Future-Proof Your Career - With Laureen Knudsen

Today, we're talking about change at work, AI, layoffs, and what to do next. My guest has led massive transformations for Fortune 1000 companies. And now, she's helping people do the same for their own careers. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge, brain science for bold leaders ready to master their mind and own their voice. I'm your host, Claire Hayek, neuroleadership expert, ex-engineer, lifelong musician, and founder of Mind Soul Purpose Team Building. So, by the end of this episode, you'll hear how to hold your values under pressure, what leaders miss when they try to drive change, and a very simple way to start future-proofing your career without losing who you are. Our guest today, Lorene Knudsen, is a globally recognized transformation executive with over 30 years of experience driving enterprise-wide change for Fortune 1000 companies. As a Chief Transformation Officer and trusted advisor to the C-suite, she leads organizations through AI-powered business model innovation, operating model redesign, and sustainability-focused strategic shifts. Now, as the workplace undergoes rapid disruption from emerging technologies— unfortunately, this is the reality— Lorene is expanding her focus to actually help individuals navigate this transformation on a personal level. Drawing from decades of leading large-scale change, she empowers professionals to future-proof their careers, build new paths post-layoff, and redefine success beyond traditional corporate roles. That's a lot of things you do, Lorene. Amazing things you do. How are you doing, Lorene? Thanks.

I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for having me here, Claire.

I'm really glad you're here. I think this subject is very relevant. How to future-proof your career. We hear a lot about layoffs literally every day. And this is the new shift. That's a big change happening. And I mean, before we dive right into how to future-proof our career, I want to get to know you a little bit more. And I want our listeners to also get to know you a bit more and how you drove transformation. And maybe, Tell us a bit more about moments that really shook you that were very high pressure. So, I know you worked at an organization where the CEO and the CFO were making up sales. Almost all the sales were fake. How about that? And you were part of the team that helped fix the company.

Yeah.

Now, here's my question for you. What was the hardest conversation you had actually had to have when this was going on?

There were a lot of really hard parts to that. I mean, when you think you're working for a company that's, you know, made their quarters for the last 14 quarters and you suddenly find out all of it is made up, it's really shocking. And the company had to go through obviously major changes. 93% of the Fortune 500 companies were using our software. At the time. And so we also couldn't let them down. It was mission critical.

Wow.

And so, yeah, so we had to, we had to keep the customers going. We had to keep the products going and yet seriously streamline the organization. So I think the hardest things we did was we, was we had to lay off 53% of the company. And the conversations around that, whether it was deciding was really hard. Many nights were spent trying to make sure the right teams were there. Um, you know, we were keeping people who could not only do the job but who could emotionally make it through.

Oh God.

And then lay off the other 53%. So we kept less than half the company. And, and that day was just terrible for conversation. I mean, every conversation was just Heartbreaking, to say the least.

If someone's listening right now and seeing something off, okay, at work, what's the first safe step you think they should do, or you'd actually advise?

The first thing I would do is, I mean, there's, there's a lot of steps you can take, right? But make sure that what you're doing is more than just the basics of what your boss is asking.

Right.

Actually, look, you know, right now a lot of companies are in their, their fiscal planning for next year. And so make sure you're understanding, like, the initiatives that are coming out, where the company's trying to go, what they're trying to do, and understand how your job and what you're doing day to day aligns to that. You know, there's a lot of things that you can change about that. Now, you can also talk to friends, right? Talk to your boss and see If you've got a good enough relationship, right? If your gut instincts are on or if they're, you know, off and everything's fine for your company right now. But yeah, there's, there's a lot of different things you can do. But the number one thing for your own career and looking at things is, you know, how do you align in the organization to the ultimate goals that the company's trying to do? And then look where your company's going in the future.

Right.

And if it is automating a bunch of things, Can you learn how to implement that software? I mean, if you learn that while it's going on, not just how to use it, but actually how to implement it. If you do get laid off, could you— could another company hire you because they're wanting to implement the same thing, right? Can you—

Smart.

