Using Curiosity to Increase Your Influence w/Jennifer Sutherland
Episode Overview
In this episode of Making Better, we explore the intersection of learning and technology with the insightful Jennifer Sutherland from Trustwave. Jennifer shares her rich, varied journey in various industries and the value of diverse experiences in driving innovation. Host Matt Gjertsen and Jennifer discuss the critical role of human knowledge in nuanced situations and the importance of building strong connections in corporate learning environments. They also dive into the structures within learning and development teams, the continuous learning culture, and the power of curiosity. Tips on aligning L&D with business objectives and the impact of leadership in fostering learning round out a conversation full of valuable takeaways for any professional aiming to stay ahead of the curve.
Make sure to check out the book recommendations from the episode:
Daring Greatly: https://amzn.to/3vP8nqR
Team of Teams https://amzn.to/3HyxhgU
About Jennifer Sutherland
Jennifer is a thought-leader, a partner, a coach and a mentor who strives to create a true learning culture in every organization she works with. She is the Global Leader of Learning & Development for Trustwave, a cybersecurity company. She has almost 20 years of talent development experience, including sales enablement.
You can connect with Jennifer through:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifernsutherland/
Full Transcript
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Jennifer Sutherland [00:00:00]:
People that work with me have always heard me say, what didn't I ask that I should have what that I should know? What didn't I ask you that you think is important? Or who else should I talk to about this? And I think I learned early in my training career. Don't ask do you have any questions? Right? We ask what questions do you have? And I think that that translates just building some of those connections and relationships by showing a true interest in the answer and not just doing it just because.
Matt Gjertsen [00:00:33]:
Hello and welcome to the making Better podcast where we talk about making ourselves, our teams, and our organizations better. Whether you are a business leader, a talent development professional, or an individual contributor, this show will give you actionable insights to help improve your own performance and the performance of those around you. Our guest today is Jennifer Sutherland. Jennifer is the global leader of learning and development at Trustwave, but that is just the latest role in a very interesting and nonlinear career. She has done numerous jumps, not just between companies, but between entire industries. In this discussion, you will learn techniques for getting to know a new industry, learn how to build connections to increase the impact and respect of l D in your organization, some ways to focus your efforts to make sure l D is having an impact, and so much more. But before we get into that discussion, if this is your first time listening to the show, I need to remind you to subscribe to make sure you never miss a future episode. And if you are already subscribed, then I would just humbly request that you share this show with at least one other person.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:44]:
Because that, after all, is how we grow. I can't tell you how much it means to me. So with that, let's get into the discussion with Jennifer Sutherland. Jen, when I look at your LinkedIn profile, your background, one of the things that pops out to me first and foremost is you've been in a lot of different industries, which is a challenge for a lot of like I myself, I've worked with a lot of different companies and I've been jumping around a little bit, but predominantly I've been kind of in the aerospace industry. And I think that's true for a lot of folks. When you get started in a new business or a new industry, how do you get started?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:02:23]:
That's a great question. It's one of the things that I am proudest of in my career, but also looks really weird on a resume when you look at it. And to me, it's about I really immerse myself in an industry. I absorb as much as I can. I will join professional organizations, subscribe to newsletters and blogs. I will follow competitive businesses on LinkedIn so I can see what they're doing and see the terminology that they use. I follow thought leaders in the industry on LinkedIn, but I'm also try to be very vulnerable. I like to ask a lot of questions.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:02:59]:
I play the I'm new card for as long as I possibly can.
Matt Gjertsen [00:03:03]:
This is my favorite card to play.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:03:06]:
I know when I was in sales, I think I was always new, no matter how long I was working.
Matt Gjertsen [00:03:10]:
Absolutely.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:03:13]:
Because most people tried like they like to help people and always follow up after meetings, ask questions, get clarification. But I think the way I took all that information to actually make it successful is found ways to tie what I was learning to what I already knew. So, for example, I worked at a health insurance company. I'd never done that before, but I had health insurance. So as I was learning, I was like, what do I already know that I can tie this to and then fill in some of those gaps? I worked at a bank for a while. I'd never done that before, but I had a bank account, so what did I already know? So tying some of that together really helped. It's a learning strategy in general. So I think my l and D background helps in a lot of ways.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:04:01]:
But to me, it's like really just being naturally curious and embracing that curiosity and seeing where it takes you. But to me, that's the fun of it. I really enjoyed learning those new industries and kind of seeing what's out there, what's new, what's different, and then tying it all together all at the end.
