How to Empower Your Employees to Drive Innovation

[0:00]  and it's actually very exciting because when you give employees the opportunity to say I would like to do this and give them the support they need as in financial or leadership or training or mentorship it's exciting to see what they can present um anything from something very that may seem small but impactful to kind of a whole new business line and you know it shouldn't be just one person in the organization that does that so how we offer that is kind of through an endowment type fund that is set up to say we're going to allocate this many dollar this fiscal year you

[0:48]  bring to us your ideas your business plans and let's talk about how we can make that work um and the criteria is yeah we want it to meet our mission we want it to be able to support the community and we want your great ideas to do that and that really empowers employees all right everybody welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm incredibly excited because I have an amazing leader sitting across this digital table with me Jill is the executive director of Pioneer resources INC now Jill I want to

[1:37]  talk about the amazing impact that you guys are having as an organization and I think the best way to sum up what you guys do and why you do it comes from a story that you were told by a board member who was a hundred years old what was that story yeah it was such a great opportunity to sit and listen to him tell this story you know really seeking out okay how how did the organization really start and so he shared that um you know this vision of this church that's on this curve and it's it's really the church that you picture when you picture old school church with the white steeple and he said there was a pastor there who would see his parishioners a husband and wife come in each week but they came in individually so one week

[2:26]  the wife would come the second week the husband would come and so finally he asked out of curiosity really why do you come in separate and not come in together and they said well we have a a closet child and he said I don't know what that term means and that terminology was used in the 1940s when a family had a child with disabilities because typically that family was told by their physician your child will be best served sending them away to this Hospital you don't have to worry about them we will take care of them well this family didn't want to do that they wanted their child in their home they wanted to care for that child in the best way they could and so in order to keep them safe at times they would lock them in their room to ensure that they

[3:15]  were safe or make sure that they were available to them directly oneon-one in that home and that's what this family was doing and the pastor really shared that you know there's another family that's experiencing the same thing maybe you could help each other maybe our Parish could help you guys as a whole wasn't what an amazing story you know destigmatizing some of the challenges that we naturally face right as a family and as a community and coming together to make that safe space is super important so Jill you know we're the executive director right now of this amazing organization we were a social worker at one point in time or forever being a social worker who were you as a child why did you decide to kind of go down the path of being a social worker what type of things inspired you to do this work at a young age yeah so I think certainly seeing um

[4:05]  family members in caring spaces having positions my dad was a teacher my mom started out providing emergency medical care to individuals and then having family members who had a disability but I think that key turning point was really attending a vocational school in high school and I attended to be able to go through a career in preschool teaching preschool and um the teacher saw something in me and decided to place me in a special educ education classroom and so really my eyes were enlightened I saw the need and it really inspired me to continue to work in this field what was that like especially being at such a young age right and

[4:53]  serving such a a population of people who need support were you ready to kind of live up to those challenges at such a young age and I wonder what that aha moment was for that teacher who said hey we're not going to put you in preschool we're going to put you in special education did you ever learn about what that was like I think you know and I and I still talk with that teacher today she actually lives in the community where Pioneer resources is so it's such a great connection to see and I I thank her and tell her how she's inspired our organization in so many ways um and really it was just that she said I I see you could take on challenges and I I see that there wasn't a barrier that you didn't want to resist and so you know I think I follow that path now you know

[5:40]  there's a lot of barriers and services to individuals with disabilities and it's really figuring out how can we break down those barriers and make sure they receive the services that they should be receiving and they have access to the community as everyone else does and very transparently we need to be able to support our community more than ever but it doesn't come without its challenges right reimbursement rates Staffing all of these are different types of challenges so what does the current landscape in your guys' community look like when it comes to providing these services for the community and people in need yeah I think when we look at the the challenges that pose barriers in this line of business um you know it it starts with

[6:28]  the funding if the funding is not appropriate to meet the service in a quality way then we have to look at how to we support advocating to change that funding our funding stream for our organization is about 80% Medicaid or Medicare funding and so our role and responsibility and what we encourage families persons serve to do is to really advocate for that additional in appropriate funding um the the barriers that exist within the organization are certainly Staffing challenges we are Staffing residential group homes 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year it doesn't matter if it's Christmas it doesn't matter if it's

