Good morning, everyone. This is, morning where I am. this is, our 74th episode of our Agile shorts. Wow. Yeah. I know we've been doing this for a little while a couple of years. Yeah. And, we're gonna have to have a Centennial here soon. Right? I know. Yeah. What will we do for our 100th episode? I Wonder. anyway, so today, I'm joined by my partner, good friend, Mike Jebber, and we're gonna be talking about how communities and companies win with disruption. And, of course, we've been through quite a bit of disruption, especially in the last few years, with the pandemic, and and now with AI. And, I'm not really sure where this talk's going. So we're just gonna, you know, just sort of riff since we are, as a company, our company is very interested in how disruption impacts, organizations and in the in the individuals within it and how we can help companies and individuals view disruption, as a capability. And so with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Mike and maybe you can give us an intro on what we're talking about. Yeah. I think it's interesting. Kumar, you and I've had a lot of conversations. It's just week to week on this thing, and and we're definitely having them with the different folks we're working with, especially the leaders of companies that are really, really really see the value in creating a capability of disruption and and becoming adaptable. What it's allowing them to do is they're finding out that there are things now that they can do that that that they never even really considered as part of their their corporate or work environment. I know, for example, there's a leader that I work with that now, she's very, very philanthropic, right, very much into community and giving back and everything else. But you look at, in the in the, in the recent years, a lot of corporate executives and a lot of corporations and orgs had to either be focused on doing philanthropic type stuff, community efforts, ecological items, as their focus, or they were a business that spent a little bit of time during the year to give back. They have days off to go do community service. Or you're doing it on your own, encouraging people to do that on their own. Right? Mhmm. So what we're what they're finding now is that it's they don't have to be separate. In fact, I think you were talking about, an entire community over in Europe, right, that was that is actually taking this to another level and completely, creating this kind of closed loop system to to to actually really put this into practice as not just something that's a a sidebar activity or something you do periodically to feel good or or to talk about, it's actually becomes part of the the DNA and the the structure of of what the organization does as a whole. Right alongside the products and services they deliver and equally as important to the bottom line and the profit. They look at these things as as just different elements not separate segments of what they do. and what it can really do is drive a lot of, a lot of ESG and DEI items, but really drive this idea of community, into the daily activities of a corporation. Yeah. That's, that's really interesting. I'd I'd wanna dig deeper into the people that you've been working with. In this effort. And and, yeah, and it's right. Yeah. We did talk about this earlier. Glenn Marshall and I have been doing a series comparing the permaculture principles is a set of it's a set of ideas for more sustainable agriculture that are modeled around natural systems. And so rather than use a lot of fertilizers and pesticides and so on and so forth and, and, chemicals that strip the earth of top soil, which by the way, we're use losing top soil at an alarming rate. So, anyway, long story short, these permaculture, principles, we've spent some time sort of comparing them to the XSCALE ecosystem thinking principles for companies. How companies can evolve and deal with disruption and maybe benefit from it through a more circular economy, if you will, where they're more integrated into their ecosystem of services and products that they deliver and, more awareness of the waste that they produce and ways to recycle and reuse that. And to your point, there is a city in, Denmark called, Kalunborg that has been designed as a fully circular economy where, the companies and the community work hand in hand designing the city to be entirely net 0 in terms of energy, waste, and so on. And I haven't done as much research on that to to sort of dig in, but it sounds like that is kind of what you're you've been working with with this group, over the past couple years. Yeah. And and there's there's kinda came about the the what they're what they're able to do now is is more kind of opportunistic, I'll say accidental, but it's more it's more really around wow. It was the visibility now came about because of the fact that they were working to, working to take advantage of some situations that happened post COVID, they had to do a lot of work to try to get to take advantage of those opportunities. And in doing so, what they found out was, quite by accident, but they were very excited about it, is that now they could do have impacts in other ways that they never thought they could tie back to what they were doing at the at the in their organization, mainly around community. Directly directly impacting the communities that they're in, through programs that they can set up and tie to the activities that they're doing to try to expand their capabilities within their business. They are now able to actually reach out and do more social activities namely in this case to to to reach out to at risk young young adults and actually go and give them an opportunity and show them a different path. because they now have a mechanism that they can do that with. And the the intent of that mechanism wasn't necessarily for that reason. But because they're now able to think and look forward and be innovative and creative, and they actually have mind space to think about different ways to improve, everything around them, not just the bottom line, but the the living environments and the communities the people