Hey, Megan, let's do a podcast.

Great idea. What should we talk about? So one of the really cool parts about my job is the opportunity to talk to all sorts of fascinating people doing fascinating work, and that really deepens my own work. And with the podcast, I had the opportunity to make this available and make these conversations available to a much wider group of people. So I would love to invite everybody else into this space and this conversation with Jess Jackson. And Jess, you do so many things and your. Your experience is so broad. I'm going to let you introduce yourself.

Yeah. Thanks, Megan. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to talk to you. It's been a while since I've seen you, and I'm excited to hop in. I like to say that I am a policy innovator. I work in the public health sector, specifically within cannabis regulation in Minnesota, and I do social equity work. So I am a career DEI person and I do reinvestment and reform work in Minnesota related to cannabis prohibition laws and how we are now turning the legalization of cannabis into opportunities to reinvest in communities that have been disproportionately harmed from that prohibition.

So it looks like grant programs, it looks like licensing support to help folks get into the industry. It looks like policy advocacy. It looks like advocacy both at the legislative level and advocacy at the judicial level and also with community to make sure that perspectives around this industry are incorporated into our policy. But then I also do, I think, a part of that work. As we think about dei, it's very personal, right? Like it's about personal identity and how we show up in places. And so I also do a lot of work with personal healing and integration to ensure that folks can show up as their whole selves. However that may look, depending on the.

Context and your work, I can only imagine that your work right now involves so many layers of change, culture change, perceptual change. And so I can only imagine what your days are like. And it sounds like a whole load of fun along the way. You also did a brief stint, I'm not sure, detour, but certainly a lap around the instructional design world. And how does that or does that show up in any of your work today?

Oh my gosh. It shows up so much, Megan, when it comes to being a project manager, my A game. Right. Like I'm able to. I think that I work in government, which the stereotype of government being slow, pencil pushing, it is very much the culture of. It feels like ping pong. No one wants to make the decision. No One wants to take the responsibility.

They're always assessing the liabilities at play. And so having really strong project management skills and being able to track decisions and track where they're at and track subject matter experts and who can help make those decisions easier, that's something I integrate every day. I also think that being a leader and getting a lot of folks on board with one common mission or one common purpose is very similar to what instructional designers are doing every day as they're designing training for their teams. I also facilitate and this is what, what I am a strong facilitator and public speaker. And I didn't realize that that's not a gift that many people have actually. And so many people cannot get in front of a room and just talk willy nilly without a plan. And so like being able to do that and being able to facilitate and lead a group is definitely rooted in some of that instructional design. But I think the backwards planning, the backwards design, the having a goal in mind and looking at the strategies and what needs to be incorporated, that's good leadership, that's visionary leadership.

And I do that every day.

Maybe we should require that leaders all have an internship or an externship rotation through instructional design or learning and development.

Absolutely. I like it.

I like it. I'm actually reading right now a political science book that talks about it's topic for a different podcast, but talks about some of the reasons why policy making works the way it does. And get this right. So you've heard of behavioral economics, think about behavioral political science. Super cool stuff. Anyways, anyways, okay. One of the things that you have shared with me that you're doing some work around these days is what it means to lead through dissonance. And that tension and those words got me intrigued.

So can you tell me more there?

Absolutely. So I think that we're in an interesting climate politically and socially as it relates to reconciling with the historical. I talk about this at my historical harms. Right. There are things in our history that have impacted groups of people in different ways and set up groups of people in different ways. And I think that we are at an interesting tension point of what it means to reconcile that history. And there are folks who can vividly and viscerally experience that history in their lived experience. And then there are folks who feel shamed for the history.

And so I, I view it like we're in a pendulum swings back moment. We went through a very radical social movement climate where folks were ramping up resources to support restoring harms in the past. And what that has created is a lot of dissonance and tension and folks feeling like they've been excluded and overlooked and not considered right or shamed around things that they maybe have had no control over. And so it's forcing folks in the work that I do to reconcile what it means to educate around historical harm. And also what does it mean to make progress? And is that progress something that is universal? Is it something that's independent with folks? And so as I think about the cognitive dissonance that I'm navigating in my work is I am the director of social equity within a government agency in a time where we are eradicating equity work. And so how do I have conversations that elicit, buy in and help folks to see the value in equity work while also navigating a political context that tells them another story? And so how I tell the story is it's different now. You can't tell the same story in the same way and you can't also have the same objective or outcome anymore. What does progress look like? How are we creating change? How do we measure change? And what does it mean for the all communities and all stakeholders? And so a lot of partnership building versus re centering work, like there's a lot of, a lot of universal, all people involved.