Matt Gjertsen [00:04:18]:
That absolutely makes a lot of sense. And I think the difficulty that people, I think, often run into is this idea that the people in the industry who have been there forever, or the experts, they are kind of maybe subconsciously incentivized to make it seem as complicated as possible. Everybody is their unique snowflake and things like that. Everybody wants to be special, but we're all still people. There's only so many ways to organize a company. There's only so many ways to do a job. So that makes a lot of sense. I always think of, since you're in learning as well, we're all in learning.
Matt Gjertsen [00:05:00]:
It's all about mental models in the brain. You have these mental models that help you understand the world. And really, I think the hallmark of expertise is getting more and more generalizable. Mental models, like, the bigger that they can get, the better. And, yeah, that immersion makes so much sense. One thing that you mentioned though, at the very beginning there, you said how it's the thing you're most proud of, but it looks the strangest on a resume specifically for people who are looking to change industries. How do you approach that when you're talking to people? Because based on everything you just said, those diverse experiences are an asset. Right.
Matt Gjertsen [00:05:41]:
And I think it's interesting because in the military, the military, especially on the officer side, values diversity of experiences in that officers are frequently being moved every couple of years to domains that are completely outside of their expertise because that's the goal. The higher somebody moves up in the military, the broader we want their experience to be. And so when I left the military, I was really surprised. I was like, oh wow. When I'm looking at these job wrecks, unless you've worked at a nuclear plant for twelve years, they don't want you. They want this very specific experience. So how have you successfully kind of convinced people that that variety is an asset and not something that's holding you back?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:06:25]:
I think that is really a key question. And if you think about most ceos that you can think of that are really successful, they didn't just come through operations, just standalone. They weren't just in finance, they did do marketing and they were in operations, they were in sales. They have all of those different components. And I think that that's critical because the more you can tie all of that together, the more it makes sense. So for me, I have absolutely had a nonlinear career path. And when I look at that nonlinear career, it can look like it doesn't make sense to somebody else. And to me, it's really about that diversity of experience, because every little thing I've done pulls together different things to get me to where I'm at now.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:07:16]:
So as I do this, as I do this, I kind of pull it together. So recognizing that and embracing that I think is getting a little more common. Now there's even companies are rewriting job descriptions and saying something in there. If you don't have all these skills, that's okay. We still want you to apply. They're rewriting it so that it says, or equivalent military experience. Those things are all helpful because it's helping people like me or people that want to take a different career path to say, oh, I can try that, I can do that differently. So when I'm trying to explain all of that, it's really about taking those nuggets of what I've learned and talk about that diversity of experience and how it can benefit somebody else, because I don't want to negate somebody working at the same company for a very long time.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:08:13]:
There is a wealth of knowledge to that, that historical knowledge, but there's also value in somebody that hasn't worked there for a long time and brings together some new ideas and new thoughts and asks questions that maybe haven't been asked in a while. So it's really, in my mind, a very sort of synonymous explanation or argument similar to just diversity in general. The more diverse an organization is, and the higher, the more successful they are, the more profitable research says it. So if I can come into a business and I have the diversity of experience that I can apply somewhere, that's the benefit. Everybody's kind of getting that benefit of all of those other ideas and thoughts that I've had. And hopefully companies are starting to embrace that differently.
Matt Gjertsen [00:09:00]:
I think that's right. And I think it is as the conversation around Dei evolves, and right now we're kind of in the middle of a backlash with DEi, and there's so much discussion there. But really, at its core, it's meant to kind of come back to diversity of experiences and thought. If everybody on your team has the same experiences, chances are they're going to have the same basic set of ideas, and then you're just not going to be as innovative, you're not going to expect the unexpected, you're not going to be as prepared for the future. And I think it's interesting. This has really reminded me of a conversation I had two days ago with somebody who's starting a tech company. They're building an AI copilot for healthcare care managers. And the discussion centered around how really what this copilot is meant to do is it's meant to take on the load of kind of the administrative burden, the factual burden, the memory burden, so that the person can do what only people can do and employ their human skills, employ their empathy in the relationships.
