"What is Innovation?" Episode 75 is out! In this episode, Jared sits down with Dr. Charles Davis, Chief Comprehensive Services and Data Officer of Evolve502. They discuss how non-profit organizations can use innovation principles to collaborate effectively with other sectors. This episode also dives into how personal motivation and availability of resources are essential to innovation and implementation. How do you strike the balance between ideation and implementation of the ideas? How do you leverage innovative responses in a non-profit organization setting? Dr. Charles Davis' insights and years of experience working on-field will help you innovatively implement your ideas to solve problems in your organizations.
Dr. Charles C. Davis, Jr. is the Chief Comprehensive Services and Data Officer for Evolve502. In this episode, they discuss how non-profit organizations can use innovation principles to collaborate effectively with other sectors. This episode also dives into how personal motivation and availability of resources are essential to innovation and implementation
More about our guest:
In this role, Dr. Davis is responsible for developing community-wide supports to impact students and families along the cradle-to-career pipeline. This work is accomplished by regularly convening partners from the public, private and philanthropic sectors. A Dayton, Ohio native, Dr. Davis earned his Bachelor’s degree in History from Eastern Michigan University, his Master of Education degree from Antioch University McGregor and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership, Evaluation and Organizational Development from the University of Louisville. Charles also holds graduate certificates from the University of Pennsylvania, the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy the Northwestern University Kellogg Center of Executive Education, and is a nationally certified Diversity Professional. Dr. Davis is married to Dr. Latrica Best and is the father of Charles III and Cullen.
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Episode Guide:
1:37 - What is innovation?
2:25 - Innovation and Implementation: a convergence?
4:02 - Innovation perspective: personal
7:27 - Working with non-profits
9:28 - Innovation and Support for the education system
11:21 - COVID Pandemic Response: Food nutrition services
12:35 - Scaling COVID response
16:22 - Non profit organizations resource loop
19:51 - Personal motivation for communities
23:04 - Working post-pandemic
27:29 - Advice for Innovators
31:01 - 3 Levels of Problem
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.
/This transcript was automatically generated using AI; please forgive any inconsistencies. We are working to provide the correct and more concise copy of the transcript. For urgent need, please send us an email.
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Jared Simmons 00:05
Hello, and welcome to What is Innovation? The podcast that explores the reality of a word that is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. This podcast is produced by OUTLAST Consulting LLC, a boutique consultancy that helps companies use innovation principles to solve their toughest business problems. I'm your host, Jared Simmons, and I'm so excited to have Dr. Charles Davis.
Jared Simmons 00:30
Dr. Charles C. Davis Jr. is the chief comprehensive services and Data Officer for evolve 502. In this role, Dr. Davis is responsible for developing community wide supports to impact students and families along the cradle to career pipeline. This work is accomplished by regularly convening partners from the public, private and philanthropic sectors. A Dayton, Ohio native, Dr. Davis earned his bachelor's degree in history from Eastern Michigan University, his Master of Education Degree from Antioch University McGregor, and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership evaluation and organizational development from the University of Louisville. Charles also holds graduate certificates from the University of Pennsylvania, the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, the Northwestern University Kellogg Center of executive education, and is a nationally certified diversity professional. Dr. Davis is married to Dr. Le Treecko. Best and is the father of Charles a third and Colin Charles, my friend, I am so excited for this conversation. I can't wait to dive into it. Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Charles Davis 01:35
Thanks. All right, well,
Jared Simmons 01:36
let's get right to it. What in your mind is innovation to me? And I've actually
Dr. Charles Davis 01:42
just really narrowed down on this in the past year. So it's a great time to ask me this question. But I really believe that innovation is implementation, the implementation of very much like the scientific method, development theory, implementation of your best gifts at the time, it is not going to be perfect. It is not probably going to be your final draft. But I'm a very big components. Innovation driving implementation.