[7:17]  Easter morning um we need to have quality staff providing those services and so finding quality staff who are able to be skillful ful enough to provide those quality services and also accept schedules that aren't the normal schedule and to accept a pay that is not what it should be for their level of experience the work that they do and the hours that they work um and then I think it is just as we look at the world of insurance insurance um I think think is a barrier and in the Medicaid world that insurance authorization comes from Community

[8:06]  Mental healths so that's how it operates in Michigan not in every state and currently as those funds come through the state from mdhhs to our prepaid Health Integrated Systems phips to the cmhs there's a lot of layers of dollars that are coming off first before it actually gets to the person receiving those Services how does it make you feel as the executive director who knows how vital your guys' services are to be able to serve the community it doesn't seem like we have the pipeline of both funding and talent coming to us to be able to serve at the rate and the need severity need that we have in the community so how do you kind of feel about the current landscape of the space in

[8:52]  general I think that we have opportunities and I think that's my favorite word in my um leadersh ship team probably gets tired of hearing it I love that opportunities doesn't mean it's easy but an opportunity means we need to work together so both as an individual organization as a partner organization to other organizations providing the same Services as us to the memberships or associations that we are part of like Encompass Michigan um Mala it's really working together to Define how do we create the change that needs to happen and how do you kind of how do you think about the word impact when it comes to you know working and

[9:39]  collaborating with so many different types of organization and the impact you guys have in the community how do you kind of sum up that word because it seems like you guys are doing so much but there's also so much demand in the community for the services that we're serving and the people who are serving as well yeah I think that impact to me that word it has to be reflected first on is that impacting the individual receiving the services in a positive way or a negative way and how we are tracking that and how we are delivering that service um and what are the outcomes of that service as it's currently being provided so impact can be positive it can be negative but we also use that information from that impact to really

[10:28]  determine what are those next steps or what are those improvements that we need to make so one of the things that I've learned about they're having so many of these conversations is CEO burnout in the nonprofit Space is really challenging now sometimes it seems like the impact that we're chasing in the community to serve so many can often turn into a horizon we take one step towards it it moves one step further away right it's very difficult to grasp so how do you stay grounded in the impact and you know the progress you guys are making and serving the community it day by day but then developing that strategic view of where you need to be um so yes it's challenging you rely on others for more and you need to find a mentor and you need to find persons that

[11:19]  are in that same role to be able to share those challenges to share those best practices um you can't operate solely it it does make sense in business and it doesn't make sense in the philosophy of how are we going to improve um so it's challenging I mean I can imagine but there's a famous saying it's you know you can go go fast by yourself or you can go far together it seems like the together model right of coming together and being collaborative with other organizations other leaders is how we meet the need of the community how has your leadership Journey been so I know being a social worker and being being highly skilled at this space does not often equate to being an amazing leader and executive director so how has this leadership growth process been for you

[12:07]  so I think growth is a good word in that you know certainly there's things that you assume you know when you step into a role or a position or an organization and then there's the things that you learn and you grow and I don't think that ever stops and I think that there's always that ability to to gain more knowledge to understand that just because I see it through a specific lens doesn't mean others do and so using you know that strategic planning model to really gain that feedback and education from everyone and take the strength of others leadership and have that support you have it support your organization

[12:57]  have it support your team um again I you know I think it speaks to that word community and how do we support each other and providing that quality casting a 10-year strategic plan right has to be difficult when there are so many elements that are changing right from a legislation perspective State community laws so I would say that you have had to become incredibly skilled at being adaptive right new data equals new decisions so how have you kind of kind of leaned into that skill set of adaptability and kind of leading the organization when so much is changing all the time I think the focus that we've tried to implement at the organization is one of our team members need to be adaptable our team members

[13:47]  need to not be of a mindset that things are always going to stay the same rather if we're thinking about how do we focus on continuous Improvement and what does that look like then we're always going to remember that we are looking for things to change we are looking because we want to improve and we want to make our services better and we want to be able to meet more service needs in the community so it's really developing that culture of it's it's not going to stay the same and if you have that expectation you're probably not going to be on the right team because it it can't how do you think about the skill set or the soft skill if you will of curiosity

