The SPICE Framework: How Sponsorship, Curiosity, and Exposure Accelerate Your Promotion

Curiosity is the differentiator. But it only works when everything else is already in place.

In this episode of the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, host Ralph Owens and co-host Terry Baylor continue their conversation with Shachella James — VP of Enterprise Systems at CenterPoint Energy. This is Part 2 of 5.

Shachella introduces the SPICE framework — Sponsorship, Performance, Image, Curiosity, and Exposure — the five-part career acceleration model she built from Harvey Coleman's PIE framework and has used to guide her own advancement and the advancement of others. She also draws a powerful parallel between artificial intelligence and strategic leadership: the breadth and depth of what you can get out of AI is entirely anchored in the power of the question you ask. So is your career.

What you will learn in this episode:
- The full SPICE framework and how each component builds on the others
- Why curiosity is the differentiator once performance and image are already locked
- How to replace "I don't know" with language that signals a growth mindset instead
- Why asking bold strategic questions builds your confidence and pulls others into the conversation
- How AI and leadership curiosity are powered by the exact same thing — the quality of your questions

This episode is for you if:
- You are performing well but not advancing and want to know what is missing
- You want a complete career acceleration framework you can apply immediately
- You are the only one in the room who looks like you and want tools that work at every level
- You are ready to stop asking flat questions and start asking questions that move the needle

👤 View Shachella James's guest profile

🧾 Chapters

• (00:00) - Power of the Question
• (01:06) - Finding Your Voice in the Room
• (03:49) - Replacing “I Don’t Know”
• (04:10) - What Sparked Her Path
• (05:46) - From PIE to SPICE
• (07:18) - Curiosity as the Differentiator
• (09:23) - Why Organizations Stagnate
• (11:36) - The Power of the Prompt
• (12:36) - Curiosity That Opens Doors
• (14:30) - Curiosity and Career Promotability

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📄 Full Episode Transcript

Creators and Guests

Guest

Shachella James

Shachella James is an award-winning technology professional with well over a decade of professional experience across multiple industries, consulting services, manufacturing banking, telecommunications, and now utilities. She is responsible for information and operational technologies, and enterprise architecture. Her expertise also spans strategic and capital planning, cloud services, data center operations and infrastructure operations. She is keen on workforce management and serving up the talent pipeline for the future.

What is Leadership Sovereignty Podcast: Career Growth and Promotion?

The Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, hosted by Ralph E. Owens II and co-hosted by Terry Baylor, is a career acceleration platform

Leadership isn’t just a skill — it’s a career strategy for professionals seeking growth, influence, and promotion.

Hosted by Ralph Owens, Chief Information Officer, and Terry Baylor, CEO of a healthcare technology startup, the podcast delivers practical, real-world leadership strategies you can apply immediately. Each episode focuses on increasing visibility, navigating corporate dynamics, preparing for promotion, and leading beyond your title.

Expect short, high-impact conversations designed to help you think, act, and position yourself like a senior leader before you’re given the title.

You’re not just an employee. You’re the CEO of your career.

New episodes are released bi-weekly.

Shachella James (00:00)
the whole heart of artificial intelligence as a parallel to leadership guidance.

is the power of the question that you ask.

Ralph Owens (00:10)
That is good.

Shachella James (00:13)
Curiosity, the breadth and the depth of what you can harness out of artificial intelligence is literally anchored into the power of the question that you ask.

Ralph Owens (00:21)
Yes.

Shachella James (01:03)
shifted.

Ralph Owens (01:06)
Right.

Shachella James (01:06)
longer

the youngest person in the room, but you know you've been that superlative, the only. And that in itself can be intimidating of if no one else pulls you into the conversation and you know you may not have that benefit. How do you insert yourself in the conversation in a way that's not even intimidating to other people? You don't even, you know in terms of self-awareness, how do you even come across? So being able to ask

Ralph Owens (01:10)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Shachella James (01:35)
⁓ a strong and powerful, bold question. Again, that's strategic, brings other people along and it's a confidence builder because you can see, I think you can see that energy percolating and you can see other people engaging because you're asking the question, but they're answering it too. So that inclusion is a wonderful way of not only getting yourself in it.

Ralph Owens (01:39)
Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow, that's good.

Shachella James (02:05)
bringing other people along and then using that as a building block to build confidence. You see what I'm saying? Use it as a building block to build confidence. ⁓

Ralph Owens (02:07)
Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

That's really good. Terry and

I ⁓ long ago worked for a leader. I'll never forget ⁓ he told me because I was having some confidence issues. It was the first time I was in a role with the title manager and I felt like I needed to know everything, every question that he asked. I wanted to be able to answer it. He said, listen, I didn't hire you because you know everything. I hire you because you have the ability to go figure it out.

