Design Thinking: Creating Leaders Who Are Triathletes

Episode Transcript

Kelly Ryan Bailey  00:01

Hi, everyone, welcome to Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby. I am your host Kelly Ryan Bailey. Each week I chat with inspiring visionaries about the skills that make them successful, how they develop those skills, and their innovative approaches to improving skills based hiring and learning around the world. Come learn what skills help you live your best life. This week, our guest is Cynthia Hansen from Adecco Group Foundation. Cynthia, thank you so much for joining us.

Cynthia  Hansen  00:35

My pleasure. Thank you.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  00:37

So let me give a little background on Cynthia following a career in the private and nonprofit sectors, Cynthia joined the Adecco Group in 2017 to start the new Adecco Group Foundation, and spearhead social innovation. Cynthia’s areas of expertise include strategy, change, management, social impact and partnership. Prior to joining the Adecco group, she spent nine years at the World Economic Forum in leadership roles across strategic partnerships, professional services, financial services, civil society and content strategy. Some previous roles of hers also included director of management consultancy at a boutique consulting firm, action planning, Director of the US State Department International Visitor program for the state of Washington under the World Affairs Council, and head of admissions for Amity Institute. Cynthia also serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Center for Women and Democracy, EUConsult, and the Internationalist Magazine. In addition, she was an official delegate of the Washington State women’s mission to Cuba, and election monitor in Jordan under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute. Cynthia also holds an MSC in management of NGOs from the London School of Economics, and a double BA, honors in Asian Studies and English literature from the University of Puget Sound. She was also a global leadership fellow at the World Economic Forum. so fantastic. I hope you don’t mind that I had to gush on you there a little bit Cynthia.

Cynthia  Hansen  02:21

It’s funny to hear all those things.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  02:26

I know I get to give the highlights. But what I would really love to hear, and I think our audience would absolutely love to hear, is a little bit more about what led you here today. Because there’s so many wonderful accomplishments that you have. But I bet there’s a little bit more to this journey.

Cynthia  Hansen  02:44

Indeed, actually, I’ve been thinking about this, and trying to figure out what the red thread is, through what’s otherwise a pretty varied kind of career. And so what I’ve thought is, all of the things that I’ve done in the last say, 15 years, have either been start up, scale up, or turnaround. And it’s been interesting to see how, even jobs that didn’t start as that, ended up morphing into it. And so if you kind of work backwards, the things that I did at the World Economic Forum, tended to be getting dropped into a roll, doing an assessment, figuring out what needed to be changed or built, and then building a team and a strategy, etc, etc. But I feel like it’s kind the way I think and the way I interact with people. So, I’ve ended up turning every job into that. Which makes me think maybe that’s a little bit formulaic. But at the same time, I think it’s something that a lot of organizations, whether public, private, for profit or not, can benefit from. And if you can actually start then training people into that kind of approach. And it’s not the typical management consulting approach. It’s more holistic stakeholder approach. Than actually that’s how you start to get critical mass of people who can change things in a more systemic way.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  04:04

I totally agree. And as you talk, of course, I’m picking out these skills that it sounds like have made you successful, and you’d like to see trained more often. Because really, when you think about it that way, as soon as you were saying that I was thinking, and also empathy .Because the understanding of what you’re actually working towards is so important. But those are the things that I was hearing as you were describing that. Of course I’m sure, as you’re building out this new foundation there at Adecco Group that you have that in mind for your team as well.

Cynthia  Hansen  04:39

Absolutely. And I’m glad you mentioned empathy because that is something that is so crucial to collaboration, to consultation to co-creation. And then of course, it’s one of the key tenants within design thinking. And so, what we’ve done with the Adecco Group Foundation is really make design thinking our underpinning method. We pull in other things, you know, we use systems thinking as well, a lot of things around change management. But really I love design thinking because it’s human centric. And because it has that empathy piece at the heart of. Basically empathy is that first gate. You can’t go on to the ideation and the problem solving piece, which people always want to do, unless you’ve actually done the thinking and reflection on empathy.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  05:25

It’s so true. Now, is this something that you learned through just your work experiences? Was this something that you learned through some of your educational experiences? I’m wondering how someone might go about figuring this out for themselves?