Jared Simmons 02:10
Love that. So innovation is implementation, kind of your best guess, talk me through how you got to that, because connecting Innovation and Implementation feels obvious to me. But I know that I've heard a lot of different folks come at it from a different angle. So tell me about how you get to that? Well,
Dr. Charles Davis 02:27
ironically, I've worked in two offices of innovation that were not, in my opinion, the most innovative spaces to be in within those two organizations, right? I think a lot of times, innovation becomes like buzz word for a place to just kind of dump things that you really don't have a place for, you haven't actively made a place for them. And so depending on the leader, they can really spin out tons and kernels of real thoughtful practice, or it can just die slow death. So from my perspective, it becomes really comfortable to keep saying, I don't know yet, or I don't have enough data, or I gotta keep going to this blog post or to this other conference. And maybe part of that is from writing a dissertation. At some point, you just have to publish it. I mean, it just has to get out of gray, or you'll just be writing forever, you'll never reach the point of saturation, where you have read every possible thing on a topic, you try to do the best you can, right, but you actually want to graduate. Gotta push it out. Right? So I think the same thing through innovation, like you do the best you can you read best practice, you read the literature, you subscribe to all the newsletters and things that you can, and you try to iterate some version of a solution that can solve your problem. I think that could be part of the issue that I think that a lot of times people don't even know why they are there to begin with. Yes, yeah.
Dr. Charles Davis 04:02
From my perspective, when I'm innovating, if you will, I'm trying to solve a specific problem. And so I'm really bracketing my case. And so anything that really falls outside of that scope, I don't deal with at that point, as much as I can try to get information and I can try to get a perspective talk to people who have maybe been in similar situations and their perspectives in my context, you know, at some point, you just have to go, right. So to me, it's either do innovation, it's also iterative, you try it, you see what didn't work. But the beauty of looking at best practice is I should know, what didn't work. And so I can go back and pinpoint that thing and tweak and tinker there. And then I'll try it again and see do the work better. So that's really what has helped me just in my professional career and personal career, to just not be afraid to fail. And that's the other thing you know, people don't like to not be successful, but out I'm looking at not succeeding only a first try is not being successful. It's just I learned something new.
Jared Simmons 05:05
Right? Right, right. Yeah, no, I love that, because you're bringing the element of focus into innovation. And I think a lot of times, especially when you just establish it innovation department, or an innovation team, or whatever, that vagueness, that lack of a clear expectation on when or what that team will deliver, I think continue to weigh on it, right. And that's why I really like you talking about starting your personal innovation approach from a problem to be solved? Because that's gonna get you closer to implementation versus, okay, this team is responsible for innovation. Now go, yeah.
Dr. Charles Davis 05:41
And honestly, I feel like some people like it that way. You can't ever really tell them that they're wrong. Exactly. Like, what was the target? Well, you know, figure some stuff out. So how can you tell me that it's taken too long, and nobody has ever done before? Right? You don't know what the timeline is? It could be a year, it can be five years, right? And so depending on how savvy you are in navigating that, if you don't have a real problem you're trying to solve, you can just milk it forever, which is those departments that I'm talking about? Exactly. You just don't know why you're there. And if you're a person who is trying to solve a problem, that can be very frustrating, because it's just a slog. It goes day after day, week after week, what are we here trying to do? In nobody ever has an answer.
Jared Simmons 06:27
And, you know, I think, to me, that also connects to and this may seem like a bit of a disconnect, but it also connects to burnout, and all of the things that we're seeing now tributing to the pandemic, rightfully so. But also I think, this unknown world that we're in, has put a lot of pressure on folks to quote unquote, innovate, we got to figure out what the new normal is, we have to create something new for our consumers, or our customers or what have you. And when you're not used to, like you said, a problem solving based approach and implementation based approach to innovation, when you're used to having that department that vagueness and that kind of openness, of expectations and timing. And now all of a sudden, everybody's looking at you saying the way we normally do things is broken, we need something new tomorrow, I think that is contributing a lot to the burnout and fatigue that we're seeing.
