REAL TIME Podcast Episode 37: Live From the 2023 Leadership Summit

REAL TIME Podcast Episode 37: Live From the 2023 Leadership Summit

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Erin Davis: Hello, and welcome to another  and very special episode of REAL TIME,   brought to you by CREA, the Canadian  Real Estate Association. I'm your host,   Erin Davis. While, yes, I do tend to call  all of our episodes special, I assure you,   this one's something else. Our very first  live recorded episode. That's right. I sat   down with our guest, Lital Marom, at CREA's  2023 Leadership Summit in Ottawa. Board and   association leaders from all across Canada, the  place was packed, and what a conversation we had. About our guest, Lital is one of today's top  business strategists and visionaries. As the  

world of business changes, she's right there with  it, helping companies disrupt themselves before   it's simply too late. Live on stage, Lital and  I focused on how organizations can reimagine the   way they do business. We talked about mindset  shifts, data, exploring new business models,   all the good stuff. If you'd rather watch  our chat, head over to crea.ca/podcast,   or visit CREA's YouTube page and  click the REAL TIME Podcast playlist.

Let's get into it. Here's my conversation with   Lital Marom. Lital, welcome, and thanks for  being part of our very first live podcast. We   are so excited to have you now, with all of that.  Is there anything we missed in your bio today?

Lital Marom: No, this was  pretty impressive. Thank you. Erin: We might have left out engineer and  entrepreneur, though. Engineer as well? Lital: Yes. Erin: Wow. Okay.

Lital: Yes. It all started there. Erin: Wow. You currently run two companies, each  with a unique value proposition. With Unfold,   you help businesses reimagine  themselves for growth and scale,   unlocking their business potential. Then, with  the Academy of Tomorrow, you help managers gain  

the skills they need to be successful in the  future of work, unlocking the human potential   of their business. Is this the magic recipe  for an organization to thrive, investing in   both the business and the human potential of  your company? What's the relationship here? Lital: Yes. I think we need both to basically  create a holistic approach to innovation. I'd   say that the relationship between investing in  your business potential, and in human potential,   it's symbiotic. They depend on each other,  and we need to invest in both. We need to  

invest in both if you really want to achieve  sustainable transformation, sustainable success.   If you look at the business potential,  business potential means, basically,   what are the goals for the company when it  comes to innovation, when it comes to growth? When it comes to efficiency? Everything that  affects your business potential are usually   external forces. It can be market trends, it  can be customer trends, technology trends,   regulatory trends, everything that's  external to the business, that affects   the business potential. When we look at  the human potential, here, we're talking   about how do we build the capabilities for  our employees? How do we build the skills   for our employees? How do we give them the right  knowledge, equip them with the right skills? Here, when we're talking about human  potential and employees' potential,   we're looking at all the internal things  that affect them. It's your leadership,   it's the culture of the organization. Culture  of the organization really sets the tone of the   organization, right? It really affects whether  your employees are inspired or motivated,   so all those internal things. What happens when  you have a company that has a very strong business  

potential? It can then invest in its employees,  it invests, it builds them up, upskilling them. Then, when employees feel that someone  takes care of them, someone invests in them,   they are equipped, they are more inspired, they  create more value. When you have more value,   the company can realize its potential. You  get this virtuous cycle when you invest in  

both. That's the point. That's why I think  it's super important to create this virtuous   cycle that creates growth and scale over  time. I run these companies separately,   but interestingly enough, now,  finally-- It took a while. In my keynotes, I talk about both, because  people are finally understanding you can't   separate them. Your people are the kernel of your  organization. The business potential comes after.   If you don't invest in your people, you won't  be able to realize your business potential. Erin: What is the number one important  skill that leaders need to focus on today,   in order to prepare for tomorrow? Lital: We live in a world of constant  change, right? Everything is constantly   changing. Technology is constantly advancing,  and every company today is a technology company.  