Cynthia  Hansen  05:42

I think it’s been a combination of formal and informal training. So, design thinking is something that I encountered through several different jobs and in different ways, through workshops through some formal training. But also, I love what John Campbell, the gentleman that we work with now, came out of the Stanford D School, what he had said is, so many times he has these conversations about design thinking with people who have no experience with it at all, but who say, Aha, there’s a word for this. This is what I’ve been doing for ages. And somebody else understands it. And somebody actually has a word and a methodology around it. And so when I encountered design thinking, I kind of had that same feeling. This is what just feels right. This is the way I like to interact with people, this is what I have found gets the best results and builds relationships. And it happens to fit really nicely into that methodology.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  06:39

That’s so true. I’ve thought that with a number of things. As soon as I discovered growth mindset, I was like, This is what it’s called.

Cynthia  Hansen  06:47

Exactly.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  06:49

So, it sounds like you were very focused on maybe solving problems, bigger problems, of course. Is there something in your past, or a particular problem that may have affected you personally, that created a passion around this type of work for you?

Cynthia  Hansen  07:13

I think the realization for me was that every problem is interconnected. And so, if the problem, say, when I came to the World Economic Forum, was that civil society was not at the table in every conversation. The problem was not, did you have the right people at the table. But the problem was, did you actually have the right network to create that conversation? Did you invite people in a meaningful way? Did you structure all of the engagement and the consultation to make sure that you would get representation? So it’s not do you have the right person, but actually have you created the right environment to ensure that that interaction can happen? And so then tracing that back, I saw that that was a recurring pattern and other projects that I’d had, other jobs that I had held? That really it was about, what is the systemic problem underneath? You don’t want to just put a bandaid on what the most apparent problem is, but really look deeper, figure out what the underlying causes are, and then see how you can address those things. Which again, resonates with design thinking as well. What’s the real problem? What are you actually solving for? And so it was back to that idea of trying to create patterns of interaction, and patterns of problem solving that would incorporate that idea of getting the right people at the table and creating the space during them to have the conversation and make those contributions. So it wasn’t a particular problem that I had faced specifically, but more, what was the recurring pattern of the way problems could be solved in a more effective way?

Kelly Ryan Bailey  08:55

That makes sense. I think of it, my analogy that I always use is this onion, because you almost have to peel back the layers until you get to the root of it, before the outside pieces can be healed I guess.

Cynthia  Hansen  09:10

Exactly.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  09:12

So fascinating. Typically when I hear from folks that get into this kind of work, there’s something that sort of gets them going. Something that they see in the world, that they’re just like oh, I need to make some impact there. And that’s why I always ask that question, because I’m always just super fascinated at what has sort of led them into this path in their life. Everyone’s journey is fairly unique, but there’s usually something there that happens at the beginning, something that they see that sparks this interest in going into this area.

Cynthia  Hansen  09:51

One of the places that I started using that kind of approach the most was really around the professionalization of the nonprofit sector. Which, has happened over the last, say 30 years, in different ways depending on the local context. But it was something when I was working specifically in consulting for the nonprofit sector in London, that I kept coming back to again and again, and trying to figure out why there was, at that time, a lack of professionalization in the sector. And if you look at it on the surface you know, you don’t have the right people, you don’t have the money to hire the right people. But it was obviously much deeper than that. It was about, have you created career paths? Have you made the sector an attractive place to come and build a career and stay and contribute? Not something you do at the beginning of your career, or at the end of your career as a sunset post. Have you created the right incentives is not just about money, but the right incentives to get people to come in. And then back to the career path idea. I think it’s also about Have you allowed a porous wall where people can come in and out from other sectors, gain things contribute, and then go back. That’s something that I’ve seen increase massively over the last 10 years, is a lot more movement among sectors. And then, also cultural openness to people coming in, particularly from the business sector into the nonprofit sector. But I think you’re also seeing more flow from the nonprofit sector into the business sector as well. And the idea that what you need is essentially triathletes. A former boss of mine had used this idea of triathletes being people who can flow seamlessly across government, business, civil society, who have the credibility, who speak the language, who know how to frame things in a compelling way. And that actually, that’s what the leadership of the future will look like. And so this is back to that idea of how you do that. How do you train that? How do you identify people who have the propensity? And then how do you train that in a way that can not only be exercised but can be passed on?