that work with their organization live in, it's it's just it started to blossom in many different directions. And I think that the concept, and you were mentioning it a little earlier, the the concept of what what what a holistic approach looks like is evolving. You know, the the idea that, yeah, we should be socially responsible as a corporation. We'll take out a little time each year. We'll take out some stuff. No. That that that is that is moo we're moving away from that. We're we're we're bringing those types of things in as being a core component of sustainability, you know, you and I both know that sustainability is really about balance. If you don't have balance, if you can't balance environments, you're likely you're at risk of not being sustainable. Something gets out of whack. And what they're realizing is that there are more components that need to be in place today for sustainability that we weren't considering in the past to make a holistic, sustainable approach moving forward, not just with the environment, but social as well. Can you give some examples of the impact that, this group has had on communities more specifically? Absolutely. This is so exciting. the the the the president of the organization, very philanthropic, leader. She she's amazing. And and her and all of her her folks at her company kind of, you know, that that natural DNA of the company kind of assuming the persona of the of of the chief. Right, of the leader. they're all very much, they love giving back what they what they could do. And what they realized was this is a manufacturing organization. in the manufacturing space in the US, it creates, which are the folks that have the skills to do the things that, that happen within the plan, this the trades have been declining over over the last 30, 40 years. Mhmm. And when we say declining is no new people are coming into So the folks that were in it were getting older, they're now looking all at retirement, COVID for for for this particular company. presented an opportunity because a lot of the business that happens in this space was in Europe. a lot of the big players were in Europe. And when the supply chains got disrupted and not just not it didn't just disrupt the supply chains for the products and services, but for the maintenance of of what they build. So there was an opportunity now for, all of the all of the, the, the, the customers on on this side of the pond, as you say, in North America, in in the Americas to to take on. They wanted more localized capabilities so that supply chains didn't disrupt. Well, that's great. Now they got a new opportunity. Right? And they realized, okay. We've gotta get we've gotta get staffed up to take care of this, and they they've been I'm doing that, but then they looked out and reached out into the trade space. The people aren't there. There's there's there's nobody to go grab and bring in your or your right now, it's about pulling people from other companies, which is very difficult. So they instituted a started instituting a program to say, we're gonna have to train our own. To bring people up, we're gonna have to start rehydrating the trades again, through our own efforts, at least to get going on this. And this was really about a capacity play for and and sustainability to take advantage of opportunities that they could now reach out to and work work work that they had access to. So they get this going. And what they realize is that we've been going out and talking to all of these young adults. Trying to get them into the space and and getting them interested in showing them what their opportunities are. We're running into all of these situations where there's at risk youth. Young adults, at risk, people out there. And light bulb comes on and says, wait a minute. We've now have a vehicle here that we can not only help our our business in in the ability to grow through capacity and skill, but we also have the ability now to reach out into our communities and start offering up opportunities for at risk youth to keep them from from going down the wrong path. and this is all it's all because they have the time. They've had the opportunity to to to go into areas they wouldn't have before. they've been working for 2 to 3 years now, on retuning themselves to be more adaptable to to be able to reach out, to have more time to look forward for opportunity. To actually reach out and have the time to build the capacity and the capability to meet those opportunities. That's a good example of I'm sorry. Yeah. Because they built that that that that capability now. All of a sudden, all of these all of these new things become visible to them, and now they can start reaching out and and actually adding that to what they do. Yeah. I was just gonna say that's a good example of how, this company has impacted this, the social part of the ESG equation Right? So, training people in the trades, which are declining, and and have been for a long time to your point. still still to me, what about the environmental part? And any examples from your experience working with this group where companies are instituting more Circular policies around their, their environmental impact or yeah. The the and that's actually been in play for for a lot longer time. You know, the the environmental side of of of these other aspects has been has been is much more developed and has been, it's it's it's it's been much more visible. it's been, there's a lot more energy around it. there has been globally. the climate change has really driven that for for quite some time, and that that is, like, one of the sources of of awareness, of what's going on that people can feel and touch. so, yeah, there's there's naturally a lot of that that that's been going on. And and I think I know in our area that that's been something that everyone's been working on for a very long time. that the interesting thing. It's a tough that's a tough not to crack, though, right, because, you know, publicly traded companies are are held to, profit, expectations, if you will, and or growth That is short sighted in nature. I mean, every quarter, you gotta