Harnessing your energy with Fiona Stevenson

Hi, I'm Gail Bannock.

And I'm Alana Santone. Welcome to the She Means Business Podcast. Throughout our careers, we faced countless questions and sought advice from other women we respect and admire. And that's exactly what this show is about.

Each week, we aim to help you achieve your goals by sharing our experiences and talking with successful leaders, offering real stories, practical advice, and actionable takeaways for women Hi everyone, and welcome to this episode of the She Means Business Podcast. We are so thrilled to welcome Fiona Stevenson to the show today. Fiona is a founding partner and CEO of The Idea Suite, an innovation agency that leverages a human-centered design thinking approach to help some of the world's largest companies invent new brands, products, services, and experiences.

They were also named 2024 winner for Canada's top growing companies by Report on Business.

Fiona frequently speaks and writes on the topics of growth, authentic leadership, innovation, and creativity. She published an innovation book for kids in 2023 and is currently co-writing an innovation book for adults that will launch in 2026. She hosts many industry events and professional conferences. She acts as a coach and mentor to young professional women and helps entrepreneurs, existing and budding, to build and refine their ideas and unleash their full creative potential. Her energy lights up a room and she is such a pleasure to work with. Fiona, welcome to the show. We are so happy to have you on.

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

Amazing.

We're so happy that you're here. So firstly, thank you.

You've been such You're such a supporter of the show. Thank you so much. We're so grateful for all your likes and shares and kind words. You know, you and I have known each other for a few years, but— and I don't even know your full story, so I can't wait to hear it. So let's get right into it.

Please tell us where you've been and how you got here.

Yeah. Well, I love that question. Well, I studied psychology at Queen's. I think I wanted to be a lawyer, as many people do who sort of go into like arts and science generally, but I think that's where I really developed my interest and love for consumer behavior and organizational behavior. And someone had referred me to Procter Gamble and said, oh, you're the kind of person they tend to hire. So I ended up being recruited by P&G and started there in brand management and worked on virtually every product portfolio during my time there. I think that's how we intersected first, Gayle.

Yeah.

Many years ago. And one of the assignments I did was an international assignment in Geneva, Switzerland, which was amazing for many reasons, but also just because I got exposed deeply to innovation and designing innovation. I was doing innovation for pet care. So Iams in Eukanuba, working with a lot of people very passionate about pet nutrition. And I just developed this absolute love and passion for innovation. And when I eventually came back to Canada to kind of settle down and kind of dig in my roots here, I really missed that innovation design work. Unfortunately, that work at Procter Gamble was done out of Cincinnati, and I didn't really want to move. It wasn't the right time to move. So I was always a little bit like, oh, someday I'd love to work in innovation. That's where years later I was judging an award show, one of those ad agency competitions where you're with 15 or 20 judges in a room for 2 days going through case studies. Shelley, my now business partner, and I met and just really bonded. She started talking to me about her career. So she's worked in innovation consulting for, I think since 2002, in London, in New York, and she was sort of saying that there weren't many innovation agencies at all in Canada. It was a bit of a white space. So we started talking, and 6 months later decided to kind of take the plunge and work together, eventually founding our own agency in January 2015. So we actually just celebrated our 10-year. That's incredible.

Congrats.

Thank you so much. Yeah, it feels good. Like, you look at the stats, I think it's only about 35% of businesses that make it to 10 years.

Wow.

And to have made it, and to have like a record year that we had last year. The other special thing is we actually founded our company while we both had new babies. So she had like a 3-month-old, and I had like a 5-month-old. And we, you know, were kind of like on her couch brainstorming what the business could look like. And so we've sort of watched our kids grow and watched the business grow, and just having done both those Wow.

What an incredible story. I'm curious, when you met Shelly, or even like when you got to know her, how did you know that this was the person that you wanted to start a business with? Because it's one thing to be friends and kind of work into it, but this is arguably a stranger, and to get into business with them 6 months later, how did you know that this was the right fit? That's a really fast courting relationship.

How did you know?