Kelly Ryan Bailey  12:07

I’m so glad you said this, because when you think of this from like, the design thinking aspect, right, there has to be a process that could be created around this.  Is this part of what you’re working on at Adecco Foundation? Trying to figure out the methodology around how to create these types of new leaders? Is that something that’s in your mind?

Cynthia  Hansen  13:14

It is actually, in a couple of different ways. So I think what you need, back to that triathlete idea, is not only the the flexibility and the parlance, but also the ability to connect dots, and to see how something that you’ve seen in one context might apply someplace else, or what is the right lever to pull. So we’re in the process now of creating something that we’re loosely calling a radar, that will look at data, that will look at trends, and then have it digested by experts from a lot of different areas. Not just people working on the future of work, but really people working across other dimensions. And then to figure out what are the points of intersection? And what are the real gaps? And therefore, where do you need to focus your effort? What are the levers to pull? What kinds of projects might you do? Or what kinds of new solutions might you create? And in order to do that effectively, you have to train people who think in that way? So we’ve started training up a small cohort of people out of the foundation, primarily my team. But also pulling people with the right interest from other parts of the group. Training them in design thinking, but more importantly than just design thinking, training them how to use that radar. How to be the connector. How to think about who else might bring something interesting to the table. For example, when we did the first social innovation project, it was really on a holistic approach to health and well being. So we pulled in people from the sports sector, from HR, from industries, like Telecom, from insurance. We brought in a neuroscientist. We brought in a behavioral psychologist. We just had this fantastic group of people that then we ran through a series of workshops to say, okay, if this is the problem we’re trying to solve, from your vantage point, what do you think the problem is? And, what are the underlying needs? And what do you know, that’s going on out in the world? Who’s trying to solve this? What’s the interesting research? You know, who are the stakeholders that we should be engaging? Who are the people we’re designing for? And we would never have got that kind of input, or a really good output, if we hadn’t had that diverse a group.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  15:35

It’s so true. Now I’m making the comparison of an experience like that, for that group, that’s immersing themselves with all of these amazing thought leaders from various areas, and what you’re doing when you’re learning together like that, and bringing in more and bringing in more. I’m trying to compare this to, let’s say, a higher education experience as an example. Because obviously, we’re making a lot of changes in the way that we’re, you know, training people. Could you see taking this sort of example, and moving it into a more formal learning experience?

Cynthia  Hansen  16:14

Absolutely. So we’re also part of a consortium that’s in early stages, but trying to do exactly that, really around the future of work. It’s called the HR Valley. The idea is that it’s kind of similar to Silicon Valley. Right? With the idea that if you get the right players around the table, government, business, civil society, academia, and you get their input from their different angles, specifically on in this case, the future of work, and the future of HR management. Then you you start to get those interesting synergies, and you get those aha moments and the links, and then you roll that into things like executive education, and undergraduate and graduate education. So you can take the best learnings from that multi-stakeholder interaction, and feed it into a more traditional system, with the idea that over time you change the system. And you bring the system closer to what the market needs, or what the world needs. But you’ve done it in an authentic way, because it’s been informed by the stakeholders. Not that it was people sitting in an ivory tower said, this is what the world needs. But actually, you’ve got the people they are together to actually design it

Kelly Ryan Bailey  17:27

Right. Well, here’s an interesting thing. You think about a younger person that hasn’t had the experience that we’ve been fortunate enough to have, as we’ve created out unique paths. Someone who is coming to the table with less experience. This is where I often think about formal education as opposed to like experience out in the world. Meaning being able to be a part of a group like this and learning in this way. And how can that be just as authentic in a formal education environment? And is this different depending on what age you are, and what stage? The reason I think these things through is because there are people out there that in their life, they just do not have the time and space necessarily to go and let’s say, go for a formal degree. Is that going to stop them in some way? Can they look for experiences like this, that can gain them the same learning that they could in a more formal environment?