Dr. Charles Davis 07:20
Yeah, I totally agree. But on the flip side of that, he can really launch a lot of energy. So to your point, in my day job, one of the things that we encountered during the pandemic, I worked for a nonprofit that supports education, from cradle to career pipeline standpoint. And one of the things that was really hard nut to crack with the school district that we primarily work with, because they were like, well, things are fine. We got these connections, like what are you talking about? And I'm like, you don't have a connection that you think you have? Yes, we do. And we know how to reach kids, we know how to reach families, and then the pandemic happened. And for the first time, they really kind of have to come hand in hand like, alright, we don't have the answers. We don't have the answer this way. Like we don't know what to do, right. So what I did was the same plan that I had in 2019. Everybody told me I was an idiot, this will never work. This is stupid, literally the same plan here, I'll put it back in front of these people, Oh, my God, this is game changing. This is going to bring the whole community. You know, sometimes it's like, it's not that you're wrong. It's just sometimes the wrong time. People aren't willing to listen, they don't have the posture to listen to what you have to say, right? Because there's a lot of power dynamics or fiscal matters that require that they don't think they need your solution at this time. Right. And that's kind of like the problem with innovation or future thinkers or 30,000 foot thinkers, you see something coming that people who are focused on day to day minutia that they can't see. And so that's the frustrating part, because you're like, I see this big world skate, you can barely focus on my, like the forest for the trees. Right? Right. So but on the flip side, so when I brought that plan back out, dusted the back off in, like, hey, let's try this, then they provided so much more energy, and really what the innovation was, was to let other people help you. That was just using lip service of a district saying, well, we want community partners, we want people to help, but you never provide an avenue for people to help or to help at what they're good at. Yes, y
Dr. Charles Davis 09:28
ou want people to teach kids how to teacher in a former life, like that's an actual degree. You know, people are not teaching for a reason. But you see, like, the only way that I can help you is by teaching kids but I said Okay, so what are you missing right now, again, problem solving. The schools are closed. You don't have really firm ways to connect with kids and families outside of the school bill, because your schools are closed. That was your main vector. So what we did was we sought out a number Churches and Boys and Girls Clubs and nonprofits and community centers. Because kids and families started going there. Either their parents were essential workers, and they just didn't have childcare. Or their parents are not teachers. And they're like, We don't know what to do with our kids. So a lot of these trusted organizations have started to open their doors, but okay, these are typically after school programs. So they didn't have the money to fund full day. They didn't have the money to buy PPE. They didn't have the money to buy meals. But you know, a lot of these folks, they were just making a way out of no way, right? So when I found them, I said, Hey, what do y'all need? And they told me, and so I went to start talking to people. And I was like, Look, there's these people out here. How can we support them?
Dr. Charles Davis 10:46
So the district, what are you really good at? They said, well, teachers are teaching online, so they can't go out or provide support to these people who they're teaching online. They'll say, Well, what about your substitute teacher? They're not doing anything. And you're not paying them? Because they're not substitutes, right? For any teachers. Yeah. So I hired like 100 substitute teachers to go out to these places who were willing to work. But subs are super excited because they want work, right? And now they get to work. They get to go out to these locations. I was like, Okay, you got all this PPE that's sitting in the warehouse, nobody using it because gonna open. So we have their facilities, department draft PPE all around the city, their food nutrition services, the USDA has just made their requirements more flexible around your summer feeding program, right? So you could do the summer feeding program throughout the year. So food nutrition services, they started delivering breakfast and lunch out to these churches and stuff here. Wow, every time we have a problem, we figured out who could do it. And it wasn't incumbent upon any one person. And that really drove the energy. Because the people who are in the food service department, they saw themselves in supporting 1000s of kids during this time. We didn't send the food service workers out to teach kids, right, everybody could be the best at what they were really good at. And for the first time, we were able to call out specifically why you were so important. Wow, it wasn't Oh, you're just a lunch lady. You are feeding kids every day, because they're coming to these places because they don't have stable food environment. Right. But you are now providing that solution during this really terrible time in our country, our world history. And so calling that out, and giving people the space to be the best at what they are. That really drove the energy. And now it's carried on.