Every company today is a technology company.  Now, during the first years of the pandemic,   we all talked about resiliency. Resiliency means  we want to deal well with a crisis, so we need to   bounce back, but now we need much, much more  than that. Now, we need to bounce forward. I think the most important skill is adaptability,  and adaptability means that you have this learning   agility, to be able to apply, to learn what you  need to do and turn it into action when you're   dealing with a crisis, when you're dealing with  pressure. Adaptability is a meta-skill. It's not   just a skill, because it includes many things.  It's including learning agility. It includes   emotional flexibility, it includes openness,  all the critical things that any leader needs,   or any person that wants to be successful  in a world that's constantly changing needs.

When you have adaptability, when you're under  pressure, you can respond in a calm way and   then use your curiosity as a driving force  for change, and that's why it's important. Erin: Adaptability, agility,  are they learnable skills? Lital: Yes, absolutely. I think any skill  is learnable. Some people, obviously, can   do better than others, but you can learn anything.  We can learn anything. That's exactly the era that  

we're in. You have to be a lifelong learner.  Learning is the most important thing today,   when everything around you is constantly  changing, if you are not keeping up,   if you're not constantly investing,  learning, and growing, you're going   to stay behind, or you're actually going to  go backwards. That's how bad it is right now. Erin: If you're not moving  forward, you're moving backwards. Lital: Yes. Pretty much. Erin: Okay, we've talked about the importance  of innovating, of finding new ways to exceed   your customers' needs, of looking beyond the  boundaries of your business to new markets,   but what is it that you see, Lital, that holds  traditional companies back? Why aren't all   companies exploring new and more disruptive,  for lack of a better word, business models? Lital: There are many reasons, but really, if  you take the layers, go through the layers,   at the kernel of it all, is fear. We're all afraid  of technology. Not all afraid of technology,  

but it can be that you're afraid of  technology because you don't really   understand it, and maybe it's going  to take over your job. Maybe it's   a fear of digital transformation. You  don't know how to digitize a business,   and you'll end up wasting time and money.  Maybe you're just afraid of change. We're creatures of habit. We don't like change, or  failure. Nobody really likes to fail. When we're  

talking especially about legacy brands, it's  control. Maybe you're going to lose control,   or you're used to operating in  a very predefined environment,   very stable environment, when you're  trying things that haven't been proven yet,   you might lose control. There's a lot  of fear going on, but the thing is,   we need to understand that fear is a very  important tool. Fear helps to keep us safe.

If you're standing and there's  a lion in front of you,   you're probably going to get really scared  and run away, and that's a good thing,   but if we're confronted with things that  aren't life-threatening and we don't take   any chances to change our situation, then  fear is working against us, and not for us.   That's the problem. When it works against us,  it can completely deplete us from our energy,   from our power, from our life source force.  It can get us stuck, and keep us stuck.

The most important thing is, and we all have fear,  you can never get rid of fear, is to take all the   energy that it holds-- It holds a lot of energy.  We spend a lot of energy thinking about our fears   and thinking about what we're scared of in life.  It can be personal, professional, both. You want   to use that energy to push you forward, not push  you back, and really ask yourself, "How can I turn   this around? How can my life be greater, my  business greater? How can I contribute more?" Focus on what you want, not on what you don't  want, and I know it sounds very simple, but still,   most people focus all their energy and their time  on what they don't want instead of what they want.   When we're looking at fear, just as we  have goals, we set goals, and we have a   strategy. How do I achieve these goals? You  want to have the same strategy for fears.   You have a fear. Decide, "What am  I afraid of?" Really write it down,   all the things you're afraid of.  What will happen if I'll take action?

It's not just that one thing. Let's say I'm afraid  to start my own business and I'm afraid because   I'll lose my house, I'll lose money, blah,  blah, blah, but maybe there's more things.   Write everything down, and then write the list of  all the things that you'll gain by just trying,   and you'll be surprised that, when  you just try to confront your fear,   there's usually a lot of benefits  beyond just achieving that one-top goal. Let's say I'm afraid of starting my own  business. If I'll try, I'll learn new skills,   I'll expand my network, I'll learn that I  can do some things on my own. I'll discover  