Matt Gjertsen [00:10:11]:
And I do think, to your point, of all the rewriting of all these job descriptions, it's because we're entering a world where that's becoming more and more normal. You're able to really, maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago, yes. You just needed to have the facts and they needed to be in your brain, and there was nowhere else to go get them. But as we won with computers and now with AI, some of that knowledge that used to have to be learned can now just be instantly accessed. And so now it's, how can you put that information to use practically, which might require different experiences absolutely.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:10:51]:
I've worked in the call center outsourcing industry for a few years, and it was great to see how it evolved to use things like AI chat bots to say, okay, if you have basic questions, here is a knowledge inventory that we can pull from and answer those. It's the nuanced stuff. And how many times do we call and we go, yeah, none of those options you just gave me are what I'm actually trying to do. Like, I'm not one through nine. I'm a combination of two, six, seven. So which one do I do? And so that's absolutely where the human knowledge comes in. And so that diversity and that idea of all of those things that we bring to the table is not something that can really look super packaged somewhere. There's all those sort of extenuating elements to it, which is what's fun about working with other people and being a part of businesses.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:11:48]:
Those are the things that you learn from and kind of drive that energy.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:53]:
Yeah, exactly. We kind of chatted about getting into organizations. Again, since you've moved around a lot, how do you think about getting connected inside that organization? One of the biggest pieces of discussion that feels like always present in the learning development space is that learning and development, we're off, we're siloed. We're not connected with the business. How do you get past that? Because the first thing you need to do is start building those connections. In order to serve the business, you have to know them. So how do you go about doing that?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:12:23]:
So I'm obviously very shy, and I don't like to talk to people.
Matt Gjertsen [00:12:26]:
So it's really hard for me.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:12:29]:
I think kind of going back to this idea of like a natural curiosity and wanting to learn and wanting to ask questions, but just raising your hand and saying, can I attend some team meetings? Just to sit in the background, just to observe, just to start hearing some of the knowledge. And whether it's like team town halls or individual smaller team meetings, listening in and having some of those just sort of biosmosis learning. And I know most people hate meetings. I actually like to be invited to meetings. I have a little bit of fomo, so that works for me. I like to be invited and included. So I'm like, what's that about? What's that about? And then following up and asking a bunch of questions and just sort of embracing that. And I think because we are L and D professionals, one of the things that is a tool of our trade is needs analysis or needs assessment or whatever terminology you want to use.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:13:20]:
I sort of translate that to when I start working somewhere and asking those questions before I even say, oh, how can I help solve things for you as your L and D expert over here? Before I get to the solutions, let me learn. Let me learn this business. Let me learn what you're doing in your team and my current role. This one is very much outside my comfort zone. These are brilliant people that I work with. There's no way I'm going to be able to know exactly what they do day to day, but the problems they're solving and how they interact with customers and the skills that they need to be successful in their own career path, that I get. So if I can ask those questions and sort of embrace that natural l and d process we go through and sort of do, that needs analysis, that helps. I also have a sales background, so I'm naturally just going to ask a lot of questions.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:14:15]:
I'm kind of like a toddler. You keep saying, why the socratic method? Just asking. But one of my favorite phrases is more of what else? Or who else? People that work with me have always heard me say, what didn't I ask that I should know? What didn't I ask you that you think is important, or who else should I talk to about this? And I think I learned early in my training career. Don't ask, do you have any questions? Right? We ask, what questions do you have? And I think that that translates just building some of those connections and relationships by showing a true interest in the answer and not just doing it just because. Also asking for a company buddy or if they have a formal mentor program, but just kind of finding who in the company can help you learn a little bit and trying to go across those lines. LNd is a very interesting place to be in an organization. We're a support team, but it's different than a support team like finance, which can very much operate in sort of its own world and not really know what those invoices are about or care about what team meeting those expenses are from. Lnd is a support function, but it needs to be embedded in the organization.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:15:39]:
So building those relationships and letting people know, I truly am here to help you. And I'm not just going to send you compliance training that you have to do once a year so we can check a box that comes across as ingenuity, that true interest really comes across, and embracing that. I think people come into l and d roles because of our interest in learning, our interest in finding out new things. I just think we're just seekers of knowledge in general. And so if we can capitalize on that when we are joining a new organization and building those relationships and kind of pulling those forward a little bit.