That's a great question. I actually have a speech that I've done, like a keynote speech, which is around, you know, 10 lessons learned about business partnership and how to choose your partner, because it is the most significant relationship. It is like a marriage. And I think with Shelly, we both sort of say we fell in love with each other's brains. So I think we both saw, you know where you can just tell you meet those people sometimes and the chemistry is there and we're building on each other's ideas and finishing each other's sentences? So that was one aspect, similar values as well, which become transparent pretty quickly. But I think also this crazy complementary nature of our 2 skill sets, which is pretty amazing that it sort of worked out that way. So, you know, the things that like you love and are passionate about, and someone else is like, oh, I don't love those things that much, and then vice versa. It was almost like together we created—

Puzzle pieces.

Well, C-suite. And even things like, she's very visionary and often the starter, and I tend to be more the closer and into the details. With clients, we say that 50% of our clients really gravitate to her energy and 50% gravitate to mine. So it's been this just really complementary relationship that has been through a lot. You go through a lot of ups and downs in business, including the pandemic, of course, which was probably our biggest test. But here we are, still standing.

Well, and it's— you just mentioned energy, and I think that's something that you and Shelley talk a lot about. I mean, first of all, like, you talk about energy. Tell me how you— tell us how you define energy, and then why do you see that as such a big lever to your success and in your personal or professional life?

Yeah, I am super passionate about energy. I've always been passionate about it, and I've realized so much of my success is sort of due to energy and just like the energy I bring to situations. Shelley and I, like, we've realized that so much of our business success has been around energy, and that's everything from how we show up for pitches. Like, we were winning 90, 95% of our pitches, but it was funny, if there was a day when we were low energy or even our energy wasn't right, like we weren't getting along, those were the pitches we usually lost. And it's like that intangible thing. And same thing in talking to our clients often, especially at the beginning where, you know, we'd get work and repeat work and clients would move to another organization and hire us again. And we'd say like, what is it? You know, tell us what it is. Why us versus another agency? And they'd often say, it's your energy. Your energy is contagious. The way your work fuels the energy of our team and it's kind of lasting. And so we just started to see that energy was this common theme. So we actually, during the pandemic, started a second company, which was a bit of an odd thing to do, called Energy for Growth, because we really noticed that the pandemic had left teams really burnt out. I mean, obviously that was talked about a lot, but we could even see in our own clients. It was just this kind of defeatism or just the struggle that people were under and how their energy was really low. So we were like, oh, what if we kind of created content to help energize teams and get them together and kind of look at how can they fuel their energy and fuel each other's energy? So super passionate, and we had to define energy at that point. We had to come up with our definition. So we said energy is the physical, mental, and emotional fuel you have available to do the things you want and need to do. So that's kind of how we defined it.

Oh, I love that.

One of the things we were curious about was, you know, what practices or habits have helped you maintain and harness your energy for creativity and innovation? Like, and when you feel low or when you know you're headed towards a, you know, a meeting or a project or something that requires high energy, like how, what do you do to generate Yeah, great question.

I mean, one thing that we often teach people when we have these energy engagements with them is to do a bit of an energy audit because it is so personal, the things that energize you versus the things that drain you. So we actually ask people to keep track and journal or write down some or capture on their phone for 2 or 3 days, what is every little thing that kind of drained your energy through the course of the day? And you kind of want to record it as it happens, like, oh, I noticed that, that interaction with the colleague. The lunch I just had, whatever it was. And then what are all the things that build your energy? And ultimately, it's a bit of an equation. Like day to day, you're looking at how can I do more of the things that bring me energy and do fewer of the things that drain my energy? So that's kind of like a microhabit thing to get in tune to. Like anything, when you focus on something and you have that awareness and then you kind of put your energy into that, that's a really helpful practice.

I love that because I think it's a lot of— I think what you're talking about is being very intentional And really kind of bringing it front of mind versus kind of letting things happen and then wondering, why does this not feel good? Why am I drained? And it strikes me that that's just a kind of almost like a conscious versus unconscious way of living life when it comes to energy.

Yeah, I think that's a great point, intention. Like, I think so much of my early career and early life was a bit reactive, and I can still fall into that sometimes, but, oh, here's this, that sounds interesting. Yeah, sure, this, people pleasing, you know, this kind of like say yes to everything, do everything, Whatever comes in first, you kind of take. And I think part of the thoughtfulness that comes after a couple of decades in career or after 10 years in business is that intentionality. You could just sort of react to everything and just become a bit of a victim of circumstance versus being intentional. Who am I? How do I want to show up? What do I want to do with my time and energy? And trying to make those deliberate choices, which is hard because it involves setting boundaries, saying no, taking risks sometimes because you might be saying no to something hoping for, you know, the big yes that is coming in around the corner but that you can't yet see. But I think intentionality is kind of something that we should all strive for as we grow.