Dr. Charles Davis 12:35
So what I'm just describing to you that was 2020 This past summer, and it's due to a crazy summer, we had never had a coordinated summer effort around the community. This year, we had 10,000 Kids register 10,000 10,000, the first time the district ever tried in 2018. It was 800. This past summer, going to pandemic 10,000. So how do we scale it? Everybody did a little piece. So we didn't have places they had 1000 kids each, we had 200 places that had 20 kids each. So it was about providing the on ramp for people to participate who didn't even see themselves participating. Another quick story that I'll tap on this, as I started to get media attention. There was a local corporation who was like, Hey, how can we help? Well, interestingly, they had just built this conference center, but of course, nobody's conferencing. But they were like, well, how can we help? You know what I just want to organizations that are right around the corner from your company, and they just got pulled out of their location? Because it COVID Wow. So the corporation that that you would think over educators, but they let us use the Conference Center. They had a kitchen. So again, their kitchen staff came back and they cooked meals every day. They gave us an IT person to help the kids with their Chromebook to log on to the internet
Jared Simmons 14:02
and do all that right setup and everything. Yeah,
Dr. Charles Davis 14:05
they have one of your security guards do the safety checks every day, the temperature check, cleaning stuff coming in. Again, they supported 60 kids in a very predominantly African American poor community. And just the exposure of these kids get into going basically to an office building a conference center every day to learn, right. And that organization now has built a relationship with those two organizations, and now they become funder. Wow. Oh, pandemic. So again, it's just what's the problem? Well, kids, kids can't go to school kids have need that. And then you can start to chip away, right? You can say, okay, everybody's not gonna solve all my problems. I mean, that'd be great if somebody could solve, but can you do this? Alright, cool. Can you do that? Alright, cool. Can you do this? And then once you put those 10 things together, now you got a solution. Oh, man, that's great. And then once you capture those learnings, then I go do it somewhere else. And once I did it the first time, it became easier. That's what I say. It's an iterative process. Once you figure out what didn't work, sorry, to those sorts of groups, but once I figured it out, we did it two or three times, I said, Okay, now I got a cake. Now I got a rhythm. So I know what questions to not even ask before, because I already know that that doesn't work, right? And then it becomes faster and faster. And then I bring on other people and then make it implement. And that's how you get from 800 to 10,000. Distributing the work, figuring out the problems, I did all that other people don't have to write. And to me, that's where you get to a place where you're really beginning to solve problems through innovation.
Jared Simmons 15:40
Hmm, man, that was such a great story. So many perfect examples of what innovation can be in terms of a solution to a problem versus a department or a team or what have you. And the sort of decentralized coordinated solution that you built, could only be built by focusing on a problem and not a mandate, right? Because mandates are tied to headcount resources, where the X team and we're meant to do why. But if you focus on the problem, then, like you said, all these other aspects of how to solve it come into focus, and you can look for resources with a different lens. That's a perfect example of that.
Dr. Charles Davis 16:23
But you know what, the next year, that's when the money came? Yeah. People saw. Like, I've never in my career and nonprofit, that's the easiest fundraising I've ever done. Millions of dollars, just throwing it out, like, right, as much money. I didn't know what to do with it. Right. But I started pushing it back out to the organization. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, they were opening for longer, and they were trying to hire staff pay for all this stuff. So much stuff was in kind, but then I suppose resources out to the organization, then then once the COVID Cares, money started coming, then we went back to the district to say, All right, here's how you can support now, right? Now we can take that little money that people were just kind of doing 10,000 Here, 20,000. Here, you all got half a billion. All right, let's talk money. Do it right. But the district was willing, because previously, I think people came to the district just to give me money. But what I did was I structured their ask in a way that we are providing a service, right? So you're actually getting something for this, right? You're not just giving me money. I mean, you aren't getting the money. But here's what you're buying for your money. And then they can go on top of one of these places and see kids coming in getting COVID testing pans, being able to get COVID testing, the data board out that there were improvements on the kids who were able to go to one of these learning hubs versus the cohort that was not able to, that makes it easier for people to invest in you. Because you have proof of concept.
Jared Simmons 17:51
Exactly. Yeah. So the resources don't have. Exactly, and it's that paradoxical setup, where you focus on the problem and the resources appear versus normally people focus on the resources, and try to figure out what problems they can solve. A lot of times, it's really how can I preserve and protect the resources that I have? Versus how can I focus on the problem, and then allowing the resources to solve it to come to you, and the broader scheme of philosophy, so to speak, it's the scarcity versus abundance mindset. And I think what you demonstrated well was, when you have an abundance mindset, like oh, we can pull these other organizations under the tent, it's not going to diminish us, it's going to expand our impact. Whereas a lot of times in public and nonprofit sectors, and even in the for profit sector, people want to protect theirs. That is the first and biggest hurdle to innovation, because great ideas can come from anywhere and great resources can come from anywhere. Yeah.
