Podcast Guest: Terry Rachwalski
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Terry Rachwalski |
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Terry Rachwalski is the Executive Director, Accelerator Programs in the Investments Branch of Alberta Innovates, the provinces’ largest public corporation charged with investing in diversifying the economy through growth in emerging technology and knowledge-based start-ups, companies and technologies. Previously, she led the Entrepreneurial Investments business unit funding the coaching, community and capital investments to foster entrepreneurial culture, regional innovation, global partnerships, tech challenges and de-risking high potential firms. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Envio Systems GMBH, one of Europe’s fastest growing property technology firms.
She led Front Porch Perspectives, a Canadian management consulting firm providing business development and go-to-market and action plans for technology product launches. She has worked extensively providing industry, market and competitive analyses along with digital services, social media launches and integrated marketing, advertising and public relations campaigns in Canada, the United States, Europe and Central America.
Terry has worked as an executive, been a founder and investor with multiple Canadian and international technology firms. An award-winning Certified Management Consultant, she holds an MBA from Royal Roads University where she is Associate Faculty in the MBA program which uses creative problem-solving for live ‘scaleup and growth’ consulting cases during the rigorous business studio capstone project. She developed the Business Growth Roadmap for the capstone course which was also used as the framework for the Alberta Scaleup and Growth Program. Rachwalski is co-author of Canadian bestseller Business Diagnostic, 4th Edition for which the 4th and digital edition was released by Friesen Press in mid 2021.
Transcript Welcome to the Strategic Play Podcast. Unlock Your creativity, expand your mind, and have good clean fun with Strategic Play founder and Lego® Serious Play® Master Trainer, Jacquie Lloyd Smith, and creative force and curious mind, Mark Millhone.
Mark: Hello, Jacquie. How are you doing? Jacquie: I'm great. How are you, Mark? Mark: I am excellent. And I am so excited for this conversation. One thing I love about this podcast is that we get a chance to talk to people much smarter than myself, people who take things like military and intelligence and show us how those are two great tastes that taste great together. That's another amazing podcast, which I really suggest you dive into. Today, we're going to look at innovative government. These are again, two terms that tend to not play nice, but actually collide beautifully in the conversation that we have with Terry Rachwalski. Jacquie: Yes. So Terry Rachwalski is, and I always say her name wrong but I'm working on it, Rachwalski is a very good friend of mine. And she is just brilliant. So what is going to be so much fun about this conversation is to be able to listen to her break down the process that the government goes through with their innovation cycle, which I think is going to be very interesting to hear. Mark: She's the executive director of accelerator programs in the investments branch of Alberta Innovates. That's the province’s largest public corporation charged with investing in emerging technology and knowledge-based companies and startups. Before stepping into the daunting task of making government more innovative, Terry worked as an executive founder and investor with multiple Canadian and international technology firms. An award-winning certified management consultant, she holds an MBA from Royal Roads University, where she's associate faculty in the MBA program, which uses creative problem solving for live scale-up and growth consulting cases during the rigorous business studio Capstone Project. Terry is also a published author, co-writer of the Canadian bestseller, Business Diagnostics, now in its fourth edition. So if you're interested in any of these questions, can we make governments more innovative? How can governments spur creativity and communities, individuals, and organizations, I think we’ll get some answers from the conversation that we're about to listen to. Jacquie: All right. Let's dig into it.