things about myself, which I will never  discover if I wouldn't take that chance.   Also think, "Okay, when I'm trying  to combat my fears, what can I do if   something goes wrong?" Be realistic. Have  some back-up plans, have some strategies. The most important thing-- I always  say you want to integrate fear,   not eliminate it. You can't eliminate fear. Fear  is part of life. It's always going to be there,   and it's there to actually tell you how you  can get out of your comfort zone, into the   world of opportunities. If you can see it as this  linear thing, you're stuck in your comfort zone,   in the small, avoidant. You're avoidant, and  you're in a small world of your comfort zone. You're not trying new things, you're just stuck  there. Here is the land of opportunities. Here  

is the land of you trying new things, and really  unlocking your potential. To get from here, from   your comfort zone, to the land of opportunities,  you have to go through fear. You have to go,   often, through pain. That's how it works.  Really understanding that, I think it's   so important. I think if everyone stops for  a minute, and think to himself, or herself,  

about all your defining moments in life,  I bet you they all had fear involved. You overcame that fear, and then you  unlocked something really big in your life.   That's the most important thing. All  strategies, everything else comes later,   but this is the bottom line of  unlocking potential in anything.

Erin: I hear what you're saying,  and there's so much to unpack in   there. One of the things that's going  through my head is-- Do you drive? Lital: Yes. Erin: Okay. When you're skidding, you're  supposed to steer into the skid rather   than-- Always look to where you want to  be, and let the skid take care of itself,   instead of going, "Oh my God," and then then  it's all over. Let's talk about failure.   When you're in the skid, when you've gone  into the ditch, how can failure fuel you? Lital: I think failure has also a very  important role when we're talking about   unlocking potential and succeeding in  life. Failure is basically showing you  

that you're one step closer to success.  Failure is part of success. Failure   is not the opposite of success. Most  people think, "Okay, there's success,   and then there's failure. They're opposites,"  they're not. Failure is part of success. We   need to fail, we need to experience different  things, in order to get closer to success. When it comes to companies, I say that a lot,   I think we should-- Some companies  have, for example, Fail Fridays. Erin: Fail Fridays.

Erin: Okay, I like that. I'm in. Lital: Exactly. You just get together,  everybody shares their failure, so you can   learn. If you think about it, "When is learning  happening?" When you reflect on your experiments,   when you reflect on your actions, and when you  reflect on your failures. Reflection is a very  

important part of learning. It's not just learning  new skills, it's also reflecting, "How do I use   that? How are things different? How do I apply  that? How is this going to make things different?" Reflection is a very important  thing, and reflecting on your   failures is a fundamental part of  any learning process and growth. Erin: I've heard you say in one of your  talks that there are some companies that   want to know how many companies you have-- If  you say, "Oh, I'm starting a company." Well,   how many have you already started? The list  of the ones that didn't work actually works   in your favor, because what does  that tell that potential investor? Lital: Yes, yes. I'm originally from Israel, and  we have a lot of innovation in Israel. Often,   in Israel, if you say that you have a start-up  and it's really successful, then people assume,   "Okay, there's a backstory of how many  times you failed until you got to this   point." If you don't have that story, and you  say, "No, this is my first start-up, and it's   going well," people are really suspicious.  They're like, "Oh, I don't know about that."

Like, "Really? That's your first start-up  and you're already successful? Something   must be wrong here." It's really  expected that you'll say, "I failed,   I tried this, I failed, and now I landed  on this, and it's going really well." Erin: Why is it important to actively  challenge yourself to think differently,   rather than resting on those laurels, those  successes? You've talked about Failure Friday,   to imagine how your business might be operating,   rather than looking at all the awards on  your walls. Why is that important, Lital? Lital: Before the pandemic, we've seen a lot  of companies that were doing really well,   but then, when COVID happened, they went  bankrupt. Why? Because they focused only  

on one thing. They only focus on operational  excellence, only focusing on the things that   are going really well right now in their  business. Then when a crisis happened,   when something unexpected happens, they  go bankrupt, because they're not prepared. Innovation is not just responding to external  forces, it's also being prepared for challenges,   unlocking new potential, unlocking new  opportunities. I think companies should  

operate on two verticals, exploiting their  existing business that's going really well,   obviously, and then also investing in the future  of their business so that they're prepared when   the crisis happens. When something happens,  you already have a plan. Aside from that,   even putting aside all crises and major  things that can disrupt your business-- Think about it, innovation is just  running a good business. If you   continuously invest in your business, you unlock  new opportunities, you unlock new revenue streams,   you're running a successful business. You  can strengthen your relationship with your   customers when you do that, you can raise  the value of your brand, because you're   adapting to your customers' changing needs,  changing behaviors, changing expectations,   because you're innovating, you're growing, you're  improving your customers' lives. Super important.

