Hello and welcome to today's webinar, Building Alignment within your Executive Team. Today's topic introduces a framework of vision, alignment and execution. It will focus on tangible steps directed towards leading a group or organisation towards common goals and achieving desired outcomes. I would now like to welcome our presenter for today, Tracy Morgan. Tracy is the founder and managing director of About HR. She works with client organisations to build HR frameworks, which link directly to their strategic objectives, delivering business excellent and growth by building people and systems capability. Her commercial background in finance, coupled with extensive HR experience, enable her to offer consulting services that focus on delivering commercial return on investment for her clients. So without any further ado, I'd like to welcome Tracy. How are you today? I'm very welcome. Thanks, Sarah. Welcome, and thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on leadership with you. What we're going to look at today is building alignment within your Executive Team. We're going to look at the VAE model of leadership, which stands for vision, alignment and execution, and how it could improve the effectiveness of the Executive Team in your organisation or any leadership team. I want to also briefly introduce you to a leadership development programme based on the tool. Firstly, ask yourself what is leadership? Is it effective communication? Accountability? Collaboration? Is it providing direction or issuing instructions? Can anyone do it? Is it an innate quality you were born with, or can it be learnt? In my opinion, it's a combination of all of the above characteristics and qualities applied in different situations. So let's have a look at how one of the top graduate schools look at this. So we're going to look at a quote from one of the leaders at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who said, learning to be a leader is like learning to be a great athlete, musician or artist. It's a capability that develops over time through trial and error, hard work and practice. Does everyone agree with this description? Or anyone like to challenge it or add their own description? Please feel free to type in the box if you've got a different definition of leadership.  Everyone's flow to get started today, but that's fine. Please feel free to interact throughout the presentation. I'll try to answer the questions as we go and also give you some opportunity at the end to participate in questions as well. Let's have a look at the VAE model, vision, alignment and execution. So we're going to look at leadership versus management. What's the difference? Does anybody want to suggest what the difference between leadership and management is? Thank you, Nick, for your comment there. It does take time to build leadership skills. So for the purposes of this model, the VAE model, I'm going to look at leadership as a one on many relationship. I'm going to consider management to be a one on one relationship. So within the VAE model, this considers that leaders have three fundamental responsibilities, crafting a vision, building alignment and champion execution. So we're going to look at each of those above drivers of leadership in turn. Yes, thank you, Rebecca. I agree with you. Management equals day-to-day and leadership is the bigger vision, which fits very nicely into this model as well. So let's firstly look at crafting a vision. This means imagining and improve future states that the group will make a reality through its work. This is very much applied to a workplace situation. One of the things that sets us apart as human beings were the only animal that thinks about the future. Think about this scenario, getting home from work one day, and finding that your dog has rearranged the living room. Perhaps he was bored, or maybe he's mad at you for leaving him alone all day. Or maybe he was set up by the cats. Not quite sure. Some cats are capable of that. Or what is he thinking? The stuffing inside this sofa doesn't quite work. What would happen if I scattered it all over the carpet and rearranged the room? Would it pull the room together nicely? So I think we'll all agree that no dog is capable of such a thought process. But one thing is certain, he has rearranged the room, but it was not part of a great master plan. This is what makes us different as human beings. We can think and we actually look to the future and we plan and we vision. We have a vision for what our lives could look like. So congratulations to everybody listening today.  We can think ahead and we can envision a future that doesn't currently exist. It may not sound like much, but biologically speaking, it's quite an outstanding ability. Think about this common interview question. Where would you like to be in five years' time? Answers might include running my own company, living overseas, having completed my MBA. This is not just planning. What we're actually doing is imagining what our world would look like in the future. So this is what leaders are doing when they craft a vision. So I'm just gonna share a little quote by Helen Keller. The only thing that's worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision. Does anybody know who Helen Keller is? She's actually an American author, political activist and lecturer. It might be before some of your time, but she's very, very famous. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904, at a time when women were rarely going to university, let alone disabled people. So the name of Helen Keller has become known around the world as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds. So let's look at vision. Is this a gift or can it be learned? Has anyone heard of the myth of the mountaintop? This basically assumes that the ability to create a vision is a trait that's possessed by the truly gifted and that crafting a vision is an independent exercise done by a lone genius. And that a vision's something to be delivered from on high, the mountaintop down. But that's basically to what it is. It is a myth. Consider instead that most people can learn. Great visions rarely come from one source. It's an art that can be understood and practised. And that leaders at all levels are responsible. So why is it important? Experienced leaders see vision as critical to their work as a leader, to every leader in the organisation. And to establish them where they want to take the group. I'm going to share some research with you now. As part of a project, a research project through a group of employees, they were asked to rate their organisation's leader on an overall scale and also whether they created a strong vision for the future. Interesting, the ones that rated their leaders very highly did say that they created a, so the highest rated leaders said that they created 87%, said they created a strong vision for the organisation. Of the worst rated leaders, only 10% created a strong vision and 90% didn't. So there is a direct correlation between creating a vision and being rated by your followers as a strong leader. So why is it important? It helps us stand out. It provides purpose. It can drive the creation of goals and elevate our work to the next level. And it sparks our imagination. It touches on our human need to do something of value with our lives. It can help us stand out from our competition. Most people here would have heard of probably Jim Collins' business classic book, The Good to Great. I'm sure most people have heard of that. And the concept is the BHAG, B-H-A-G. So the big hairy audacious goal. It's something that serves as a focal point and galvanises people into action and creates team spirit. And one thing to remember, if you don't know where you're going, you're probably not going to end up in the right place. So whose responsibility is it? Is it from the top or from every level in the organisation? Thinking of an example, your CEO's vision could be for your organisation will shift from domestic leader to international market leader within five years. Quite a bold goal there and vision for the organisation. So how does that sort of drift down through the organisation and drift down and filter through? So the customer service manager may establish his team's vision as being to ensure we are viewed as the international leader, we will offer 24 seven support in the local languages of all our customers. So very much aligned with the top level vision, but that's his own vision for his team. So both the CEO and the customer service manager are doing the work of leaders in crafting a vision. So there is a need to support each other. What we're going to do next is look at how to craft a vision. So as human beings we're remarkably curious. Think of how babies learn. They try some things such as learning to walk and when they fall over they try again and again. Even as adults we're pretty keen to explore new things although we do become more conservative and cautious as we get older, but we are keen to try new things such as the new restaurant in our suburb or a new brand of wine or maybe a new holiday destination. But when we walk into work on a Monday morning our sense of curiosity and sense of exploration seems to take a nosedive. Why? Because we've got deadlines to meet, meetings to attend and usually an inbox full of messages demanding attention. So curiosity is one of the first casualties of responsibility. Have you ever heard the phrase there's just not enough time in the day? You've probably said it yourself, I know how I have. So let's look at a little bit more of the research data. We have the same group of people. What should leaders do more of in your organization? So these are the requests that came through. So I wish my leader would be more active about finding new opportunities, would focus more on improving our methods, do more to rally people to achieve the goals and do more to encourage the group to stretch the boundaries and be more open to input from others. We'll keep that one in mind because we will come back to that. So let's look at the first step in crafting a vision. We're going back to the model now. There's three steps into crafting a vision and the first step is exploration, which is remaining open and prioritizing the big picture. So this is about remaining open is don't dismiss ideas too quickly. Explore the what ifs. It's easy to say and knock somebody down very quickly and say, oh, that idea is not gonna work. Oh, that's just pie in the sky. So think about these things, the what ifs. What ifs we teamed up with the London office? What if our two systems could talk to each other? What if we went paperless? Not every options would be good and would be practical, but at this stage we're just really exploring the ideas and that should be encouraged. We need to remain open and that's difficult sometimes. We're wired to reward closure. Think how good it feels to kick off those things on your to-do list at the end of the day or to clear your inbox. I know that's one of my to-do lists today and I've not made much progress so far. So how do we remain open? Give yourself permission and time to think, to toy with an idea and just mull it around. Is that gonna work? How could it work? Don't reject an idea if you're not sure how it could be implemented. That's for later. We'll look at the practicalities later. Keep yourself as open as possible. And prioritizing the big picture. It's easier to put together a puzzle if we can see the picture on the box and use it as a guide. Think about the last time you did a jigsaw puzzle, usually on a rainy public holiday. But for leaders, there isn't usually a box available with a picture of what that's going to look like. It has to come from imagination. So leaders are going through the process of thinking what will the big picture look like when all the pieces have come together? So how do we prioritize the big picture? We need to understand our context and clearly see it. How does the outside world see your organization? What do they like? What are their frustrations? We need to ask questions. So just to give you some tips for the exploration stage, allow yourself time, give ideas a