Podcasts

Episode 17 - Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Dr. Esther Jackson - Talent Development for the 21st Century

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Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and welcome to our next episode of decoding AQ. I have today with me, Dr. Esther Jackson, who is a Doctor of Education from Detroit. Welcome.

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Esther  

Thank you, Ross. awesome to be here.

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Ross  

Great. So I've been intrigued, I'm gaining momentum in this podcast, talking to so many fascinating and interesting people. And you're someone who has 20 years experience in HR, most of that in talent development, and currently a national advisor for the Association of Talent Development. And I can't wait to get stuck in and really uncover some of your experiences, and I think, a kindled passion for adaptability. So this is gonna be, this is gonna be great.

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Esther  

Looking forward to it.

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Ross  

So give us a little bit of some of your path to today, your early career, was at the city of Detroit, you were managing the training needs of lots of different departments, from Homeland Security to the police, give us a little flavor of how you got into that and some of the highlights along the way so that we can get to know you a bit better.

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Esther  

Sure love to. Well, I will say during my undergrad time period, going to school at Wayne State University, I took a role with the city of Detroit, and the human resources department in particular, it was the training division. At that time, we were known as the Organization Employee Development Services Division, also known as OEDS. I had never heard about corporate training, workplace learning professional development, Ross. So that was all new to me. So I get in this new role in HR and training. And I find out there is a whole other branch to the College of Education, had no idea.

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So it was close to the time for me to graduate and receive my undergrad degree. And at the city of Detroit, they asked me, “Hey,  Esther, why don't you go into training, you're going to have this degree, we have some training roles open.” So from there is when my interests was ignited, I would have to say I consider, Oh I love teaching in school, teaching the kids and everything. But no principal's office, no parent-teacher conference, looking enticing there. And I could still enjoy my passion with the work I was doing in my children's ministry at the church. So from that point, I pursued that particular direction doing instructional design, we were doing our own in-house training. We were doing our own needs assessments, evaluations. And this was for at the time around 14,000 city employees across all different departments. 

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Ross  

Wow.

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Esther  

And from there, I pursued my master's in instructional technology. While I was working, I progressed through a number of titles, still in training and went on from there to do e-learning development, to do other roles such as change management and along that course of time is when I had a supervisor who encouraged me to look into professional associations and particular ATD. And that was how I got involved with our Detroit Chapter of ATD. And the rest is pretty much history.

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Ross  

Part of that. It's interesting, you mentioned about a passion for education. And then, the difference of in workplace and latter career development education, where are no principal, no parent teacher. Often when we envisage something, we have this, rose-colored glasses syndrome on and we think of these great things of “Oh yeah, that seems exciting, because there's not this and there's not this”. What was the reality like? Was it much more difficult than you thought to deal with all of that diversity across 14,000 people trying to develop their training needs and things? I'm just fascinated as to some of the challenges or highlights along that experience.

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Esther  

I love that question. Because there definitely was a wake-up call and a reality to it. One in particular, that was probably the biggest reality is the fact that although the perspective had to change because I was dealing with adults, these are still individuals who have a certain attention span. And these are certain individuals who still have dynamics as far as a learning process, no we're not talking about the pedagogy but now we're talking about andragogy. And dealing with adult learning. And there are still some types of creative techniques that need to be included and implemented in my approach. And so my need to be creative, my desire to want to see how I can make this innovative, like I was doing with the kids adjusted to, hey Esther you still get to do that, you just need to cater to the best techniques that are the most effective for adults. 

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And to learn that I still had that liberty and that luxury was an awesome thing. The other thing, and another sense was understanding that you have these individuals who as a result of certain adult learning principles, such as they have relevant experiences they bring to the table, they need that stage time, they need the opportunity to tap into their prior knowledge and see how that fits. And that's my goal and my job is to help make that connection between what their work goals are, what their current career is about their current work role is and make it relevant to what I want to share impart to them in a training.