It can only benefit the business. If  anybody is not realizing that, after all the   crazy failures that we've seen with  so many big, successful companies,   then you're missing a big point of running  a successful business. It's not just   harvesting what's going well right now. It's  always investing in the future of your business,   whether there's a crisis or not. That's  called building a sustainable business. Erin: You talked about customers there. Let's  move to the other side of the operation here,   and dig deep into consumer journeys. How  are companies redesigning their services  

or tapping into new markets to better serve their  customers? If you could share an example of how   a company has innovated or expanded based  on its understanding of a customer journey. Lital: Very important to understand,  obviously, your customer's journey,   and we're seeing a lot of things that companies  are doing to accommodate that. Anything from   providing personalized services, something  that, for example, any e-commerce platform is   doing. We're all familiar with Amazon. We buy  something, we have this recommendation engine   that gives us what we want, other things that  can be relevant to us. That's personalization. Same with Netflix. I watch something, then it  knows my profile. It recommends things that are   relevant. Personalization is a big thing.  We see a lot of omnichannel experiences,  

companies that are starting something online,  completing it offline, or vice versa. We see   also companies that are really adapting when  they're looking at their customers' journey,   they're looking at gaps. For example,  it could be a luxury car manufacturer   that's now providing new offers for more  budget-conscious, demographic, or younger people. Or a beauty company, that now has a line for  men, looking for gaps along the customer journey.  

That's looking in the big picture.  Overall, if you think about it today,   you can't just provide the baseline to your  customer. That's not enough. The reason for   it is, we're all used to all these big tech  companies' level of service. Amazon is doing,   obviously, an amazing job. Whatever it is  that I'm buying from any other provider,  

even if they're the tiniest company,  I'm expecting the same kind of service. Amazon does it, you should do it  too. I don't care how big you are,   but that's how it works. We want it  personalized. We want it digitized.   We want it instant. We want it to be relevant  to us. Don't just give me these general offers,   give me something that's relevant to my  needs, that's going to improve my life.  

I think the bar is really high, and the most  important thing is always to surprise and   delight your customer. That's how you can  see it, not just giving them the baseline. As far as companies that are doing that,  there's a lot of examples. The example that   we're all familiar is LinkedIn. LinkedIn  started, actually, as a social network,  

just connecting professionals to one  another, then they collected a lot of   data to monetize and grow the business, and  they realized that in the customer journey,   their customers are actually looking to advance  their development, and their career development. They added job search options, they  added job search premium profile,   and they understood that building your  brand is another key thing, as part of your   career development. They allow people to publish  articles, to publish media, to get testimonials,   networking, they realized that's also a very  important part of your career development,   and let's create groups. All the things that  we now take for granted, these are things that   a company that started just as a social network,  basically added to adapt to their customer needs. There are more interesting examples, because  this is an example that we're all familiar,   but to make the point. I often talk about  companies that come from China, because I think   there's a lot of incredible innovation in China.  A company that I often talk about is Pinduoduo,  

it's an online retailer, that's  completely changing the rules of   online shopping. They're nothing like  Amazon, they're nothing like Alibaba.   What happened is that during the pandemic, we  all became these online shoppers, which is great. Then we were still missing going shopping  with our friends, having that experience   that you can only have offline,  when you go to a shopping mall,   or you just walk on the street with your  friend. You're having fun, and you are shopping,   which you can't really do when you're just  clicking and shopping online. With Pinduoduo,   you can do both, and online, they introduced the  team purchasing model, where you can basically   buy things according to their listed price, like  we're used to, or you can team up with friends. The more friends you team up with,  you can unlock more discounts,   you can have fun with your friends  online, and play different games.  