report your numbers, right, to the, to the public, the the shareholders that that, own a share of your company. And it it seems like the the idea of a more circular environmental approach requires long term thinking and strategic thinking into how companies plug into a larger ecosystem companies that provide services and goods to consumers. And, we haven't cracked that, not yet. Right? So we're still we're still, woefully behind in the climate change game, but that's that's maybe another topic for another show or maybe people that know more about this than we do. I will say this, though. The the interesting thing that is emerging, it's not it's not fully in play yet, but there are there are some very active participate participants, proactively in this. Again, seeing looking down the road and seeing that this is gonna be a thing, and and that's something that they maybe wanted to do and didn't know how to balance because I can tell you, for example, the the company that I gave you the example about. They've always wanted to have more of an impact in these areas. They've never been able to find a way to balance it because traditionally, it's always been a trade off of profit to to ecological responsibility. Profit to social to social reform and some social, responsibility and social benefit. There's always been this trade off because the only thing that they were being tracked on, and the only thing that they were being held accountable for was the bottom line. The thing that's changing is that there are now other data points that they have to meet. Yeah. It is. Some of these other areas. Some of them are they're voluntarily doing, and they're doing it on their own because they know it's going to become a thing. Others, there's other things going on globally inside of, governments in different different parts of the world. Where these things are starting to get established. The the beginning foundations of what those measures should look like are getting are getting established. In fact, you and I were talking about it. I know we both do a little bit of investing. You go to Fidelity Investments today, and in in when you do the research for for organizations now, it's not just about profit. There are other categories, other columns on there for research, inside of their software today, even though the measures haven't been really defined yet, they already have and are prepared for different types of measurements that are outside of profit. And because they know that people are going to start investing based on those things. Those are gonna be data points that people are looking at. For investment. So I will say that move in that direction. It's moving there, but it's not there yet. Well, it's and it's not moving fast enough, unfortunately. Right? I mean, that's especially for the environmental stuff. The social, actually, we can probably change a little quicker, but the environmental kind of is it's we don't have you know, nobody has mother nature's magic, magic, equation or formula to be able to switch that around. Right? So Yeah. Yeah. That's that's true. But it is heartening to see that, you know, the, the group that you're working with, that is, investing in ESG and DEI. And investing significant time and resources to change how companies, work with other companies, I'm assuming. Has had an impact on the community and specifically the company that we're you're talking about, the manufacturer. and there are so many examples of companies that do this course that, you know, are having to train their workforce because of a lack of trades, which is which is it has a significant impact on communities. And this is where disruption, of course, can, can spur this type of, this type of action. Right? we don't have enough trades people. What do we do? They're not coming through the system anymore. What do we do? Well, we gotta take matters into our own hands, right, and train these people. Or people that, that have the capacity potential to do this. In the interest. Yeah. So that that makes a lot of sense. we're running up, on our on our time box here 15 to 20 minutes. Anything we I didn't ask or we didn't talk about about in in about this topic? Well, I think it's a very large topic, and I think the the one thing to take away from it is that, to your point, it's where we are behind, right, where we need to be, where we should be in a lot of these things. But there are a lot of great efforts going on out there, from a lot of people that are not being pushed to do this because of regulation, and they're not being pushed to do this because of that's gonna be the new way of operating, which a lot of it will be. a lot of people will be brought along kicking and screaming the whole way, but these there's a lot of great examples of folks out there that are doing it because they want to because they've always wanted to. And now they feel like they've got a way to make it happen and a way to make it so that it happens all at the same time in the same unit and not have to do 2 separate types of activities that sometimes feel like they're competing. Right? This this it it is possible to tie these things together. And it is possible to make gained benefits in both areas from from from the same activity. And I think that's what's really encouraging about it. And there's a whole city in Denmark that's, that's proven this, you know, from an environmental environmental standpoint. I'm sure there's a social impact there. Right? They've they have designed a city that is completely closed loop. Everything's recycled from an environmental standpoint. The trades are well served because, of course, these companies are all have all bought in. There's several partners in Calambord that that all work together to to make this happen. And so There is proof that this can can work. real examples out there. Real examples out there. Right? Alright. Well, Thanks for joining me this morning, and I hope you enjoy the show. We'll put some references to some of the things we talked about. down in the show notes, and, we'll catch you next time. Thank you. Have a great week. Thank you, everybody. Bye bye.