[14:34]  right embedding that and cultivating that in an organization is very difficult but thinking or I would say enabling and empowering our team members to think creatively with curiosity about how we can tackle different challenges seems like it's an absolute must for the position that you guys are in the community and the type of organization that you guys have it is and it's actually very exciting because when you give employees the opportunity to say I would like to do this and give them the support they need as in financial or leadership or training or mentorship it's exciting to see what they can present um anything from something very that may seem small but impactful to kind of a whole new

[15:23]  business line and you know it shouldn't be just one person in the organization that does that so how we offer that is kind of through an endowment type fund that is set up to say we're going to allocate this many dollars this fiscal year you bring to us your ideas your business plans and let's talk about how we can make that work um and the criteria is yeah we want it to meet our mission we want it to be able to support the community and we want your great ideas to do that and that really empowers employees something I picked up on you um based on our conversations is you seem to be incredibly optimistic because there's the great leaders who I talked

[16:10]  to on the podcast have two lenses that they look at I would say challenges through right one is this is going to be tough this is going to be a challenge we're going to have to overcome it and what you said very strategically and intentionally was this is an opportunity for us to be able to learn in lean in on learn and grow how have you been able to Foster this optimistic mindset that kind of permeates when we have these kind of conversations I think it's just built into me and who I am you know and you have a choice all of us have a choice when we wake up in the morning you know do you want to look at the day as oh it's another day or do you want to look at the days yeah it's another day and so you have to choose that you have to choose how are you going to frame your mindset for that day and so you know I love when I hear a great podcast sharing

[17:01]  that with my team and say hey I would love for you to take a listen to this give me your perspective of what you drew out of that because it is going to be individual and that's the social worker and me saying I want to know how it impacts you and what thoughts it gives you about leadership and how you can support your team um because it is it's individual for everyone there's a there's an element of accountability in there which is incredibly freeing I had a amazing conversation a couple weeks ago with the CEO and founder of an organization called days for girls International they produced feminine hygiene products for girls in Africa they've supported over three and a half million girls across the globe right they have about 70,000 volunteers and one of the things that

[17:47]  she said was we have the opportunity to choose and that opportunity means that we have the power and that power comes with a sense of accountability do you help your team lean into that sense of accountability about controlling their mindset controlling how they see the world cuz I'm really inspired to kind of double click on what we were just talking about yeah and I think our um our mission speaks to that a little bit but really it focuses on that vision and that vision is we need to be the premier quality provider um and and base that around how do we support the individuals that we um serve in finding that quality in their community and building those

[18:34]  relationships and just being an integrated part of the community and it it's developed in so many different ways but again if we continually focus on that Vision then every decision we make should be also focused on that Vision um so it you know every meeting we have we're reviewing that Vision um every board meeting every all staff meeting um when I'm in the community talking about the organization it's this is what we want to be and you know it someone may say well don't you provide quality services already we do to some but can we do better yes we can and we need your help to do that um by giving us feedback by giving us ideas by helping to fund and

[19:24]  support the programs and the needs in the community because again it has to be that ongoing continuous Improvement Focus you ever heard of um growth mindset by Carol dck at Stanford where she talks about the entire process of life right is to continue to grow and get better there's always opportunities to learn and it seems like you kind of lean into that a little bit so do you share the growth mindset in your personal life and with your team yep you know it it is I think it is and and some people especially when you're feeling overworked feel like why can't I just be where I am at right now and be okay with that and I and I don't think it's sayane that you can't be but I think it's saying okay how can you do

[20:11]  that for a time period and then how do you continually look at what are those improvements we need to make um I think if that choice was to continually stay stagnant then you know I I just don't think that you can be in this line of business either if we could go back to a younger version of Jill who is just going on this journey what piece of advice would you give to her about the leadership Journey that she's going to be tackling for the next couple years what do you think oh there's so many things I think certainly always take time to listen to the other person so whether it is a family member member a Community member

[21:00]  talking about needs an employee um part of your leadership team listening because once you listen and you hear those needs that's when you can take it in and step back and and build that Knowledge from what you hear because things don't happen individually um and once you you've listened you've built a relationship with that person and that relationship can lead to other positive relationships and other positive relationships so I would always say to that person make sure you stop and listen and then value relationships as a whole um because those connections that