Cynthia  Hansen  18:26

I think it’s actually two sided. Because one is can you get access to experiences like that? And yes you can through things like mentorship or volunteering. But I think the other piece is also how you frame it. Actually, any experience that you have, could be framed as a learning experience. So I had a talk with the son of a friend, and he had just graduated from high school, and he was trying to decide what he wanted to study at university. And he thought he might want to go into business. And he thought he wanted to do something with people. And so we started talking about what he liked, and what he didn’t like, and what his previous experiences were. And I said, well, have you had a job? And he said, yeah, I was just a ski instructor. And I said what did you learn as a ski instructor? Who did you work with? Ah, well, I learned that I needed to be on time. I learned that everybody processes information in a different way. I learned that teaching teenagers is different from teaching kids. And said okay, if you just take that little experience, you learned how to manage yourself in your time. You learned how to interact with different people. You learned how to communicate information in a way that people were going to be able to take onboard, through different learning styles. You thought about what you liked about that job, and then you thought about maybe what you didn’t like about that job. So here’s a whole bunch of information that will help you make a decision about what you want to do next. And he said ah, okay, I hadn’t thought about it in that way. So it had the experience, but he just needed to frame it as a learning experience rather than a weekend job that allowed him to ski.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  20:08

Right. Wow. You’re making me think. I’m virtual schooling, well, at least attempting to help. My husband is probably more on top of this than I am. But especially our kindergartner. At the end of the day, everyone i’m sure has this right now, where they’re doing like the reading assignments at the end of the day. So the child, whatever age, we just happen to be more hands on with our five year old, you know reads something, and then we have to reflect from that reading. Even at these youngest ages, we’re learning how to take what we experienced, and turn that into reflection. And I think that’s such an important point to remember. Because I think of every interaction, every conversation that I have as a learning experience. If we just reframed our thought process on that we could see and we could understand and then be able to communicate what those pieces of learning were.

Cynthia  Hansen  21:04

I think it’s that last piece that is so important, the idea that you can communicate what you learned, and then ideally, the value that you gained or the value that you contributed. I end up talking with my team quite a lot about this. It’s not the laundry list of what I did, but rather, what was the problem? How did I go about understanding it and coming up with possible solutions? And then what was the outcome of that? Because you could have found a great problem, done lots of stuff and had no result. So it’s how do you frame it, so that you show what you learn so that somebody else can learn from it, and then not repeat what you did, but rather build on that.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  21:44

Right. And I would also say that even if it wasn’t successful, you know, our society, people tend to run away from, or not want to talk about the moments that we might call failure. But that’s just a misstep. To know that that’s not the right way, let’s try another way. Sharing that learning experience as well as so important, because like you said, building upon that. So we know if like that direction didn’t work, all good, we should share that as well.

Cynthia  Hansen  22:14

Absolutely. We’ve tried to build that into the social innovation lab as well. We borrowed a lot of methodology from software design and from, obviously, design thinking came along out of industrial design. But the idea being that it doesn’t need to be perfect, what you’re trying to get to is some kind of viable prototype. And in order to get there, you’re going to have a lot of things that don’t work. And you’ll learn along the way. And that’s part of the process. And it’s completely fine. But it’s interesting to see how, particularly people from different backgrounds, different cultures, kind of deal with that. Is it okay to fail? Is it okay to walk into a workshop and not be the expert? Is it okay to not know all the statistics, but be a good facilitator? Things like that are, back to how do you train people, there’s things that not everybody is comfortable with. Because there’s a lot of ambiguity in that. And so, this idea of training people also how to deal with ambiguity and how to work in ambiguous situations, I think is really important, particularly in today’s world where so much as it is really ambiguous.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  23:20