Dr. Charles Davis 18:51
And that was a problem with this example, as well. Because you know, it was not rose colored. Pollyanna, correct? There were so are people who are like, Well, why is you know, this organization thing to do? And it wasn't I just had the better idea. Lots of people had ideas, my idea was just better. And you implemented it. And I implemented it. Yeah, people had 25 page, white papers, give me this money. And then I can follow like, how are you gonna solve it? Right? Tell me what you're gonna do tomorrow to solve this problem. And you know, not being arrogant, like, what are you going to do, right? And why I was able to ramp up so quickly is because I knew the literature, I knew best practice and subscribe to Stanford Social Innovation Review. I look at what other communities are doing. I'm like, okay, I can take pieces of that I can look at which tribe is doing. I can take pieces from all these things, and I can fit it to our context, right and not know what the flavor of this community is. And I know what they're willing to do and what they're not willing to do. But I think the biggest thing that really cake, all this all two things.
Dr. Charles Davis 19:51
One is, on some level, you got to guard your plans and you can't let everybody know but sometimes you have trusted people who are connected and can Take your ideas, your name to higher places, usually valuable, because what I have started doing was convening a group of city leaders around this idea. And again, they didn't know what to do, because they knew what to do, they will be doing it. Right. And I think that's also a recognition. Like, you can't wait. Because if people knew what to do, they will be doing right now. So your idea is valuable. If it's different than what's out there. Don't take that for granted. Yeah. And so we were able to what I call, aggregate and amplify, because a lot of what these muckety mucks call Magog on Olympus, a lot of times the guys on the web, there's, you know, there's just like, well, town, people are down there doing something, but what I was able to do is go to the top like, look, it's not just those two towns, people, but it's really like 70 towns people. And they really certainly 1000s of kids. And so they were like, Oh really, because they they know they didn't know all the way up there all the way up in the clown's doing thunderbolts. They aren't on the ground on a day to day understanding what the real issues are.
Dr. Charles Davis 21:00
Right. So the few nonprofits again, to your point, they were like trying to slug it out, go to the city and go to foundations Help me Help me Help me. But I was able to do it to say it's not just that one. It's really all these people. And then that's where the amplification of resources came. $100,000 isn't enough. Give me like 2 million. I was like, okay, yeah, I mean, it's a million. Yeah, I do need more. Because you know, I'm still so small, because your point is this scarcity mindset. But once I started telling people, and it made sense, and they saw how they could participate, they were like, Yeah, a couple 100,000 isn't enough. Like, I know that, you know, you need more. So again, easiest fundraising I've ever done, and will continue. So now it's like, it's opened us up to national funders.
Dr. Charles Davis 21:48
You know, we had someone come in Jeff, Canada from Harlem Children's Zone, he'd like just came in. Yeah, it's like, I believe you. But I gotta see this on the ground. Right. And he came and I was like, look, it's Derby time when I'm in Louisville. So every time in the school, this isn't really a great time. But you know, we took them around to a number of different learning. We took them to one in a school when the church wanted a community center. And he was just like, how are you getting all these people from all these different sectors to do the same thing? And I was like, it's just, but we haven't. Northstar. You know what problem you're trying to solve? Yes, we're trying to support kids. So no matter where you are, you have a safe place. caring adults and kids who need you. You can do this work. Keep it real. Yeah, keep it really simple. And figure out what that looks like in your concert. Yeah.
Jared Simmons 22:34
And I think that's the essence of being able to focus. And what draws people to your type of approach to solving problems, is, you know, two things, you know, what problem you're trying to solve. And you see progress. And I think that is something people aren't used to in innovation type work, and other types of work in that space, is things stand out when they look different. When you come back, you and I work together on some projects in Cincinnati, and a while back. And one of the things that people really appreciated was, we met with them in January, when we came back in April, the world was different. And it wasn't necessarily we had changed the world. But we had moved from wherever they last saw us. And it was energizing, because they didn't believe that it was going to be in a different place that next time, and they want to be part of that.