How does this affect all people? Which kind of, when you get to the traditional models of movement making specifically around like social justice movements, there's critique of that, you know, and so reconciling that work has been some of the dissonance I've had to navigate in the last year of how do I continue to do this work in a context that tells us that it's not valuable when we know that it does create impact and move the needle to ensure that all folks are able to have access to opportunity and success.

But I think it's interesting like that, that phrasing that, that access to opportunity. Right. That access to success is, is something.

That.

We've talked a lot about at Torrance. Learning as far as that's something that is actually almost universally desirable. And if that's the framing around it, then that can be a more successful path forward.

Yep. We all are going to talk about access and in access, Right. We can talk about accessibility and different learning needs. Right. Like that's something we're very attuned to. And so how do we just strengthen the tolerance to understanding what in access looks like in. In different ways? Yeah, yeah.

And I think, you know, I remember you and I did a workshop in Atlanta a few years ago and, and, and really sat there in a room in which we held space for some of that dissonance and, and that challenge and that difficulty.

And.

It was, it was a, it was a good learning experience. Yep, it was good. So emotions, right? I'm thinking about that room, but I'm also thinking about. That was actually a relatively supportive groom and a curious room. Actually, actually I was really, really proud of them for their curiosity and their acceptance and support of each other. As people navigated different paths, their emotions run high with this stuff. Is this something that is different or do we see this in other movements, in other situations and other topics? What's unique about this and what might not be so unique and we just aren't seeing it?

Yeah, I think human emotion is going to show up regardless of the work. What complicates this is the identity politics associated with them. It's almost like a, it feels like a personal attack, right? Like this, I'm a good person or I'm a bad person. And sometimes I'm a good person because I was born with this set of assets and sometimes I'm a bad person because I was born with this set of assets. And so we have to get outside of this like binary thinking of like good versus bad, either or thinking is detrimental to everything. And so when I think about the work that I do, one of the big biggest tension points, right? I work in a regulatory agency who is accountable to the public for upholding public health and safety standards. How do we have public health and safety standards of a highly regulated product? Well, one, there's lots of testing that's involved and lots of standards around cultivation and all that. But two, a lot of enforcement, right? Like when things are not compliant, we have to enforce, we have to find, we have to criminalize.

All of those have to happen because that's the process. Now I come into the conversation where we talk about over policing in communities, right? And we talk about the harm that profiling has had on certain groups of people despite there being no statistically significant difference in usage, right? And so there's this nuance or dissonance that we have to have of like community doesn't trust a policing system or a policing state. And in order to ensure that the community gets quality product that's safe for them, we have to have some policing standards. There's this both and thinking of how do we do that work to ensure that we can restore relationship in community through this policing model. What does the rapport building look like? What does the access points look like? How do we speak to, to people? And then what is the transparency in our policies and processes? How do we have continuous improvement and take in feedback when we do do something that feels to violate rights? And then how are we upholding our standards to excellent standards to ensure that there's community safety? And we're transparent about why we're doing things the way that we're doing. And so that, that, that the emotions run high because you might even me, I represent a government entity. We have grant programs that's meant to reinvest in community and particularly justice impacted community. And I'm promoting the grants in these communities.

And I've triggered. Because all of our language feels very government. I've had folks say, I'm not interested in this grant program because it feels like court papers. We've triggered some PTSD within this community that has gone through a certain system. And so it's like, oh, how do we make sure that our language is more plain language accessible for folks who have different trigger points? You never know what's going to trigger emotions in people and you have to be open and tolerant to receiving that feedback to ensure that you can be accessible to them. And so I think this work is difficult because you never know the trigger. If you're doing project management and your project changes, you're going to stress your team out because the project changes. You know that that's the emotion that's going to happen there.

But when you're having a conversation about a grant and you use a certain word that might be a word that's related to the court program, the court system, how would you know that you were going to trigger something? So I think that that's what makes it different and unique is like sometimes if you don't have those same lived experiences, you never know how you're going to impact and trigger the folks who do.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's from a leader perspective, being able to, you know, in those unexpected trigger points. Right. Being able to, to navigate those. Right. And then how do we as learning professionals set up other people to be able to navigate those trigger points? Right. I have someone I know is particularly triggered about the concept of a vacation in the state of Florida.

Right.