It’s so true. I’m curious with this particular cohort that you’ve been working on, and obviously all this social impact that you’re working on through the foundation. Are you seeing, in terms of future of work, this concept of these types of leaders? And I would say leaders, because that sort of trickles down, through an organization. So I focus on the leaders first, but this type of training to be so important to the future of how organizations are performing in our world.

Cynthia  Hansen  23:54

I think what I’m seeing, for the most part, is it’s coming at a middle level. There are a lot of people in that middle level, who have maybe a little more ability to play, and are testing these things out. There are some great leaders at the top level who are embracing this, but I think it’s maybe slower to come in large or traditional organizations. And you see it a lot obviously, in the startup scene. But that’s differnt.  You have much more control. But I am seeing people in the middle levels, whether in HR or you know, in social innovation labs, who are able to play with this. And our hope is that if we can do this in the Foundation, which is technically outside the group. That we can actually then seed into the group these ways of working, these ways of thinking, and then find the like minded people across the group. And there are good pockets of this, who are interested, and that’s how we create critical mass, and start to change the behaviors wholesale. Honestly when I came in, in 2017 there were little forays into design thinking. It had come in a little bit to sales. And now what we see is there are big pockets of it, both that have grown up within the group, but also through acquisition. So, about now two years ago, we bought General Assembly. General Assembly already came with a really big practice around design thinking. So it just adds to that critical mass.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  25:23

That’s fantastic. So besides, I know you mentioned the radar concept and this cohort that’s gone through, what are some of the other amazing innovations that you’re working on through the foundation?

Cynthia  Hansen  25:39

We’re looking at how we can co-create real solutions with partners, and then spin them off. Some of this has been interesting reverse engineering. So for example, we inherited a relationship with a music festival. And this had had traditionally been really just sponsorship out of the group. You know, music festivals, great. This is the Lucerne festival. But when it came in to the foundation, I was interested in how could we actually add social value? And the Lucerne festival actually runs an academy every year for young musicians? And so I thought, what do young musicians need? What are they not getting? And so when we spoke to some of them, they were not getting a lot of guidance on career, and career building, and understanding the world of work. They tended to be selected really young, trained narrowly. Trained, often in this case, for their solo performance, or ensemble performance. And they hadn’t really looked at anything else that they could do. And so we actually adapted some methodology that we had, that we developed around athletes, and then kind of did a bespoke version of this for musicians. We came in and helped them better understand the world of work. Helped them understand if you’re young, how you build a career, how do you build a personal brand. How do you keep yourself from being exploited, as well? How do you make sure that you understand what your options are? And then back to the idea of framing. How do you frame what skills you have as a musician or as an athlete in a way that an employer will understand? So whether you’re an elite athlete or an elite musician, you know how to be self critical. You know how to listen to or watch your own performance and critique it. You know how to work in a group. You know how to motivate people around you. You know how to get and give feedback, and all these great things that you might think, well, I’ve never worked in an office. I don’t have the skills I need for an office. But you probably do. You just need to think about them differently, and then maybe translate them into slightly different language.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  27:59

Yeah. And that level of practice that top athletes or top musicians, and really all all through the spectrum, right? Because people that are really working towards a goal, that level of like persistence and resilience, that is just an amazing work focus skill that I think a lot of employers would appreciate. They just don’t necessarily see it or understand it in that way.