chance and don't dismiss them too quickly. Look outside of your organization to understand the context. Ask questions and remember to part the details at this stage. The second driver in crafting a vision is boldness. This means being adventurous and speaking out. We talked about the CEO that had crafted a vision to be the international market leader from domestic market leader within five years. That's pretty bold and you could say he was being fairly adventurous when he thought up that idea. But it is bold, so boldness is important. I think when we ask ourselves why boldness is important, most of us realize, in fact all of us realize that the world is constantly changing. But what is sort of becoming more and more prevalent is that the pace of that change is getting faster and faster. As a result of this, what's panning out is that the lifespan of businesses is becoming shorter. So if leaders don't advocate bold visions, they'll quickly become irrelevant or obsolete. So they do actually need to have the courage and that's easier for some than others. So why is it difficult to be bold? People don't like disruption and change by nature. Boldness can be quite uncomfortable for the vast majority of people but it can also open you up to failure and put your head on the chopping block. Some people just think it's not worth it. It's just too risky if we make mistakes. Peter Drucker, an American economist, basically said people who don't take risks make about two big mistakes a year on average. People who do take risks make about two big mistakes a year on average. So exactly the same outcome. So risk takings to be advocated and to be encouraged in business. But calculated risks are usually the best way to go. And speaking out means voicing ideas that may seem unconventional or even impractical. So that's sort of been courageous as well.  So leaders in any organization or in any field need to rein in their self-protection instincts and push themselves to go out on a limb. Have you ever heard of the phrase, let me play devil's advocate for a minute? I would suggest that most of us have heard this in meetings and in conferences and unfortunately in brainstorming sessions when we're trying to create ideas. This is the one phrase that stifles innovation and we should really ban the phrase from any organization. So just give you some tips here to ask yourself what's the worst that could happen if we follow this idea? What's the best? And usually that's far better than the worst. Try your idea out first on a smaller group if you are cautious and never use that phrase I know this is a bad idea but because people already have a negative connotation with your idea so never preface your ideas with that. And assume that you're gonna have to deal with resistance. So the next step in crafting a vision is testing assumptions but first what we're gonna do is try a little poll and I'm gonna hand you over to Sarah and I want quick answers to this one please. Can you just click the box? I'll hand you over to Sarah for the poll. Yes, okay so I just go into launch a quick poll to get everyone's opinion on this question. So if you can just click the answer that best corresponds with you but just as quick as possible like Tracy said. So a bat and ball cost $1.10. If the bat costs $1 more than the ball how much does the ball cost? Is it $1, $0.10 or five cents? So I think we're going for instinct here, aren't we? Yeah, quick questions. It's a little bit of fun to make sure you're all paying attention. We'll allow everybody a minute to get their answers in. So at the moment we're standing on 100% for $0.10. Yeah, so eight people have responded. I'll respond as well, why not? I'll go for $0.10 as well. We did test Sarah earlier and that was her. Yes, I've had my test so I'm not going to give anything away. Okay, so thank you for those of you who responded to the poll. We've got a nice one response here. Tracy, $0.10, is that the correct answer? Actually, $0.10 is not the correct answer. Think about it, the bat costs $1 more than the ball and you've only got $1.10. The correct answer is actually five cents. So it needs a little bit of time to get to that and the trial and error. So I'll just click through that. If you were wrong, which 100% of you were, you can actually check your answer. The most intuitive answer is $0.10, which you all went for, but that is wrong. It can take a little trial and error to reach the correct answer, but if it's $1 more, you've only got $1.10, then the bat costs $1.05 and the ball costs $0.05, which is a dollar difference. But we assumed we knew the right answer instinctively. So this is where we do actually need to test our assumptions. So how do we test assumptions? We need to seek counsel and explore implications, which we didn't do in the poll and we weren't meant to. It was basically intuition. So, and just to share with you, those of you that did put your hands up and take part in the poll, when this was done at the Stamford Graduate School of Business, very similar results and that 95% of people got that question wrong. So you're in good company, so. One quote that I really like this one, people might have heard of David Ogilvy, the famous American advertising magnet, but his quote was that most companies use research like a drunk user's a lamppost for support, not illumination. I find that one quite interesting. So have you ever fallen in love with an idea and you can't wait to tell the world about it? How do you feel when the first person tells you, you've just sort of spoken about your great idea, you're full of enthusiasm, the first person you tell says, I don't get it or that'll never work. So your bold vision has just encountered its first reality check. So this is the time to actually ask yourself, is the idea not ready for the world or is the world not ready for my idea? And you think of some business leaders that you admire out there and sometimes they've actually created something through their vision and been ahead of their time, but everybody will catch it eventually if it's a good solid idea. So some tips for this in terms of testing or assumptions is consult with people that you trust. This could be your co-workers, it could be a group of people you trust externally, your friends or colleagues in an industry body. Approach people individually and test your idea in smaller company first. Get different perspectives. So ask somebody that is totally removed or would not get any benefit from your idea, just sort of a completely objective perspective and test your ideas through research and try to predict the outcomes of different ways of doing things. Warren Benes said the first basic ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision. So unless you know where you're going and why you're going there, you cannot possibly get there. I would tend to agree with that. So now let's look at building alignment. So we've now crafted our vision, it's bold, we've tested our assumptions, we've got a very strong vision in place. Now we've got to build alignment within the team. This basically means getting to the point where everyone in the group understands and is committed to the direction. So no matter how clearly you may see the picture of your improved future, your vision, without aligning others and getting them on board or getting buy-in, your vision is gonna remain a pipe dream. So this is the next logical step after crafting a vision. It's the act of gaining buy-in for the vision and it's absolutely critical in moving from imagination to reality. So if crafting a vision is probably the most conceptual part of the VAE model, building alignment is the most people-centric. Therefore, dealing with people, it can be quite complex and it can be unpredictable. But the magic words here are committed to the direction. There is a difference between building alignment and demanding compliance. And unfortunately a lot of organizations, particularly the multinationals and the larger companies, this is a step that often gets missed and that they just say, right, this is our vision and this is what you're going to do and this is what it means. So there's no buy-in, it's more of an instruction so it's a demanded compliance. But it's important to note that building alignment happens both at an emotional and a rational level. Not one or the other, but both. So why is building alignment important? It can conserve time and energy. You know, it's like to try and fight against the grain if people are going against your ideas. It takes a lot of energy to get them on board. It's better to do it up front so it does conserve a lot of time. It can actually provide a forum for questions and concerns and it can unite and excite people around your vision. So effective leaders make sure that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and why. So no wasted energy. Effective leaders invite feedback and input. Acknowledging that some of the whole is actually greater than some of the parts. And leaders should not be afraid of healthy debate as it creates an opportunity for everyone in the organization to feel a sense of ownership of the vision. And it's essential to not just gaining but maintaining buy-in. So if team members are unclear about the big picture and they don't get the vision and they don't have a personal investment, it can actually lead to feelings of disconnection and frustration. So whose responsibility is it to build alignment? Then ask the same question, is it from the top or from every level? That everyone needs to buy-in for something to be effective. So we're next gonna look at how we do that. The first step in building alignment is actually gaining clarity. So this is actually communicating your vision with clarity, explaining your rationale and structuring messages clearly. The research suggests that the leaders often overlook communicating what is obvious and intuitive to them. They've come up with a vision, it's their baby. But to others, it can seem like a mystery. So leaders actually need to connect the dots and put the rationale and put the message out there that this is the thinking behind their decision. So I've listed a few tips here in terms of how we can get clarity. So be straightforward and be as transparent as possible when you're communicating your message. Try to look at it from the listeners' view. Put yourself in their shoes. Monitor people's reactions when you're actually communicating your message and try to find the headline of your message. What's the core thing that people are gonna grab on to and reinforce it regularly? Remember that providing clarity is a delicate balance between keeping it simple and addressing the real world complexities. So you need to share enough information to anticipate basic questions without drowning the listener in details. So the second driver in building alignment is actually dialogue. So this means exchanging perspectives and being receptive to feedback. There's important difference between discussion and dialogue and I don't want to bore you with the literature, but discussion literally means tossing ideas backwards and forwards in a sort of winner-takes-all competition. If you look at the definition of it. However, dialogue is a little bit more subtle and sophisticated. It's from the Greek word deologos, which means putting together. So deat means through and logos means word or meaning. So putting this together, it suggests sort of a free flowing of meaning through a group and allowing time to discover your insights not attainable on an individual basis. So it's group theme, I suppose, and different perspectives. So some tips for this stage. Try to create an open and relaxed environment. It is a two-way conversation. So have one-on-one conversations, but make sure you listen to the other person. So give them a voice. So practice reflective listening. Your tone and body language are very important. So stay receptive. Try to keep your body language open and stay neutral. Remember, it is a two-way conversation, and people that are going to be affected by your vision should be given a voice. So we've all probably heard of the fifth level of leadership. Does anybody know what the fifth level of leadership is and want to hazard a guess or type it in quickly? Because this is very, very valuable in this stage. Nope, nobody has it in their guess? Okay, I'll just say it's actually humility. So nowhere is the value of humility made clearer than in the process of dialogue. It should allow leaders, if done effectively, to benefit from different perspectives by being open and receptive. So the next driver is actually inspiration. So what I want you to do is ask yourself if you're inspiring. This was the same leadership group. And actually, very, very small percentage of organizational leaders actually rated themselves as compelling. Only 5.8% gave themselves a top rating for this. And looking down those lists, captivating was only 8.1% down to dynamic. So if you were to rate yourself on a five-point scale in any of those characteristics, what would you score? The barter in this table would suggest that only a handful of people would rate inspiration as being their thing.  