Episode – 53; Lady's Night

Recorded: July 14, 2020

About the podcast

Topic: Okay, the notion was noble, but the presentation might have been better. If this was an episode of Master Chef with Antlerboy and JP being the wanna-be cooks, we would certainly have presented a repulsive-looking dish, but it tasted darn good.

So here’s the story; Antlerboy and JP had noticed that all of the guests at The Outliers Inn have been men. Certainly, the men have themselves have been diverse in geography, industry and profession – but they have all been men. So we wanted to consciously seek to make our guests more diverse and we came up with the idea to devote a show only to guests who were women – and decided to call the episode “Lady's Night” (I believe it was Antlerboy’s idea). Try as he might, JP could not come up with another name with less sexist undertones, so we went with it. We won’t do that again – we will find another name if we do a repeat.

JP starts by sharing his joy of being back in action; in the States, client-facing, and in the field. But JP’s primary engagement is with a nursing home and he is staying with his parents (who are both over 80 years old) while there. So his COVID-RADAR is up and operational; social distancing, masks, limiting who he visits and under what circumstances. It’s serious stuff and the risks are considerable. Better safe than sorry – really sorry.

Our first guest, Maria, is an industrial engineer at Spirit Airlines as Manager of Business Process Optimization. She helps conduct improvement projects for the company and training employees in Lean Six-Sigma. Since COVID has effected the airline industry especially hard, I asked what effects has it has had on her and the goings-on at Spirit. It was refreshing to hear that Spirit was using the lighter load to improve the skillsets of their employees.

Amanda joins us from Manchester, having crossed paths with Antlerboy recently doing a webinar on crisis communication (“which is exactly as it says on the tin”). She police communications for 20yrs in charge of all communication. She started before 9/11 and the world is a very difference place looking back. Amanda’s personal turning point and most poignant moment was dealing with the terrorist attack at the Manchester arena and how important the people and communication were so critically important in working through a crisis situation. She recently started her business (on the day of lockdown in the UK). Her book, Crisis Communication Strategies (May-2020) is available on Amazon.

Our next guest is Sonia, who is a Lean Six-Sigma Master Black Belt. She is realigning her focus from process performance to personal and professional development. She recently launched her company, SS International LLC. She conducts workshops and masterminds and shares with us that she recently launched a three-month mastermind specifically for women to help them learn to unleash their potential, overcome obstacles, hold themselves and each other accountable, and reach their goals.

This just skims the surface of the conversations and discussions. There is a lot of interesting ideas and experiences shared. Give a listen. We are sure you will enjoy it as much as we did.

Hosts: Joseph Paris, Founder of the OpEx Society & The XONITEK Group of Companies Benjamin Taylor, Managing Partner of RedQuadrant.