Yeah. Like, really start looking at what you could do. And also, what type of humanity do you bring to your role? So what about you can AI not do? What about your job can AI not do? And make sure that your boss and your boss's boss and everybody else understands what you bring, the human element you're bringing to the role.

Okay, okay. That makes total sense actually. And it's very strategic and I like that. Now, I'm curious to know when this was happening, the whole fake sale thing, how did that change you? Did that shape in any way how you lead today? Did that do something to you as a leader?

It did. It, it made me realize that what you think is real may not be. And so you can really, I mean, that contains you as a person, right? Every company I would go into where they'd be saying, oh, we made another quarter, we made another quarter. All I kept thinking was, Did we, or are you lying? Right? Are you making up sales too? You know, that type of thing. But it also changes, you know, not just the way you look at your job, but at kind of the world, because you trust your CEO and your CFO to be doing things correctly, and then they weren't. But also, the whole experience made me realize that you can turn things around. So we were the first publicly traded company That was able to come out of bankruptcy and get sold. And so we were able to continue on. Those of us that made it through that time period were able to continue after that with a much larger company who purchased us. And so it's that, you know, making it through tough times and the tough time. I mean, I think the bankruptcy took us a year, year and a half to get all the way through. So it took a while of Uncertainty. So one thing, you can live with uncertainty day to day and have it work out okay. And you can, um, you know, and whether I worried about my job every day or I didn't worry about my job every day, that didn't impact whether or not I had a job. So more it's whether than allowing yourself to have all that anxiety, try and put it into something, um, useful? How can you make yourself more valuable to the people you're working for? Or can you go find something that would, you know, make it better for you in the environment? Can you learn something new— excuse me— that you could take to another job if you had to go get one? And that's where agility came in, right in the early 2003, 2004.

Yeah.

I learned it very early because of that. That was one of the things we did was we incentivized the employees stay, that we wanted to stay by teaching them brand new things that were just coming out and really ramping up. You know what, in your own way, right, what can you learn through that process? And I have to say, a lot of companies that I got hired at after that that had problems didn't seem so big. And I could go in and bring—

Right.

It's one of the things that led me to do transformations before they were a thing and to get hired to come in and fix the company because I'd been through that before. So it actually turned into an entire career for me that was much higher paying than if I'd stayed on my other career.

Again, I always mention find the gift in the challenge. And I think that was, was a big gift for you, if that— yes, in the past, and made you realize what your power is, where you really shine, and where you bring the talent. So this is, this is very I mean, I completely believe in this and I'm with you on it. And it's great. I love the fact that we're turning this high-pressure, highly stressful moment into such a great gift for you in your career. Unfortunately, it's horrible. However, you did turn the whole company around with the whole team and survive bankruptcy. So, that's pretty good.

Yeah.

It could have been much worse, right?

Yeah. Well, absolutely. We all could have lost our jobs and gotten nothing, right? But we didn't. And so, it really enabled us to go on to have better careers going forward.

Yeah, absolutely. So, here's a little fast reset when you're going through a very high-stakes or high-pressure moment. Just a little brain science here. I know we all do it naturally. Long exhale is so important. Just start with that. Just a long exhale. And then, name what's going on. Name it, then frame it. Example, one long exhale to just to calm your body and just say out loud what's happening. I'm anxious because something feels wrong or whatever the case may be. Then frame the next best step so you can get out of it.

Mm-hmm.

Here's the one action I can take today. So don't just drown yourself in the anxiety and spiral down. Frame it right away and say, okay, what can I do? How can I take action to turn this around? It takes about a minute and helps you think clearly. It puts you out of your amygdala into your prefrontal cortex. I call it the say it out loud rule. So this can be applied when you're feeling something negative going on. You just completely become mindful. What's happening with me right now? Just say, this is what's happening. Saying it with your voice out loud, your brain is listening. So you already took away that— drama just by saying, oh, I see. I'm labeling it. And then, okay, what am I going to do about it now? What can I do? One little step I can do. When you say it out loud, you empower yourself. And then again, your brain is listening. So now, your brain is going to look at it differently. And your voice is actually very powerful. Saying it out loud, it involves different parts of the brain, not just the thoughts. It's the— as well as the hearing and you know, the promoter capabilities as well. So you're putting those layers on and on. So now you have like a 3-part army here ready to work for you because saying it out loud. So just—

I like that.