Matt Gjertsen [00:16:20]:
Yeah, I love the idea of just kind of inviting yourself to meetings. I think that's a great way to get in. I remember when I was at SpaceX, one of my favorite things that I missed the most at SpaceX is I'd just look up PowerPoint presentations on updates of whatever cool project is going on just to keep up to speed. And it was so cool to be able to kind of track the progress of different things and see it really from the inside. However, one thing that I always struggled with there, and that I've struggled with a lot of organizations, I'm sure a lot of people struggle with is maybe they're in a team where they're kind of meant to serve the whole company, but there's no way they could possibly actually serve the whole company. Have you ever been in that position where you kind of had to pick, okay, who am I going to really target to get to know really well, and how did you make that decision?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:17:17]:
I guess so. I, in my career, have had some really interesting L and D team structures. My previous role to this, I had a team of 180 people. So we were able to be much more sort of like the fingers and spiders in the organization. My current team, there's two of us, and to determine where we're going to spend our time is one of my main jobs. Right. Prioritizing, strategizing. And so I think this definitely ties back to some of the things we're talking about from a building relationships and connections perspective is L and D has to be a part of the business and understand the business objectives and outcomes, because that's going to tell you where to spend your time.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:18:02]:
Where's sort of the biggest bang for your buck, sort of like an L and D version of a high risk, high reward. Like, where should I spend my time? Because this is going to help the company meet their goals, either sooner, faster, what have you. So is it driving revenue, meaning you have to work with salespeople, or is it to get processes more optimized? Because maybe it's a smaller company and now you need to do more with less. So where is that going to be? And depending on where you're at in the organization, as far as where does lnd sit, that's going to really determine how you have those conversations and who's going to help you drive that. Is it your leader that's going to have to give you some of that information and tell you what's happening at the highest level. Or can you draw that out from people? But spending your time doing things that are fun or interesting, or adding additional logos to videos because they look good, is that going to help drive the revenue or is that going to improve the processes? Probably not. So where do you need to spend that time? And asking those questions and those connections help build that. I mean, operations, where are you going to be? Sales, marketing, where's your energy? Need to be driven is really part of all those conversations and making sure we're having that seat of the table so we can ask those questions and not be considered.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:19:26]:
Fifth. Oh, it's just lnd they're just going to put out more training assigned to us.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:31]:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:19:32]:
Help me do my job better. Okay.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:35]:
Yeah, I think I remember I came up with, you're making me remember a framework that I came up with several months ago. Kind of of how to think about this when you come into new organization. I'd love to get your thoughts on this because basically what I was thinking of is if you're, and this is assuming you're in kind of like a central role, you're not assigned to a particular part of the business. So maybe you're in HR or something. Best case scenario, learning is already respected in the organization and you can just kind of see the company's primary goals and then say, like, we want to help achieve those. And then you're respected enough that they say, okay, great, let's go drive revenue or decrease quality defects or whatever the main focus is. And you can go drive there if you're not already respected at the highest level, and you can't just go after those priorities, then find the kind of highest person that you can in the company who does respect learning. Like, maybe they came from the military, so they're used to a lot of training.
Matt Gjertsen [00:20:34]:
Maybe they came from an organization like GE, where they're just used to lots and lots of employee development. So you kind of find the highest ranking person you can find that can be your ally, right? That has an just instinctual belief in the value of learning, even if the organization as a whole doesn't yet understand the value of learning. And then if that too fails you, then the next place you can go is go from where you are and just go up the chain to the first non learning person. Very often that's going to be like the head of HR and figure out what they care about and then solve their issues. So that's kind of like you go from the biggest, highest business level goals that you can to the goals of a specific director or vp that's out in the business to basically the goals of your boss and solve theirs. So then they at least recognize that you're doing good work and can start to kind of champion you around to the rest of the organization. I don't know. What do you think of that?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:21:38]:
I love that. I love that. And that kind of ties into my, one of the questions I always ask when I'm looking at moving to a new organization is I ask about the learning culture. What is it like? What is the current association with learning? What's the expectation of the learning field? And are there learning champions? Because if there aren't, that is definitely an uphill battle. Do they just feel like they need to put somebody in that position? Because there has to be somebody in L and D to do the compliance stuff and the process and all that, or are they truly trying to move the needle or is it maintenance? And all of those are options, right? L d needs to fill all of that, but where do you want to go? And so knowing how to drive that, and I love sort of that second tier you talked about with finding somebody who is a champion of learning, somebody who can be an ally. Because once a learning person can build credibility in an organization, I am never walking into an organization, the expert of whatever they do. I think that's one of the things with changing industries. I am so, like, I'm never going to know that role or that company as well as the people that do it operationally.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:22:55]:
But when you can find somebody that understands how I can supplement or improve in some way, building that credibility goes so far. So I love that framework that you came up with. And I've always said in my career, my job is to make my boss look good, even if it's like rewriting some forms that they use or creating their PowerPoint deck for their senior level meetings. Let me start there. I almost always, because I like planning parties to some extent, I normally jump in and start whatever, like run the town halls or whatever sort of large team meetings. That's normally my first.