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Ross  

I guess that's an interesting kind of difference in terms of where students their career is the learning. And for people who are working well, the learning is this addition that's got to fit in and around it, they've got jobs to be done. And in that case, when you're dealing with police, you're dealing with Homeland Security, or different transportation departments, all of these things where they might be under extreme pressures, extremes stresses to then layer in this, “Oh by the way, there's development and learning to do on top”, I guess that dynamic is, for some exciting others challenging and looking for ways to make it creative. And engaging is a magic tool that you can leverage.

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Esther  

And that really speaks to how the WIIFM, came into pit came into the picture became such a widespread type of approach that people got on board with "What's In It For Me", and that is a strong aspect as to what we do as talent development professionals and it's not something that,  has fallen by the wayside. We've just relabeled it, you don't hear much about it anymore. But it's still a matter of, how do you make this so important that people see the relevance? They see how it applies to them today but now the focus is, how do you make it applicable to what's changing? And what's still going to be relevant tomorrow? 

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Ross  

Yeah. 

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Esther  

Because what's relevant today is going to change in the next few minutes.

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Ross  

I guess the world looks very different to perhaps 20 years ago, not only because your lens has changed, but the world has changed tremendously. And just the challenge of scaling training programs across a vast number of people. Now, what would you do differently? Here's a question, so we're 20 years on, the world looks different, technology is different. If you were in that same role, that you were 20 years ago, but you had at your disposal, what you knew now, what sort of things would you have done differently in perhaps the thinking of the strategies of the training programs or the approach or things? I'm interested to sort of seeing if we can  retrospect back to that challenge? What kind of things would you think of?

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Esther  

Oh, you are causing me to really think Ross.

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Ross  

That's what I try to do.

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Esther  

One in particular, I would have to say is, I would be encouraged to be more of a risk-taker, more innovative, not so practical, and not so, hey this is what they need right now and today, but let's look at how we can mesh, how we can marry what they need now, and also help them to be prepared for it to change. 

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And another thing I would say is, sometimes in the public sector, some advancements with technology may lag a little bit behind. You know what standard, and I would probably be one who would be more of an advocate for pushing that advancement, more so than I had back then. 

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Ross  

Back then.

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Esther  

And the third thing I would say is, putting more emphasis on the importance of emotional intelligence. We were still dealing with things at that time that revolved around team-building group dynamics, that revolved around communication skills. All of that plays into emotional intelligence, we just came up with this wonderful package label for it. But it's something that's been around and the importance of it is now just being emphasized and magnified.

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Ross  

I guess, these languages and these structures and these tools, emotional intelligence 20 years ago, 30 years ago, was just the pioneering phase of really coming into the forefront where it was, as you say, these technical skills, perhaps communication skills and team building exercise, it's that there used to be the balance of eye's role to then lovely smiles and joy afterwards, it's a bit like dealing with kids, sometimes they don't like the idea or something, but then when you get them there, and they experience it and they enjoy it. Yeah, that's interesting.

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So your career and everyone gets shaped by different things, they see either an aspiration, they get influenced by a supervisor or by a book or by various external factors. And then their internal drive, driven around their own vision of their future self, who they want to be and things. 

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From that time there and now you mentioned this opportunity at the Association for Talent Development, that your progress through lots of roles, and you described it as the that, the rest is history of it. Tell us a little bit more about what that association is why you feel so passionate about it, and what perhaps your role and vision for how that's developing would be really interesting to know.

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Esther  

Definitely, around 2012 was the time that I really took it seriously to look into some type of involvement with ATD. At the time the city was going through a financial crisis, there was bankruptcy involved. And I decided, Okay it's time for me to make myself more marketable. Let me reflect on what a supervisor told me previously. What's that ATD organization again? And so I got on board with them, and really appreciate it, how they have this commitment to their membership, to not only help you in terms of your career, but look at what's out there, what's going on in a profession. What is it that should be used as the best approach? What are the trends? What are the standards that need to be set for how you approach instructional design? How we look at training? How do we go about evaluation? And so that was something that helped pour into me and helped me to develop my passion for training, what I was doing in instructional design, what I was doing in my workplace, and it also provoked me to look at other opportunities to increase my learning beyond my degree. 

