Changemaker Mindset

EXPERIAN WAS BEING DISRUPTED BY FINTECH STARTUPS. THEN THEY TURNED THE TABLES When Jeff Softley joined Experian’s consumer division ten years ago, things looked bleak. The business had endured 16 quarters of declining revenues. It was being disrupted by venture backed fintech startups that didn’t need to turn a profit for years—if ever. How do you run a business charging customers for what other companies are giving away for free? How do you compete against companies that don’t need to earn money? That, in a nutshell, was the challenge Jeff Softley was facing. The key to his salvation—And Experian’s—was understanding that they needed to change. You can complain that the competition is unfair all you want. But unless you can create new value, you’re toast. So Jeff and his team set out to find how they could create a new business model that served consumers well. There were no easy answers, but they worked the problem and iterated until they got it right. Today, Jeff Softley runs a $1.5 billion business serving 70 million customers NOTABLE QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE 1. “Mobilizing people is only useful if you can channel it to influence institutions.” — Greg Satell 2. “Disruption teaches you that you’ve always got to be looking for what you can do that others cannot.” — Jeff Softley 3. “We didn’t tell anybody—we started with a test because tests are not threatening.” — Jeff Softley 4. “A new idea is like an ugly baby—you don’t take it to a biker bar and leave it to fend for itself.” — Greg Satell 5. “We clarified a North Star: we were going to build products that were first to market, best in market, or the only place on planet Earth you could get them.” — Jeff Softley FURTHER READING & RESOURCES * Experian Boost – experian.com/boost * Greg Satell’s Book, Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change – Amazon Link [https://www.amazon.com/Cascades-Create-Movement-Transformational-Change/dp/1260454015] * Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. on Leading Innovation – Amazon Link [https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Bob Sutton is among the most influential business scholars today. One of Stanford’s Business School’s most distinguished professors, a bestselling author of seven books including, most recently, The Friction Project, he has advised CEO’s ranging from Pixar’s Ed Catmull to IDEO’s David Kelley. Yet his career didn’t start out in an ivory tower, but in a pizza shop smoking pot. It was through a series of relationships, starting with the woman who would become his wife, that he found his path. Along the way he built the bonds that led to penetrating insights about how organizations function. In this episode, Bob shares his thoughts on how leaders do—and don’t—create the conditions for their organizations to succeed and shares personal anecdotes about famous CEOs, the founding of Stanford’s “D-School” and much more.  Bob Sutton’s website: https://www.bobsutton.net/ [https://www.bobsutton.net/] Bob’s new book: https://amzn.to/40gaDTH [https://amzn.to/40gaDTH] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

One of the most basic responsibilities of a government is to keep its people safe. In a city, that first line of defense is the police. They are trained to investigate crimes, handle violent criminals and put them in jail. Yet police departments also spend a lot of time on repeat nonviolent incidents. They manage domestic disputes, mental health episodes and sometimes just people who are down on their luck. This realization led to the creation of Endmonton’s HELP program, which has been highly successful in reducing police calls and overall crime rates. Perhaps most importantly, it’s improving the lives of Edmonton's most vulnerable citizens.  Enyinnah Okere, Edmonton Police Service’s Chief Operations Officer Joins us to tell us the story of how it all developed as well as his own incredible journey. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Whitney Johnson was one of the top analysts on Wall Street. Yet when she met Clayton Christensen, she realized her fate path would lead somewhere else. As she would later write in a landmark in Harvard Business Review, she would disrupt herself and leave her top job at a Wall Street firm. Today, Whitney is regularly ranked as one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world and is one of the most widely sought after executive coaches. Where she once climbed the ladder as a woman in the male-dominated world of Wall Street, now she focuses on empowering others to climb their own s-curve from novice to mastery.  Yet she also learned something else along the way: To truly embrace disruption, you must first find safety. It is only from a sense of security and well being that you can embrace the risks you need to reach your full potential! Whitney’s Website: https://thedisruptionadvisors.com/ [https://thedisruptionadvisors.com/] Whitney’s “Disrupt Yourself” article in Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2012/07/disrupt-yourself-3 [https://hbr.org/2012/07/disrupt-yourself-3] Whitney’s “Thinkers 50” profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/whitney-johnson/ [https://thinkers50.com/biographies/whitney-johnson/] Whitney’s latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Growth-Grow-People-Company/dp/1647821150/ [https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Growth-Grow-People-Company/dp/1647821150/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

We are in the midst of an upskilling crisis. Rapid industrial changes and an increasingly competitive global environment, with countries like China and India emerging as technology superpowers, mean millions of workers need to upskill to remain economically viable. Community colleges play a crucial role in this transformation. Aspen Award winner Russell Lowery-Hart, Chancellor of the 50,000-student Aspen Community College system, believes educators must move beyond being mere gatekeepers.  He believes that educators need to love their students to success. If this sounds idealistic or naive, consider Russell’s impressive track record. As President of Amarillo College, he boosted completion rates from 19% to 62% in just five years. Now at Austin, he faces an even greater challenge: preparing the workforce to meet the skill demands of one of the world’s leading technology hubs.  Russell’s Biography: https://offices.austincc.edu/chancellor/biography/ [https://offices.austincc.edu/chancellor/biography/] About the AustinCommunity College system: https://www.austincc.edu/about-acc/ [https://www.austincc.edu/about-acc/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.