Mark: Terry Rachwalski, welcome to the Strategic Play Podcast. Jacquie, what was the prompt that Terry was given? Jacquie: Well, I asked Terry to take some Lego bricks and to build a small model that would tell us what her role is or what she does at Alberta Innovates. Terry: Great. So I can describe for you what I built. So I got this wonderful little package in the mail, which is always fun when you get something in the mail, and brightly colored Lego pieces. And what I had to do was to build what I see as the Alberta research and innovation ecosystem. And what I wanted to emulate is what we refer to as the entrepreneurial journey, which we have adopted, Alberta Innovates, so that everybody has the same language about what we're doing and what we're trying to encourage. So on the far left side, it's really the discovery part of the journey where you might have post-secondary institute academic involvement in research and where there's a number of different pathways into the innovation system from research, which we call Coaching, Community, and Capital. And in that middle part, you'd have a coach, someone waving a flag. So I've got a person waving a flag that represents that community of entrepreneurs and service providers. And then you move along a number of variety of other pathways that have a whole bunch of roadblocks in them, red bricks that get in your way, a lot of on-ramps and off-ramps moving up to where you have these big pretty colors of flowers, which represent the product. And there’s a flywheel, which represents the group that I run right now, which is the accelerator programs for scale-up and growth. But there's a lot of on-ramps and off-ramps when you're on an entrepreneurial journey, and it's not a single pathway. There's a number of different pathways. Mark: Great. Wonderful. I think that what you've given us here in this model is a great model for the nature of innovation. And one thing, which I think is just extraordinary about what you bring to this, is just so much experience, having—they say it takes 10,000 hours to gain mastery. I think you're there, and then some. I guess one question I have for you is, based on all of the innovation that you have done and all the innovation you have mentored and guided, what are some of the takeaways from that whole process about innovation and how it works and how it really doesn't work in terms of common mistakes that people make. Terry: Well, what a great question. That's a big question, Mark. So for me, innovation is that combination of creativity and that's where I like the piece about playing and pulling up those creative juices and knowledge. So it’s the two of those things together that help you innovate because then you can solve a problem.
So very often, the big difficulties that we have with innovation is that it's who are we innovating for? What's the problem we're trying to solve? Is that problem something that can be commercialized? And not every innovation has to be commercialized. Is it something that solves a societal problem? Or is it something that can be combined with other innovations to create something new and that continual iteration. But also recognizing that sometimes the time isn’t just quite right. And knowing when to go back and pick up other pieces as part of that creativity and always be looking for curiosity. Mark: One thing which I'm noticing, looking at your model, is that it reminds me almost of those beautiful models you would see of like the circulation system of a person, in terms of seeing: This is the heart, this is where the blood flows, this is where the respiration comes in and out. And it seems like there's places here—many places here along this path where energy can either be channeled forward at a positive direction or maybe it can leak out. And all these—it kind of reminds me of what I've heard smarter people than me say about movies: It's not that it's hard to make a good one, it's just so easy to make a bad one. Is that something that you see in terms of innovation? There's lots and lots of great ideas, but the challenge is it's so easy to have those ideas not find the proper life and circulation in terms of what that idea’s potential is? Terry: Absolutely. So that's why the heart of this –and I really liked that analogy, actually. And I'm going to bring that one forward to see if we can recast our entrepreneurial journey in a way like that. It's a circulation system and it’s a network. So the heart of it being people, and if you're always making those connections that's how you're able to either move an idea forward, or what we call pause, pivot, or persevere. So you're always going to be looking for what we call product-market fit. Do you have the right product for the right person at the right time that solves the pain, and they're willing to pay for it? And if you don't, you can test that in a whole bunch of variety of different ways, both digitally and in person. And if you don't have it, maybe it's time to pause it. Maybe look for a new problem or look for new partners or look for a new way of solving that problem. Or maybe you need to pivot. Maybe there's a piece of that idea that works, but some of it you just have to leave it behind or you can persevere and say, “If I can fix this part of it and find that product-market fit, I can move forward.” So it's never one thing, and you're right. We know it. It's very evident when we don't have product-market fit. But very often people fall in love with their babies. Don't we all? We fall in love with it, and then we throw all of our resources at it and we can't see when it's time to pause or pivot. Jacquie: I heard a great quote once that the hardest thing to say goodbye to as a bad idea. And I think that sometimes—Terry, you hit that nail on the head. Who are you creating for? What is your innovation? What does it do? Who does it help? What problem does it solve?