Something that, it's a fantastic example of, something nobody would ever guess as a trigger. Right. But it's a very personal trigger. So how do you navigate that situation? Right. And that's not in my workplace, but if that were in my workplace, you know, I go to Florida all the Time for conferences. Right. So I would be constantly bumping up against that and need to be mindful of that. So there's all sorts of, of paradoxical situations, right.

And, and you know, I, I think paradoxes come into play when we have two things that you want, right? So like you said, you want, you want both safety, but not a lot of policing. Well, and, and, or, or regular, you know, and, and so there's other paradoxes in the workplace. There's paradoxes in hiring, in coaching and performance and emotions run really high. It makes it hard to think in those situations, particularly when it's personal. Do you have any personal experiences or stories where, or guidance for how to handle when those emotional responses get triggered?

I do. And I even, I think that the conversation around Florida are things that are. Might personally trigger people. Like, let's say that was an employee who had those feelings and needed to be at this conference in Florida. Right. How do you be like, well, we gotta be at this conference? Like, that's the, the bigger picture is this is a marketing opportunity for the firm and this is one of our, you have to go. And the personal conflict that you experience while here, how do we make sure that you're set up for success while navigating that? And so I think that there's always these both and perspectives that are happening. And one of the things in my work is, like I said, you never know the trigger points that reflect a lived experience that you might not have or even how that lived experience might show up in the moment.

So I had an employee experience a personal crisis in her family related to drug use and addiction and maladaptive coping while doing policy work related to cannabis. Right. And so there's this like, inflection point of like, oh, now my reality, my lived experience is coming up in the work in a very personal way. And so her trust trigger, she was highly. She was more anxious at work, she was more tense at which was more irritable, she was more critical. These were things that were coming up for her because of her personal life thing. And so in my mind I'm like, I have to be able to. One work needs to get done.

Like, as a leader, like, I understand and like, I want to hold space for your emotions and I want to support you, but I also have expectations around performance and I also have expectations around deliverables. You have certain, you know, PTO time. And I think that that's like, if this is something that you need PTO for, like, please use it. But if I think that you're at work, these deliverables need to be getting done while you're at work. And I empathize with you, but also I have to hold you accountable as a leader. Right? And so like that's hard when you empathize with what the struggle is. And then on the second level, I also want to make sure that while the work is getting done, you are able to be your best self forward and that you feel that you're able to kind of cope with what's going on in your world. And so what is the like leveraging of our resources that we have, our EAP resources, our insurance, our pto, what are all of the things that can wrap around you so that you feel supported? Supported while we can also be, so we can be productive.

And so I think that there are lots of points where a leader has to have what is the big picture in mind, where are we going, where are we headed? And then also what are the smaller tensions or short term issues that might be coming up to impede that. And so you can't, when it comes to like navigating those tensions, you can't like, well, I'm going to like not keep my eye on the big picture and just support these short term issues right now because that's going to take you nowhere. You know, like you're not going to be where you said you're going to be in three years or in two years. And then you can't focus on the big picture and, and not pay attention to these short term issues that are going on. Because one, it could really be feeling chaotic in there, it could be feeling messy. You're going to have high turnover rates, you're going to have a lack of more morale. And so you have to be able to like prioritize both at the same time. And I think that's where people, I think it was F.

Scott Fitzgerald who said something like the true rate of intelligence is being able to have two conflicting ideas at once and still being able to function. And that's really what leadership is about. And it's like today I view a world, an equitable world, right, where we can talk about historical harms in a way that doesn't feel like you're walking on eggshells. Where I've gone to a tribal state relations training with the state and learned about what we did to Native people and just cried and being able to be very real about what that means for sovereignty for our tribal nations in the US and how we violated treaties with them and just sit with that but also recognize, okay, so this motivates me to do better work to support these communities, these people and the. And it not make me feel ashamed or less prideful of being an American citizen. Right. Like, and being like. I'm glad that you know, there are a lot of freedoms that are afforded to me because of the way that we, we operate.

And so how do I have this both and perspective of like. And I think that it's really just embodying humanity. Right. Like humans are messy and chaotic and if I can truly accept it and embrace myself because I can be a critical thinking leader, I can be strategic, I can be empathetic and be amazing. And I also can be messy and lazy and like unproductive. And so like understanding that like we all have these nuances flowing allows us to have more extend more grace. And that's why I think that a lot of the work to being able to hold paradox, to being able to hold both in thinking also starts with your own self work and understanding that like there's no perfect answer and really, truly embracing agility towards the imperfect and moving through there.