Matt Gjertsen [00:23:36]:
And you're very introverted.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:23:37]:
Yes, totally. That introvert comes out. I was like, can I do that? Can I make this a little better and do this a little more interactive? And that's normally one thing I can take off my boss's plate that just starts to pull the rest of it together. So I love that framework and I love that approach. I mean, obviously you want to start with a CEO and if they're a big fan of learning and it's a great learning culture, great. But that's the ideal and not always the reality.
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:00]:
Yeah, I think it is true that you do need to go with the approach, especially if you're starting from a place that isn't, where learning isn't respected, where just nothing is beneath you. I know I made the mistake, I've made the mistake in my career where I had all these big ideas of what I wanted learning to be, but the organization just wasn't there yet. And I think most importantly is, I remember years ago a senior leader telling me a story about somebody kind of in the compensation and benefits, somebody on the compensation and benefits team inside an organization. They're the head of compensation and benefits for an organization and they really wanted to do, oh, we can do job leveling, we can figure out how we can use different compensation styles in order to motivate people and all this stuff. And why can't I do any of this stuff? And the VP just looked at him, said like, look, our people aren't getting paid on time, right? Until you can figure out payroll consistently, we're not going to trust you with all this other stuff. And so I think it is important to, it's a delicate balance of making sure you get just like the foundation basic elements done and done well without getting sucked into. Oh, that's all we do.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:25:17]:
Exactly. Right. I mean, that is probably the biggest risk of any l and D team is becoming order takers. Because when you're just the person that they go, we need this. And you're like, okay, I'll do that and I package it and give it back to you. That is a really hard place to get out of. So even if that is somebody's scenario, I think one of the things I would suggest is at least add some structure around that process and some internal coaching opportunities around the process. So even if you are absolutely still taking orders, come up with a training charter, get a training request form, get documentation, have a formal review process.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:25:55]:
Like at least start doing that incremental change so that the next few times they come back to you, they're like, oh, okay, I see how you've made this better and easier for us. And you're like, yes, I have. Maybe next time we can have this functionality or do this additional resource. Because I've been in both companies, I've been in LND is just, we're here, we're told to do something and it's really hard to get out of that sort of pit, but we can.
Matt Gjertsen [00:26:26]:
Yeah. And I do think exactly what you said. I think for a lot of organizations, the first step in that is getting an intake process created. I did a LinkedIn Live last week about this exact thing where you just create, you use some system that your company already has. Maybe they're already in Monday.com or Trello or Jira or something. Throw a form in front of it, keep it a very simple form. I think the worst way that lnd people mess this up is by going from zero to 100, where they're like they're order taker. Things come in, they say yes.
Matt Gjertsen [00:27:07]:
They say yes. And then the first step to change it is, well, we need to have an hour long meeting for every request. And I'm going to ask, to your point, you have to make these incremental changes so that you kind of almost transform things without people realizing it because it happens over time. Patience.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:27:27]:
Exactly.
