The Achieve Podcast - Tracey Lovejoy & Shannon Lucas (Catalyst Constellations)
In this episode of The Achieve Podcast, host Taylor Baker interviews Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas, co‑founders and co‑CEOs of Catalyst Constellations. The conversation traces the founders’ back‑story—from Tracey’s anthropological research on people‑technology interactions and Shannon’s experience building a global innovation program at Vodafone—to the birth of Catalyst Constellations, a consultancy focused on the human side of organizational transformation. They explain how their research identified “catalysts” – natural change‑agents – and how that insight shaped their services. The duo discusses the company’s lean structure, core values (mindfulness, joy, generosity, empathy), and how they embed AI tools like ChatGPT into daily workflows. They highlight rapid growth driven by heightened organizational need for human‑centric change management amid accelerating external pressures (supply‑chain shocks, geopolitical events, AI adoption). Major challenges include burnout, the overwhelming pace of change, difficulty articulating a clear market message, and the need to target chief transformation officers. They share lessons learned about energy management, self‑compassion, business fundamentals (run‑rate forecasting, funnel design), and the importance of iterating values. The episode closes with a call‑to‑action to connect via LinkedIn, visit catalystconstellations.com, or read their upcoming book “Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out: The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well.”
Chapters
Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited to be joined by Tracy Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas, the CEO and co-founders of Catalyst Constellations. And you can find them at catalystconstellations.com. Now give us the backstory, please. How did you guys come together? And with this organization And you guys are helping a lot of people. So what brought it together?
Thank you so much first for having us, Taylor Baker Baker. It's lovely to be here with you today. I already have enjoyed getting to know you and chat with you. My background, I'll start with, and then Shannon will jump in and take over. I was studying on a path to become an anthropologist and decided to take that into corporate life. I was studying people's behaviors related to technology, understanding, you know, what are the patterns of how they use it, where they could want more, and it was amazing. But I did find that I was loving more and more studying the people in front of me. And so it wasn't long before I got to become a people manager and then a team manager, and I so loved taking that anthropological lens to think about how do you help teams be really successful. That led me to take a class— this was really to support my leadership at the time— on coaching and coaching mindset and how to support your leadership in that. And it was a wonderful class for leadership. However, it was very, very disruptive in my life. It was the first time I had that quintessential sense of a calling that people talk about. I had no intention of leaving my very cushy corporate life. I didn't ever feel like I had the entrepreneur calling, and so I didn't really know what to do with this sense. Eventually, though, I couldn't ignore it. It was so strong, and when you live a life of intention, when you you can see so clearly that you're ignoring something, it just doesn't sit right with you. So, after several years of leveraging my coaching training in-house, I hung a shingle. I became an independent consultant. And once I did that, I was still a researcher. And so, one of the things I knew I had to figure out is who did I specifically want to serve because I didn't take that time before I left corporate. And so, my research lens was really helpful. And what started as a very, uh, uh, kind of small, selfish, if you will, journey to figure out who I wanted to serve, who my ideal client was, turned into an investigation that became a very deep passion for me. What I saw was that the people that I was most drawn to and were drawn to me, and that I really felt like I had the biggest impact with, are people who are are the fire starters, the innovators, those folks that are the spark of innovation. I looked to the books that were out there, and there were all kinds of books at the time, this is 2015 timeframe, about innovation itself and agile and how innovation takes hold, but very little about those people. I started doing research, qualitative research, to really deeply understand. To understand the motivations, the mindsets, the challenges of these folks that today Shannon and I talk about as catalysts. These folks that are the kind of natural drawn to change innovators among us. As I was doing that research, I was serving as an executive coach to this brilliant executive who I asked to allow me to interview her. And that was Shannon Lucas.