Shachella James (02:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ralph Owens (02:43)
And that

changed my life because what it showed me is that as long as I could be curious and I could ask the right questions, there is no situation that I can't deal with instead of having to come in prepared and know every single thing all the time. I love that. And I love that about you because since I've met you, I've always noticed that you always had the bubbly personality, but you always could engage yourself with other people and pull them into your world through questions. Right? So I just think that's fantastic.

Shachella James (02:51)
Right.

I like that too. I have to be careful with my bubbly personality because it gets misconstrued as a meekness kind of thing, you know, but ⁓ being able to come back with that with some inviting questions gives a powerful wow to that person. Like, wow, okay. She's more than just that personality. So yeah, it has worked really well for me. Terry and Ralph.

And when you don't know something simply instead of saying, don't know, you can replace, don't know with something like, I'd like to learn more about that. Can you talk with me about that? Can you help me through that? And again, it keeps the conversation going, but you know what it also is? It's a symbol and a signal of a growth mindset too. Right? Right, right. So yeah.

Ralph Owens (03:49)
That's

Terry Baylor (03:50)
that's great.

Ralph Owens (03:56)
Yes.

Terry Baylor (04:03)
Mmm.

Ralph Owens (04:03)
⁓

nice. That's good.

Shachella James (04:07)
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Ralph Owens (04:08)
That's

good. That's good.

Terry Baylor (04:10)
So

I'm listening, right? And I'm thinking, okay, so at what point did you kind of understand the philosophy that you've been living your life with? And there's so many parallels to that, right? I wanna know, how'd you get into technology? What was your motivation? What was the curiosity there?

Shachella James (04:38)
⁓

Terry Baylor (04:39)
Who in your life kind of helped you develop these things? What books, what movies, right? How did you get this?

Shachella James (04:46)
My heart is beating so fast. I was hoping you somebody would ask me this question today.

Ralph Owens (04:50)
You

Shachella James (04:53)
⁓ I've had the benefit of just being around a lot of good people. ⁓ Not met this person in person, but acquainted with a gentleman named Harvey Coleman. And he wrote a book about, I'll look it up before we finish the call, but it's Empowering Yourself in the Workplace, the games that we have to play. again, his name is Harvey J. Coleman, worked for IBM for a while.

Through him, I was introduced to a concept called PI, Performance Image and Exposure. That was years ago that I was acquainted with that and I've actually translated that into some other leadership sessions and panels that I've done with women when I talk about grid and grace and I can explain that later at another time. But that performance image and exposure has really been a big framework

that's helped me to build up to who I am right now. What are you saying, Sheshella? Is I extended that framework and now I call it SPICE.

Spice is sponsorship, performance.

image, curiosity, and exposure.

Terry Baylor (06:14)
Mmm.

Ralph Owens (06:17)
this path.

Terry Baylor (06:19)
That is.

Shachella James (06:19)
All right,

now let me tell you a little bit more about the spice. These five things together. So I had always appreciated, again, the question was kind of how did I get here? What framed, what kind of influenced me? So Harvey Coleman and his pie framework. And I expanded that to spice. So sponsorship is, I think we are familiar with just having that person that's going to advocate for you when you're not in the room.

that performance, you got to do your job, right? You have to deliver, deliver consistently, with consistency and excellence and do that reliving. Your images, your gravitas, ⁓ how you present, how you show up, ⁓ curiosity, again, sparking that ⁓ innovation, the growth mindset, demonstrating readiness through questions and ⁓

Ralph Owens (06:52)
Right. That's ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Shachella James (07:18)
the exposure you doing the good work, but who knows about it outside of your immediate circle. So I know here today we're here to focus on curiosity, but as I've gone through all of these stages getting past a mentor to a sponsor getting past just showing up and actually having that image that people like, okay.

Ralph Owens (07:26)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Shachella James (07:45)
⁓ Your credibility speaks to you in the industry, in the company, outside the company. And performance, like I said, is table stakes and doing that. That curiosity then became the real differentiator again, Terry, back to the earlier point that we had. So as you're emerging in your career, and we appreciate that it's not just about results anymore, but engaging and being with people and having those relationships.

Ralph Owens (07:46)
Love that.

Shachella James (08:14)
where they feel more comfortable engaging with you because you brought them along, you've asked them really good strategic questions, you've challenged the way that they think.

Ralph Owens (08:23)
Mm.

Shachella James (08:25)
in a respectful way, but you know, that constructive, crucial conversation is what really moves the organization forward. If you don't have curious people, there's a time in every situation for stability, right? You go through this curve, a life cycle of when you're starting something new, you got all the startup energy, and then you plateau, but then you gotta level up for that next season and that next, it's the curiosity.

Ralph Owens (08:54)
Mmm.