And often people, I think, struggle to answer that question. We see a lot of creative people come into Strategic Play, and they have these ideas and nobody wants to discourage anyone. But as you’re listening to the thing that they're going to do, you're thinking: Who in the world actually wants that? How is that even going to be something needed in the marketplace? And people have a hard time letting go. So let me ask you this about your— I love the model. It’s a great model, by the way. I’m looking at the picture. And if anybody has—can see the picture, which we will post with this podcast, there's lots of different pieces. Where are you first in this model? Where do you see yourself? Terry: Well, it's interesting because I didn't build the model with me per se. I build it as I am part of the community. And that's what an ecosystem is: It's a community group. So the group that I lead right now in accelerators is the flywheel, which is a program that we brought together to address a Scaleup GAP in Alberta. We knew that we were great at creating startups and having lots of little innovative startups, but not so great at getting those scale-ups companies that can scale and get to that $1 million, $10 million, $100 million, and so on, revenue point. So we brought in this new program called Scaleup GAP, and that's where I live. But really every one of us, and I mean this holistically for Alberta Innovates, is that these are groups of people who are in it for the community. You don't take an entrepreneur and put them into government because they want to become a government person. It’s because they want to give back. So that's why we do it. We're part of a community. Jacquie: You're talking about the people that work at Alberta Innovates? Terry: Yes, and who are in the ecosystem in Alberta. Very passionate, smart people who are there to help entrepreneurs. And we don't see it just as innovation. Innovation is a tool to get us to where we want to go. Jacquie: Right. Mark: I think it's such an interesting perspective because part of what I see talked about here is something that's actually kind of a political question, which is what should the relationship be between government and opportunity? And as someone who is really straddling those two worlds, Alberta Innovates is a governmental organization in some way.
I'm not sure exactly what the status is. Forgive me that my Canadian is rusty. I know you just do things smarter than we do, but I don't really know the details. But it's something that is there to be a guiding and supportive force for the organic business community. Could you talk a little bit about the relationship between government and business and opportunity and where you really see that that line being drawn, if it should be aligned? Help us understand what you've been able to manifest. Terry: Well there's macro and micro economics and, without getting too far into that, it's really fundamentally you're asking what is the role of government. And certainly, in an innovation research and innovation system and for entrepreneurship, absolutely government has a role. So should we—government's role is not just as a funder but as a convener. And to say what is that mission-driven opportunity that the private sector isn't going to be able to do on their own because it costs so much money. Right? Think Internet. All the things that came out of the Internet that are driving this right now. We're funded from big governmental programs that were mission-oriented. So Alberta Innovates is—we like to see ourselves as a convener and funder but mission-driven, in order to support those opportunities that are going to be smart specialization, where we can do really well. And in Alberta that's going to be—of course, Alberta is known. If you want to drill a hole five miles down, you call an Alberton. They know how to do it well, quickly, efficiently, and safely. But they also know how to do artificial intelligence really well. And that's an example of an investment that was made by the government in Alberta 10 years ago, entrusted in the former groups and now Alberta Innovates, which frankly has been around for 100 years. And those investments are now coming into fruition where you say artificial intelligence is really an enabling tech. It's a deep tech that enables all sorts of other things. And now it can enable all sorts of enterprise software as a service companies. It can enable a whole bunch of methods of inquiry that we couldn't do before. It can enable the gathering of information from sensors in Internet of Things applications, and all of a sudden create new industry. And that's the role of government: to help, to support, and be in that place where private industry itself and alone couldn't do it. Jacquie: That's interesting because I think that, like just listening to you talk about scale-up and entrepreneurs couldn't afford what they need in those next steps. What do you say to somebody that's got a really great idea but, and let's say that they know they need help. But they're afraid that if they're going to come and talk to you people, you're going to steal it. How many of those people do you run into and what do you do to combat that? Terry: Well. First of all, get all the help you can, right? Always be learning and getting information. The whole idea of, well if I tell anybody about my idea, you're going to have to tell it. You have to test your idea to know if it's a good one, first of all. And how many of us have an Uncle Frank who tells us about all the ideas he had he never did anything with? So it's about execution, not having the idea. And execution requires that you go out and test your idea with those people who that target market that you think will be the recipient of that idea, but truly test it. So first of all, don't worry about someone else is stealing your idea, right? If you need IP protection, you do all those things. But you have to execute on the idea or