So, um, I was leading and building out a global innovation program at a company called Vodafone, which is one of the world's largest mobile telephony companies. And leading up to that, I had, um, got a degree in art history. I had gone down the tech rabbit hole, but as I went down the tech rabbit hole, I went really far down tech, but I started to get more and more interested on the people side of technology, uh, which was how I ended up building out the innovation program. Cause I was like, the customers don't even know what they want or what they need. And our hypothesis was, being a huge global company, we knew there were all these positive troublemakers around the world that already worked at Vodafone in Ghana, in Turkey, in India, and Germany. And so we're like, let's just bring them together to stop reinventing the wheel, give them some frameworks and some guidelines and some support, and really amplify the work that they're already doing. We called that the Innovation Champion Program. And it was wildly successful. I have to just say, I was super naive at the time because as a catalyst, you can always see more that you could be doing, right? But we grew it to almost 100 certified innovation champions, and I was burning out at the time. And so my college roommate had suggested that I get an executive coach, and I did. The reason that I was burning out in part was really trying to troubleshoot the difference in the people that were applying to this program. Some people would apply and would just like hit the ground running, and they wouldn't need much from me, and like the support would be lovely, but I didn't have to incentivize them. And other people, they still had to apply, but I couldn't get them to engage at the the same level of intensity. And so I was feeling like a failure. I'm like, am I— do I need more? And, and because we were so successful, I had every tool at my disposal. I had rewards and recognition and training and all of the things, but I was feeling like a failure, like I was letting them down. And the burnout got very real for me. And so I started working with Tracy Lovejoy and then connecting into that research. As happily, I was towards the end of her research, which was very serendipitous, because as she shared out with me what was happening, I was like, okay, A, it was like being hit by a bolt of lightning, it described my entire life going back to starting the recycling program in high school. But it also had that cringey moment where I was like, oh my God, not everyone wants change the same way that I do. Like, that sounds so naive now, right? But I was like, they just want it, they don't know how to do it. But of course, it also contextualized this group of people that were in front of me. And it was like, okay, the people, there's, if we have a broad group of change agents, there's this smaller subset of these people that we now call catalysts who can't help themselves. For better or worse. And so, um, I was like, that explains that. I said, I have this executive community where the same exact thing is playing out. I was planning on doing a retreat because burnout is so real in this community. Would you like to do that with me? And so that was the birth of our company. And so I— we just became really dedicated to supporting these people. I stayed in the corporate world for a couple more years. In 2020, we had on our, on our, uh, action map that we were going to do this full-time and write a book. Turned out to be a great year to write a book, not a great year to start a company full-time maybe, but here we are doing the work we love to do.
I love that. That is quite the story. And I love the way you guys came together. Now, what would you guys say is actually driving growth for the organization today?
Today, we support much broader than catalysts. Catalysts were the foundation to our research to really understand how change takes root effectively and where there are edges.
In it.
We support the human side of transformation because we deeply understand both our lived experiences and the depth of research and now how long we've been working with organizations, why transformations are stalling and failing. And as the pace of the world continues to change and as different things are hitting us, right, tariffs, supply chain, a war, things are hitting organizations and the response needed is in a pace that we've never never had before. We help the humans thrive in that because there is a set of experiences that we have that organizations aren't yet quite normalized in being able to support them in and talk about. And so our growth comes from the fact that this is no longer a nicety to have leadership coming together in a line and have their people have basic skills and an understanding of the experience. So we get brought in, in really rapid fashion these days because organizations need this help so intensely.
Wow.
That makes a lot of sense. And how big is your guys' team and organization right now?
Yeah, we keep a lean team. So Shannon and I are the co-CEOs. We have a bench of facilitators that we work with that, you know, help us scale to move into different organizations. We have a head of program management. We have our chief marketing officer, our sales leader, and our operations and marketing associate. And so it's a small and mighty group that allows us to be flexible and agile and hit the market shifts really rapidly.
That's awesome. And see, with AI, each person can do so much more.
That's right.
3, 4 times their work. Now, looking back for you ladies personally, what turning points, positive or negative, have molded the way you think or feel about running the organization?
I think it's important just to recognize and go back to the fact that we are both catalyst CEOs, which means that we can iterate at speed. We're very comfortable navigating through ambiguity and uncertainty, which is fine for us, but isn't always fine for people in an organization. I mean, certainly our team skews catalyst, but we also have people who are helping to keep the wheels on the bus, right?
Yeah.