Cynthia  Hansen  28:24

That’s absolutely true. So part of the education is employers to understand what people from non-traditional backgrounds might bring to them. So we’re actually working at the moment on something called the athlete friendly employer initiative. Which is basically trying to create critical mass of companies who see the value of hiring athletes. We did this piece of thought leadership work about a year and a half ago, that was on specific attributes that athletes bring to the world of work that employers might not be aware of. And what we’ve done now is actually built this out into a self diagnostic tool that we’re about to launch. Where you as an athlete can go online, take this survey, and then it will say against those eight attributes, here’s where you’re strong, here’s where you’re not so strong, here’s how you might increase that. Maybe you’re interested in other kinds of training, here’s where you might look. So it kind of sets you off, to increase your skills as well. It’s not just a diagnostic, but it helps you figure out what to do with the information.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  29:26

Wow, that’s so cool. As I hear that, too, I wonder, like you said, with the comparison to musicians, but then I start to think about these different pockets of people that are also having trouble different audiences, how that could really kind of spin off into various other resources. So when you guys are, sort of incubating these ideas if you will, are you wanting to be the home to create the tools and resources that you can then expand upon? Or are you looking to create more like “playbooks,” where other people can take learnings from your work and bring that into their various audiences.

Cynthia  Hansen  30:06

It’s very much the latter. One of the key things that I built into the foundation is that we build things not to keep it, but we built them to share. And if you’re going to share them effectively, you need to actually build them from the beginning with partners who can take it forward. So this is why the idea of the music festival is, you know, we’ve built this with them. And the stage that we’re starting now is actually a train the trainer. So we did a design thinking workshop with some of their alumni about a year ago. As an alum out in the working world, how are you building your career? What what are you getting from where and what are you not getting? What would you need? Then we used that as a way to start identifying people who would be good trainers, because we want people who would be trainers and role models, as well. So the next phase of this that we’ll roll out in spring, is actually train the trainer of musicians. So that then they get trained to then bring their own credibility and train their fellow musicians. So that within a year or so, they’ve got a cohort of people trained up that can go and train their own musicians. They could also start to train at conservatories or universities, they could train people and other festivals. Then ideally, you start to be able to charge for this model. And then you’re providing employment to people as well. We can then step out, because we we’ve seeded it. And then we’ve given them this gift that they can take forward.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  31:35

I love that, like the scale from that, of course, like I’m thinking of the layers of the onion being added on, and just making it so big. That’s fantastic. Are you looking for other organizations to partner with in this way? How do you select them?

Cynthia  Hansen  31:52

We actually have a parallel program going with the International Committee of the Red Cross, where we take this kind of same methodology. In that case, they had a program called the physical rehabilitation program. That helps people in really bottom of the pyramid countries, you know, fragile states failed states, who have disabilities to get physically rehabilitated. So classic case would be, you stepped on a landmine, and you lost your leg. And you need to come to that center, get fitted for a prosthesis, learn how to walk again. But that’s not enough. So they already had a program that was then helping you to get reintegrated with society, with your community. So we’ve added a new dimension, which is then how do you get back into the labor market? And so we took actually, that same methodology that we had for athletes, adapted it, because we actually had a version of that, that was for athletes with disabilities that we developed with the International Paralympic Committee. Then basically adapted that so that the employees of those centers, the inclusion officers, could start to use the methodology to help their constituents at the local level. To get ready for work, to understand what their skills were, to frame it in that way. So then they could go and apply for jobs and start to get reconnected with the job market. But the idea here is it’s only sustainable because we built it on that train the trainer model. If we tried to go and train people, you know, our scalability would be so minimal, and we don’t have a footprint in most of the countries where the ICRC works. So it was much more effective to then build it with them, do the train the trainer, and then let them be the replicator of it.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  33:33

It’s so true. Now, did you guys initiate this partnership or did they come to you? How did they How do you form these partnerships?

