long
like
just imagine that you're not gonna do that anymore
you're gonna have you're gonna organize by skill sets
and you're gonna pull people together
inside your organization according to
the skills and the expertise that those folks have
I mean what does that mean for your
you know managers
what does that mean for your
you know all of a sudden
they don't have that person on their team or
you know it's
it's really fascinating um
and yeah I unlearn I think it's
it's stopping habits stopping
stopping your way of thinking
and recognizing your stuff
right'cause your mind is just gonna go that way
automatically
it's interesting I'm
we all grew up in an era where we did a disc profile
or we did a Myers Briggs
or we did some sort of a psychographic profile
and then the organization would say well
this person's gonna be a good cultural fit
then they would put you in a job that is a drainer
or maybe they put you in a role that was energizing
but you know
we keep doing these things that we're accustomed to
we sort of trained to suffer a little bit as humans
and then we could just like set that down
and what I've seen recently is
companies evaluating the role
the the
the the job itself
and putting a psychographic
profile together for that role
cause it's a human role in a human organization
and then fitting
the people to the demands and requirements
of that role where it's flexibility
etcetera and I'm wondering
this is people are rapidly becoming far more aware
of their own things that feed them and yes
and where they're getting energy
and how they're contributing energy
so it's not just leaders
but it's us individuals that are being
I think speak a little bit to that
is that is that because the technology is available
is that because we're more open
what do you think that's about
folks are asking better questions to find out and
and probably through that process
encouraging people to know more about themselves
and what how
what motivates them how do they succeed
um what kind of uh
recognition do they want
that was one of the things that Derek talked
about earlier um
taco bar taco bar
that's right hey
I think we're all motivated a little by taco bars
I don't know anybody that wouldn't be but um
but yeah it was a Nashville hot chicken bar
that hot chicken bar oh
that's interesting yeah yeah
um but yeah
I I feel like there is this real push
you know the teams right now with what's going on
you know are generally smaller
they're expecting more from fewer folks
so you want to still maintain that trust that um
relationship that teamwork
even though those folks may be managing
you know uh
agents right
rather than than people
but you you
in order to make an organization work
you still have to have all of those human components
um in there
and I do think there's a deeper exploration of
what makes someone successful
and what might motivate you to be a
you know top performer for our team
and it's it's a two way kind of conversation
it's interesting you said people may be managing agents
um wow
right yeah
just rewind just a few years
and that would not be in our conversation
what are you doing well
I manage a team of agents
that's right today
and there's 35 of them
and individual roles look like this and sound like that
um are people
are people adapting to managing agents
is this something that you see
just a subset of people being successful
this is part of this evolution
right of where instead of a dev lead has
you know four folks on their team
they're now they now have
are running AI agents um
of you know seven
so what do you see in education
changes that might happen
oh my goodness um
that's a tough question I'm not a total expert on that
but I I think
this human component and making sure things stay human
that's gonna become the rare thing
right if I go to school
and I learn math or I learn computer science or I
you know
dig in on one of these really technical degrees
you know
am I also getting the foundation for that people aspect
and you know
you now only have I don't know
maybe you only have 10 people on your
on your team who are all doing very different tasks
or owning very different parts of the business
you know that can enter cross Silo communication is a
is vital for that to be a
a success so there is
there is this people psychology
I think it was it Derek this morning that said um
you know don't you after years of managing people
don't you wish you had studied psychology
and yes I was one of the ones that raised their hand
so Simon Sinek says people that don't understand
people don't understand business
yeah and I agree with that completely
more and more every day
well problem solving right
I mean we probably
if you look at
the fun part about everything that's true
is that you're unbelievably
ridiculously successful as a human
and everyone before you was perfectly successful
and everyone before you Johnny
was perfectly successful so
we're sitting in a room now with a bunch of people
grappling with new opportunities and new problems
and we will be perfectly successful
agreed
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