I think Pinduoduo is a really cool example, and  they see themself like-- The business that sits   between a supermarket where you buy products, and  Disneyland, or Disney World, where you have fun.   They see themself in between. Their tagline is  together, more saving, more fun. Very interesting. They had also a soft launch in the US last  year, when Amazon was dipping. I don't know   how successful they will be in the US, in North  America, but they had a soft launch here, as well. Erin: Say the name again, of the company.

Lital: Pinduoduo. I think duo is  groups, in Chinese. Pinduoduo. Erin: Pinduoduo. They're a perfect example,  it sounds like. Why is it so important to find   new ways to surprise and delight consumers  in their lives? Why do you think that is? Lital: The most important thing, when you're in  business, is to improve your customers' lives.  

If you're a business owner, or if you want to  be successful in your business, that's the only   thing that you should always ask yourself, "How  do I improve my customers' lives?" Not, "How   do I collect more data to sell more?" Not, "How  do I add more features, products, and services,   to sell more?" How do I create more value,  that will actually improve my customers' life? When you improve your customers' lives,  you build a strong relationship with your   customers. You build a stronger brand, you  build retaining-- You retain your customers. Erin: Loyalty. Lital: Loyalty. Exactly. It's  the most important thing to   do in business. It's why you are in business.

Erin: Surprise and delight, I like that. Can you  explain to me-- This is something that you've   delved into, and I just love the whole idea  of what you call platform thinking, the whole   concept. How does a business evolve from a product  to a platform? What are the big differences? Lital: A lot of differences. A platform  business model is very different than a   classic economy business model. A classic  business model is a very-- You have very   linear business flow. You create a product, or  a service. If it's a product, you package it,  

and then you sell it down the pipe. It's a  very linear flow of business. A platform is   almost like a matchmaker. You can think  of Amazon, for example, Uber, or Airbnb. All the big tech companies are platforms.  They're basically matchmakers. They match   service providers and users so that they can  exchange value. The purpose of a platform is   to increase those interactions. For  example, let's just look at Amazon.  

Amazon opened its infrastructure. Amazon  used to be, actually, a classic economy   company. It used to sell books directly to  customers, and that's it. Faster and cheaper. Then they created a platform so that anyone,  anywhere, can sell anything on Amazon marketplace,   so we've got the service providers, and on the  other side, we have the users. Amazon sits in   between, it's like a triangle infrastructure.  They're empowering those two sides to connect  

and to exchange value, and that's how they  grow. When we're talking about platforms,   we're talking about massive exponential growth.  This is why they are all the big tech companies. You can grow so much more than a classic  economy company, because the value that you   create has no limits. The service providers  can be anyone, not just your employees,  

it can be anyone in the world. That interaction  between service providers and users is what's   called the network effect. The network effect  is really the-- I'd say the core of a platform.   That's how a platform grows. The network effect  means as more users join, the value increases.

It's not increasing because it's a numbers  game. It increases because of the interactions   between the service provider and the consumer. For  example, if we look at Airbnb, Airbnb's KPIs for   success is not how many people downloaded the app  or used the service. That's a numbers game. That's   old-school business. Their KPIs for success  is how many hosts connected with travelers,   how many experienced providers connected. As  there are more connections, the value grows.

I'll give you another example. For  example, if we look at the App Store.   App Store is also a platform. It empowers software  developers to create apps. It empowers them by   giving them an SDK, a software development kit.  Usually, companies which empower others to create  

value provide them something that they can use  to create that value. Amazon provides them with   web services, other things, Airbnb provides  them with access to groups, photographers In the case of the App Store, they provide  them an SDK. All these software developers   can use the SDK to create apps. As more and more  software developers create apps for the App Store,   and it can be Android, or Apple, it doesn't  matter, more users want to use those apps,   because there are more apps. Because there  are more users, more app developers want   to create more apps. Users create value  for users. That's the network effect. It's a very different way of growing a  business, compared to a linear business,   that you take one thing and you sell it directly  to the customer, as opposed to a platform, where   you enable the creation of value by others. Those  others can be unlimited. It's unlimited merchants  