It's actually something that's very, very hard and can make us uncomfortable. However, we can all improve in this area. So let's look at inspiration. What does it mean? It means being expressive and being encouraging. Have you ever read a poem and been moved by it, or perhaps a book or an article? So if you read something that's really profound, it can be just an equally profound reading off the written page or when you hear somebody say it. But the reader, in that instance, has found a way to communicate his passion in a way that connects with the audience. So he's been expressive and he's inspiring. So think about your own situation and how hard it is to encourage somebody at work. It seems easy, but it's actually something most of us struggle to do. Or we just simply forget to do it. Most of us need to make a conscious effort to encourage others and to provide positive feedback. It's easy to be negative, but it's not easy to encourage others and be positive and provide positive feedback. So let's just look at a few tips what we can take away from this. So identify and label in what your passion feels like. So if this idea is successful, what does that feel like for you? And try to get that message across. So speak to people's emotions. You need the rationale, but you also need to get them to buy in and speak to their emotions. Remember, when you communicate in your message, when you're trying to build alignment, your body language and mood is infectious. So everyone said that somebody has an infectious personality. If it's very positive, then people will actually buy into your and be aligned with your vision. Try to provide a common aspiration. What we're trying to do is build alignment and everybody pointing in the one direction and working towards the same goal. And rally the truth. As a leader, that is very much a core responsibility. So thinking about the benefits of this, George Labovitz, and again another American economist, said, in an aligned organization, every employee from the executive suite to the loading dock understands not only the strategy and goals of the business, but also how his or her work contributes them directly. I remember a famous story. We all know who Richard Branson is. He walked into the foyer of a business. And it was actually he got a meeting with the board of directors because it was a business he was thinking of purchasing. So he did his due diligence while he was waiting in the reception area. He walked around and spoke to a few people. And one of the guys he noticed was actually a disabled guy that was sweeping in the foyer. And he was intellectually disabled. So Richard Branson walked up to him and said, what's your job? It's pretty obvious the guy was sweeping the floor and mopping the floor. And the guy turned around to him and said, I'm the director of first impressions. So he knew what his responsibility was there. It might be a menial task, but he knew that it was his responsibility to keep that reception area stick and span and clean so that anybody coming in had a good first impression. So that was his role, he was the director of first impressions. So that's what we mean about aligning everybody. He knew his role in the bigger picture vision of the organization. So we're going to look at the next level of the third driver of the VAE model, which is championing execution. This means ensuring that the conditions are present for the imagined future, your vision, to be turned into reality. So share a little quote by Thomas Edison here, which is always one that amuses me. Vision without execution is actually hallucination. So Thomas Edison is a light bulb thing. So now we've crafted our vision and we've got our people aligned behind the vision. They're all very keen. So what does the role, the leader play in execution? As a leader, you need to create an environment that stimulates creativity and productivity. And leaders need to encourage a sense of positive challenge of collaboration and the development of new ideas. So in effect, the leader needs to champion execution. Let's have a look at why. It serves as a tangible sign of the leader's commitment. They don't just need to talk the talk, they need to walk the walk as well. The leader needs to develop concrete strategies that can be implemented. And it gives people a sense of achievement. So whose responsibility is it? We've asked this question before. Is it from the top or from every level in the organization? Again, it's all levels. So what does execution involve? Let's have a look at how the VAE model addresses execution. The first step is building momentum. So Ralph Emerson basically said, the speed of the leader is determined by the pace of the pack. So the leader's got to bring people within. He's got to be driven and he's got to initiate action, but he's got to make sure everybody keeps up. This is probably the most intuitive part of the VAE model. So he's got to initiate that action. He's got to lead by example. He's got to commit to deadlines and make sure other people are committed to deadlines. And reducing the time between meetings when you're looking at executing a vision, keep the momentum going. Challenge your priorities to make sure that you are focused on the end goal. And the leader needs to recognize proactivity and reward proactivity. Think about a time when you've been on a successful team and you know what it feels like when things are going well. You seem to be getting all the breaks and things are moving ahead at speed. Who wouldn't want to have momentum on their side? So when you've got momentum and you've got everybody working in the same direction, people don't necessarily focus on the pain or the pain of the journey, but they focus on the satisfaction the eventual outcome will bring. The next stage in champion execution is actually providing the structure. So the leader's role in any organization is to provide the plan and to analyze in depth. So involve people in this process. Involve the people that will be doing the work. Develop robust and sharply focused plans. Make it clear what people are expected to do. Communicate them effectively. And think critically about the possible outcomes and allow time to analyze what the results have been to date and do you need to regive your plan? Do you need to change things to make sure it is effective and keep on track? Benjamin Franklin basically said by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail and this is actually critical in actually executing any vision. The next step in champion execution is actually feedback. So address problems as they arise. There's no journey from A to B that goes in a straight line within business. So address your problems as they occur and offer praise for good work and achievements. So tips here would be to create an open culture and have regular dialogue with your people. Focus on problems and not the people. So don't criticize and don't play the blame game. That's really, really critical. So focus on what the problem is not who's caused it or how it's been caused focus on the problems and deliver in solution and give praise but don't just give praise make sure it's genuine and make sure you keep up to date on process on progress, sorry. It's sometimes quite hard to provide frank feedback. We're aware that we may hurt someone's feelings or maybe even damage their confidence but as a leader you actually need to be prepared to go outside your comfort zone. So now we've looked at all the components of the VAE model so let's look how it comes together. This is basically the diagram that says it. So it's got three steps across the top which is crafting a vision, building alignment and champion execution. So there's three drivers for each step and then two behavioral continuator for each driver. So to put this in practice the work of leaders model was developed. Now this was developed by an organization called Integro which run the Everton Disc program. I'm not gonna spend much time on this I can follow up if anybody wants more information I'm happy to provide it but the work of leaders program just looks at this it's a team based workshop for executive teams and leadership teams and every individual gets an individual profile as well. So there is information available and I can actually send this out. I've got a one page summary of this program that I can get Sarah to send out with the follow up email. But it requires everybody to participate in a group forum and it provides a group profile and individual profiles and it's delivered in a series of modules over a full day. Just I'll outline some of the cornerstone principles. It looks at leadership going back to our very early slide as leadership is a one on many relationship. It's relevant for leaders at all levels within an organization. It considers what impacts or influences leadership at the individual level. So character, life experiences, cognitive abilities and maturity and it treats leadership as a collaborative process but recognizes that the journey to become an effective leader is very much a personal one. I'll just give you a couple of examples very quickly of what the information you get in this profile. So this is looking at an individual profile. So looking at the aspect on the, this was crafting a vision and looking at the exploration stage. So remaining open or seeking closure. So looking at this person they're probably slightly more open to staying open and keeping open but they're obviously very strong at prioritizing the big picture rather than the detail. So at a group level, excuse me, similar sort of thing but this is looking at the group collective results. So this group leadership group are very, very strong at prioritizing the big picture but then if you look at the next criteria they can be very, very matter of fact and not necessarily very good at encouraging the group. So that could actually cause problems in a group situation. So then it's, you do actually get suggestions for improving this. So just give an example, prioritizing the big picture. Out of this leadership group of nine people, eight of the nine scored very high on this and one scored in the medium category. So they're all very, very good at doing this and it gives you some ideas to focus on these strengths. So it enables you to think broadly about how all the pieces fit together and the strengths of this group are visualizing how a particular idea of direction might affect the future and they also can recognize when out of date systems are limiting the success of the group. So that's one aspect. The next one is being encouraging. Now, if this was the same group we've got six people out of the nine that score very low on the encouraging scale. Only one scores high. So building alignment could be a problem for this group and this is where it can actually cause problems and lack of morale in people if they're not building alignment and getting people on board with the ideas. So this is actually highlighted, the group results are highlighted in a chart in two ways. First as a graphical representation. So you can see this leadership group very good at exploring the vision. They're reasonably bold, 44% there and they're pretty good at