That's great. And I'd love to just turn a little bit. I mean, we talked about this energy component, but the big area of focus in your First business was really about kind of culture of innovation and how to bring teams and organizations this innovative thinking and new ways of working. And what are the key elements that you focus on when you go into a team or organization from an innovation perspective?

Yeah, there's definitely the question we get asked most, and often we are tasked to build an innovation culture. And this could be in a startup environment or more in an established organization or team. We want our team to be more innovative, we want our team to be more creative, and so some of the things that we really get them to focus on, I mean, first of all, innovation strategy really has to be tied to business strategy. So ultimately, it can't be this little like side project, like a special task force assigned to innovation. It's just not gonna succeed if it's not clearly linked to your long-term mission and business goals, and people are a lot more energized too when they can see, hey, I'm working on innovation, this is how it ladders to the overall focus of the organization. So that's one thing. Psychological safety is really, really important and kind of this environment of openness and trust. And so innovation really thrives in an environment where people are comfortable sharing ideas and not worried about being shot down like, we've done that before, that'll never work. In a team, that can happen once where your idea is really shut down and that can lead someone to never open up. But obviously, the best ideas can come, and I'm sure you've heard many examples over the years. I think like Diamond Shreddies, that amazing commercial innovation idea came from an intern or something at the advertising agency. You never know, right, where these ideas will come from. So I think that's a really important one. Leadership really role modeling. So leadership has to role model innovation behaviors themselves and things like curiosity, you know, an open mind, all of that. And they also have to really like ante up and dedicate time and resources to innovation. Avoiding the micromanaging, like giving a team truly that freedom to explore and to experiment and kind of like, you know, hanging back. Obviously, as a leader, you want to be brought along for the ride, but it's more about asking the right questions and kind of challenging and seeing where help is needed versus starting to micromanage the situation. Cross-functional collaboration and cross-regional collaboration is really important too. So one, Huge benefit when we had to pivot during the pandemic and we went from doing in-person ideation sessions with teams to doing virtual ones. One of the big benefits was global teams could have people from Europe, Asia, I mean, depending on the time zone, it could be trickier, and North America all in an ideation session together. And it just makes such a difference when you have that mashup of different perspectives, different regional perspectives, just different thinkers. And then, you know, a couple more, failure. Failure is luckily, it's becoming more a hot topic. I know that at the beginning of my career and for a long time it was like, don't fail. And whether that was the message or the message I took, it was like this real fear of failure. And this idea of capturing, like really embracing failure as an opportunity to learn and capturing those moments where, okay, we failed, something didn't work, which is gonna happen, especially in innovation. If you launch 10 things, 2 or 3 are going to be massive hits. Some will be massive failures, but how do you learn from those, share the learning, and use them as an opportunity to get better? And then just being really in touch with your customer, your consumer. So we are a consumer-focused agency, and we really believe that ultimately you're not trying to push out your new technology or service, but you're trying to really solve problems, solve consumer pain points. Keep bringing that in, that learning in, even if it's in a kind of cheap and cheerful way to your organization so you're always in touch with what the consumer needs. And then also, as you come up with ideas, how are you kind of getting real-time feedback on those so you can keep optimizing? And innovation's really about iteration. Nothing's ever done. You're kind of always optimizing, always iterating, always improving your proposition. So just knowing that, it kind of creates more freedom because you don't have to make something perfect before it goes out into the world. You can put your best effort out, knowing that it will be iterated, and you're going to keep evolving it until you get it right.

I'm curious. So you just listed kind of probably 8 to 10 things that you— what you bring to kind of innovation. And I'm curious in terms of— I personally, as I was growing up as a leader, I wouldn't call myself particularly innovative from like big I innovative in terms of like it's not a strength of mine. I'm much better kind of in a setting like you're describing. and had to really think intentionally about how I bring innovation to what I did, given that it wasn't like I didn't— there are some people who are just so creative and so innovative. They're constantly thinking about it. What tips would you give to kind of people starting out, managers as they're progressing, to bring innovation to their teams or to their work if it's not something that comes naturally to them? Like 2 or 3 things that you— like tips you'd give them.