on Amazon platform. Unlimited users, unlimited  drivers on Uber, unlimited riders. It's unlimited.   That's why they're growing massively, and they  are dominating our economy. It's very different. Erin: Where is a good place to start when it  comes to all of this? We've talked about so much,   so much to take in, especially for legacy  established organizations, or companies. How can   you start to integrate an innovative, disruptive  mindset into your current approach to business? Lital: The most important thing is to start with  your people. This is why I mentioned this human  

potential. You got to create a culture  where people feel free to be themselves,   feel free to give their feedback, feel free  to participate, and share their creative   ideas. If you don't have that, you've got  nothing. That's called psychological safety   in the company. That's actually grounded  in very deep research conducted by Google. They spent two years with 37,000 people,  180 teams, and looked at what is the number   one indicator to create high-performing  teams. The answer was psychological safety.  

When people feel free that  they can just be themselves. Erin: Okay. Let's talk about psychological  safety before we go on any more. How do   we integrate that? How would REALTORS®, for  example-- If you have any ideas about how--   Besides companies like Google, where does  it fit in with company growth on the ground? Lital: This is basically the baseline of your  culture. It's building a culture of innovation and  

creativity. Really, it's industry agnostic. It's  making sure that people feel free in the company,   to participate and be themselves. When they  feel free to participate and be themselves,   then you tab into their creative thinking.  There are different ways to do that. You can,   for example, build courage into meetings. Something that I often do-- When you are a leader,  when you have a big team, often, you're really   excited about something. You'll start the meeting  by saying, "Okay, I have the strategy. We're   going to do this, and this. I'm really-- This  is going to be great. Anybody has any feedback?"  

When you start the meeting this way,  no one's going to step up and say,   "This is a terrible idea. Definitely  not. What are you talking about?" No one's going to do that, because you're  so excited about it. What I do to really   get feedback, and honest feedback, which is  so important when you're driving innovation,   is say, "Okay, I'm thinking of going towards this  direction, but now, what we're going to do is,   we're going to break the team." It  can be 10 people, it can be 20 people,   but break them into small teams of  three. Three is usually the magic number.

Erin: Why? Lital: It's a long story. It's accountability.  It's psychological accountability. It's a   good number, because when you have three, then  it's not just one dominating the conversation,   as when you have two. When you  have three, there's accountability. Erin: We've broken into small groups of three. Lital: Whether in person, or you can  use Zoom breakout rooms, whatever,   and then you tell them, "Okay, for the  next 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever,   your job is to criticize what I've just said and  write everything that I'm not seeing." You can   even give them access to a Google Doc so you  can have everything written at the end. Then,  

very important, is to do a round table so  that every group shares their feedback. When you're doing this round table, which is  very important, no one's going to water down   their thoughts. Everybody has to say  something, so everybody wants to say   something clever. Everyone's really going to  think about how they can criticize and give   you constructive feedback. This is how you  build in courage, build in critical thinking  

into your everyday meetings, or strategic  meetings, that are important for innovation. Then you gather the feedback, and then  you make the decision, but otherwise,   just having big meetings with 10  people in the room and asking them   to be critical about your ideas,  it's probably not going to happen. Erin: It stomps on your wings. Lital: Exactly. That's an example of building  psychological safety, which is so important,   because otherwise, you can't tap into creative  thinking. I think there are many other things,  

cultivating a learning culture, which  we talked about at the beginning,   is also fundamental if you want to grow, and be  disruptive. When I'm talking about a learning   culture, you want to see learning  as a process, not just an end goal. A lot of the times, we think, "Oh, if I just get  that degree, if I just get that job," that's not   learning culture. Basically, learning never  ends. Even if you're a data scientist today,   you need to learn about new developments next  week, next month, next year. Learning never ends.  