Dr. Charles Davis 23:21
Yeah. And I think that's what kept people at the table. Because you know, I grew out of talking about it. People are asking, just looking and learning from this word. And it's exactly what you said. We met weekly. Now I had the mayor or his designee number two, the superintendent of the 26th largest district in the country, Heather United Way has the urban the head of a foundation. Like for the people that feels like how did you get these people to come back? Because every week, something happened,
Jared Simmons 23:51
that group met with you on a weekly basis. We met
Dr. Charles Davis 23:54
weekly from April 2020 Until May 2021. Wow, weekly. Wow. But it was very much like a situation though. Is this what you said? Something changed every week? Even if it was just we sent emails out? And we got the emails back, right? We recorded going there, and we told them what was happening. So they can see it. It wasn't this like it's an innovation. There's lots of secret innovation stew that nobody can know about. It's gonna go away. That's what gets people so skeptical because like, what are you really over there doing? All right. So we were overly transparent, overly communicative. And we told people what we wanted to get every week, every week. And I think for a lot of people like that's the most surprising thing. I guess it's surprising to you based on your question. Yeah, every week, because every week something had happened. Or you could see that in two weeks. Something was about to happen. Exactly. Yeah, we've got another Learning Hub. Yeah, we served another five years and like this isn't earth shattering monumental stuff, but the people who around that table, they cared about it. And we brought them back progress on the thing that they cared about. Yes, yes. So I think just having this conversation, I think is just really illuminating to me. allowing people to see themselves in the world is huge. Yeah. Because then they become your brand evangelists. And like, they were taking my stuff to all these other people be up, like, Hey, have you heard about what's going on over here? Yeah, I know, you got a pot of money that you said no, right. Because people were just so charged up about it. Because they're just like, even if I'm not going to go out to and learning how to do this work. I know I gave you $20,000. Right. Or I know, Walmart donated three huge pallets of school supplies. Wow. And we got some volunteers to bag them up and give all the school supplies out to the Learning Hub. We drove them around this huge church, they were like, well, what can we do? And she was like, Well, I want to get volunteers to go out and help. And I was like, you know, I'm the I'm not asking for that. But they were like, Well, how about a book Jack, because like the libraries are closed. You know, they hadn't been in school, she was like, and I think it's important for kids to have tangible books. They have like little mini scholastic book fairs. They went and bought all these books. Wow. And the church members bagged them up, and they drove them around. So it was again, a church group, not even in the city. How can I help? They found out a way and I didn't dictate it. I was like, well, here's some things that I hear people need, pick one and do it. Right. Right. It's not me being so prescriptive, this is what do you do, and I'm thankful for the grandmother who helped volunteer and I'm thankful for the city officials that gave me a million dollars. And I'm thankful for that church, they gave me some books. I'm thankful for all of it. Right? Not one of those great gifts is greater than any other. So allowing people that see themselves in the work, makes them want to stay around, it makes them want to be engaged.
Jared Simmons 26:52
Well said, well said, so many valuable lessons in that. And like you said, it's an energy thing. It really does allow people once they can see how they can be helpful, and you make it so turnkey for people to be helpful. There's already a list to choose from versus Oh, well, not really sure what I need. Let me get back to you. And then the energy starts to wane. And I think that's part of being ready and staying ready for opportunities to come to your door. I love social innovation. I love this space. And I know, I don't get to cover it as often as I'd like in the podcast. So I'm really excited to get from you advice, based on your experience for innovators in all types of innovation fields.
Dr. Charles Davis 27:37
Well, why I really got into this work is really good. I've had so many jobs in so many different sectors. I've been a teacher, I've been Executive Director, I've worked in nonprofit now I've been an administrator in schools, I've worked in it. That really is what got me into this field. Because I recognize that like, again, from an asset based approach, like so many people want to help. They just don't know how, or they sit at the table. And they have conversations, and they just totally miss each other. Right? So really what I tried to do get to be a translator, like no, don't walk away, like this is what they're really saying. Yeah, corporation, this is what this nonprofit is really saying. Education School District. This is what the corporation is really saying this is what the nonprofit is by. So that's really 75% of my work being the translator, because we you can keep people at the table for over a year, then you can make stuff happen. But so often, it was one disagreement, one misunderstanding, people started missing meetings. And people started canceling leading advice, and then nothing happened. So I just have just a natural curiosity about people and things.