testing their assumptions. They're good at building alignment through clarity but not very inspirational. And in terms of the execution, good at providing structure but not necessarily getting people on board by building momentum and getting the initiating action and possibly not that open to feedback. So two of the things here that this leadership group probably need to focus on or a couple of things here would be providing inspiration to the group. It's not just good enough to communicate it you need to actually inspire people as well and building the momentum. So that could be a problem in actually the execution stage. So you also get this in a different format. Looking at again a graded, I hope that's clear to everybody, the graded results. So you get that in a couple of formats. So plotted on the actual model itself. So just a couple of things on this. It is the model is actually, the benefits are it is executive or leadership team specific. It does look at how individual tendencies influence the effectiveness in specific leadership situation. It is actually based on best practice. It connects with real world demands of leadership teams and it can create powerful conversations and a clear path for action. So to summarize using the VAE framework helps leaders to understand their own leadership behaviors and how these impact on their effectiveness. It can stimulate fresh conversations and perspectives in the organization regardless of individual knowledge levels or experience. And it can help leaders to take action and empower them with personalized tips and strategies to improve their effectiveness individually and their effectiveness as part of the leadership group. So that basically is in summary and we'll send some more information through. So thank you for listening. Does anybody have any questions? No, we don't have any questions that have come through now but if anyone does have any for Tracy please feel free to type them into the chat box in the bottom left hand corner. We also have an exit survey on the right hand side of the page. So if you can please complete that to provide us with your feedback that would be greatly appreciated. I'd just like to hand it over to you Tracy just to wrap up while we wait for some questions to come through. Just in terms of if there were two main things that you'd want people to go away with today what would they really be? Just think about leadership within your own organization and how effective it is. I'm not sure who's in the situation to be a leader or who is part of the leadership team or who is supporting a leadership team but just think about that and look at the model and how you think it could impact your team. Your leadership team particularly but any team that leads within the organization and how this could be improved through using sort of a program such as this. I've run this through several executive teams and it actually always been very productively received and it gives people a language to talk about without being confrontational. So it actually does provide that language and communication channel within the team as well. Great and we do have a question from Gail which I think may be common in many organizations. You're always dealing with that negative person so it can be pretty tricky to feel empowered so do you have any ideas around dealing with negative employees? Yes, again this is about getting alignment and getting people on board. Sometimes it could be the leader that needs to provide more inspiration. Other times some people you're dealing with people and people are very tricky so you can't always, the old phrase is you can lead a horse to water but you can't always make them drink. You're never going to get all the people working in the same direction particularly in a large organization. You'll always get some people that descend to the ideas but all you can try to do is communicate clearly, listen to them. Most people if they feel they're being listened to start to buy into things and start to take ownership. The worst feeling of being disconnected is often when they feel that they're left in the dark and they don't know what's happening and that creates fear. So often negative people tend to be their main emotional driver is fear and it could be fear of the unknown, fear of what's going to happen, fear of the future. So if you can go through this process of the leadership team by building alignment and inspiring people to your direction and giving them clear guidelines and a clear action plan then you can actually with a lot of people overcome that negativity. But I do say a lot of people. You'll always get the ones that just enjoy being negative and that's human nature as well. Absolutely. That's pretty much all the questions now but if anyone does have any more questions when they leave the webinar sometimes some thoughts can start to stew a few hours later, please feel free to email us directly and we'll pass them on to Tracy. We will definitely include Tracy's details in the follow-up email so you can get in touch with her if you would like any further information on today's webinar or her about HR services. And thank you once again everyone for joining. I think it's been a very inspiring, might I say, session Tracy. And it's been great to have you all on board. So thank you once again and we look forward to seeing you at future webinars. Thanks everyone. Thank you.


Russia says seized key heights near Kpyansk in East Ukraine. Russia said it captured several strategic heights near Kpyansk, an eastern Ukrainian city where Moscow's troops stepped up pressure in August, according to agents Franz Preysa. Ukraine launched a counter-offensive against Russian positions in the south in June, but Russia responded by trying to take back territory in the northeast. In the direction of Kpyansk, units of the Western Group of Forces improved the tactical position by capturing enemy strongholds and key heights. The Russian Defense Ministry said it also claimed Ukrainian forces had sustained significant losses. Kpyansk and territory nearby in the Kharkiv region were retaken by key of last September, but Moscow is pushing back. Ukrainian officials ordered vulnerable people to evacuate from several villages near Kpyansk, citing an uptick in Russian shelling. The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that fighting in the south and east of Ukraine was difficult. It said Ukrainian military command was staging neat grinder assaults without providing sufficient cover for their troops.


What is going on guys? Welcome back to channel critical overload here. So as you see here on your screen We are going to be talking about Jeepers Creepers reborn once again Jeepers Creepers 4. So this new image that came out well To give appropriate context this came out last week when that official new website was launched Jeepers Creepers reborn.com where it was going over all the official things regarding the Competitions and how you can sign up for more newsletters and get all these updates that have nothing to do with what you Probably want to see which is a trailer But this image you see here is the creepers frail up hand presumably again looking like this because it just woke up And it's hungry and it seems to have latched on to something and pulled off some hair from what I can see as it's got its hand sticking out of this What I'll say just I'll describe it as a mail slot for now So if you compare this to some of the shots in the trailer or the teaser that we've already gotten of ocean Avaro where she's standing that in the end of that and then we hear her screaming This seems like this is the aftermath of that Where the creeper latched on to the back of her head and has grabbed a piece of her hair because she makes it out of that Instance that will happen in the film alive presumably again to die at a later point. I'm assuming And the creeper or maybe what also my probably was happening there was that the creeper just latched on to her to get a good with through that mail slot and We'll see whether or not she ends up biting the dust because the creeper decides it likes something from her and wants to Kill her and do whatever it wants to do with her The other thing that I was gonna talk about after that new image was go back to another image that we got already of that cult Where we have Sydney Cravens character Lane in the middle a lot of you have pointed out to me that one of the people at The very bottom on the right look like Dee Wallace This is kind of alarming to me and has me has me a little intrigued as to see how this actually would factor into the narrative If she's playing multiple characters and then we're they're just expecting us not to remember because we're only gonna see her for a brief moment later on in the film or if her character of Marie since again, I've already talked about this she's supposed to be involved in this relationship with this other man Ron who's played by Gary Graham this couple Ron and Marie who go on this road trip or they're driving home from church One Sunday and they go to this farmhouse find unspeakable Horrors in it and they're never seen or heard from again. Now. Is this if this is her in this cult Does that mean that the creeper sometimes? Goes out of his way and takes people to his lair or his house of pain and has them begin to do bidding for him Or in other words, does he give them a pass if he decides? He doesn't want anything from them and starts doing other things with them or wants to use them for other stuff We will have to find that out in the actual movie, but I just think that's a little a little Procure and has me intrigued to know why she would be attacked by the creeper early on But then involved in the cult as well later on if she's even involved because that couldn't that it might not Be D Wallace just might be someone who looks exactly like her Well, not exactly, but it just someone who resembles her So if it's not D Wallace then that would probably be the better outcome because if it is her and that's the same character It's gonna be real interesting to see how they justify the creepers motivations with certain people and how they end up Factoring into his cult because then that has me wondering because we never saw what happened to Scotty We know that there was a scene that got deleted that was not well Actually, it wasn't even shot. There was a scene. I believe where we were going to see the creepers Basement or some type of military Bunker that it uses as a layer in the second film, but they never shot that their storyboard art out there for it though So we never saw what happened to Scotty So what if one of these cult members is somehow Scotty and we find out Scotty Survived the events of Jeepers Creepers 2 and just throwing that out there one of these characters in this cult could be Scotty I would hope not I just think that this cult thing if you start doing stuff like that and then bringing in old people from their From the original to and saying that they've been doing his bidding or doing its bidding and preparing things for it for the past 23 years you're gonna have to give me a real convincing reason as to why they were doing that if it if it's been sleeping for 23 years What is it that it has over these people are there other powers that this monster has if that's the case? I might be fine with it Because they've already teased us with the idea. Well, actually we've already seen it play out the telekinesis We've already seen aspects of that that was an aspect that was involved in the cathedral script But the way it came out over in the actual third movie that we got was very comical I know for a lot of people so they don't want to see that Intertwined in any capacity with the fourth movie the way it was making the truck move with its mind was a little bit Ridiculous the telekinesis in of itself was teased in Jeepers Creepers 2 when the dagger had jumped out of Tiger's hand when he was observing it in his house But the way they take it on full head in Jeepers Creepers 3 was just too comical for people So if they want to explore another power like it has some type of ability to control people in a way Then I would be