you have nothing. And that's where if you don't have a business background, actually, that's okay. You're acting like a beginner. And what does a beginner do? You have to learn from others. And that's what ecosystem and community supports are there for, so that we're able to support people with the knowledge and the mentorship that they need when they need it. And it's not about the money. We have, at Alberta Innovates, coaching, community, and capital. You don't get the capital until you've gone through the coaching and community. Because you don't know what you don't know. And so the capital is reserved for those instances where it's going to make the biggest impact. And I think a lot of people know innovation, when there's a problem and constrained resources, becomes more profound and moves quicker when you have to marshal resources and you've got a real problem to solve. If you have too much money, maybe there isn't the sense of urgency. Jacquie: I always think about my trip to Japan. When I got there, the innovation is just incredible. They've thought of everything. And you realize: large population, small country. Do you find that in Canada that there might be a little bit more not necessarily a call to get to innovation because we already have so much? Do you see that at all? Terry: It’s a really interesting point. So before we did the Scaleup GAP program, we did a whole bunch of research. We talked to a whole bunch of people. We went out to experts and went extra jurisdictionally to talk about these things around the world. And what we found was that in Canada, our companies tend to get to what we call an optimized state. So you've got your product, you've got your market, you've become very efficient, but efficiency doesn't help you grow. So when you're looking at, from a business growth roadmap perspective, you're looking at a mindset. And we discovered that companies that have leadership and CEOs, founders, who have a growth mindset to begin with are those that tend to succeed, not surprisingly. So what is a growth mindset? It's all about those that aspiration for growth. What do you aspire to? It's perfectly okay to have a lifestyle business. It's perfectly okay to be a consultant and say: I only want to work with the companies that I want to work with. But there’s also as a subset of companies that need to grow and put a stake in the ground and say: I can be world-class; I can go global right off the bat. And that's the mindset that we're trying to foster at Alberta Innovates and with our accelerator program and with our health programs and with our clean resources program to say, “Yes you can,” and to support that mindset. Mark: It's interesting to look at how mindset might be connected to culture and how culture gets reflected in innovation. Part of what I hear you saying is, and this is where I have the benefit of just being a stupid, dumb American, and I could just say stuff like this. You're saying Canadians are too nice. They have to be willing to step up and to dream big. Is that part of the message? What's a much smarter way of bringing out a point that I'm kind of stumbling too, in terms of how culture affects cultures of innovation? Terry: Well I don't think that it is Canadians are too nice. I think there are some really successful Canadians, and nice isn't necessarily the word. It's more about competitive, right? Being globally competitive and understanding what that means in order to compete globally. But the mindset of it and helping our companies grow and understand what the elements of growth are is really important. So that's one of the things that I discuss in the fourth edition of Business Diagnostics, the book that I coauthored, is what are the elements of scale-up and what are the elements of growth? And scale-up is all about efficiency, your financial systems, your IT, your standardization of your marketing and your sales programs: all the things you need to do to make sure that you're not just blowing money out the back door. But growth is a different thing. Growth is where you say I have a seed of an idea. Now I can go into different markets, different market segments. I can do product iterations, product extensions, new product development, geographic market expansion. I can go into mergers and acquisitions. So there's a whole different element of growth that we need to be continually talking about and educating our entrepreneurs on. So they're looking for that next horizon. Jacquie: Is some of this associated with, let's say, how long a product is on the market too, in its life cycle? That kind of beating it to the end so that as that life cycle dies, you already have something new. Terry: That's right. So we often say that—I think it was an article that I read in Harvard Business Review, and it talked about how Procter & Gamble is continually iterating its products and that if you don't have—there is literature that talks about if you don't have a new product every five years, you're basically a dead man walking. So you can milk that product as long as you want, but consumer trends change, technology changes. So you have to keep your eye on the horizon of all those things that are changing that could impact your company, impact your industry, or impact your product. So always zooming in and out of strategy and what's happening in your ecosystem that you work in, to see if I need to do something more to get into a new product or new geography or new market segment. Mark: That's so interesting. It's reminding me of conversations I've had with people who were in the technology space. And my go-to role is always I don't know anything about this, which is almost always the case. And so it tends to serve me well. So I said I don't really know anything about this. But in terms of technology, how was it that you keep up with people's needs? And he said, “I think you're looking at the question in the wrong way. We can't wait for people to figure