[21:51]  you make you'll never know when they come back into your life um you know it could have been a connection you made 10 years ago but that connection could be so important in another 10 years and then learning continuing to learn I always think about the relationship aspect right we have such an opportunity today especially as Leaders of organizations to be able to collaborate with other leaders and ask how they're tackling challenges how they're getting these results what maybe they're doing differently than us but that also comes with a sense of an abundance mindset you know a lot of leaders find themselves challenged with the SC scarcity mindset because they have to protect what they have but often when we are willing to give to others abundance comes back to us do you feel like you have the opportunity often to

[22:38]  tap into that abundance mindset especially with the work that you guys are doing yeah and I think again it it kind of leans into that effect of how do we work more collaboratively together to be able to improve and then also when you look at mentorship I wouldn't have the understanding or knowledge on how to deal a with a lot of the situations but relying on others that can mentor me through those situations that may have been through it before um is such a key for all of us but again it's how do you have those relationships unless you are out in the community and building those relationships and listening and asking those

[23:25]  questions what's one of the most powerful lessons that Mentor has taught you or an instance where they change the way in which you look at the world I think really instilling in me that you don't have all the answers and to make sure to seek out that information and then take that information and make a collaborative decision because it's a lot easier to bring people Along on a path than to tell people what path to take it's very powerful and that comes with a sense of humility as well right bringing people along acting like we don't have all the answers because often we don't and leaning into the genius of our team members to get those diverse different

[24:13]  perspectives on how we can tackle these challenges which is so powerful I want to talk a little bit about soft skills and how important they are for leaders who are especially engaging with this new generation of Millennials gen Z and Alpha who's right around the corner what do you think about soft skills do you think they're important I do you know certainly again in that um social worker mindset you know taking the opportunity to build with many of the younger Generations that are coming in that value of we can do our functions of our work but we need to focus on how are we relating to each other because we are not singular in this environment even if you're working

[25:01]  remotely um you know the engagement that you have to have with other people is so important um one of my team members kind of recognized that with working with a younger demographic that she just created kind of this customer service type training to really say what does that look like all the way down to being in a room and just as soon as you walk into a group of people really reaching out shaking their hand looking in their eyes and having a conversation with them um versus just being on our phone after oh we're talking about training the younger generation to have those interpersonal communication skills that we were hammered with so much and we

[25:48]  were coming up oh that's interesting I was thinking about it in the opposite direction of like how do we engage with the younger Generations when we come into the room I was saying like hey what do we do do we say like hey your outfit's fire or you know something like that along the way oh my goodness yeah I mean it's just a we're in a point in time where curiosity and Leadership has to be leaned into as that soft skill right because what got us here is not going to get us there and it's the leaders who are willing to lean in heavily to the new generations and get that cross collaborative mind share I feel like are going to find themselves being incredibly successful and everybody else is going to be left behind I think when you you know really reference that collaborative yes cu one piece of it is yeah you know individuals don't always naturally know how to have those soft skills but then it is

[26:39]  also we My Generation learn so much from that generation as well and taking the time to say what is it that you value about work or what is it that isn't working out well so that we can kind of create a space or a way you know such as just flexibility in hours you know what do you want your work day to look like um do you want to work from home do you want to work in the office because it's different for every individual and it's not even just um based on you know which generation they grew up in one of my favorite leaders I was hoping that I had a book around me so I don't want to interrupt the episode but Gary

[27:26]  vaynerchuk goes by Gary ve on social media one of the things that he talks about in his leadership style when someone is hired into his organization he takes the first couple meetings to really understand that individual and what they want out of this role and responsibility do you want a bigger title do you want to make more money do you want work life balance do you want unlimited PTO what are we trying to get out of this because when we as Leaders can understand what the true motivation is for what somebody's doing in work we can align everything else with their end goal and objective what are some of the lessons that you've learned when asking some of these questions of younger Generations what is important to the people inside you know Pioneer resources and everything else you guys are doing yeah I think you know certainly titles are important and

[28:15]  so understanding that a title has a lot of responsibilities not just for the individual but when we look at um an HR world we look at a title they're taking that title and aligning it with with the wage scale so making sure that when a person is coming to us and they're saying I would like to be this you know really finding out what does that mean to you what about it is what excites you is it just the salary is it the responsibility is it the hours is it the title um because it can look so different especially from organization to organization so I think what you said is yes so key and important we meet each