So when we started off, even before we were doing it full-time, like mindfulness was one of the core values that we have as an organization because we know we need that bedrock within the organization to help us navigate all of the pivots that Tracy was talking about. We have to be able to respond in our own way to changes at speed. So that's the first thing because we don't want to destabilize, obviously, the people that we're working with. There was a really interesting pivot point for us though when we moved from sort of this part-time experiment passion project to doing this full-time. And we decided to hire an external coach who is an MBA, had a strong background in business but was also a clinical psychologist and therapist.
Okay.
Because when you're bringing, you know, as co-founders, it's basically your other life partner. And we probably spend more time with each other than we do with most of our family members, right? But in addition to that, what you're bringing to the table then is all of the family dynamics and family systems. You know, how do you relate to money? How do you relate to recognition? What are your working styles. Like, I think Tracy and I would agree it was one of the hardest things we've ever done because like you're so vulnerable and it's like, you know, trying to like navigate things in a way that often can be more complicated than, than just your family dynamic because your livelihood is at stake too, your self-worth and all of that. But I love that we did that. I love sharing that because it really speaks to how we show up with our customers, right? Like we really— when Tracy talks about the human side of transformation, we are whole human beings. Wherever we go. And we might have different facets that we bring in, but we can't ignore the fact that we're bringing these sort of family systems into the room. Um, and so deep recognition to that. But on the fun side, cuz you asked the positive and the negative, and we were talking about this before we kicked off, we recently added joy as one of our company values because while we are more comfortable with, with change and uncertainty, it's still hard for us. We're like, hey, what is the market telling us in the last 6 months and where do we need to pivot the business? Oh no, that thing didn't work. We have to like put that by my baby over there and, and start something new. Uh, and so joy is really important to us. And also we just realized, we're like, if we're grinding it out like this, it's no fun for us and we're not going to be great. But we also want to model for other organizations, like the neuropsychology around change is really important right now, and we need to be focused on cultivating the positive happy chemicals in our brain to help people navigate this change. And so we're trying to embody and bring joy everywhere we go.
I love that. That is so good. And so much more, so much more attention should be paid to that. Now, when you guys try to grow and expand, what are the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles that keep showing up and getting in the way?
Um, one of the biggest obstacles is just what we were talking about, which is the amplitude and pace of change, right, on everyone. Um, and we talk about with this, this with the organizations too, because it's like there's so much change going on and so the magnitude of the change outside of work.
Mm-hmm.
And, and then there's the pace of change. We were talking about AI on the inside of work and our capacity and resources as individuals to navigate all of that or have a place where we can talk about the difficulties, the difficulties we're having navigating any of those is becoming compressed. We, we just completed an interesting AI and transformation research. Tracy did this and one of the key takeaways was the expectation that we can do more and do it faster with AI is what the executives are showing up with.
Right.
Mm-hmm. But the reality is actually that it's burning us out more. So there's, people are more burnt out now than they have been in the last 7 years, including through the pandemic. And so this pace of change is like, it's hard for us internally, but it's hard for us to then sometimes navigate with the customers cuz they are just like, They're so overwhelmed. And so we have to help them get off of that hamster wheel of fear related to change and help them see where small interventions that we can start to help them with can create a little bit more capacity so that they can be a little bit more strategic so they can create more capacity. It's not easy though. And like I said, I mean, the neuroscience behind this is like everyone is burnt out. It's really hard to get the signal through the noise.
That makes so much sense. And I've seen that and I've experienced it myself. Yeah, that burnout is higher than it's ever been. And you're just like, what is going on? And I'm glad that you're able to articulate that, not just with like placebos or feelings or other things. Like it's quantifiable.
Quantifiable. We, and, and that's such a good point. We use data every step along the way, um, because it helps people lean in. It helps sort of de-risk. It helps actually with the neurological system. Like this is a verifiable thing that we can measure and improve upon.
I love that. Now, when it comes to you guys' messaging, your outreach, your marketing systems, what's been working well and where do you feel the gaps and frustrations?