out what they need and then build it. We live in a much different world now. It's my role to figure out what people may need when I believe that they will need and then educate them towards those needs.” And it's a really interesting kind of flip of the script in terms of some of the questions we were talking about earlier in the podcast, about you have to step into this with faith. You have to love your idea or else there's no chance for it to prosper and grow. But then how is it that you continually discern, is this actually a good idea? When is it that we can let go of an idea that wasn't good or it wasn't the right time? Is that a conflict that you see with the entrepreneurs that you work with? Terry: Well, sure. Everyone falls in love with their baby. And I always talk to our technology development advisors and say it's not our job to tell someone their baby is ugly. It's our job to show them what the attributes of an ugly baby are. And so what you're discussing are the attributes of an ugly baby, right? If no one's buying your product or it's not sticky, or they're not coming back to buy your product or they don't love your product. If they can't get online and go this is the best thing ever. And you're not seeing traction in the marketplace, you have to be curious about that and ask why to see if you need to change it slightly in order to move forward. So I keep coming back to that pause, pivot, persevere. And what we're really talking about is the lean scale-up methodology. Lean start-up, lean scale-ups. So Eric Rice and Ash Maria and Steve Blank, who really pioneered these techniques and that still hold true today. We need to be asking those questions at the front end. Jacquie: Right. And that goes with that whole idea of minimal viable product, which is also what you talked about, getting out and testing. Don't put too much money into it. Get your idea, socialize it, find out what other people think, see if you can make improvements. And then iterate your way to maybe something successful. Terry: That's right. And knowing that if you don't know how to do that, that's okay because there's lots of other people who do. And that's where we go right back circle to that coaching community and capital piece of ecosystems, where you can seek out people who can give you very specific methodologies and instruction on how to do this. Seek those people out within your ecosystem, get the mentors, or attend an accelerator. Jacquie: Right. Well I think that it is so true that sometimes people, they get an idea and then they get so far ahead of themselves trying to figure out—I need to buy a building. I need to buy all the equipment. I need to, and they I've done a budget. And it's like, have you even tried this out on another human being to see if anybody even likes it, which is perhaps the first thing that you should do with a very small amount of money. And I think that, that's the excitement, but I can see how it gets away on people. Mark:
It's interesting. When you talk about this, maybe this is just kind of the headspace that I grew up in, of leaders or business people that it's your job to know what to do. And part of what I'm hearing in what you're reflecting back to me, is actually that's not the job. The job is to know how to not know what you're doing, but know how to wayfind to the best path. It's sort of like how to be productively lost. Terry: I often say strategy reveals itself because it's that iterate—it’s that mindset of iteration and mindset of growth that brings you back to being questioning and curiosity and have those skills to go out and talk to people contextually, look what's happening in the ecosystem. Look at what's happening in your industry. Read blogs about your industry and see where the trends are. And what is the trend that could potentially kneecap you or what's the trend that you can ride to take you into the stratosphere? Jacquie: Right. All of this is just so interesting, and I'm sure that people that are listening, probably a lot of them have small ideas that they would like to grow or things that they would like to do. And what I'm hearing you say, Terry, is that if you have an idea, if you've got something that you think could go somewhere then and you're not sure how to take it forward, then maybe a business incubator or an innovation center could be maybe the first place you go, even just to get you in touch with perhaps other resources that you might want to look at. Terry: Absolutely. Mark: One question I have for you is you mentioned your book, Business Diagnostics. As someone who has worn the white coat for a lot of businesses and kind of diagnosed them, are there trends that you see about where, typically people—what are the health risks, to kind of go back to our body and circulation analogy, what are the aspects of business health and growth that are most commonly ignored and end up causing challenges to the life of an enterprise. Terry: Well, it's really interesting. So we created what's called the Business Diagnostics Framework. And on the outside of that framework, if you have two concentric rings pointing towards the middle like a target. On the outside of that ring is business students will recognize it as a PEST-C: political, environmental, sociological, technological, and competitive factors. So these are sort of the building blocks of things that you want to be aware of and continually zoom in and out of. What are the political factors that could help me? What's happening environmentally, socially? What technology trends could make it different and what are things that are happening in this industry? Is it a mature industry? Is it a growing industry? Is that a changing industry? Those are external factors. And then on the inside of that concentric ring are the internal factors. HR trends. Can I get enough people? Can I get the right people who want to work for me? Can I get—sitting on the right seats in the bus, find finances.