One thing we do when we do innovation training is we kind of ask people like, who are the most innovative people you know? Ultimately, the answer usually is kids. Children are super innovative. They're super creative. They're always coming up with solutions. I actually believe, our belief is that everyone is truly, truly creative. What happens is, as we age and as we work in a corporate culture, we put constraints on ourselves. We almost have seen a lot, or there might be, we've seen a lot of failure too. And so we start to almost create this narrative sometimes, like we're not naturally creative, but in fact, we're almost just like not letting ourselves go, right? There's times when you really need to be analytical and look for solutions and kind of kill ideas. That's very valuable and important in the workplace. And then there's times where you wanna really be generative and just like not judge ideas and come up with things and just let like that creativity kind of flow. And so we call that signaling, and that's really important. So in an ideation session, It's like, hey, let's all just be kids right now. We're going to come up with ideas. Some of them are going to be terrible. Some are going to be great, but we're not going to judge them. We're just going to have them and land them. We'll put things in the room. I mean, we'll have crayons and markers and toys, and we'll be wearing casual clothes and have lots of fun snacks just to access that, again, unfiltered creativity because we do believe that everyone really can be creative. Then the more— something you can actually do is inspiration. So as a leader, I know when I think back to Procter Gamble, and I'm not saying everyone did this, but my time at Procter Gamble, I was very ivory tower focused, very internal focused, just kind of in my P&G bubble. And now so much of my time is actually spent, you know, looking at all kinds of worlds. And that could be from like pop culture and music, you know, to just different industries to like industries I might normally ignore. to aspects of the news, all of that stuff is fodder for creative ideas. So often the magic in innovation is kind of taking 2 things from seemingly disconnected worlds and putting them together in a new way. So if you don't have that kind of outside inspiration, if you're not tapped into some of those things, you just won't have as many opportunities to make those really important linkages.

Yeah, it's great. Well, it's been so great to hear just, I mean, just a A flow from an energy conversation to this culture of innovation. So I think just to wrap, we'll ask you the question that we ask most of our guests, which is, you know, you've had such an interesting career evolution, and as you look back, what advice would you give your younger self sitting here today?

Yeah, I get asked this one a lot, and I think the one that is most true is just you don't need to be perfect. And I look back and sort of cringe at even like most of my time at Procter Gamble, for example, where I just felt like I needed to show up so, so perfectly. I could not show any weakness. So even, you know, in having a one-to-one with my manager or bringing something to senior leadership, I was always like, it has to be so perfect. Like I would kill myself to bring, you know, my definition of perfect forward and be crushed if there was any constructive or negative feedback, which of course is completely counter to growth mindset. And there there shouldn't be this expectation of perfection. It's like, yes, absolutely put your best foot forward, but recognize that all the people around you can add so much and address blind spots. And together you can create something more powerful and feedback is a gift. So that was a little bit crushing. And I think over time, and I would say the pandemic is what truly opened this up for me, but just recognizing that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. It's actually a superpower when you can tap into it. Often when you're trying to be perfect, you're hiding the struggles, you're hiding the quirks, and those are the things that make you lovable. Real connection and the connections I've made since the pandemic, they just really come from this authentic showing up, which is so attractive and you don't realize it. It's like, wow, they like me? I'm a mess in that meeting. It's like, oh, they liked seeing my mess. So just, I think, recognizing that also my value is not tied to achievements. Obviously professional achievements and professional success are important and they're something you pursue, but ultimately, you know, you are important just by being. Your presence is enough. You don't need to always be doing and adding value to absolutely every interaction. Sometimes you can just be. So taking that pressure off and just recognizing that, you know, everyone else who I was so fearful was judging me was probably too focused on their own imperfections, what they saw as imperfections, to actually notice half the stuff that I was So worried about. So letting that go and just kind of showing up authentically is what I'm now striving to do more and more often, and that I wish I had learned much, much earlier in life.

I love that. And aren't we all on this journey? And thank you, Fiona, for being here today. We're so thrilled to have been here. I've learned a lot listening to you. I'm sure our listeners will as well. So thank you so much for being here. Looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you.