Often, when I talk to leaders about the  importance of putting learning at the   heart of the organization, I hear,  "Yes, we're sending our employees   to different master classes, workshops,  to learn new skills," which is great. That's what you need to do, to learn new skills,  but then they go back to work and they don't   apply any of these skills. Also, when I talk  about the learning culture, I'm talking about   learning by doing in the workplace, not just in  the workshop, so really, through experiments,   through trying things, through failure as  well, through discovering what fails, so   you get closer to success. Understanding that the  innovation process is a very, very messy process. It's not a linear process. A lot of people  expect it to be linear, and it's not linear.  

It's never going to be linear. It's a very  messy process. You try things, you go back,   you change your plan, you try again. It's an  iterative process. You invest, you weed out the   bad ideas, you invest in the good ideas. It's an  iterative process. You want to have a big vision,  

you want to know where you're going,  but you don't want to have a rigid plan. So many times, we work with companies that have  such a rigid plan, so many strict hypotheses   that they want to prove, that they focus  so much on proving those hypotheses than   focusing on the big vision where they want to  go. It's important to have this flexibility.   That's what I meant with the adaptability, have  this flexibility, agility, when you're growing,   when you're trying things. Know where you're  going, but adapt your plan constantly to fit   the market, to fit your experiments, to fit  whatever you're discovering along the way. One more thing to add is, when we're talking  about disruptive innovation, you want to see   innovation as not just making something better,  not just making something more cost-effective,   more cost-efficient, or just adding a little  feature. That's not disruptive innovation.   Disruptive innovation is creating something  completely transformative, maybe you're even   going to access a new market, maybe you're  accessing a new demographic of customers,   starting completely new products and services.

You want to think 10x growth, not just  10%. If you're thinking 10% growth,   you're probably on the obvious path, that  everyone else is on. You want to think really big,   because when you think really big, you tap  into opportunities, you tap into this creative   thinking, that has no limits. Obviously, you'll  try things and you'll get to where you need to,   but you want to think very big. Today, we have  technology, we have AI, we have the tools,  

we have data, we have everything that can help  us to create very big, imaginative things. The problem is, most of the time, we don't think  big, we don't ask big, disruptive questions.   When you want to innovate, ask  yourself-- What do you need to know   so that the answer that you'll get will completely  transform your business? Not just improve it,   completely transform your business. You  can get those answers today. That's the   difference. We have everything we need to step  up. We need to ask these big, bold questions.

Erin: Yes. If I understand  you correctly, the future,   the tech, the present, and everything that  is there, if we just step past our humanity,   not drop our humanity, but step  through the things that hold us back. Lital: Exactly. Use those innate,  human capabilities, like imagination,   creativity, curiosity, empathy.  That's our power to unlock new value.

Erin: Thank you. On behalf of CREA  and the members who are here today,   or who are watching, who are listening.  I want to thank you so much, Lital Marom,   for sharing your insight, your experience,  and your openness, and opening our eyes today,   to change, to the future, to how to reimagine  ourselves and see past our own limitations,   to the boundaries of our business. It's been  such a pleasure having you on REAL TIME. Lital: Thank you.

Erin: What's next for you? I have to ask. There's  a whole bunch of think tank-y stuff going on in   Ottawa right now, and you are  sparking like crazy about it. Lital: What's next? Yes, I'm working  on a few projects I haven't released   yet. I can't share right now, but I'm  just super busy and loving what I do.

Erin: Okay, and pushing through  the fear. Don't be afraid. Right? Lital: Yes. Erin: You're going to be great. You have been  great. Ladies and gentlemen, Lital Marom. Lital: Thank you.

Erin: Well, there you have it. Our first live  recorded episode of REAL TIME, the podcast   for REALTORS® in Canada. We hope this episode  added a little surprise and delight to your day,   and more importantly, a little inspiration  to reimagine what's possible for your own   business. Need more inspiration? Our catalog of  REAL TIME episodes has you covered, from marketing   tips to cultural trends, and more. We've got your  insights and resources right here, on REAL TIME.

REAL TIME is produced by Alphabet® Creative,  Rob Whitehead, of Real Family Productions,   and I'm your host, Erin Davis. Thanks again  for listening. We cannot wait to talk to you,   or maybe even see you again in  person, next time on REAL TIME.

2023-05-06 13:58

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