Do I know what my working capital is. Am I going to run out of money? Operations, do I know how I'm actually going to operationally get my product to market either digitally, using outsourcing, using third-party fulfillment houses. How am I going to do that? Are there any IT things that I need to know of and what is my sales, my predictable sales and marketing mechanisms to tell clients about my product and then have them coming back? So those are the elements of a good diagnosis and they're common business things. All we did was put them together in a way so that you can just simply jump into one chapter of the book and there's everything you need to know about operations. Here's everything you need to know about growth. Here's how you know how to deal with your banker, for example. Jacquie: And actually just a plug for the book. I know that you're in—what addition are you in now? Terry: We're just launching the fourth edition, which is a digital edition. You can get that on ceobusinessdiagnostics.com. And the big change with this edition is the addition of the Business Growth Roadmap, which was developed by the work that we do at Royal Roads University, working with well over 30 clients now, plus our own consulting clients, on how to develop a business growth for themselves. And that's a new part of the book and the new part of the curriculum as well. Jacquie: And this book, because I did do my MBA at Royal Roads, was my favorite textbook. So I love that book. And I know that I've got probably, I think I have a copy of the third edition copy now. I had the original one and then Mike, your coauthor, sent me the third. So now I need to get the latest edition. Terry: Of course you do. Jacquie: That sounds great. So people could, I guess that's one of the other things that people can do if they're listening to this and they have their own business and they don't want to go out and hire a consultant, but they would like to perhaps do a scan of their business to see where they're at prior to let's say jumping into something completely new, this would be a great resource for them to use. Also, people who are listening that are doing consulting work. If you want a great book, this one would be a super book to have in your library. Just because, as Terry said, they brought all kinds of resources together and then added their own IP to create more roadmaps that could be used to help you think about scaling up and growth. Mark: it's so liberating, really. Looking at the framework that you've created in the book and also what you're doing with Alberta Innovates and how it's been given really a tangible expression with this model of an ecosystem of innovation. What’s coming to me now, as you know, we focus so much on creativity and innovation as play. And it makes sense that we would do that because we're LEGO®. We’re strategic play. That's what we do. But I think that what's coming forward for me is for you to really play, you have to understand the jungle gym. There's no play without something to play against, to push off of. And you've really created for us the structure of what that build your own adventure looks like. Terry: Sure. I think that having creativity with a little bit of constraints can be more than just having a blank piece of paper. So I am a believer in process. You have to have process roadmaps and frameworks help us actually innovate more because it gives us a mechanism to not have to come up with it ourselves. And isn't that in fact what strategic play is? You gave me the tools. You gave me a little package. And by the way, I built my Lego piece on a charcuterie board because I felt like I needed to spread it out. And yet it really is a great metaphor for an ecosystem, which is fragile, right? All those people are needed. All those pieces are needed. We need everybody. Jacquie: And I'll just add too, anyone listening, that Terry has seen LEGO® Serious Play® in action, multiple times at Royal Roads, where we have done MBA case study analysis using Lego. And also at Alberta Innovates. I do believe now you've got a couple of people working there that we've trained in LEGO® Serious Play®. So you probably have Lego at the office somewhere. Terry: We do in our conversational conclave, we call it, which is a little room that we've set up instead of having a table, a traditional table for meeting. We set it up with toys and a whole bunch of “How might we” sticky notes. Jacquie: Great. So just really helping. And that's an internal location for your staff? Or is that… Terry: Yes. Jacquie: Yes, it is. Okay. So you're eating your own cooking, in other words, Terry: I sure hope so. And I always try to bring those play elements and levity into it because working for a large public group can be daunting at times. And we want to make sure that we leave space for creativity and you need that safe space in order to do it as well. And I always tell people, I used