Yeah, the, um, the messaging is hard right now. It really is. It's like, it's hard to, um, get that clarity through the signal of the noise, right? And so, uh, going back to the research that I was just citing, one of the key things that has come out, and it sounds it sounds trite, but it's like you really need to be clear on the problem that you're solving, right? And so we're talking with transformation leaders and it's like writ large before is like, well, we need to do transformation. And so there'd be chief transformation officers with budgets and it'd be like, but now it's like, what specific problem are you solving so that you can get people's attention, you can cut through the noise, you can get the resources that you need. And so that's the pivot that we've been going through is being really targeted in saying like, here's how, here's the one place that we can help you solve a meaningful business challenge. It requires a lot of deep listening, right? And so that's one of our superpowers there because helping the, helping people understand actually the biggest problems that they need to solve is value in and of itself. And then helping them sort of navigate how they're thinking about the human side of change while they're trying to get the sort of the AI wheel going in their organizations. And then we also help sort of normalize, I would say, and hold space for people talking about the fear, right? Because it's like, if we don't give space for that, which is hard to message, right? That has to be like an authentic space-holding place. But if we don't give give space for that, it's hard for them to get to those sort of nuggets of the things that are really the biggest challenges that are in front of them. Wow. And so just always showing up and being deeply authentic and wanting to help people, you know, create positive change in the world.
I, I love that you— that the way you quantify that deep listening is a superpower. And I think in today's world, that is not underlined and emphasized enough because we get this, the speed of like, all right, let me gloss over things and it's like no deep connection and that's why you're having that burnout.
100%. Wow.
Now with all the talk around AI and automation, where have you guys found ways to utilize it internally and where do you still see opportunity?
Jen and I are massive believers, uh, in AI and we love the Sam Altman quote that AI won't replace humans, but humans using AI will replace humans who don't. Uh, we encourage our organization that we work with to be embracing. Internally, ChatGPT, Fathom are tools that are just part of our workflows. And in 2025, we did a listening tour with our organization. What are you learning? How could you be better? How could we be better? And one of the key questions we asked them to answer was, how can you embed AI more into your work? And so for us, it's really important to make sure that it's not just a set of tools, but that we're normalizing for people that using AI is not cheating. Because sometimes people can wonder, oh my gosh, will my employer feel like I'm not doing my job? We want, we want them to know we are super fans and, and have them think critically about how they can use it more. So Shannon and I use ChatGPT in all kinds of scenarios in the business, helping us build out strategy, helping us think through how we can solve our— serve our clients better. Daily things that we, we use it for. It's so deeply embedded, it's hard to separate it. For us, a core value is generosity. You've been hearing about our 5 values and different things. And so very early on, Shannon and Sebastian, our head of operations, uploaded our materials, our book, other elements, so that we could put that into the learning model so Catalyst can tap in and have that wisdom as part of what is in the world. We really are a believer of making those things part of what everyone can be leveraging. And AI, for me personally, it's interesting because I know that one of the fears that persists around this in organizations is the replacement of humans. I am so much better able to see what my unique value is the more I work with AI because it takes my expertise to course correct it. It'll be really interesting to see. We've all talked about what's going to happen as more of those junior positions are not as frequent because people in mid-levels and above can be using AI to do some of those tasks. How will folks gain those critical skills that we all did in our first couple of years that then give you that expertise? We'll see. There's a lot of theories out there. But very contrary to feeling like my job is going away, I know the role that we play with clients to help really strategically think about where they're going. And also, Shannon is really alluding to this, you picked it up at the deep listening, helping organizations by watching them in the room, helping them have those ahas about where are the systems breaking down human to human. Because as we are more matrixed, as we move faster and faster, it's those systems that are compromised where conflict is increasing, right? So, the human side is all the more important. And we see— I just see it more and more, the role we play versus the role that these tools that support us play. And in terms of further opportunity, all the ways, right? Some of it is making sure that we're putting into our budget the next set of tools that we want to integrate into the business. And so, it's a whole new line item for us. Us, uh, in terms of where we wanna be building things to, to build them in. I'm so cute. How about you, Taylor? How are you embedding AI?
Uh, there's so many ways personally. I work. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you're just scratching the surface and seeing the opportunities, the redundancies. All right, let's automate those. So you like, to your point, Tracy, what are the specialties that I bring to the table? I can focus on those.
Yeah. Agreed.
Now, when you think about the next stages of the business, what are you ladies most excited about?