fine with that more so than seeing comical Telekinesis on display again unless you can have a way that it comes off looking a little bit more less comical because the way the effects in Jeepers Creepers 3 tacked on with The way the telekinesis was being performed on certain objects just had a lot of people thinking that the truck had a mind of its own when It doesn't it it doesn't have a mind of its own it was the creeper doing that but it's just the way that He's choosing to use the telekinesis. It just made it come off comical But we'll see I also want to touch on Timo who had a sit-down what you need a horror podcast And I'll leave a link to their video that they did this week He has confirmed that post-production is done the only thing that's being waited on now at this point Is the the distribution this of course for us being screened media if you're in the States Deciding what they want to do as far as a release date What do they want to do because my honest opinion on that matter is I don't know what they think is gonna come out of any Week and they decide to drop this movie if you're deciding that you're gonna go full ham on like a Marketing campaign as the release nears and get all this attention on this movie Maybe that'll draw more attention to it in into into the result of people going out to the theaters to see it Sure, but I think that would also lead to a lot of backlash a lot of negative reception A lot of things that might get the movie pulled from theaters all together Something about this just tells me that this movie is not going to be solely in theaters nationwide I The the times of Jeepers creepers thriving in theaters died in 2003 they waited too long for the third movie We got a third movie that did go to theaters for like two days and then that was it So I don't see how a Jeepers creepers movie can thrive in theaters and during this current climate with all this stuff going on And people having more access to things regarding these serious creator So I just see negative things coming from that So if they are deciding that they want to go full ham on a full theatrical release when they're just in theaters for like a month Or so that'll be like the first major movie I think from screen media that does that and let's say it's actually a box office hit That would be another surprise then that would also guarantee we will get a fifth and sixth movie But who knows what they're doing at this point But Timo did confirm that post production is done and now we just are waiting at release date Let me know what you guys think about all this down in the comment section below if you haven't already of course Make sure you subscribe turn on post location and there's a video in the description I've linked some of social media accounts on Facebook Twitter and Instagram you can message me there Of course, there's any movies news or views let me to cover in the future and with all that in mind guys I will see you in the next video


I just want to thank you all for joining us today for our topping off ceremony. It's an important milestone marking the completion of the structural phase of the Doctor Robert H. Harris Emergency Care Center. As we all know, this project has been very long overdue and a need for the community. I'm happy that we can share this milestone together as we fix the final piece of steel to the building and move on to the next phase of the project. The Doctor Robert H. Harris Emergency Care Center will be state-of-the-art 32,000 square foot facility which will allow our ED capacity to grow to 35 private patient Vs, allowing us to provide the patient care and patient experience possible. I can't think of a project that exemplifies the mission of HMH more than this project. I want to just say that, you know, as this last steel beam rises, that will be the structural support, if you will, for this new emergency care center. And really what's going to make it strong are the doctors, the nurses, the team members at Bayshore Medical Center that are going to take care of thousands and thousands of people and literally save thousands of lives. We have a group of people who have dreamt for this moment for 10 years. That's an awfully long dream. This single beam that all of us signed represents so much. Not only does it complete the foundation and the structure of the physical space, but is also a symbol of the strength and the fortitude of the Bayshore team. Congratulations. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who has reached this milestone.


Hey, this is Brett, and this 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 Crew Cab Short Box is stock number 12701Z. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, your new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters. This 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 has the 6-liter V8 gas engine. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop per the state of Wisconsin Inspection Process. It has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this truck is 100% ready to go. We're going to go all the way around, inside, underneath, start it up, and take a look under the hood in this video. Black clear coat is the color, and we shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality, condition, options, and cleanliness of the truck before seeing it in person. And if you like the video and how we do things here at Summit Automotive, consider clicking the button in the upper right hand part of the screen, which is a subscribe button to our YouTube channel, and then click the bell notifications if you want, and you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Auto, and you might just find your next truck on that YouTube channel. Comes with the 18-inch chrome dalloway rims. They're in really nice condition, and it has hand-cooked DynaPro MT2 tires. These are LT27570R18s, and they have a good amount of tread left, I'd say probably 80-90% of the tread left on those tires. Frame and underbody is in really nice condition for being a 2016. This is a one-owner clean title history, clean car fax out of Illinois. Comes with the projector lamp headlamps, factory fog lights, front bumper, the only thing I noticed is it's got just a little bit of a dent underneath the fog light there, but other than that, I really didn't see anything wrong with this truck. Has the factory fog lights, like I said, chrome trim grille, the projector lamp headlamps, the hood is in excellent condition, I didn't see any dents or dings on there, and the passenger side front fender is in very nice shape as well. Passenger side rim, no major scuffs or scrapes on there, and as you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is, and we take these HD videos, so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here, so when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at, and if this video helps you make that decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video that it was helpful and that Brett sent you. Back rim, excellent shape, back tires, just as nice and new as the front ones, and the frame and underbody, once again, this is a 2016, so this frame and underbody is in phenomenal shape, lower rockers, cab corners all look great, comes with some nice factory step bars, passenger side box, I didn't see any dents or dings on that, coming around to the back of the vehicle, rear bumpers in great shape, does have the backup parking sensors, rear bumper steps, and the full towing package which includes a receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring, the tailgate is in excellent condition as well, and this one comes with a linex spraying bed liner, has a shock down assist, I've always considered linex to be the best bed liner, that's what I got on my truck, and the bed's in really nice shape as well, I didn't see any major dents or dings back here, tailgate shuts nice and solidly, and as you go down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger side, I like that it's got the factory mud flaps on it, always keeps your cab corners and lower rockers looking good, back room is in excellent condition as well, and down the rest of this side, the doors look pretty good, I didn't see any major dents or dings, this one does come with the telescopic tomers, they have built in directional signals, LED side lights, they telescope out like so, and fold in like that, inside the LT1 package gives you the black cloth interior, there are no rips, there are no tears on the seats, they're in very nice clean condition, comes with a power driver seat, these front seats are heated, factory all-weather floor mats, auto headlamps turned out four-wheel drive and factory brake controller, power windows, power locks and power mirrors, we'll hop inside, check out the miles, radio and everything that this truck has to offer on the interior, so you can see that this one has 42,143 miles, you do get a digital speedometer, compass display, comes with the leather-wrapped steering wheel, cruise controls on the left, Bluetooth and information center controls on the right, does come with the six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift, and this one does have the Chevy MyLink radio, AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities, it also has all your different apps that you can do here and this is also where your backup camera shows up, CD player, heated seat buttons, power pedals, stability control that's for your cargo lamps, that's also how you turn on those LED side lights and then your parking sensors, you can turn those off, this one comes with two USBs, two 12-volt power points and a 110 volt 150 watt plug-in, nice and clean there, passenger side format and seat are in excellent condition, I didn't see any rips or tears on there, the headliner is in nice condition as well, you do get map lights up here, power side rear window button and home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lighting systems, it also has the on-star and SOS capabilities in the rear-view mirror, we'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll check out under the hood, this one also has the wireless cell phone charge pad, you can see all the room that you get back here when those seats are up and they fold down nice and easily and you can see just how clean they are, you get the latch child safety system, power sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost, once again the seats are in very nice shape, no rips, no tears and you get that all-weather floor map back here, side curtain airbags, back doors are in nice shape and the bottoms of the doors are in excellent condition as well, there are those LED side lights you can see that they are super bright and this one also has the LED bed lighting so you can see right there there's one on the other side too but just brightens up the bed if it's dark out, we'll start it up and take a look under the hood, starts right up, no check engine lights or anything like that, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video of this 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 Frucab short box and hopefully from this HD video you'll been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck all the way around inside, now under the hood once again we have the 6 liter V8 gas engine, engine base very clean, runs very smooth once again this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go, there is your emissions sticker and I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half tons, three quarter tons, one tons, you name it we got to go to that website right there www.SummitAuto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at SummitAuto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to YouTube.com slash Summit Auto remember to like, subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there click the bell notifications and you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Automotive in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on the upper left to link to more Silverado 2500 truck videos like this one the upper right a link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left and a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right click those check us out and we're super excited to help you with this Ultra Clean 2016 Chevy Silverado 2500 true cab short box LT1 gasser and black bear coat thanks again for checking out the video remember to like subscribe and share


