8020CS

02/15/2024

Learning Opportunities: Global Podcast, SheBoot Workshop, Black History Month Event Moderation -

Change@Work is a podcast produced by Daggerwing Group, a global Top-10 rated change leader with 70% of their client base in the Fortune 500.

01/15/2024

Giving back is an obligation of those privileged enough to hold leadership positions in the community.

I'm so proud to chair the non-profit Ottawa Music Industry Coalition | Coalition de l'industrie de la musique d'Ottawa and to collaborate so closely with Executive Director, Melanie Brulee.

We're doing important work bringing together the creative and business communities to embed music in the fabric of this great city. This article tells the story. Thank you Lynn Saxberg and the Ottawa Citizen

01/15/2024

Friday Thoughts (Jan 12-24): What the (business) world needs now is love.
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Two nights ago, I enjoyed giving back to the community by delivering an interactive keynote to the Ottawa Product Management & Marketing Association. The attendees represented people at all stages of their careers, ranging from their 20s to 60s, Canadians, new immigrants, and representatives of many industries.

It was a joy to share my experience across startups, scale-ups and enterprise businesses with this group, who were enthusiastic participants in a fun and valuable learning exercise about successfully operationalizing sustainable change.

As a leader, I say to all leaders at all levels:

Show love to your co-workers and community members. Seeing people light up when they absorb a nugget of experience you have shared with them that they could not know because they don't have the experience is fantastic. It is a win-win.

How do you show love in business?

🎯 Don't hoard your knowledge
🎯 Help people
🎯 Share lived experience
🎯 Lift people up
🎯 Share connections
🎯 Open doors
🎯 Be kind

The song of the week is cheesy but a classic—Dionne Warwick's - What the World Needs Now (Is Love).

Listen, bring down your blood pressure, and sail blissfully into the weekend, committed to practicing business love.

Have a great weekend.

01/15/2024

What a night!

Thank you to Hala, Bergen, Michael and rest of the board at the Ottawa Product Management & Marketing Association for inviting me to speak at the monthly meet-up and to everyone who attended while wet roads turned to sheets of ice.

Your commitment to participate and learn did not go unnoticed. I'm honoured to have been able to take you all through a fun, disruptive mindset and common language exercise.

I'll share the data from the interactive keynote over the next week to show more evidence of everything I've been talking about for almost a year—stuff I know because I've lived it multiple times.

There's nothing like a room of 40 people from different industries, backgrounds and levels of experience answering the same questions to clearly indicate norms regarding the challenges of operationalizing sustainable strategic change, whether that change is capturing an opportunity or solving a problem.

OPMMA has a reputation for delivering great content to its members. What a pleasure to be the latest voice. I highly recommend you join this association if you live in Ottawa. Community matters and OPMMA is a great one.

Stay tuned for data!

01/15/2024

(This event has already happened)

An interactive keynote, where you can bring your own strategic opportunity or problem and put it through an exercise in the mindset, common language, and managed expectations required to succeed at strategic change initiatives.

You don’t need to be a member to attend and it is FREE thanks to OPMMA sponsors:

Klipfolio, Pragmatic Institute, VanillaSoft, Invest Ottawa, Hawahat Inc, Peter's New Jobs, Purecolo Inc. The Canadian Real Estate Association | L'Association canadienne de l'immobilier, Sopheon, Praxiem, Events.com, WebMarketers, Cranial-8

Join us; it is going to be a fun and valuable learning event!

01/15/2024

Friday Thoughts (Jan 5-24): Consider this 2024 goal: no more 'what-ifs'.

The thought of getting old and looking back, seeing many things I wish I had tried, doesn't sit well with me.

Life, all aspects of it, is about living:

🔸 To try something and fail is to grow and learn.
🔸 To try something and succeed is to grow and celebrate.

That is not to say that you should try all things. It's also essential to make informed decisions.