[29:05]  supervisor meets with each staff every year and really builds what we call a succession plan where do you want to be what do you enjoy doing what do you want to learn to do and how can we help you get there because we have to build people up from within to be able to kind of create this great future for for the organization cuz we can't just say that it's a oneandone here's the leadership team and that's it we have to be continually looking at what does that mean for five years for six years for 10 years for 70 years it's a being able to cast that vision is incredibly important I want to ask a little bit about one of the hot button topics that a lot of leaders find themselves having to explore with a lens

[29:53]  of curiosity what are you guys thinking about in the world of technology are artificial intelligence what are these kind of things going to mean to Pioneer resources as you guys navigate the future and having a bigger impact what are we kind of thinking right now with a your unique perspective as the executive director we love it um really embracing technology um you know Ai and all of the tools that it can offer us but I think when you work with a group of individuals who have disabilities they're always looking at what can I use to adapt and better enable me to do something and so we're in that mindset already so I if that adaptation means a

[30:43]  walker or a wheelchair or um increased um access to technology for hearing or Vision you know we're already in that mindset of thinking yeah that makes sense so why wouldn't we why wouldn't we just grab on to and and navigate towards you know any technology that a is going to make us better or smarter give us more information um in grant writing it's a chat gbt is a great tool why not utilize it work smarter not harder work smarter not harder I love that well how do we get the people who maybe are a little bit of fearful about this technology to lean into this new opport opportunity for them to work smarter not harder

[31:30]  especially when they think that this could be a threat to my job as an example how do we navigate that yeah and you know I think many times in many um Industries they could see that as a threat to their job I think in our industry it's so unique that really you need people to support people that I don't see it as as a threat but certainly there's those hesitations with people to utilize that and I think it's just sharing this is how I think it could be a benefit um you know in small little Snippets of information in Sharing how I have used it or another leader can share how they've used it and it's just showing the benefit yeah

[32:17]  inspiring through actually doing is really important that's one of the best ways in which I've gotten my team over the last couple years to adopt tools like chat GPT and all these other things that help them do things quicker is I will have to literally demonstrate hey guys this is the process that I went through to tackle this Challenge and instead of having a meeting and meeting for 25 minutes as a group I was able to put this prompt into the system and get this output which you guys gave input on and now we have the result so inspiring others by demonstrating and actually doing super important lesson for a lot of leaders out there Jill I want to I want to talk a little bit about what the future is going to look like so when we talk about the impact that we've had the impact that that 100 100y old board member shared about the story and why the organization was started what did the future years look like for Pioneer

[33:04]  resources what are you guys going to accomplish what are we tackling um you know it's hard to Envision that in a service that is so rapidly changing in so many ways um but the service needs aren't changing so we take that balance and we you know really we we have to come together which we're just starting our new strategic planning process and really again we're going to take feedback from all areas of the organization every level of Staff all the way through to the community to person serve to really develop okay what are those things that are priority to

[33:54]  you and how are we going to work to do that um but sustainability is so important if the needs are still there you know certainly times are going to change um families may be more apt to have their children who has a disability stay home with them and so residential needs may not be such a high need as they were in the past and so just understanding what that landscape looks like um but data is going to be key for us and and making sure that we can show the quality and what we do through that data incredibly important the more ways we measure the more ways we can win it's one of my favorite sayings the data is so important to be able to quantify the

[34:42]  impact and the effort that we're putting out there Joe one of the traditions we have here on the podcast as we put the plane or put the wheels down to land the plane is we have a blind question from our previous guest now our previous guest wanted to ask you this question which is what motivates you to today and is it different from 10 to 20 years ago H what motivates me today truly what motivates me as a person and ultimately as a leader is my love to help people so I think that it's important but I don't think that you can forget I don't think that you should

[35:32]  forget that you can't always help everyone because not everyone wants help and has that changed from 10 to 20 years ago I'd say so in my mind I always felt like helping was a positive thing and if I did it there should be that expectation on the other side that the person would appreciate that and it's learning that helping doesn't mean looking for that appreciation it just means what am I feeling inside from doing that that's a beautiful place for us to put a bow on today's episode Jill once again thank you so much for being the definition of heart and hustle the things that you're doing for the community the ways in which you Advocate the which in which you innovate to be

[36:20]  able to meet the needs of the community is truly inspiring so for everybody who's tuning in and watching Jill thank you for coming on the podcast we really appreciate it thank you for having me