People, yeah. And it's so simple and we don't think about it because we always spiral in our own thoughts and then we can go really into our DMN, our default mode network. And Completely now, it becomes totally hyperactive. And then we come up with all these thoughts. It's just nothing's happening. You know, it's just all in our head. And we can, right, we can go way out of proportion. So stop it when you can, the minute that you feel like, okay, here we go. I'm spiraling here. I'm going off of my thoughts. So hopefully that helps. And I just want to move to something that you, you know, you You shared with me, you know, something about being true to yourself and your values. And I really want people to hear it in your own words when it comes to signs that tell you it's time to go and how that relates to being true to yourself and to your values.

Yeah. And I think the younger generation kind of has this better than some of us that have been around for a while.

Couldn't agree more.

Yes. That— what do you believe in? How do you want to treat your customers? How do you want to treat people? How do you want to be treated? And really making sure that the company you're working for is aligning with those values. And, you know, there's a balance between making a good living and hating your job every day, and then making less and maybe liking your job a lot more. You know, you can find both So if you keep looking, so even if you're somewhere where it's passable, but it's still not really aligned with you, and you're still not real happy with how certain bosses are treating people, or certain companies are treating their, their customers, right, certain things that they're doing, right, certain methods that they're using, you can look at that and decide, you know, if that's right for you. If it's not, then where are you? Keep looking. Right. Just because you have a good job, that's often the best time to look for something better, especially if you've been there 6 months to a year.

Yeah.

You can definitely start looking again. Right. And so you can get settled into your current role. You can get it to a point where you're doing a good job at it and you're happy with yourself. Because I think going home every day and feeling good about what you've done, whether the company appreciated it or anybody else or not, you need to appreciate what you're doing. And understand that you, you feel you're doing a good job. I think that's a big thing for people's psyches as well. And then go find a— keep, keep looking, right? Keep applying to things. Keep talking to people at companies. Your friends get a new job, they're in somewhere else.

Right.

Call them up and find out how they like that new company. The first 3 months, people can be real, um, The rose-colored glasses was the old thing, right? Where it's everybody's looking at it with, oh, this is fantastic, it's the perfect job, it's so much better than anywhere I've ever worked. And then after about 3 to 6 months, they're like, maybe not, right? But there's, there's good and bad everywhere, but it's finding the one that works best for you. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's like families, right? Every family has positive and negatives.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that there's always Something. You know, you can, you know, the grass is greener on the other side. That's so true. However, I think you made a good point as far as your values, etc. You cannot expect a job just to be perfect and great. If you found the perfect job, good for you. But reality is, this is life. You know, whether it's a personal challenge, whether it's a work challenge, that's life. There's challenges. But do I want to be in that challenge? Is that challenge helping me grow? Is that challenge feeding me motivation? Is that challenge helping me in any way?

Are they—

are there so many gifts I can find throughout all these challenges happening to me right now? Again, whether life—

Correct.

In your life or personally in your life or professionally. But do not be completely blasé by the idea of Oh, I'm gonna find a better job. I'm gonna find a better job. Yes, but it depends what the criteria are. However, you know, there's gonna be challenges to start you up for that one, you know. And I think this is the employer's responsibility to create that environment where people feel heard and psychologically safe and nurtured, and they have time and place to grow. And, you know, a good company culture, people will stay because problems will be everywhere. But if you have a good—

Right.

And why would anybody leave? And that's money, you know?

Right. Well, and that's part of it too. If you've got it, even in a culture that might not be 100% your fit, you've got a really good boss who cares about you.

That's true.

That can often make a job palatable for years because if they're willing to ebb and flow with you, you know, as you have problems at home, if you've got sick kids, if you've got something you're dealing with, a sick parent, Right? It's like something you've got to deal with at home. That's your house's appliances break, things happen, leaks, right? You've got to have stuff done. If they're willing to give you that time to be able to work from home, you know, they're working with you on your schedule and ebbing and flowing with you. That can go a long way.