So Jenny, it's an honor to have you, and thanks for allowing us to share some of your music up front. That's super cool.  But for those who don't know, tell us more about the DIY music scene at that time and sort of that digital music revolution. Okay. Well, I grew up in Washington DC, which is credited as being one of the homes of DIY, although DIY happens anywhere. Someone teaches themselves how to build something. But, you know, DIY, every punk scene had a different quality to it. Seattle had a really interesting quality because they had some pop which became this kind of worldwide commercial phenomenon. And so they had this sort of really interesting small town big world quality to them in DC, you know, every, every, every city has a different quality and in DC it's the government right so you've got these high performing globally focused individuals, you know, and all of the NGOs of the world are there and all of the major marches that happened back in the 80s and 90s would all happen in Washington. So it had this kind of mixture of kind of workaholism, political engagement, and sort of a sense that you really were at the center of a place where you could change the world and I think all of those things influenced the kids that made up the punk scene. And it's hard to even imagine in the same way that like it's hard to imagine a world before all of the sort of major tech that, you know, before Google search or any of this kind of stuff. But back then when I was in high school there really wasn't an infrastructure for, you know, national tours and independent music didn't have a place to be played on mainstream radio. And some people thought that was really good, because you know you had all these pockets of creativity and a lot of people looking intently at their own scenes and it created this kind of nurturing environment that sometimes goes away when everyone's chasing the big wins that happened. But it was a really interesting moment where people were basically building everything. So if they wanted to put out a record no one was going to put their record out because there wasn't a label that cared about this stuff. So they actually had to figure out how to, you know, do the artwork and find the pressing plant and go into the studio and put out the records themselves. And because everybody was doing that everyone helped each other do that, and it created this kind of environment that was really enabling. One of the things I love about that technologists and why I think in my later life I've spent so much time with them is that they have a lot of the same kind of can do spirit and ability to imagine the future that artists have as well. So that's that's with the DCC and the DIY movement that I came up in. Cool. So you sort of evolved from sort of, well, still a musician, but you became an advocate for independent musicians. Tell me about that. Well, I was an advocate before I was a musician. So there was a there was an organization called Positive Force in DC, which was really unique in the sense that like a lot of people like care about an issue and then they joined Greenpeace or they joined some established nonprofit organizations and and volunteer for them. But Positive Force was basically empowering these really really young kids to do whatever. And so it was this collective so if I was like a 13 year old and I was concerned about suicide or I wanted to put on a concert in a park. The 21 year old who was part of the collective would help me go down and get a permit from the local government to have that concert. Before we would sort of design the kind of activism we wanted to do ourselves.  Sometimes it was efficient, you know, where we do some incredible thing like organized concerts in front of the White House because you could do that back then. And sometimes it was really inefficient like we decide we want to feed the homeless so we're going to make a pot of soup and try to find them and hand them soup. But what was great was you really could use all of your creativity and you really could work on anything you cared about so it was really really empowering organization. So I did that before I was a musician. And it was just sort of the water we swam in the positive force did a lot of benefit concerts, and I started being in bands. And then when I came out of that work. I had this record label.  And I was working at the Washington Post, in a silly job where I was writing the ads for for the newspaper, and I had a fast internet connection. And that was really unique back then it's hard to imagine that but like, I had a fast desktop, because I needed it in order to design And in that I saw everything beginning like you know my thrift store may then saw eBay for the first time you're like all this stuff was coming in. And because we have this catalog all the music labels that were starting at that time the online music labels all came to us and said you know can we license your catalog. One thing we'd been known for when we were in the, you know, what I world was we put a guide to putting out records together it was like a 16 page thing if you sent us 50 cents, we put two stamps on it and send it to you, and it sort of gave you all the recipe of how you put out a physical record. And so when we started getting all these requests we thought all right it's time to update this we need to figure out what's the right thing to recommend for people to do in the digital environment. We realized, you know, as we were learning this that they were like 60 different companies and they had all these roles like you can own your copyrights or you can sign a contract or you don't have to sign a contract all these different options. But as the bubble burst, the first tech bubble, all those companies either went out of business or merged or were purchased by other companies, and very quickly we saw things like, you know, the company music which had sort of created itself as like the renegade punk rock version of this was purchased by Universal Music, which was like the man, you know, the most major label. And what we realized was like it's not going to be enough everything's happening. It's too early to know what the right things to do in the space are. So we realized it wasn't enough to say like go to this company or sign this kind of contract or do this with your copyrights, we actually realized it was all happening in real time. And so we started Future of Music Coalition, which was specifically trying to complexify some very simple narratives like all the, all of the sort of open copyright people were saying that you know any sort of copyright was theft, and all of the major labels were saying any sharing of anything was theft. And frankly, you know, we felt that most musicians were somewhere, you know, they didn't want everything to be free, they needed to make a living and they also didn't want to give more power to the overlords who had controlled the radio and controlled the record labels. So I did that for about seven years, and that's how I got the bug, thinking about the way that technology was changing everything in the world. Right. Yeah, I think there's so many commonalities from the open source movement, which really was sort of happening at the same time that you were leading the Future of Music Coalition so super interesting. So I mean you look at some of your work today, you know the World Wide Web is really seen as a public resource, yet it still often can bring socio economic disparities and other issues. So, you know, sort of bridging what you've learned and all that you've brought as being an advocate. What are some of the current challenges you're seeing at the Ford Foundation and sort of what commonalities and sort of threads, are you among some of these social issues for the web. Yeah, I mean there's, there's so many of them and you know I've been at Ford forever, like, you know I've basically, you know if I was a dog when a puppy when I came to Ford I probably wouldn't be alive. A long time ago. But when I came I came actually because I received a grant from Ford to work on these copyright issues because I was sort of right at the center of it. And, and Ford cared about access to information, and they also cared about artists and arts. So, so I sort of fit that job perfectly. And we had a brand new president and he said to me, do you want to work on cultural policy or media policy because the position was called media and cultural policy. It's like you can't do both we're all doing too many things you can't do both which one. And I said I want to work on internet policy. And he says well what's that I'm like well there's no rules in relation to the internet environment yet he's like aren't all those rules already created I'm like no no none of them are created at all. And so that's how it started and so the early challenges of the portfolio were that. You know a lot of them are the same challenges they're just showing up in a different way, but were that technology was transforming every aspect of our lives. That were indisible to the majority of the public, and all of the systems that try to protect the public. You know, imperfectly at times, but in a democratic environment so the government who can actually sort of regulate companies who are acting in bad in bad ways, or civil society organizations like I said Greenpeace before who can go out there and try to raise awareness and you know environmental issues, all of the established protectors of the public for the most part, didn't notice that everything was transforming and couldn't see it. And the sad fact is that so many of the people in positions of power in government and in philanthropy and in civil society were of an age that they never had that fast internet connection on their desk. And so they're in charge of the world, but they don't really understand the change, and they always think of technology in a transactional way, as opposed to in a systems way. And so I think that's that was the biggest problem back then that we had no advocates who could actually say you know net neutrality is the important because, you know, if we don't have it it's like paola for the entire internet and only the wealthy and connected can be on the fast lane. We needed people to be able to understand those systemic questions back in the day and now we still need it, you know, I think the challenges a lot of the people who are in leadership positions are made to feel very stupid by technology so they ignore it. Well I'm only going to be here for a couple more years so someone after me will fix it and that keeps getting kicking it down the down the road. And while that's happening the private sector is in a completely on. It's like a race to the bottom, really, and not just a race to the bottom among themselves but among the world, you know. If we're competing with companies in other parts of the world that don't have laws around freedom of expression or privacy, you know, they're they're creating their technology to compete with the world in a way that completely forgives themselves of any of their responsibilities to the public so those are the really, really big challenges how do we get technologists and not just any but the right kinds of them in all these places so that we can be safe in the future. Yes, I mean there is so much to tackle so how has what sort of strategies and solutions are you implementing at the Ford Foundation to tackle these. Well there there's a lot I mean some of it's just building a field of experts who can actually say oh well you know when this tech company says that no one cares about privacy this is what they need, you know and this is why that's what they need or they're actually controlling the market in a way where there's no competition if anybody could vote with their feet or their pocketbook they would but there's no market competition in this environment. So we need people who can actually make the