I like that so much and what it brings to mind. I was in Taiwan in October and had the opportunity to hear Fons Trompenars who's a. He's a Dutch management theorist and he spoke on paradoxes and, and these dualities.

Right.

So accountability and empathy.

Right.

Or you know, history and current reality. Right. And it's not. We. We want both. Right. And all too often the, you know, his, his message for us was that all too often we compromise and I get a little, and you get a little, or empathy gets a little and accountability gets a little and, and, and then it's unsatisfying and unclear. And his challenge was to us was to think about it.

How do I do more empathy in a way that gets me more accountability or more accountability in a way that also gets me. So instead of splitting the difference, how do I get both? And it's really that both and, and that creative space around how does that exist? Is, is really interesting. And I think in order to get there and be creative, you have to embrace the duality. You have to embrace. Be able to step away while stepping into that space and engaging collaboratively.

Right.

You have to step away from the problem but collaborate about it.

Yep.

And so it was just, it was the kind of talk I'm not usually one for, to stick around for the keynotes, but it was one that I just sat there, I just like, I scribbled notes the entire time my head was exploding afterwards.

It was, it was cool.

So it kind of touches in here. And I wonder, as we talk about this, I think some of the other things that you're bringing into the work AI, and I don't mean artificial intelligence, I mean appreciative inquiry. Like I'm going to say the original AI, I think actually artificial intelligence existed before appreciative. But how does appreciative inquiry help us navigate this?

And I, I love that you brought up the like collaboration and co creation because that's exactly what is at the root of appreciative inquiry. And I think that like the, the tension point is this idea of like, I have strengths and assets and I do something well, but also there's something I could be doing better. And that's the tension point. That's the both and thinking of like, we want our teams, we want the folks that we work with to feel recognized and supported and seen. But also we always can be improving performance. Like regardless of how amazing we are, there's something we could be doing better. And so, so what Appreciate Inquiry does is that it helps us to focus on strengths and not like really sit with the, the, the problem and feel ashamed of the problem. It forces people to generate dial.

It's generative dialogue. Right. And it's reflective. So as you're thinking about like I have to pull away and, and brainstorm and create and innovate and whiteboard board and do I have, I have to do a lot of work and I also have to collaborate with people. That's exactly what this model does, is that it's helping us to be reflective and engage in dialogue and be in that like kind of heady space, but also to collaborate and co create with others and then it helps to build momentum because it identifies what's working right. And so you brought up the four Ds of like the discovery phase, which is like what is giving us life, right? Like what are we doing right? And where are we at our best? Like really thinking about those things and grounding there. And then we're dreaming and we're framing dreaming because dreaming is, it's more positive than saying what we need to fix, you know, but that's really what we're doing here. We're saying like, what might be, like, what could the future look like? What if we built it on our strengths? What are the, you know, like, what would it look like if we were holding one another accountable but doing it with more empathy? What would be some of the things that happen there.

Right. And then there's the, the designing which is like, okay, so what should this look like? What are the processes and the systems that support this in place? How do we get there? What, how do we make this real? And then destiny is like, what's going to be the outcome? What's it going to look like once we're there? Right. Like what's it going to feel like to work in that environment where we're embracing accountability and empathy. Empathy, right. Because we do know that when one person isn't following the rules in the workplace, that affects everybody's morale, you know, so now we're holding one another accountable and we're empathetic to the people who's not following the rules because they have personal things going on. What does it feel like to work there and in that environment? And so that's AI is kind of a process or a method to help you deal with that both and thinking and to get there. It's like really focusing on that, like what are we doing well, what are our strengths? And then how do we dream and ideate and innovate to get to where we could be in the future based off of this co creation and collaboration and what our strengths truly are?

Well, and I like that I tend to be a big fan of frameworks in general and you know this about me, but it makes it easy to pull a tool out in the moment and apply it.

Right.

And, and that gives us just another tool in the box to, to, to bring that out. And I think we can do AI individually, small teams, large teams, huge teams. Right. Like as a framework for hosting a conversation. I think there's a lot, a lot there. All right, Jessica, it's time for lightning round. We're going to talk about you a little bit. Not just your work, we're going to talk about you.

What's a book that you think we should read?

And I put Thinking Fast and Slow, which is why it talks about like heuristics and understanding how the brain has shortcom, like shortcuts that we like. It normalizes bias in a way that is very accessible to me because I think that that's part of our tolerance for creating change, is we have to recognize that we are all imperfect. And when we accept and embrace that we are imperfect and that we have a brain that is very logical and makes shortcuts all of the time, then we can start to think about how we undo that. But one of the. Wendy Smith was my, one of my professors in my MBA program and she wrote a book called, called Both in Thinking and I think that it helps leaders grapple with paradoxical thinking. And I, I would, I would, I would also raise that as a book too.