Dr. Charles Davis 28:46
There's probably more than you want for your podcast. But one of my favorite leaders of antiquity is Peter the Great from Russia. Bizarre, bizarre. Yes. And so he was too young to be bizarre when it came time. And so he got to grow in this area, whatever. And he just went all over Europe. And he didn't tell people who he was. But he learned to be a carpenter. He learned to go sit. Yeah, yeah. got old enough. He came back. And so the Russian people don't feel that way. But he had a lot of Western influence. So he moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg and like, spiral buildings. Yeah. But he bought a lot of innovation, if you will, to Russia, because he had learned from so many different cultures. And so to me, that's how I do my work because I talk to people not what I need something from them, but I just know what's on their mind. I know what business people are thinking about. I know what nonprofit people are thinking about. I'm genuinely curious. I'm not saying everybody is curious about everything. But whatever your sector is, when you're curious, you get this lagering of information.
Dr. Charles Davis 29:53
When the opportunities come you say hey, I know that Jared is really looking for somebody in the museum field. I have to do XYZ. I know this person over here. Let me provide this connection. And then I step out of the way really, as much as you can to just have a natural curiosity about other people. Other things, even in business, what problem can I solve? Really, when you have a product, you're trying to solve somebody's problem, right with Pampers? He's working on diapers. Right? Did did as a parent, that's the problem. Not the kid from peeing all over my floor. I mean, the diaper. All right, well, I mean, the really good ones. And I don't want to change it every 10 minutes. So I needed to be really absorbing. Right, you're solving problems. Yep, little problems along the way that you're solving overall, really big problems.
Dr. Charles Davis 30:39
To me, just a healthy curiosity about the world and other people, it helps you to figure out how whatever solution that you have to their problem is really meaningful to them, because then they'll either want to buy it, or they'll want to support you. Because you have solved something that you heard a long time ago. And really what I've tried to do is not end with this, I think that everybody has, let's say three levels of problems, or work, you know, you're at work is what I got is emails, I got a return form, I gotta fill out, you know, Yatta, Yatta, yatta, your B work is like, I know that b work to help me to do not a worry better, but I really don't have time for it. In C work, it's nothing like I haven't even thought of. So really what I do is I look at people B and C word. And I just take it off their hands because they're B and C is really my, I see this kind of work for the district. This is like their C word. They gotta teach kids every day. Buses, right? All that stuff. Yeah, this is C or D word. But for me, this is my A, right? This is super relevant to me, this is gonna make me go, this is gonna make my organization really stand out. And so I said, Can I take your season days off your plate? And they're like, Yeah, I'm not doing it right now. Right. But now they see how the C's and Ds are helping their A's and B's. But I only do that because I have those relationships. And I even know what they're seeing the bar. Right? So having those authentic conversations, not just the coffee for coffee, say, right, but really getting into people's, you know, what are they thinking and what's on their mind, I think, for anybody in any sector will definitely take you for
Jared Simmons 32:20
good stuff, man. I'm taking a lot away from this. I love thinking about taking the stuff people would and I'm paraphrasing, but the stuff people would like to get to. That is your top priority work and taking that off their plate. That's brilliant.
Dr. Charles Davis 32:33
You know what? It's innovation because they're not doing it? That's right. Innovation to their doorstep.
Jared Simmons 32:39
Exactly, exactly. It's a win win. There's no losers in that situation. And that is, I think, at the heart of what you've unfolded for us here in this conversation around innovation as implementation. When you're in motion, when you're making progress when you're enrolling people to help solve a specific problem, good things happen and the resources flow to support that. So I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.
Dr. Charles Davis 33:04
Great conversation always,
Jared Simmons 33:05
I always get the benefit of our conversation. So I'm glad other people will get to experience it as well. Thank you so much, Dr. Charles Davis.
Dr. Charles Davis 33:13
Thanks so much. All right. Take care.
Jared Simmons 33:20
We'd love to hear your thoughts about this week's show. You can drop us a line on Twitter at Outlast LLC OUTL A st. LLC, or follow us on LinkedIn where we're at less consulting. Until next time, keep innovating. Whatever that means.