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So that forced me to, “Hey let me check out what's going on with this conference. Let me look into what this association is doing”. And that develop more and more of a desire where I eventually accepted the offer of taking on a president role. And I became president of the local chapter. From there, I got involved with partnering with other associations, “Hey this is not just ATD, we dip into human resources, we did dip into ISPI”. So I got involved with looking at how we could partner our local chapter with our local SHRM Chapter, the Society for Human Resource Management, and then our local ISPI chapter.

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And from there is when I looked at opportunities to really take it to another level and pursuit my national role with ATD because ATD, I feel like woke up another aspect of me. Another level of me looking at, “Hey Esther, you are one who's creative. You look at another way to approach things. You look at how to build your knowledge base and put it into practice and share it with others”. And ATD was a real catalyst and my desire to do that and waking up that desire and that passion in me, and it's going on from there. 

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Ross  

Yeah, it is interesting how curiosity then takes us sometimes in paths and areas that we couldn't imagine and it either energizes us and we continue down there and opportunities present themselves. I'm interested in the challenge that I see both, in my organization and countless people I speak to around the training and development aspect. And you touched on it earlier in terms of the difference between training something that you know is valuable, is going to be valuable today, versus trying to anticipate what's going to be valuable tomorrow. 

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And in a world where change is accelerating so quickly, what can people, what can organizations do to be able to prepare for that almost difficult question of, what do I train in? What do I do in order to be well prepared for tomorrow? What's your kind of view on how to approach that?

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Esther  

Definitely. One I believe that is a key as to how I got involved with my research with the adaptability quotient and looking at the importance of adapting. Because once I tapped into what was involved with Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence model, looking at one particular quadrant that he highlights, the one that deals with your ability to manage yourself, how you respond to changes that are out of your control, things that were unplanned new conditions. That's your adaptability. And so from there, now I'm seeing how their organizations such as PepsiCo, organizations such as Amazon, who are looking at how they can put their emphasis on building up capabilities in their current people. Yes, they still hire externally. But they're developing programs that target things like for one example, PepsiCo has a leadership program that they call LEAD. And it represents lead assessment, development. And so what they do is they include VR for empathy. And they use this program, this particular academy that they have to help their people go from the classroom to the sales floor with a smaller distance, and look at how to immerse the learners at a leadership level in certain situations. 

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And so for us, I look at that and see the opportunities where we now have to look at how we help people to look at opportunities to be more creative, to look at what it takes to immerse them in an environment where they feel like they have the time, as well as the flexibility to be creative to look at how they can approach a situation differently from how it was done yesterday, as well as being innovative, being flexible and being willing to collaborate with others. 

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And so I really feel like organizations that are able to allow for that type of atmosphere, that type of work environment, and being included in a curriculum, where they don't just focus on the leaders to do it. But individuals at all levels of the hierarchy, to be creative, to be flexible, to be willing to have like an entrepreneurial approach and be risk-takers. I think those are the ones that will be successful.

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Ross  

It's interesting isn't it, where certain technologies can make things more scalable, they can also make them more effective. You talked about VR, Walmart themselves have been doing VR training. For some time I think, it's probably two, three years ago, they ordered thousands of Oculus Rift VR kit, to help in what you've just said. It’s this challenge of scaling, scenario-based training, whether it's building empathy, whether it's invoking creativity because of setbacks that you can do in a virtual environment, and build up this muscle, this muscle of being comfortable in the uncomfortable, and there's, there's no better way than experiencing it. 

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We've all had this great grand experiment of the pandemic, to see how adaptable are we. What breaks, what doesn't break? What situations can we do? Imagine if a bit like WarGames, I remember the film, having this opportunity to scenario-based training is a great opportunity. And these forefront organizations are leveraging that a lot with technology, which is I think, fabulous to see and will take us to places that we can't imagine yet, of what's possible. And I find that just fascinating.

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Esther  

And you hit a good point because as we see this advancement, at a pace that we've never experienced before, with us being pushed into situations like the pandemic, where we're forced to take a final exam before even going through course. We look at what's happening with the school system, how the kids are going about their education, their matriculation, the same way we approach workplace learning. So if they are already being advanced to go through the same technology approaches us, that is requiring us to speed up the process. And it's at a quicker pace. And even farther along.