That's huge.

Helping, right? To helping you have a happier life. So it's how is your job also contributing to your life? Is it making you happy? Does it give you that balance, which maybe it doesn't pay the best, but you've got great work-life balance? That's, yeah, that can be worth way more than, you know, an additional $5,000 a year.

And you mentioned, you know, that the younger generations, they value, it's not about money for them. They really value freedom of time. They have a high value on that and good for them. I mean, I learned this As I was much older, I put so much value on my time now. But I find that's great. This is great values and just having that flexibility and being able to feel like I can take time off if I need to take time off. But these are benefits that cannot be compared to a bonus. You know, you can give me the biggest bonus, but if I feel completely strangled at the workplace and I can't breathe, I mean, I don't want your bonus. I'm out of here. Right, right.

Or you have no leeway on— you have to be in the office from 8 to 5 every day, no matter what. Now, there's some jobs that require that.

Yes.

And that's okay.

You survive on that.

But there's other, you know, if you're working in technology and you're not on the support lines or something like that, there's a lot of ebb and flow that should be able to happen in your career, right? That in your job day to day that allows you to have to take care of life as well as And to live your life as well as work on your job.

For sure, for sure. All right. So, you've led big transformations. Leaders have many conversations about change, transformation. But very few realize they need to change as well. Because if leaders don't change, there's no transformation. No transformation will actually stick. What do you wish more leaders understood when driving change and transformation?

I wish more leaders would understand how anybody in the company needs to change. There's a couple of things, actually. So they do need to change. I've actually seen a leader derail a transformation that was going on for 9 or 10 months, had great momentum. And they came back. And instead of looking at a dashboard that had been set up for them with real-time data, They asked for a status report. And as soon as teams have to start filling out, you know, some document status report, right, they're not entering data anymore.

No.

So there goes all of your real-time data, right? Because the leader didn't want to change, and they were like, well, just write it down in the same PowerPoint you've always given me. Stuff like that, they have no idea how much that completely derails what you're doing for the organization. And it's kind of interesting how much, how Clueless some of them really are. They also need to realize though that the change isn't like, you can't have an external organization. So many of them set up transformation offices that go into all the other departments and go, you know, we're here to save you. We're here to help you do your jobs better. But they don't know how those people do their jobs.

Right.

So there's the people needing to change need to be involved in that change. And they know their jobs best. If you go all the way back to the original, like Toyota that did it first with lean, you know, lean transformations, the way they were most successful is by every single employee looked at their job every day and said, what could be better? What could I do better? What could make my job go faster?

Right.

What could help me do my job faster? And everybody collaborated across the system the entire way, right? It wasn't just optimizing for my department, which so many companies do as well. It was optimizing the entire flow. But everybody started to understand that, and every employee could speak up and say, I think we could try this, and I think it would speed up this part of the process. And since everybody had a voice, they're much more likely to do it. And so there's those, both the give and take of everybody needs to be involved all the way from the CEO down to the newest person you just hired, whether it's an intern or whatever, everybody needs to be involved in that.

In that. Absolutely. Very wise words. These are gold nuggets, people. If you're listening, take these down. Let's talk about your new focus, Maureen. You're right now helping people transform themselves. I mean, I know we all know here that there's nothing new. I mean, there's It's just innovation is everywhere. It's happening more quickly than ever. AI is one of it. But there's so much more. And there's this stress, the stress of trying to keep up. And it's pretty intense. So, if someone was laid off last week, what are the first steps you'd have them take?

I'm talking to a lot of people who have been laid off. And I'm just starting in this because I left corporate America about a year ago. To go do my own thing finally. I'm kind of ebbing into retirement. I'm easing into that. And so, you know, I went out and just started— I love to learn. So I went out and started looking at all of the other ways to make money. How can you make money that you don't have a job? And it helped me to really, when I'm talking to these people, to give them hope. You can go find another job. But a lot of people, it's funny, they're getting laid off. And one of the first things they They look so disheartened when I get on the phone with them. And it's primarily because they really don't want to go take another job doing the same thing they did before.

