In this fast‑paced "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Shannon Lucas, co‑CEO of Catalyst Constellations. Lucas explains that Catalyst Constellations supports individual change‑agents—"catalysts"—by providing language, tools, and community, rather than prescribing generic innovation methods. She emphasizes the need for companies to adopt a regenerative‑economy mindset, outlining how leaders can cultivate regenerative leadership, unlock ecosystem shared value, and embed compassion in business purpose. Lucas advises leaders to acknowledge uncertainty as a strength and to create psychologically safe spaces where employees can experiment without fear, citing Google’s Project Aristotle on psychological safety. She shares a personal anecdote about her early career in the service industry, arguing that service‑work experience builds empathy and should be a periodic requirement for all professionals. Finally, she recommends fellow catalyst Sheena Majet of SLM Education Solutions and directs listeners to catalystconstellations.com for more information.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Hi, thanks for having me. I'm Shannon Lucas. I am co-CEO of Catalyst Constellations. I've been leading corporate innovation and culture change initiatives for the last 10 years, most recently as executive vice president of emerging business at Ericsson, before that at Cisco, Vodafone, T-Mobile, and Microsoft, to name a few. But at Catalyst Constellations, my lovely partner and co-CEO Tracy Lovejoy and I believe that we can amplify positive change in the world, not by focusing on the latest change management or innovation methodologies, but by supporting the individuals who are leading change, those wicked problem solvers that we call catalysts. And we are the champions of the catalyst community.
Well, Shannon, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2, what is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
Well, first of all, I love my job, so I smile all the time. As I mentioned, catalysts are these people who are creating positive change in the world. And we help them not only amplify and sort of accelerate the things that they're trying to create in the world. We help them do it without having to sort of sacrifice themselves in the process, because change can be really hard. And so on an almost daily or weekly basis, we get feedback from the catalysts that we work with about how their lives have been transformed through sort of self-identifying first and foremost, and then by giving them the language and the tools and the communities to be more effective. So it makes me so happy that I often smile or laugh, but sometimes so happy that I actually get moved to tears.
Oh, I really love hearing that, and I can hear the passion in your voice. It's so great. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think this is such a fantastic question, and the, the way I approach this is there's actually like a timeliness to the chapter that you would pick. And right now, I think that we need the chapter on how companies need to be leading the regenerative economy. And so underneath that, there would be some subsections, and it would start by, how do we cultivate regenerative leadership? There would be how-tos about unlocking sort of ecosystem shared value and identifying those ecosystem partners and potentially exploring new business models. And then finally, there would be sort of some bullet points about how to build compassion into the foundation of your business, of your values and your mission. Mm-hmm.
I like it. All three of those are really powerful. Great, great suggestions. Question number 4. Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
We can no longer deny or ignore the fact that we live in this sort of volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. And in that context, admitting that you don't know all the answers isn't a weakness. It's actually a strength. And so I think we need to help leaders understand how to create the spaciousness in their organizations to explore new possible solutions. And do that by identifying those people in their organizations who are not just not afraid of change, but actually thrive in these ambiguous and uncertain situations. And then give them the space to test their new hypotheses, to explore new solutions. But all of that has to be held within this container of a psychologically safe environment.
I love that. And it sounds like by doing both those things, the leaders admitting that they don't know all the answers and for the employees to be able to experiment without fear of failure, let's say, that to me would create a very trusting environment and one that could really have an excelled sense of success when people trust each other and are willing to go the extra mile. Am I Am I reading you correctly on that?
Yeah, 100%. I think for the change agents that I'm thinking about, it's critical if you ask them to go out and explore new territory, that you hold a safe space so that they're not afraid to bring back the divergent thinking that is actually what you're asking them to do. But let's be honest. I mean, Google did this big project, Project Aristotle, where they looked at sort of the 5 attributes that create high-performing teams, sort of full stop. And the first thing on their list was psychological safety. There's an interesting note about this. Which is as a leader, you can do a lot to lean in and let people know that you are, that it is a psychologically safe environment. And we can talk about like how to do that, but the employees need to lean in too. I think a lot of times when the leaders are trying to do that, employees might have 10 or 20 years of not knowing what a psychologically safe environment is. And so just keeping the open communication about how it feels on both sides.
I love that, very insightful, thank you. Question number 5. What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
I would love to nominate Sheena Majet. She's the CEO of SLM Education Solutions. She is a catalyst. She's revolutionizing the event ecosystem, and I think that she was thinking about this before this year, but I think we can no longer deny that the event ecosystem needs some disruption. So she's fantastic. You'll love talking with her.
Excellent. I look forward to reaching out to her. And question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
All of my first jobs were in the service industry for a really long time. So babysitting, retail, waitressing. I was a nanny in Paris. But I'm going to pick waitressing because I actually loved waitressing. I thought it was so fun. It was funny because you just get all these little glimpses and insights into how, you know, little snippets of people's lives when the families come or the teenagers come or like, you know, after the bar closes and how people are showing up. I did leave the service world thinking, and I've thought this ever since then, I think that everyone should have to do like a few months every decade of service work. Because you can, when you're in the service industry, you can often tell people who have worked in the service industry before because they treat you better and the tips are better and they just, they understand how hard that work is. So that's, I think we need to institute those policies.
I love that idea. It's really good. And the story that you tell about the waitressing is fantastic. I can totally appreciate it myself. And, you know, and I think about, you know, times where either good or bad service, the, you know, it's— if you really think about it, you know, we don't know what's going on in that person's life if there was some bad service, and they're just trying to do the best that they can. So I let you know, but only if you worked in the service industry can you truly appreciate that.
So lots of empathy when you're working with the service, the service industry in both directions, really.
Yeah, absolutely. So Shannon, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
They can go to catalystconstellations.com and find out more about the global community that we're creating and how we support catalysts.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