Ross  

And we've got to do it, we've got to increase the pace. And without heading into a spiral where we get sick, and that in itself is an interesting challenge, I think. And one of the things that I'm again, curious to get your insights into, and I imagine in your career, you've seen lots of it is the difference between say upskilling, getting better at something that you're already doing and reskilling for a new career or new path or new areas. 

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And there's been a lot of talk about just how much reskilling we're gonna need in the workforces around the world in every industry because of technological displacement, because of all of these new opportunities for doing things. Where do you think the opportunities, because you've mentioned VR as one example of maybe other leaders or other stories where they've been successful in being able to reskill, and something that perhaps we could learn from those examples of what we could do today to help do make progress along that journey?

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Esther  

Sure. For one, I am vaguely familiar with some of the things they're doing in Amazon, as well as some of the things they are doing with Google. And so to distinguish between the two, because I think people can sometimes use them interchangeably when they're not, they're distinctly different. It really speaks to our learning agility. And recognizing, again this falls under adaptability, but recognizing what things we need to unlearn, versus relearn as you mentioned, and being what things are going to be completely new to learning.

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And so with one, with those particular organizations in particular, to avoid having to let people go, or have people replaced, sending people into a particular bracket where it just skyrockets unemployment didn’t work. They look at how can we change the way we maybe carry out a particular process or procedure and look at yes, we are going to have automation come into play, but where can we take those same individuals and upskill them, look at capabilities that they have not competencies, but capabilities to see where they can be taught something else, and have them skilled for another particular role another position.

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Whereas the reskilling I would say, is more so looking at, Hey we're advancing a process, we're doing a process improvement so let's talk about where we need to implement change management to improve the process, and then start teaching the folks how to do this process differently. And being able to do that, whether it be with the distribution process, e-commerce, and how Amazon is looking at how they service customers, how they redo their process for getting out there, with people placing orders, all of that required I'm sure extensive reskilling along with the upskilling. And I believe those are very strong examples of what it's going to take even in other industries for organizations to still be successful.

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Ross  

And I think what's interesting is it takes courage to do that. It takes courage for the individual, for the team, and for the organization. But what's been quite profound for me is you're going to need courage whether you're doing that or not. Because in doing it, you're going to need it. If you don't, you’re going to be encouraged because you'll be irrelevant and you need to find a new thing. So this kind of sense of “Oh, I could avoid doing it or I could avoid having that situation”. The only way that can happen is if you're checking out if you're done, and if you're not done yet, then this is really a path that you need to start making choices, intentional choices and to be in more control so that it's not then happening to you but all of these things are happening for you. And just that mindset shift to unlock is really interesting.

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And as you're quite familiar with AQ, you're starting to go deep, you're using a lot of the similar language to we do in terms of unlearning and these aspects. Is there any examples where you've had to put AQ to work, either for yourself or in ATD or any other environments? And just tell us a little bit about that if you have?

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Esther  

Oh, definitely, how can I count the ways, Ross. Due to time, I will definitely narrow it down. Two in particular that stand out are two pertinent issues for us right now. In my role as a national advisor for chapters that we affectionately refer to as a NAC. We are really working with our chapter leaders with establishing their value proposition. And it's a matter of how do they justify? How do they market? How do they prove their relevance? As we've been talking about when you have every other professional association, every other organization offering a free webinar, offering some type of online chat, offering some type of virtual networking event. And so we are really approaching it from a standpoint of looking at not just you offer the same thing, you offer this complimentary, you offer this at a discounted rate.

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But what's special about your chapter, what's special about the way you do it, what's special about your opportunities that you are providing for your members and potential members for their ability to connect with others who are experiencing some of their same challenges. Others who are in the profession, who are putting certain things into practice concerning like, for example, ATD's new talent development capability model where we identify three particular domains and 23 capabilities that any talent development professional needs to have. And that's now a standard. 

