Episode 64: Like Change, Uncertainty Is a Constant Undercurrent in Life

Stories of Risk and Addressing Uncertainty

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis doesn’t see risk the same way most people might define it. To her, it’s all about how prepared you are for whatever step you intend to take, the people you’ve surrounded yourself with and trust to take that step with you, and your ability to address uncertainty at any given moment.

Uncertainty is, like change, a constant undercurrent of life. There’s nothing certain in life, and there definitely isn’t anything certain in business. So how do we find ways to cope with an ever-uncertain world?

As a founding CEO and a turn-around CEO, Marylene has learned to quickly identify the resources she will need to address uncertainty and to make decisions effectively. She also has learned to trust that people truly want to learn, they have the capacity to learn, and they want to do a good job.

We covered a lot of ground in our conversation about how she sees risk, and how she addresses learning and innovation in her employees. One strategy Marylene uses in her presentations is to include music, particularly classical symphonies and opera. Here are a few links we agreed to share for you - our listeners - to get a better understanding of the impact:

Hector Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique

Why listen to what Marylene has to say about building a strong, engaged, trusting workplace? For one thing, she has had great success in this area. For another, she is the one who, when she started her first US tech firm, poached Guy Kawasaki from Apple, and wrote the French forward for his recent book!

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The operatic piece she mentioned, featuring Maria Callas:

And the book The Republic, by the philosopher Plato.

Learn more about Marylene by checking out her book, Everybody Wants to Love Their Job, and by connecting with her on LinkedIn.

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Government is Beautiful? It Can Be.

Personal Stories to Challenge Our Perspectives

For a serial entrepreneur to develop a love for government seems counter-intuitive and a ridiculous contradiction, but Jonathon Ende did exactly that.

After a few years of focusing his online forms product development and sales on small businesses, he had an enlightening conversation with a government employee who was as enthusiastic as Jonathon was about the potential use of the product.

It was the conversation with this public sector employee that clarified the direction SeamlessDocs would take, shifting its focus entirely from small business to government agencies. All the right things and people came together to confirm his lightning bolt moment of insight about the need and desire for improving interactions among agencies and between agencies and their constituents, and Jonathon was propelled by a new vision and mission.

The motto, Government is Beautiful, is rarely an easy sell to anyone who has ever had an interaction with government, whether that’s at the department of motor vehicles, the post office, or trying to get a permit for a parade or event in a city. And yet, after speaking with anyone at SeamlessDocs, or any of the government employees who have had the opportunity to work with that team and their product, people have a completely different view of their jobs and their governments; some parts of government absolutely CAN be beautiful.

The beauty of government can be found in those public employees who make it their mission to improve relationships with their residents, the ones you don’t see working behind the scenes to make sure your water is safe to drink, the ones who work to meet the complex restrictions on wastewater release into the environment, and the ones who care deeply for their community and demonstrate that every day in whatever role they play in your local government.

Learn more about Jonathon and SeamlessDocs by connecting with him on LinkedIn, and visiting the website. You can read about my early experience with the product in my blog post here.