Matt Gjertsen [00:27:28]:
Yeah. Well, one thing you mentioned earlier, you mentioned you've led all kinds of different teams, different sizes. I am endlessly fascinated by how learning and development gets organized in companies. I guess at the most basic level, just looking internally, how would you break down the different roles in LND? I think this is something that's important for us leaders to understand for especially people looking for jobs, because I guess I haven't necessarily looked at a lot of other functions, but it seems messy. There's just a lot of different titles, and so let's get away from titles. But what are the big themes of functions within L&D. That you see?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:28:14]:
I wish that some training, professional organization would sort of standardize this in a really succinct way, that we can all use industry wide, but until that happens.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:27]:
We'Re all special snowflakes, so we can't do that.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:28:30]:
It's different at my company, really different because of my circumstance. If I had a dollar for every time, and it is a great question because I probably get maybe two to three requests a month of people that, through my network or somebody refers them to me, is like, I'm interested in LNd, or I want to transfer. I'm interested in this. Tell me more. So I always start with. I think in my mind there are four general sort of functional areas. To me, it's an instructional designer, which can be as informal as somebody who just creates powerpoints. And I don't mean just creates, but somebody that's not doing true sort of elearning instructional design, but the person that's putting the content together that takes the source material that's meeting with the SME, the subject matter expert, and designs it in some sort of engaging, effective, deliverable.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:29:25]:
So the instructional designer is sort of one function. The other function, which I think most people think of is the facilitator or the trainer. And that's the person that's sort of the face of the content. And their real function is to understand how to sort of convert or translate knowledge to learning, which normally takes a lot of different skills, classroom management and interaction and the ability to ask a lot of questions. Somebody who's comfortable with silence. But the facilitator and trainer to me is number two. I'd say number three, I'm going to kind of combine a few things, but the support functions. So to me, that sort of category could include a training coordinator, or somebody might call it like a generalist, the person who's providing administrative support.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:30:20]:
So it might be sending out completion reports after training or the person providing certificates or submitting continuing education to some third party or something. So that would be one the analysts. And I've been lucky enough to work on some training teams that have a sort of dedicated data analyst or somebody that has that as part of their function, where they're the ones that focus on metrics and reporting and really sort of determining the raw data and sort of making it make sense to tell the story about lnd, maybe the ROI, things like that. And then I'd say the third thing that's sort of a part of that support function would be like a system admin. So the person that's in the LMS, that's in the learning experience platform, that's actually maybe doing registrations, adding new content, making sure the elearning is getting uploaded, all of that. And then the fourth person would be the leader or the manager of the team, the person who is responsible for strategy and prioritizing, which I think is a huge part of that role. Thought leadership, sort of organizing the team structure, seeing what makes sense, budget if possible, system selection or management or ownership, project management, as informal or formal as that might need to be. So I'd say those are the four areas, but very often there's combinations within those.
Matt Gjertsen [00:31:45]:
Totally. Yeah. I think a lot of times, especially in small, probably for your first at least three hires on an L and D team, you're hiring people who are willing and able to do all of that.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:32:01]:
Yes.
Matt Gjertsen [00:32:03]:
You need them to be able to just kind of touch a little bit of everything. And it's not until hire four, five, six, that you can be like, you know what? I need an instructional designer and that's what they are going to do. But until you have at least, it kind of goes back to that. You need to have that foundation of you need to do the basics before you can do the more advanced stuff. What do you think in those four buckets, where do you put something like, I guess you'd call it like an l and D business partner or something? The person who is fully having those strong relationships with parts of the business to help kind of, I guess that would kind of fall under that leader manager, that strategy of what are we going to focus on? Is that where you think.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:32:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I've worked on teams where I think it didn't work out. Sometimes it wasn't successful because sometimes the functional area would say, oh, the instructional designer needs to be that person that's tied to the business. But the instructional designer, they work with the subject matter expert. But I think that's a different relationship. It's a different conversation. And so to me, I'd say it is the leader. The leader has to be the one that has to build that out and understand the priorities because I'm sure nobody else has ever had this, where you have two or three competing priorities and it's the most important priority to that person.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:33:29]:
Right. So somebody has to let that sit on their shoulders and I don't know, that's an instructional designer responsibility.