to have Bob the Buffalo in my office. And when people get stressed, pre-COVID times, you sit down and you got the stuffed Buffalo—or bison, actually. Technically it's a bison in Alberta. And it immediately calms people down and then they start talking about the bison, right? Jacquie: About the bison in the room? Terry: Yeah, that's right. Jacquie: Well, that’s great. I think you're doing some super work. And it seems to me like, and I don't know what's happening in every province of Canada or every state in the U.S., but it does seem to me like Alberta has done a really great job of trying to differentiate their offerings and by supporting innovation. I was lucky enough to go to one of the Inventures Conferences and saw it all in action. I think it was the very first Inventures Conference. Terry: That’s right. And we're going to have another one in June 2022, early June in Calgary. So you can look up inventurescanada.com. I think I got that right. And it's really a great conference because it's about collisions. So it's not just about tech. It's also about artistry and big ideas. There are some online offerings as well, on the Inventures Unbound platform. But look for Inventures in June of 2022 in Calgary. Jacquie: Well, Terry, it sounds like you are doing some amazing work with the folks in Alberta. And I know that the team at Royal Roads is doing amazing things as well with your problem-based learning classroom. So great stuff all around. Mark: I hate to bring up the stuffed bison in the room, but we probably are getting to the end of our talking time. And I want to be respectful of, of the time that you've given us. For people who want to follow you and make contact with you, what would be the best places for people to do that? Terry: Go to ceobusinessdiagnostics.com. That's the best place to go. We've got recent blog posts and you have links to our YouTube channel, which have a descriptions of all of those elements of the Business diagnostics framework, and more things coming. Click here for The Business Diagnosics Site: Mark: Tremendous resource. Anything else for you, Jacquie? Any questions or anything? I didn't want to step on people's feet, but I just wanted to make sure we were respecting Terry’s time. Jacquie: No. I also just would like to thank you, Terry, for—I know you're super busy and this is a great gift for us that you were able to carve out some time to join us on this podcast. So thank you so much, my friend. And, yes. I look forward to reading the next edition of the book. Terry: Thanks a lot. We'll play together soon. Jacquie: All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Mark: Thank you.
Mark: What a fascinating conversation and what a tremendous resource she is. She really concretizes the process. Jacquie: She explains things in a way that allows people to get it. That's what I love about the book as well, is that it really is an easy to use book. And it really helps demystify the complexity of business. I really thought a lot of the things that she talked about really spoke to people that are listening to this podcast because we all have questions about—Is my business good enough? Should I try to grow it? Am I wasting money? What could I do better? I thought that she did a great job explaining the offerings at Alberta Innovates and also talking about some of the processes that they use and some of the tools that are accessible for the rest of us to get our hands on. I think that if you listened to this podcast and it spoke to you, a great model could be if you would build your ecosystem. Your ecosystem can be your family. Your ecosystem could be your community. But build your ecosystem, and look at it after it’s built with a critical eye and see: Are there parts that are missing? Is there anybody doing the math? Is there anyone that is helping make the introductions or have you done a minimal viable product? But perhaps build an ecosystem out of Lego. We'd love to see it, and you can send it to hello@strategicplay.com. If you're listening to this podcast and you're already a member of our LEGO® Serious Play® community, you’re welcome to go ahead and post your picture and your comments right in the community forum so that we can share our ideas and build from there. Mark: It's a great way to visualize both the opportunities and the challenges that you have, to really make it concrete. Thanks again. That was another thoroughly enjoyable conversation, Jacquie. Jacquie: Yes. No, it was great. And we have some interesting guests coming up, so make sure you stay tuned. And thank you for your time, Mark. Mark: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Out Takes
Jacquie: Maybe not say 'stepping into a pile of Kaka'. Maybe let's not say that part. Mark: Got it. Jacquie: Maybe it was just too cute. Mark: I get that a lot. That happens a lot for me. Yes. Jacquie: Too cute.
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