Awesome. Awesome. And we'll have links to those in the, in the show notes for this one. Jess, when you work, do you fidget?

I, I, my legs do, you know, twitch. Like, I, I shake my legs a lot. And so what I've been doing. If you do 100 squats a day, they say that that's as effective for your body as 10,000 steps.

100 squats a day.

It's easy, it seems like. I think people think it's really hard. You can get it done in 10 minutes, every minute, on the minute. At the top of the minute, you do 10 squats. It takes you like 30 seconds, and then you have 30 seconds of rest, and then the next minute you do 10 more. And after 10 minutes, you've done 100 squats. Wow.

All right. I might challenge myself. I might challenge myself.

And if you're doing it in a day of work. Yeah, you could do it like, at the top of every hour, you know, and then you're like, by the end of the day, you've done 100 squats.

All right, all right, I'll give it a whirl. I'll let you know. Do you snack while you work?

I do. I snack a little too much, so I've been trying it to snack on things that are not gonna increase, increase the calorie intake. So a lot of fruit, a lot of freeze dried fruit. Strawberries are my favorite right now. Mangoes are also really delicious. And I am obsessed with coconut water. And now they used to be like, I could get a liter for 289, and now they're like five bucks. And like, oh, I have to change my, I'm gonna have to change my, my taste because it can't be spitting that on water every day.

And then for a little protein kick, I'm really obsessed with the chomp beef sticks. They taste like a. Oh, why am I forgetting? What are the meat sticks that we like?

A Slim Jim.

Yes. They taste like a Slim Jim, but they're not as bad for you.

Awesome. All right, so you're fueling your brain there.

Yeah.

Fueling your brain. I love it. I love it. Okay, so I am borrowing respectfully from Adam Grant's podcast. Do you have a question for me?

Yeah, what's. What's one tension that you're navigating in your life right now? What's a. Both and tension that you're navigating.

Oh, I am navigating. I'm navigating both being in the business and responsive and supportive to team members and clients with hitting into a period where I need to be out doing the thing I do, which is speaking or facilitating or working with clients, and, you know what, once in a while, taking some time off. And so I'm balancing that. It was very interesting. We had a conversation the other day and with our leadership team, and the question came up, you know, like, okay, so Megan hits the road again. What's our biggest concern? And I'm expecting things like turnaround time on, reviewing payroll, on payroll weeks, and, you know, speed of response to proposals or, you know, strategic vision on projects. And. No, it was the.

The concern that was expressed was that I would exhaust myself and get sick and no longer be sustainable for the business. So I took that quite seriously, which is hard for me to realize that I'm a liability. So. And my. My choices are the liability.

So that was hard. Take your. Your breaks, Megan. Take your vacation. Take your rest. Turn your brain off. Sometimes I'm gonna.

Yeah, well, and here's the.

Here's the.

The both end with that, though, right? When I take a rest, I think and dream and come up with stuff. And like, it's.

I read a book on your last vacation when I was in.

Still. I'm writing a book right now, and I have to do it on vacation, so. But seriously, I mean, the time between my, you know, I park as far as away in the parking lot as I can, and the time between that and coming back to the office is some of my most creative time in the day. So that's kind of telling. Hey, Jess, this has been absolutely fantastic. We should do this more often. Maybe we don't have to record it for a podcast, but I'm so glad we did this time. There's so much gold in here for folks, and I appreciate you sharing it with us.

Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Have a wonderful day.

So how'd that go, Megan?

You know, I actually, I adore every minute I get to spend with Jess Jackson. And it's not unusual for me in the middle of the day sometimes to be like, ah, what would Jess do? So that was fantastic. And as her work kind of broadens and moves away from instructional design, sometimes I wonder, like, oh, is it really relevant anymore? And yet so much of what she is doing, so much of her insights and her perspectives are actually super valuable to us as learning professionals. As leaders and as human beings, so absolutely well worth having her on. And we should make a point of doing that again soon, again in the future.

This is Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance, and this has been a podcast from Torrance Learning. Tangents is the official podcast of Torrance Learning, as though we have an unofficial one. Tangents is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's produced by Dean Casteel and Meg Fairchild, engineered and edited by Dean Castile, with original music also by Dean Castile. This episode was fact checked by Meg Fairchild.