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And so as the largest international association of talent development professionals in the world, that's something you would expect from ATD. And then that's something that chapters can grab hold to for their value proposition. And then with technology, that's another avenue where we are pursuing at the approach with helping chapters to adapt and causing them to look at, “Hey are you using the technology that's available in the most efficient way? Is there technology that you have shied away from?”. Because as you mentioned, that courage wasn't there. And now, you need to muster up that courage and tap into “Hey do you need to get some potential students on board”, who may need some leadership experience, who may need some professional association experience, and you can tap into them as an asset with their technology expertise and their technology savviness. So those are two key things that I believe speak to the push for the adaptability quotient to be demonstrated with the work we're doing with our chapters.

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Ross  

And I think it resonates with I should think anyone who's listening is this challenge of disruption and transformation. Disruption from within or from outside, from things being dematerialized democratized in terms of now everyone's doing X. So in your case is, everyone's doing webinars or doing training. And how do we compete in that? How do we evolve our propositions? How do we adapt in that environment to maintain some advantage or some connection or some relationships? And sometimes that's about going back, finding something and reigniting it.

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So it could be for example, what you talked about are the uniqueness of the way in which we network and connect with people. That's a unique aspect so we've brought that, and we've now put that in the forefront of our proposition, and others could be about, “Oh there's a new thing we need to go and explore”. It's that partnership, it's those students, it's those pieces and bringing that in, and suddenly we've got a different recipe and a different opportunity. 

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And it takes both those things doesn't it? To find what can we exploit that we've currently got that will be relevant in a slight twist. And what can we go and explore and bring in to become  an advantage in the world that we find ourselves in,the industries that we find ourselves in.

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Esther  

Those hidden jewels. I think that you hit the nail on the head. That's another thing that's causing organizations to revamp and look at a different approach to how they build up their workforce, their resources that are right underneath their noses and look at the fact that, “Hey we need to look into their needs to be focused on capabilities, not so much competencies”, because things are changing competencies speak to the hearing, now they speak to being able to do this particular job. 

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Whereas ATD has tapped into and is highlighting this capability model to reflect and give the message that this is what you need as a talent development professional to assist your organizations with business acumen with change management, with adaptability with emotional intelligence, with best practices for lifelong learning and instructional design. Because they are going to have to go in a futuristic direction, as we see how things are changing. And as we see that it's still uncertain down the road, what remains true and those capabilities remain true ongoing.

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Ross  

And I think that's the magic isn't it, is looking at in an uncertain and unpredictable world, what capabilities are going to serve us well, and things like problem-solving, adaptability, creativity, those can show up in an unpredictable and uncertain future and still provide value. The sort of old school technical skills of, “Ah I know how to put on shoes on horses and I have that skill and it's a hard skill”. And then suddenly it becomes no longer relevant. Or “I know how to fix fax machines” and suddenly it's no longer relevant. Or “I know how to respond to customer services questions” and now that's automated. Each of these phases of a hard skill whereas things like, “I can work with other teams, I can solve problems”. Those are helpful across the board.

What's interesting my mentor and coach, a chap called Dan Sullivan, he has a model called the  Four C's. And it's commitment, courage, capability, confidence. And it's really quite smart in the fact that when we're making a commitment, if we're making a commitment to something that we've already got a competency in, we don't need courage. We've already got it and we're not necessarily going to grow, we're not going to be moving forward in any particular way. If we're making commitments to something that we don't have the competency or capability of yet, damn right we need courage. And that's where we then are in the growth zone, and we're innovating and we get confidence from it.

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And it's something that stuck in my mind about adaptability of how that's been relevant for me to do new things to expand the frontier of an area. And therefore, you got to figure it out as you go along sometimes. But there's aspects where there is something that isn't going to change. Certain capabilities, certain pieces that are going to serve me throughout. And that's speaking to the heart, I think of the model we're trying to work on of adaptability. That this is to face uncertainty with a smile, to thrive whatever there is thrown at you. And that'd be a nice place, I think to create.

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In terms of getting practical now. And so maybe tips, and you've been working in this environment for a long time training people developing them, you've gone deep into adaptability, you're working with your association and in organizations that have been super relevant to the work you're doing. Somebody is listening and has started to dance around this thing, “Oh, yeah, I know what adaptability is or this AQ thing, I'm not quite sure”. What could they do today, listening from this and practical things that can start to help them prepare for this exponential world that we find ourselves in?