arguments about the dangers of unconstrained or or I'd also say like if you're a strong capitalist, uncapitalistic technology environment because there's really not competition in so many places, you know there's such winter take all power dynamics with some of these companies, but putting all of that aside, I think you know the the biggest most interesting thing for me right now is when I first came to Ford, I flew out to California and I sat with a lot of the companies that seem to have a civic mind to them like the Wikipedia's or the kivas, you know at that time was a big deal and it just started, and like, ask them, are you concerned about net neutrality, you know, if you know if people had a certain amount of money to be on the web wouldn't that undermine your business model, you know, would to make it hard for people to access this information. And what we found is there was a bias on the west coast, which most tech companies and most technologists felt like tech was always going to be speedy efficient and would do no evil. And if there were any problems they would root around it with the technical solution. They really weren't interested in Washington. And what we found historically is that most companies aren't interested in Washington till they get sued, then they get, then they get a policy shop, and then they spent a lot of time usually publicly denying that they're doing what they're actually doing or trying to change what people think about what they're doing. But what was interesting to me is we've seen this enormous shift and it's really what makes me so optimistic right now like open source people always knew that how you design something will determine whether it is rights undermining or rights undermining they just know that and that having competing models is what keeps people honest. So if someone builds a technology that's doing something you don't like a technology that does something different than that gives gives the market the opportunity to move in a better direction. So, but, but you are small, you hit you open source people are small in the world in relation to all of the public in the world. What I love right now though is that all the change in the world, whether it is the racial reckoning we're going through around the lack of diversity and the way that black people have been held it down. Women have been, you know, made to feel like second class citizens in these environments, or the kinds of scary disinformation that we're seeing and the confusing media environment that we're in, or the total lack of privacy and the constant hacking, you know, and things that we're experiencing we know something's wrong. And what I love is that the technologists of this generation are less quick to say tech will always be good. They understand that it's neither good nor bad, until we make it so. And so what I'm seeing is an enormous hunger at companies, and not at companies at universities, by students to really take these very rare and valuable skills they have, and to use them in a different way that actually builds the world they want to live in, as opposed to the one that they're afraid of living in. So I do think we're in this kind of critical moment where we're going to have different kinds of technologists, we're going to come out and go different kinds of places, not just to the five companies but out into the world.  Let's hope. I know I had listened to an NPR story with you and I think 2004 and you talked about sort of the voice of the musician was lost in policy debates. Do you think that's changing I mean you mentioned the university students so you do see a shift more where the individual voice of developers, for example, and those of us in technology have a voice. Yeah, I mean, I mean the problem with the musicians is like, and again this is a little sometimes this is a little bit the open source thing as well, is that you know, we're so interested in what we're interested in. We're interested in writing the song, or that spectacular song that that other person wrote that is so much better than your song that it kicks your butt and makes you want to write an even better like you're so focused on the thing that really fires you up and I'm sure the same thing is true with technology you're so focused on open source project. Exactly. All this other stuff around like, what is this policy, what is this rule, what is this law, you know, or, you know, all that other stuff seems less pure and kind of distracting from what you most care about. But the, and, you know, the challenges that you know in the case of the music landscape. It was only too easy for both the major tech companies and the major music companies to find some artists to be mascots that stood in front of these positions that were really business decisions around like well it's all open we can make all this money or if it's all closed we can make this kind of money. And what I found was frustrating was, you know, they would hold up a musician and say musicians say this. And if you've ever met a musician I'm sure this is true with the open source people because I've been around them. If you ever have, you know, three musicians together there's like 15 positions on any issue, you know they have very strong and complex positions on things. So the idea that you could just say that musicians want this, or they don't want this is, is a real problem. And the fact that they're so focused on their art is great for us but it's also bad at times because they can be, they would be the best advocates for a better world but they're more focused on the world they want to create which is in art. And that's why we need these hybrids and and what I would say about the technology landscape I'm seeing right now is, it's the investments we're making about building this field that we're calling the field of public interest technology is focused on investments the four foundation made back in the 60s and 70s to build the field of public interest law. And for those of you who are lawyers you almost can't imagine that there was a time where you know the pro the major law firms didn't have a pro bono. There was a practice where you could like be at a firm and work on capital cases or environmental cases for part of your time, or that you know there were pathways into the ACLU or the NAACP legal defense fund. But none of these organizations really existed before the investment to build them. And it was largely built around a similar moment of cultural tumult and change, like the one we're in right now but it was the civil rights movement. And there was a real need to have lawyers that could actually defend people who are doing civil disobedience or bring cases around, you know, voting rights and other kinds of issues. And so what I love about this moment is the sort of, it's this kind of mutual development of a real clear I'd need to do something different with these technology skills and the same way in the 60s and 70s these lawyers were like it's not enough for me just to work with them at this moment. So we're seeing that same kind of phenomenon. And what makes me optimistic about this right now is, they will find much better solutions when they take all that energy they've been focusing on, I don't know, stroking the algorithm, whatever they're trying, and focus on actually how to make these kinds of systemic changes to how you know people get vaccines or how people believe in the news, or how people can pick between social media environments that enshrine their privacy rights and don't just sell all their data to everyone. So there's just an abundance of things to work on and I think we have, I'm seeing just a really willingness to do so, sort of how, from your experience how can people organize to prioritize which issues to work on when you're trying to account for diverse stakeholders. What's your experience. Every single issue that you could care about has a technical component to it at this point this is what I'm always trying to say and this is again this challenge that I have when I'll go to like talk to a president of foundation or, you know, ahead of an NGO and say to them, you know, we really need a technology lens on what you're doing. They'll say, Oh, but we have this person who's building this app or who's organizing this, you know, flash mob or what you know I know that's outdated but you know the point that I'm meaning is there, they think about technology as an instrumentalist tactical, you know, tool, as opposed to the ecosystem. Right. So like a perfect example like the first argument I made for changing to have an Internet portfolio at Ford was like Ford had just made like a $5 million investment in NPR so that they could begin to develop podcasting, like it used to be podcasting. And so this idea was like how do you take this great content, which we listen to on our radio and make it something that's actually going to be in the Internet environment. Okay, we'll think about that in an environment of a non neutral net, you know, public radio has very tight margins, right. Imagine if they actually had to pay for you to be able to access this American life or whatever it was. They weren't thinking about the ecosystem that they assumed would stay the same in the environment where they were creating the tactical solution. And so what I always say to people is like anything you care about if you care about reproductive rights and health and you care about whether you know working mothers can have health care. If you care about the environment. Every single element of this will have technology transforming the ecosystem around it, and potential tech solutions that could actually create greater problems if they weren't applied correctly. And so what's wonderful is if anybody who is trying to build something they care about or trying to invest in something they care about, it's less about building it in a whole cloth by itself like Oh, this will be the solution to that as a tool. It's more about being with the best advocates that you know the most impacted populations and saying, what's not working. And how do we solve it and what I find is that there are going to be parts of it that are rocket science but a lot of it is basically just best practice that most people who don't have a tech mindset, don't have an easy access to understanding how they might approach it so off the shelf solutions that a private sector person would use without thinking, or maybe like, you know, Greek to NGOs that are underfunded they don't have technologists or even a lot of our government systems, which is, which is why they have such a hard time. So, amazing, but still lots of transferable skills. Right. Yeah, I think maybe more so with our open source community we are so used to really collaborating with folks with our competitors across countries and things like that. So, what would you say to some of these folks to maybe encourage them to use their skills for the public good for public interest technology or perhaps even going to work for the government or an NGO. Well, it's never been easier to do this, you know what we found, like we had to build a lot of these systems because we need the technologists right so all our grantees. I was a, I was in the field right I had, I was forward grantee before I became a program officer. And I was so proud of myself when I became a program officer because I was going to solve everything I had this $3 million budget now and everything was going to be all for the field. And I'm going to be in the room with the funders I can tell them how important these issues are.  