I was offered a job at Cisco in San Diego years ago, and though I would have a lot more money in the bank if I had accepted it, I made an informed decision, based on many factors, that it was more important for me to stay in Canada at that time. No regrets.

Try things, people. Jump into the (informed) deep end. The worst that can happen is that you have to start over again with more experience than you had before.

Have a great weekend.

Song of the week is The Deep End by The National. Find the link down in the comments.

01/15/2024

Welcome back to work, LinkedIners! I hope you've had a relaxing and happy holiday break.

Many of you are starting to wrap your head around how you will deliver on your function's commitments to the 2024 strategic plan. Your overarching drivers likely fall into one, or more, of these categories:

🔸 Revenue Growth
🔸 EBITDA Performance
🔸 M&A Integrations
🔸 Budget Changes
🔸 Market Expansion / Position
🔸 Product Adoption / Quality / TTM
🔸 Customer Experience

Success requires common language, understanding, and expectations to align the team, secure buy-in at all levels of the company and guardrail progress.

If your company does not have a common language model that aligns mindset and delivers a repeatable, measurable way of succeeding at complex initiatives, whether they are opportunities to capture or problems to solve, consider this your alert to adopt one.

My first virtual Successful Change Workshop is on January 24th. It is a low-cost, low-time-committed, high-ROI workshop that will accelerate progress and mitigate the risk of failure. https://www.8020cs.com/successfulchangeworkshop

🔶It is limited to 16 attendees to allow for valuable sharing at the end of the session.🔶

The time is now. Let's kill it together. Direct message me if you have any questions. Registrations of 3+ are eligible for a discounted rate per seat.

01/15/2024

Does your company have a common language across all departments that allows you to know and measure stages of progress and roll-up reporting across all initiatives in your 2024 plan?

Those accountable for strategic initiatives will work hard to succeed, but knowing the actual state of progress can be difficult if each leader means something different when using the exact words or phrases.

Delivering your 2024 plan takes members of the entire team from the C-Suite down through the frontline, aligning for collective cross-functional success.

Giving your organization a common language that supports progressing strategic initiatives is a game-changer and an accelerator of progress and results.

Common language: food for thought as you rest up for 2024.

01/15/2024

Friday Thoughts: I wish you all a safe, peaceful, and restorative holiday break.
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As the year winds down, the most important thing we can do is to reflect on the experiences of the last twelve months to support our growth in the twelve months to come.

In recognition of this joyous time of year (setting aside the ugliness beyond our control), I decided to perform a song for you to mark the last Friday Thoughts of the year; this is a LinkedIn first! Lol.

I've changed the lyrics to a Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to be inclusive and also to make you laugh a little as business people.

Enjoy, and we'll see you in 2024.

Thank you for your support in 2023.
Sue.

Here are the lyrics:

Have yourself a happy little holiday
I hope you're shutting down soon
Until January
No one gives a damn about you

It's the time to forget about technology
Social media too
In twelve days
We'll all be back to managing the zoo

So have yourself a merry little holiday too.

01/15/2024

Friday Thoughts: As we wind down the year, I want to celebrate four standout voices of change in 2023!

I know and respect these professionals who live 'change' differently, but collectively, they are working hard to pave a path forward for many, and you all inspire me:

Sonya Shorey
Deborah Rosati
Thusha Agampodi
Pascal Potvin

Thank you for your consistent and inspirational voice in 2023. I celebrate you all, and I'm excited to see our ranks and impact grow in 2024 and beyond.

Have a great weekend,
Sue.

01/15/2024

What is your level of confidence in achieving your 2024 plan?

Is there a carryover from 2023 or earlier?

What blocked success in previous years, and how will you sustainably change that in 2024?

What are the consequences of not making plan in 2024?

Many scaling businesses are facing challenging targets under reduced budgets due to the state of the global economy. Leaders still need to succeed, this is the way of business.

I can help. Succeeding under the toughest of circumstances is my specialization.

I'd love to learn more about you and your business and help you become a hero to your people, clients and shareholders.

You've got this!