January 07, 2025

The Ripple Effect: Leading with Empathy, Insights and Innovation with Donald Knight & Miriam Connaughton

1 hour 2 minutes

This episode features an interview with Donald Knight, Venture Partner at Valor Ventures and Miriam Connaughton, Chief People and Experience Officer at Simpplr. Donald’s expertise is in creating a culture where employees thrive and has a proven track record of constructing scalable global strategies that support international expansion. Miriam utilizes her three decades of HR consulting experience to shape and deliver a great employee experience, through dynamic HR strategies and AI-powered technology.

In this episode, Shawn, Donald, and Miriam discuss the concept of high-performance cultures, how fostering human connection and empathy in the workplace can combat loneliness, and the impact of AI on workplace dynamics.

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“Historically, our profession has been rooted on five major time periods. It started because of being administrative in nature. Then from administration, we went into compliance. From compliance, we went into employee satisfaction. From satisfaction, you got companies that are focused on how do they engage their employees, mainly through this lens of productivity. Last, I think the best companies understand that they want people to be fulfilled. If you want people to be fulfilled, you got to recognize that there's plenty of talent at your organization that just isn't. There is a large sentiment of loneliness.” – Donald Knight

“If you have lots of people with similar habits, that becomes the culture. It's habit-creating. If managers in general are good at creating psychological safety in an organization and they have a habit of practicing that, then people will generally report that's a cultural trait here. I feel really included and I feel like I can be my authentic self because it's very psychologically safe here. It doesn't just happen because you say it, it happens because people have healthy habits around that on a daily, moment-to-moment basis.” – Miriam Connaughton

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Episode Timestamps:

*(02:35): Getting to know Donald and Miriam

*(08:46): Being an intentional leader

*(17:56): High-Performance Index and the ripple effect

*(27:28): Loneliness in the workplace

*(46:56): Incentivizing human-centric leadership

*(53:29): The role of AI in enhancing employee experience

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Links:

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