And so I'll fix something else, you know, like, I don't know how to get this axe out but I'm you know I'll make myself a cup of tea because I'm a little tired or whatever it is, you know. But, but yeah the punchline about this long winded story that I was telling you is I had all the grantees that was there was about like 10 of them, 10 organizations working on these issues at that time. And I said, Alright, if you had all the money in the world because you do now I've got $3 million right. That's all the money you'll ever need to save the internet. What else would you need. And they all said we need technologists that understand our issues but that we can work with because what we found is, so many of the engineers and the best of them have usually gone through a cycle of pure computer science or pure engineering schools without many humanities, and with this sort of tech solutionism as a sort of Bible that they hold to themselves that the tech will always solve these problems. And what we found was like, these people often didn't have some of the soft skills or the curiosity to be able to figure out how to pick the right problem to solve. And or how to work in an environment that wasn't, you know, fast paced and, and you know, and then there's financial concerns as well like you don't make as much money if you're working in the government or in the NGOs but what we found is, through these pathways I'll ask that question explicitly so I'll say like, there are things like the tech talent project, which is actively done work to try to recruit strong technologists to take tours of duty within government, you know so something like this there are a bunch of organizations like this and we can find some links and you can link to them somewhere. The NGOs are desperate for them now like we have a whole tech fellows program we've done now for five years with Mozilla, where they help vet the tech shops and we do the sort of partnership vetting and we put technologists into NGOs like amnesty international human rights watch. These are places that by the way have nice budgets they actually could hire technologists, but without the kind of system to figure out where to place the technologists and what kind of skills for what kind of work. Usually the first one never gets placed unless we can do that and if we do it properly, then like amnesty has like 20 technologists now. But it takes just sort of someone explaining or helping them to find what they need and matchmaking and then them feeling the joy. And what we find is that a lot of these technologists like the one at amnesty, the first one that went came from Cisco. And, you know, amnesty immediately like wanted to hire him, and he said you know it's going to be very hard to go back and work in the private sector after, after having the experience of the kind of meaningful work that I'm doing here. Amazing. I was going to ask for some of your favorite examples but it sounds like you have so many with ones you just shared do you have any others you'd like to. There is this amazing article that you can Google in the Atlantic about. It's a project called 18 F, and it was set up. It was set up in the aftermath of the failure of the health care.gov website. And it was a way that the government figured out how to recruit a different kind of talent in at a moment of crisis. And this article about these folks in an Airbnb in, I think it was like in Crystal City or Clarendon which is right across the river from Washington, solving the technical problems for like pennies on the $100 bills of what was initially spent. It's just such an exciting, I feel like for me, it's like an action film. And, and again, over and over again, we've heard from individuals who've gone through these as long as they're placed well and treated with respect which part of what was interesting about 18 F was. There wasn't a requirement that there wasn't a guarantee that you'd get an 18 F person you actually had to agree to certain things like you had to agree to place them at a certain level and give them a certain level of power within an agency. And this actually meant that they could actually make the kinds of changes they needed to make at a systemic level because government I think and rightly so is conservative. It's worried. If we do the wrong thing, all these downstream harms will happen. But sometimes that creates a paralysis. So, so the 18 F article in the Atlantic, which is from quite a long time ago is, I can't believe there's not more articles about how interesting this stuff is. US digital response, which was an organization that sort of came out of the Code for America, sort of network. Because of COVID, and because of, because of, you know, our racial reckoning moment. And because of, you know, pandemic and quarantine. All of those issues were issues that governments across the country were just struggling with how do we get people checks. How do we deal with whether we're master not how you know how do we make our systems more transparent and helpful at this moment where people are needing so much. So US digital response was an amazing, it stood up for for this moment still exists now and is going to get back bigger, but we're able to sort of recruit private sector, and some other talent to be match made with individuals to solve big problems. And so there's a lot of this stuff that's just sort of developing itself because no one developed it, but it's proved its usefulness so my sense is it's going to become to systematize, you know, and hopefully government will have learned its lesson and we'll start hiring in a different way as well. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, you're right. I've seen some really cool tour duties on folks really making a difference and yeah really appreciate your leadership and sort of that bridge between the public and private sectors. I mean, well, I don't do it. I just fund the geniuses that do it. And I can also say that it was very selfish like we needed these technologists ourselves. You know, you can't you can't make an argument for why a company is doing something that they shouldn't be allowed to do if you can not make the technical technical arguments about what can happen what can't happen. And for so long, you know, people would wander around the hill on behalf of some of these companies and say, you know, those advocates, you know, they're, you know, they just don't understand that you know, we're not doing that and they don't really understand how to make the changes that you want us to change. And you know, it's just not true. But you actually have to put your money where your mouth is and actually show why it's true and to do that we need a different kind of technologist working with government and civil society. Right. Yeah, and I know your website's really been showcasing some of those geniuses who are making a difference. So I encourage you all to take a look. I'm kind of in closing kind of on a lighter note, you know, I love live music and we're sort of fortunate in the US that things are opening up a little bit so kind of my question to fold who's what's the favorite band or musician you've played with and who are you looking forward to hearing live in the future. That's interesting. You know, one of the benefits. I'm a DC girl but because of my job at Ford I've had to live in New York for a long time, you know, some people say had to live like it's tragedy but it's a living living in New York is the free concerts in Central Park in the summertime. It's just there's nothing like it. You know it's a first come first serve to get the tickets, and then you're outside in a beautiful park in the middle of this enormous park. And, you know, anything you see there is going to be joyful I remember we saw Gregory Porter once and it was like all he was so delicious he was playing with an orchestra, and all these strangers were just like buying each other ice cream and having the most fun in the world so something like that where you can, it's not just about seeing music but the idea that you can enjoy it with strangers. You know who you don't know if they've been vaccinated or not or if they're you know like you've, we've been made to feel afraid of our call you know like, think about it we've had a year and a half of crossing the street when someone is walking towards you. And now how we can be next to each other and dance with each other and, you know, and meet strangers is going to be some muscles that I'd like to work on in the future. Yeah, same here it's very likes and live music it really just sort of unifies folks. Yep. I love, I love so much music, like I really miss like going to a jazz club and not knowing who's there. You know, I love that sort of Nick and Nora film thing where you know the jazz is amazing but the conversation is amazing and it doesn't keep you from solving the murder it's just a part of the whole night. Love going to jazz clubs for that reason. And what about you I mean if you were, if you were in the grunge 90s you must have had some favorites that. Yeah, I mean in some again it was the venue it was a crocodile club or they sort of graduated but yeah I think going forward I mean we bought our tickets already for Austin City Limits which is always fun. Yeah, kind of a nice tradition sitting outside it's just yeah really with the jazz fest in New Orleans, which I think they moved to fall which means we might be able to go this year so. Very cool. Well thank you so much for participating in OpenJS world we are so delighted to have you and hope to do more with you and the Ford Foundation. Well we need you so much so much of the web is dependent on the like the toiling, the invisible toiling of the open source community and we need to know more about what you're doing and we need to respect it so tell your stories. We will we have wonderful folks working on the web so. Oh God and I didn't even talk about Michael Brennan which is like we're going to put some links to because there's actually a program officer who does nothing but wake up every day and think about the open web so. Great. You all come and talk to him. So we'll talk to him, and we'll definitely we'll share links and share more in our blog. Awesome. Nice meeting you. Thanks so much.


And obviously it's quite close, but when you're smashing the ball in I want just a nice pass shot into the corners if we can, yeah? Right that's that one.  So your end product there is your combination. Your end product there is your shot. These three if we've done a pass and we've done a shot what else will we have in the game? A cross. So we're gonna cross the ball to that player there and so on yeah? Good save. On your feet. Dary's there, good. Nice and quick distribution here then Matt, yeah? Good decision Matt, I like it.  Good. Play shot there is that yeah? Good movement Tommy like that. Okay good stop there.  You've got to be looking around what's that nice word we like to use? You've got to be scanning around you've got to be so nosy in here to know exactly where the ball is at every single moment of time yeah? Obviously with the dribbling what a 3M products which one of them was a shot on goal so we had the keeper to involve the keeper in the session obviously had a goalkeeper tonight. We had one which was a combination play around a mannequin and then the third one was the cross so they're actually running down the side of the pitch not a huge cross because they're still warming up and getting used to the ball but it's just getting them into the right frame of mind obviously to get their head up and see the cross as the end product. Come on Matt, then give your start position here Matt yeah? Would you stay on the line all the time? There you go good boy make it smaller. And then obviously in that session we added the neutral player in the middle so again which keeps saying the picture changes in the game so much you know we can't just have them running straight lines because the picture does change there's another player there can they use them it's their decision. Now Aaron is going to be the magic man in here. He is the Iniesta. We want him on the ball as much as he can but if you're running with the boy you might get your head up because it might be Aaron's there you start running through Tommy saying I'm Aaron popping in Tommy it may be now I play a little set in there with you and then he gets around and then I'm back in here then we're back in for the next person yeah? It could be yes Macca if you're dribbling through we can pop the ball into you. It could be yes Dary your dribbling through start dribbling.  And that's what we're trying to stress all the time is their decision it's not our decision we just set the pictures and let them then work out the puzzles themselves really.