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Esther  

For one, I would definitely say begin with looking at your attitude. It plays such a major role in how you approach it, because the examples that you mentioned, like the courage and looking at steps that you take with your innovation with your flexibility. Well it speaks to, do I believe that I'm capable? Do I believe that this is a challenge versus a problem I can't solve? So the attitude plays a part and there's a wonderful section that was addressing that in the book "No Limits" by John Maxwell that I absolutely love. Big Maxwell fan here. So he really spend some time talking about that. So definitely check your attitude and looking at basic level, can I always see the glass half full, as opposed to half empty? In a nutshell.

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And that to, I would definitely look at where do you see opportunity. Assess what you have going on, you feel like, “Oh I got this adaptability thing down, I'm together with that” and be in the minute something happens, “Oh, my goodness, how could they not miss that I had it all planned out”. Where's that adaptability that you just said? You know things don't always go according to plan, and can we maintain that emotional control and still function when they don't go according to plan. So really assessing yourself and looking at, do my words contradict what my behavior is, and my thoughts as well. And in addition to that, your attitude, assessing yourself, I would say, establish some goals for yourself. Once you realize, you have the attitude for it, you're adjusting that, you are assessing yourself, you realize where your areas of opportunities are. Identify maybe two to three things, there could be 10 things, I know I have at least 10 things I need to work on Ross. But I could just refine that and focus on the first two or three, that I prioritize, and identify for my own personal development, which I have actually done. That those things are key. And one in particular for me is looking at how I am practicing innovation, how I am practicing going about sharing my ideas and looking at a task to be completed, what the resources are, where it may be potentially go, and how I'm sharing that how I'm approaching potential ideas, and how I go into the mode of looking at how I share my thoughts and potential approaches and collaborate with others. So those three things I would definitely say. 

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Ross  

So I heard this practice of self-reflection, of keeping yourself in a place in which you can ask questions of yourself, you know what's the language I'm using? And are they conducive to the vision or goals that I'm setting in the person I want to be? That I think is super helpful. The consistent challenge, I think for everybody on the planet is trying to get to those two or three things from the list of 10. The priorities, the list of priorities that my wife has for me will be different to the list of priorities that I have for me, to my colleagues to all of these things, that we have a state of overwhelm of goals and priorities. And getting down to two or three, I think it is a daily practice and reflecting, “Okay which ones are the top right now? What can I do in my language that can go forward within that?”

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One other aspect that I really wanted to just help land for people that you mentioned there is share. Sharing, how do I share my language? How do I share my goals? How do I share my development plans, and being very rigorous around that intentional about it. Are you sharing it with people who are just going to clap and applause? Are you sharing it with people who will challenge you, who will hold you to account? I know the difference between sharing it, anything with my folks will just be a round of applause and great and encouragement and I need some of that. I share it with somebody else and they'll just pick all the holes in it. And we need those things to share intentionally, what we're trying to do.

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And lastly, I want to touch on, a little birdie told me that you're working on a book. And I'm curious to know a little bit more about the book, what your visions are for this and perhaps share a challenge you have. And by sharing it with me and our listeners, and that that will start to manifest the pathways and solutions to overcome those challenges. So tell me a bit more about your book before we wrap up and some of your visions for it and maybe a couple of the challenges because I know you can compute that level of two or three questions in one.

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Esther  

Yes, so the book is one of a five-book series that is going to the shelves by ATD. And the opportunity came about from an article idea with ATD last year on adaptability. I had a tap on the shoulder right before COVID hit, asking me as a result of the article if I'd be interested in doing a book on adaptability. Had some discussions and welcomed the opportunity. So the others are emotional intelligence, I believe innovation, creativity, I forget what the other one is. And so they start.

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Ross  

First one is adaptability, right? That you're working on. 

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Esther  

Yes, I'm doing adaptability. Yes. And there are others doing the other topics, but it's one of five being published by ATD. And so it's something that's intended to help arm the talent development profession with not only understanding the adaptability skills involved in seeking that high adaptability quotient, but also what they can do to put it into practice, as well as developing a type of action plan for themselves. And so those are the goals with the book.