Cynthia  Hansen  33:41

In that case, it was a partnership that had started because they have something called the corporate support group. The Adecco Group had joined the corporate support group. It got shifted over into the foundation, and then I was looking for, you know, rather than essentially being a wallet, which is the the relationship often between corporates and international organizations, or NGOs. How could we do this in a co-creation format. We basically took something that we had, a bit like the music festival, and then built it into something that we that we wanted it to be. But this basically gives us the track record of having done it. And then we get to this point where we can successfully spin things off. And then at the same time, we were starting this pipeline of new projects that we actually do from the very beginning. And then you choose your partners from the beginning, based on their ability to scale at the end.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  34:33

Okay, that’s really interesting. Now do these partners come and apply to work with you? Do you curate from people that you know, and obviously, these like radar groups and suc? Or are there people out there that can come and say, hey, I’m interested.

Cynthia  Hansen  34:53

It’s a little bit of both. So at the moment, it’s really been us proactively going out to people that we know. This is where the World Economic Forum has been really useful because the network is very big. But increasingly, we’re getting noticed for this. And now we get organizations coming to us saying, can we partner with you? So, I think we’re going to need in the future to have some other sort of vetting system so that as people come to us, then we figure out whether there’s a fit. But there’s a very fine line between I want to come and partner, and I have a project I want you to fund

Kelly Ryan Bailey  35:29

Exactly.

35:30

We get lots of those as well, but we’re not a granting organization. So it’s very easy to say no, that’s not what we do. But I think, again, one of the value adds to the world is really good partnership, because lots of organizations talk about partnership, but they don’t know necessarily how to do it. So we we’ve got all the right ingredients, and we’ve got a good track record for how you do a different kind of partnership. So if we can use that, to shift what partnership means and what the expectations of partners on both sides are, then again, you’re creating systemic change.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  36:03

I’m really glad that we’re able to share this with the listeners, and hopefully more broadly, people around the world. I really love this new way. And I have a feeling, as we start to hear more of these types of stories, that this can start to take off in different ways. I think of being successful as not competition, but collaboration.

Cynthia  Hansen  36:28

Absolutely.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  36:29

Yeah. And hopefully this will be a message that will continue to grow, because this is really exciting work that you’re doing. So Cynthia, we are coming close to the end of our time here today, and I’d love to just give you one moment to share with us any additional sort of parting thoughts about your life, your work, whatever you might like.

Cynthia  Hansen  36:52

Thank you. This has been such a pleasure. Throughout this conversation, I think one of the recurring themes has been the interconnected nature of things. And I think with the current situation, and with more people working from home, more people going through a career transition, that it’s really important that we’re all looking at that interconnected nature of what we do, how we relate what we contribute, what we take away. And so if I can encourage people to really be more holistically minded to think in a systemic way. To think not just about what you’re doing now, but what you might want to do in the future, and how you would get there, and who you need, then in your circle. You know, it’s not just about, I want a transactional relationship. But, if I’m doing this kind of work now, I want to do this in the future then, what are the steps in between? And, you know, who might I talk to? And why would that person be interested in what I’m doing? How could we collaborate? How is that a meaningful interaction? It’s not even a matrix, but it’s more of a web, it’s a little messier than that. How do I navigate my own life, and think about all the connections that I have, and make sure that I’m adding value through those those connections. And I’m not just blundering through the web on my way to where I think I want to go. So just being a bit more mindful about how you contribute and what you want to leave behind.

Kelly Ryan Bailey  38:25

I love that. And when you think of it in that lens of value, and that interconnectedness and how you might view where you can create value, it changes the perspective. So I completely appreciate that. And thank you so much for sharing it. And thank you so much for joining us today. This has just been a fantastic, again I’m always picking up new things in our conversations, so it’s just been wonderful. I love the work that you’re doing at the Adecco Group Foundation. For anyone that’s interested in more information on that, you can find them at adeccogroupfoundation.org. They are also available on all the social media channels, the same ones that you’re going to see that I’m available on, they are also available on. And thank you all for listening in today to Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby. I would love to hear some feedback. This is available on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube. Would love to hear ratings, reviews, those good things.  What can we do to make this more valuable for you? Would love to hear it. And you can also find me on all of those various social channels as well. Would love to interact with you guy, so feel free to reach out. Thank you again, Cynthia, this has been absolutely wonderful and I hope you all have a wonderful day.