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:36]:
I think that's right. Typically, id work is, I would almost describe it as like a heads down role.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:33:44]:
Very introverted, sort of. I think the people that gravitate to those roles don't necessarily want that responsibility of having those deeper relationships with the business. They like to know it so that they can create really good design and really good content, but they don't want to be the one that's like, oh, so you've got this new thing coming out. Let's strategize the marketing component of that. They're not going to probably enjoy that by nature.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:15]:
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Man, how did a half hour fly by so fast? Chad, this is crazy because I'm so.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:34:24]:
Quiet and I don't like to talk.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:27]:
You don't like to talk? I know. I'm just having to pull all of this stuff out of you. So as we kind of move towards the end, there's a couple of questions that we always like to end with. First is what is one book or podcast that everyone should read or listen to and why?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:34:46]:
So podcast, I'm going to kind of cheat and I'm going to say the Ted podcast because it's kind of a little bit of everything to Everybody. I absolutely love Ted. If you get a chance to see a TEDx in your local city, go do it on Samsung TV. There's actually a TED channel. So if I'm sitting there and I'm reading or doing something, I will have the TED channel on and just let that settle in. So to, that's, that's the nice podcast. That'll say all things.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:13]:
Because I remember I used to listen to the TED radio hour and I just loved how it was like a TED talk, but then all the other stuff that they couldn't fit into the TED talk, you get the background, you just get so much more.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:35:26]:
It is, it's just fascinating. And even if you're listening to it passively, that stuff, it sinks in and it just triggers, oh, yeah, I want to learn a little bit more about that. I'm going to go back to that later. So that's my cheat. That book wise, I would say daring greatly by Brene Brown.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:45]:
Yeah, that's a good one.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:35:46]:
Just a big fan.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:48]:
Excellent. I love probably you've mentioned a few skills throughout this conversation. So when you look back at your career, what is one skill that you think has really helped you be the most successful?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:36:01]:
So every year I pick a one word of the year and it changes from year to year to year.
Matt Gjertsen [00:36:05]:
Love it.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:36:06]:
But what I would say is the one skill that's sort of foundational for all of that is my curiosity and my desire to learn and find out more. I remember when Da Vinci, this is probably supposed to be a speed round, so my apologies. But when da Vinci code came out in 2002, 2003, I just remember, I read it right away and I was just fascinated. And I remember starting to fold down pages of like, oh, I want to learn more about that. I want to look up that. And then the whole book was being folded down and it was just getting cumbersome. And so I took a legal pad and I wrote, found three pages worth of things I wanted to look at, which triggered me buying more books about some of those topics. And I just think that that has really helped me create the career that I have today because I'm constantly like, oh, what's more about that? What's that? I want to learn more about that.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:36:56]:
And I just kind of keep growing and moving towards whatever that is. That thirst for knowledge takes me to.
Matt Gjertsen [00:37:02]:
That's awesome. I love it. And we've touched on a lot of different things here from the talent development perspective, but you've seen a lot of different organizations. What do you see as the most common opportunity for organizations to improve their talent development?
Jennifer Sutherland [00:37:20]:
I think the biggest opportunity is to recognize that the organization has to find a way to work as one unit. Even if every single function, business area, operational team is at the optimum performance. If they aren't going in the same direction and working together, it's going to fall apart. So to me, that talent development has to be a comprehensive look and approach at a company's goals, objectives, and turning that into success. So make sure those silos out there, which silos is sort of overused, but trying to understand how to make sure that those functions are all driving towards the same place and working together to get there. So that's not counterintuitive.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:05]:
Yeah, it's interesting because I've had the extreme pleasure to work in a lot of high performing organizations, and the most common problem I see, it's almost like there's a correlation of, like, the higher performing organization, the more they struggle with exactly what the thing holding them back is. Siloing. And that's why one of the number one leadership books that I always recommend to folks is team of teams by General Stanley McChrystal, because it's exactly that. It's like we have four or five teams that are all just like firing on all cylinders individually, but they just keep getting in each other's way. And so how to create what they call in the book a shared consciousness amongst everybody. Yeah, it's an interesting call out, especially from the talent development perspective. I like that. Awesome.
Matt Gjertsen [00:38:59]:
Well, thank you so much for, like I said, this conversation flew by. I can't believe how, I think we covered a lot of ground. I think people will have a lot of interest in just kind of this idea because especially right now, there's a lot of movement in our industry. There's a lot of people that are moving around, and I think hopefully through this discussion, people got a few tidbits of, first, when you're looking at organizations, some different factors to think about when you're looking at those organizations, and then when you join a new organization, certainly to take many pages from your book of, okay, how do I get moving in this new industry, new business, whatever it is, to make both myself successful and L. D. Successful in this organization? So thank you so much. Jen, it's been a pleasure talking to you.
Jennifer Sutherland [00:39:49]:
I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much.
Matt Gjertsen [00:39:51]:
Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you liked the discussion, make sure to hit like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. As a reminder, if your team is struggling keeping up with the training development demands of your organization, we want to help. Better everyday Studios is a full service instructional design team that can help you with everything from ideation to actual content creation and delivery. Please reach out to us using the link in the episode notes below. Have a great day.
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