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And the challenge I will tell you is, one has recently been, not putting so much emphasis on the pandemic.So looking at, there are definitely things that we're highlighting the need for adaptability prior to the pandemic, so not putting so much weight on that. And then another is, with so much change, as you and I have discussed taking place, just really kind of honing in on ”Okay, what are the few that we can highlight in the book”, because there's so much.

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Ross  

So many.

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Esther  

Even just in our little world of talent development. So those two have been the really key challenges. And of the third one I would say, is looking at how we would need to adjust and adapt the marketing approach for the book, based on things are in uncertain in the future, you know not as much face to face opportunity that will be available with like, book tours and things. So how will we virtually approach certain things.

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Ross  

And how are you at the stage of final edit skeleton? Where are you in the journey of writing a book? Because I have to tell you, my first book took me two years. And it was a really, really tough, tough journey. And somebody told me a great quote, I don't know where it came from, but all works of art are never finished, they're just abandoned. And that's kind of how I felt with my first book was this case of, “Oh something else happens and I see this, and I've got to weave that in and then something else”, you just continually at this point that, “Nope, need a deadline, need to make that and go right”. I'm abandoning it at that point and the next can come in the next book and the next revision. 

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So tell me where you're at on the journey of it. And yeah, I'd be interested to other conversations, you know just explore because that's a new area for me is working on books and working on that area of things.

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Esther  

Okay. We are at the point at now where I have my deadline coming up before the end of the year, we go into the formal editing. And the fall, summer, fall of next year is where we expect to hit the shelves but at this point, we are almost ready to start the formal editing.

Ross  

They’re beasts of projects, aren't they? We have these rose glasses or yellow in my head, in the beginning, “Oh that’ll be great, I'll be an author” and you know you see all these things. Then the work needs to be done, and then the real work needs to be done, and then all of the other things come in.

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Esther  

Oh Ross it was Interesting because it was a matter of “Okay, how does this compare to my journey with my dissertation to get my doctorate”, seems a little lighter. There's a few parallels. But it's different, instead of a chair with my doctorate, I have the editor telling me “No, Esther, this is what we need. No, you spent a little too much time with that story, awesome story, but we don't need all of those details.” 

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So things like that. And I really appreciate what I'm recognizing about my writing. I appreciate what I can hold and put into practice down the road because I definitely feel and know this will not be my one and only. I love the journey that I've been one thus far. I love the opportunity, the timing and a topic, I don't see as a coincidence whatsoever. I mean, other things that I have experienced that cause me to put into practice what I'm writing. 

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So that's the key thing for me to really be able to tap into where I need to adapt, where I have to apply and implement those things that speak to what's going on in the profession. What's future-readiness and what that looks like, and where I need to apply it. That's so helpful for me. And then I appreciate the opportunity to have the audience of the ATD. 

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Ross  

That's a beautiful gift to be able to leverage and it's like in all good things, that channel is a ripple effect to impact many, many people. And that's a beautiful piece. Well I feel almost sad that we're coming to the end of the conversation, because I feel like we're just getting started. 

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Esther

This was awesome, Ross!

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Ross

It’s a real pleasure. And I can't wait to dive deep into the AQ world with you over time. And perhaps we'll have to get you back on after next for, if not before about the book. And all of the things that you've been up to and doing. Last piece if people want to get in touch with you, either learning more about ATD or any of your concepts or thoughts that you're working on. How do they get in touch with you? What's the best way of doing that?

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Esther  

Would love to hear from folks, please reach out to me. I can be contacted via LinkedIn, Dr. Esther Jackson, and they can also reach out to me via email at EstherLJackson0926@gmail.com so that's EstherLJackson0926@gmail.com or Dr. Esther Jackson on LinkedIn.

Ross  

That super kind. And we'll get that in the show notes as well for people on the link. It has genuinely been a real pleasure to have you and I look forward to our collaborations as we move forward. So, thank you.

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Esther  

You're welcome. Thank you so much, Ross. Enjoyed the dialogue. You've been great.

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Voiceover  

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Outro

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