Right.

They, I mean, it's like that just feels soul crushing to them. And so there's a lot of other ways to make money, right? There's ways today. And with AI coming up, there's going to be newer and newer ways as more automation comes into things for you to make your own money easier. And there's, there's from podcasts, writing books, webcasts, you know, web, YouTube videos, you know, there's, there's a lot of people that now get paid to go to amusement parks every day or, you know, Disney World and Universal Orlando and SeaWorld as their day job. And they're making enough money to buy houses and pay their mortgages and buy really nice cars and support, have their kids go to private schools. I mean, it's amazing how much you can do. You can write all sorts of types of books. There's all sorts of things you can do. And it just— there's so much more hope out there for doing things your own way if you're not real happy in corporate America. And so I am writing my own book on that because I've learned so much. And there's so many people that I'm seeing on LinkedIn that are just so down. You know, they're so disheartened by everything going on. And there's, you know, just like with every other period in history that turned over, right? Everybody who worked with horses and things thought it was the end of the road when cars got developed, machinery, factories got built. Absolutely.

We've been through this many times. Yeah, for sure.

Individual people, right, felt they were having problems. And it's just not the case, right? There's— I mean, yes, maybe your old role won't be there in the exact same format. But there will be something that needs to get done that can align with that. And teaching people things, helping people to learn things, and doing it in a way— like I said, come up with what makes you different than an AI tool. So what is it about you that— what part of humanity can you bring into your role or into a company or into, you know, do you have to work with large companies? Can you work with small ones in your area? And bring your marketing skills to them? Can you bring your marketing skills to— or some other skills, bookkeeping, whatever you're doing— into medium-sized companies that people are starting around you? I mean, there's all sorts of things that you can go look at differently that are really—

Your imagination is— your creativity will be your limitation. So right now, even if you don't have— you feel like you're not creative or you have no idea, you can brainstorm this with AI. Literally have the conversation with AI. AI can help in so many ways open up The brainstorming when it comes to that. So thanks for sharing that. That's, I think it's very relevant. And I think a lot of people, some people know exactly what to do. Some people are completely lost. So this is, I think, very relevant to listeners here probably going through this. And this is not the end. Let's jump right in to rapid-fire questions. So these are 30-second replies, very short. Are you ready?

Ready.

Okay, I have 2 questions for you.

First one.

One ritual you won't skip during heavy change, heavy disruption?

Meditating in the morning.

Awesome! One book or podcast that rewired how you lead?

Joe Hudson, Art of Accomplishment.

Wonderful! Very, very interesting. So here, we're already at our listener challenge. So what I want you to do this week is do a human check-in. Pick 3 people in your organization and Ask them three questions: What's one thing about the current situation, current change, current challenge that actually worries you? Okay, so what's one thing about the current situation, change, etc. that worries you? The second question: What's one thing that actually excites you about it? And the third question: What support would help you right now? So write down after that. Write down one action you'll take. for each person. I think this is a great way to deal with it.

Fantastic!

And reframe, right? Reframe, redirect that challenge and make it a bit more, let's see what can we do about it. So, it gets you out of your amygdala and gets you back into your focus. Now, again, thanks so much for everybody for joining us today. Thank you so much, Lorene, for joining me today and for all the gold nuggets. I always want to remind you everyone, if you are watching us, via video. You see a QR code up there. Please scan it. There's tons going on— webinars, masterclasses, a lot of resources that I share for free. Scan the code. Follow on social media. Definitely follow the podcast and share the episodes that were relevant to you or think of somebody that this could help. So, don't be shy to share. I just want to thank you, Lorene, for joining in. And if you have any final words for our listeners.

I think it's just like you said. I mean, your questions were such— so great. Bring your humanity back to the office, whether it's your peers, your subordinates, or your, you know, your leaders. Bring yourself back. I think that's huge right now when everything's being automated.

Absolutely. And it brings me to the perfect close. I always say, lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. We'll see you all next week. Thanks again, Lorene. Take care.

Thanks, Claire. Bye.