Thanks, Fiona.

It was fun.

Okay, that was so fun and energetic.

Thank you.

She is just a ball of energy. She got me all like ready and riled up. I could just, uh, I wish we could just like riff with her even more for longer. I think it's so funny to know both her and Shelley, her partner, and they are both such very different people. Both, you know, I think, you know, one is more high energy and one is just there. It's not high energy. It's interesting. She's just energetic. Um, and so it's interesting to see how those 2 people have come together. And I, I never would have thought it, but it makes so much sense now. And obviously they're thriving and doing so well.

Well, I love— um, so I, I'm gonna come back to that because I just— to comment on the energy piece in particular, because there's energy which is like, I show up with high energy. And then there's, I think, the way she talked about energy, which is just like how are you feeling and how are you able to show up in that way? What's your energy like? And energy, you know, people always say to me like, where do you get all your energy from? And I'm like, well, that's just like, that's how I, that's how I come a little bit.

Yeah.

But, um, but the, but how, how I feel when I'm showing up that way is a little bit different. And I think that's the energy she's really getting at, which is, I loved what she said about, you know, doing this energy audit and like what fuels your energy and what depletes your energy. And isn't it just so true that like if you But if you really reflect on it and are intentional about it, it becomes very clear where the boundaries are and where you thrive and where you're just— where it's just not really that good for you and you don't feel—

That's right.

That energy that you would.

That's right. And I think it's so personal. Like, for me, if you wanna punish me, then you just make me go sit in the corner by myself with a book by the fire, which is some people's ideal. Or like, make me sit in the bath alone. Like, that is—

Sounds great.

Horr—

sounds terrible to me, but it's, I'm sure, Very happy place for most people, but I love to be around people, but only so much. And so I think very much like her, like I love to go out. I love to see the people that I love to see. I love to talk to you. I love doing this, but only to a point. And then at certain point, I've learned most very recently actually. It was post pandemic when everything was stripped away and I had to kind of rebuild back. I was able to say, okay, this actually is not a priority for me. This is not something that I want to do, and and I'm finding that I'm much more selective with my time.

AKA energy now.

Yes, exactly, exactly.

I was gonna say, you know, it's kind of tied to the energy.

And so going back to what you said about Shelley and Fiona, it's actually, when you think about it, not so surprising that 2 people who seem so different and bring different energy actually make really great business partners because there's probably that complementary, you know, what fuels you, um, that allows you to be really good. And there's, you know, application— we won't talk about it now, but application to teams and how you bring teams together, etc. Another thing, um, that I loved actually when she was reflecting on the advice she'd give to herself was this notion of perfection and vulnerability. And I, I really— I wrote down, you know, what I loved about it is that vulnerability is actually a strength.

Yeah, I wrote down the same thing.

Did you? Yeah, yeah. I mean, because I, I, you know, we, we say it, but like we never really define why. And I think it's because it makes you human and it shows that you aren't perfect. And actually, nobody wants— nobody wants to feel like they have to be perfect. So it's an element of letting people off the hook for perfection if you're vulnerable.

Yeah.

'Cause it's just showing that you're not— you actually aren't perfect every day.

I think that was actually one of my biggest learnings as a leader, that showing vulnerability made me a better leader, which for years I thought very counter to that. I thought that, no, if I showed strength and ability and nothing can touch me, that was actually being a great leader. Whereas now, again, having been through the pandemic and a lot of the lessons that I learned over the last 10 years, it's actually the opposite. And then I love when she said that. I thought of my favorite saying that you always make fun of me for saying around, you wouldn't worry so much about what people thought of you if you knew how seldom they did. Everybody is just worried about their own stupid shit and they're not thinking about you. And so go live your life and do your best and, you know, stop thinking about what they're thinking about you because they're not thinking about you. They're likely thinking about themselves.

And stop putting the pressure on yourself. It's, um, it's a much better— and, and I think what she said, which I'm sure you would agree with, is You know, it takes a lot of us to get deep into our careers before we start realizing that it really doesn't matter. And so, for all of you listening, you know, I know we've said it before on this podcast and we'll say it again. If you're earlier in your career, start now because we can tell you, I can assure you, it doesn't matter.

That's right.

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