Shachella James (08:54)
that

really prepare, propels the organization for it. So if you have people who are comfortable with the status quo for too long, then the organization is stagnant. So you have to be at a place where you're challenging with constructive questions and ⁓ moving the organization. And the curiosity does that. So the framework, so pulling all those things together where your performance is locked.

Ralph Owens (09:06)
Good.

Shachella James (09:23)
your images on lock, your exposure, people know what you're doing inside your company, in the industry that you're in, across industries, whatever your networking circle is, people know about you. But you got to get in that curiosity to make that spice really work for you, seasoning, that cake.

Ralph Owens (09:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

That's so powerful. my God. that is life changing.

Shachella James (09:50)
I'm just trying to stay focused on curiosity, you know? I'm like going back to that red wine and that dinner. This is really, really deep because there are so many people who abuse questions.

Ralph Owens (09:55)
Yeah

Yeah

It is.

Mm. Mm.

Shachella James (10:09)
You're sitting in the meeting and you have that one person say, we know you're here. You don't need to ask another flat question. We, we see you. So the fact that you're here and you're not contributing is a whole nother conversation. But if you're going to be here, I would appreciate just one good question as opposed to pepper me with 10, just so that people feel like you added value when you really didn't. So having, having, ⁓

Ralph Owens (10:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So true.

Shachella James (10:36)
that question and you know what to Ralph how we got started because we were we were at a technology dinner is the we were talking about artificial intelligence and that set it off for me for sure. That is exactly what we're talking about today before we get to dispositioning anybody and talking about new careers that are available the whole heart of artificial intelligence as a parallel to leadership guidance.

Ralph Owens (10:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shachella James (11:07)
is the power of the question that you ask.

Ralph Owens (11:10)
Ooh, I was trying to see where you were going with that. I didn't see that coming. That is good.

Shachella James (11:19)
Curiosity, artificial intelligence, the breadth and the depth of what you can harness out of artificial intelligence is literally anchored into the power of the question that you ask.

Ralph Owens (11:29)
Yes.

That's good. That is so good.

Shachella James (11:36)
So when you can get in a mindset of cultivating that deeper question, the broader question, and it can be iterative too. That's one of the jewels of artificial intelligence. But that's the real game changer in artificial intelligence as one example.

Ralph Owens (11:55)
I think you just surfaced probably one of the most critical requirements for being successful with the whole industry of artificial intelligence is tied to the power of the question that you asked.

Shachella James (12:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, and we're going to make that a tagline, the power of the prompt. That's what the power of the prompt. That's what curiosity is really, really doing for us. So.

Ralph Owens (12:11)
Power of the front. Got it.

That is so good. That is so good. ⁓ So talk about in your own life where how this curiosity led to other opportunities for you based on you just taking the time to be intentional about asking great questions.

Shachella James (12:36)
You know, we are in the midst of transformation and I would say we in terms of the current space that I'm in. But as people too, we're in a power transformation. For me, it's as simple as experiencing the day in the life of. And you can fill in the blank. Right now, it's work order management for our field crews. Over time, it's been

Ralph Owens (12:54)
Okay

Hmm.

Shachella James (13:03)
the customer experience in multi-channels. Like what is the optimal experience on whatever device or with an agent or if you self-serve. But being able to take those experiences has been ⁓ transformational for my own career because it has allowed me to demonstrate the ability to bridge the technology enablement with

Ralph Owens (13:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shachella James (13:31)
real business problems. So as a vice president, a more senior level leader, I then get to cascade that down to my people and helping them use technology in my example and how we enable business activity. And that has really been the stair-stop for me getting out there with the business, being acutely aware of what their challenges are, the problems that they're trying to solve.

Ralph Owens (13:33)
Hmm.

Shachella James (14:02)
but using technology as a bridge to solving that has really helped me in my career. And then, know, just in terms of large, large project initiatives that we have right now in the utility industry, we're on the verge of the next generation of metering. You guys might, in Houston for sure, and in other parts of the country, have what's called advanced metering infrastructure. It's time for the next generation.

Terry Baylor (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Shachella James (14:30)
of that technology. So how are we bridging the need to keep the lights on with the very human experience for comfort? That's really what you get with the light coming on and with the gas flowing is that human need for comfort and then sustaining your livelihood. Being in positions where I ask those questions has led to my promotability. So asking

Terry Baylor (14:35)
you

Ralph Owens (14:40)
Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Got it.

Terry Baylor (14:57)
Mm, promotability.

Shachella James (14:59)
That's exactly asking the questions where I'm deep in a day in the life of, and again, you filling the blank with what works for you. And that's where I'm sitting right now, looking forward to the next level of transformation for our company and our industry. And for me, it's more specifically about technology modernization in that metering space.

Ralph Owens (15:09)
Mm-hmm.

Well said,