It's such a great leap from where Tracy just ended because the thing that we get excited and a little bit nervous about is our delivery team. So we have a bunch of people that we know and trust really well, but as the business grows, you've heard us say like there's this nuance of the, it's partly our offerings, the structure of them, because we've spent, you know, decades researching them and all of that. But it's really largely dependent on like how we deliver them and that embodied leadership that we've been talking about that differentiates us. It's the empathy, the curiosity, the mindfulness, the self-regulation, the sensing, the pivoting, like all of the things that we need now more than ever, especially in response to this AI world and the fear and the sort of the overwhelm. Um, but Tracy and I also love like a good experiment and a good hypothesis. Hypothesis. And so we're like, hey, let's test this with our new facilitators. It's also great because we're constantly learning. Like, I just got back from 2-day workshops with one of our customers, and like EQ for both teams was one of the things that we, that we were asked to bring in. But it's also like, how, how is that landing with the people now? And then taking that back into our organization and saying, and so what are we learning from the field that we can bring back into our organization to continue to help us level up?
Love that. Now, when you ladies look back at your journeys, the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out to you and what do you wish you understood sooner?
Yeah, I'll focus on the what we wish we understood sooner as you're learning to be a business person. Shannon, I think, has always been a little bit more entrepreneurial minded. I told you I did not come in assuming I'd be an entrepreneur. So it's basics. It's things like run rate. Took me, it took me too long to realize that you can actually forecast out and that that's something that you need to do. Uh, the another thing is, is thinking about top of funnel all the way through the client experience, you know, moving them into client experience and how you need to rethink that with every new pivot you're making. And as Shannon said, we tend to, as an organization, be pivoting because that's how all organizations need to work. And so realizing that you're iterating that every time you go and that you have to be really thoughtful in the step-by-step. And then there's something that's a lesson that I would love to leave with all of your listeners. We all know from every leadership book, from every talk you've ever heard, you have to have your purpose, vision, mission, values. And it was something— this is something Shannon and I do with clients, and it was something that we created when it was just the two of us. And when we created it with the two of us, we knew it was something to do. I didn't— it took me a little bit to realize how critical that was as individual people joined, even though I knew it, because I had this false idea that when you're small, maybe it feels silly to be saying those out loud. When it's now 3 of you, moved to 4 of you, and And what I've learned is just how pivotal for us individually and for every single person and reiterating that and connecting. And so you hear us talk a lot about our values. It is so critical for us to make sure that we're living them and that we iterate them if we feel like they're not as relevant anymore. And this is what we teach our clients too. And I just can't— it doesn't matter if you're sitting alone. At your desk building this, make sure you're building that set of North Star for you and the people that are gonna come on the journey with you.
I love that. Wow. Shannon, anything you wanna add to that?
No, she nailed it.
Thanks, man. Now, when you guys look at the business, if you had to focus on one constraint for the next 90 days to solve, what would it be?
One constraint.
I, I know what mine is. We're doing this next round of research, and so my, my focus right now— I get so excited about connecting the dots— so it's finding the chief transformation officers or the people who are leading transformation at an organizational level in large organizations and getting them time on the calendar with Tracy.
Yeah, and thank you, Shannon, because that's so, so true. And in that mindset, I know, because there were 3 key research projects that emerged from this research we're just wrapping up and the desire to go and answer them all at once. At once is really intense. And so Shannon has been really good about making sure that we are really focused on building out the long tail so that I don't dive in and do too much of it all at once. So that is the biggest constraint that we're putting in the business right now for sure. So thank you, Shannon, that was exactly it.
That's so smart because you see with the vision, you can see it all, you're like, let's take it all on. You're like, nah, hold on, eat the elephant one bite at a time.
That's right.
So that is awesome. Now, any final words for our listeners, other entrepreneurs, and people on similar journeys?
If you are a solopreneur or you have a couple folks, please be thinking about, uh, your energy and your energy management, because when you are burnt out, the mission you are moving toward is stalling. And from the very beginning, thinking about how you're going to be the energy, the battery pack for what you're building into the world is critical to make sure that it can move forward.
I love that.
I, I would add on that, that the journey of an entrepreneur requires a lot of iteration, which is another way of saying failure. And so self-compassion is also just super important. It's like you're on a journey. The things that feel like failures are learnings that are going to help you be successful at the end of the day, but it it can feel really bad along the way. So lots of self-compassion.
I love that. Lots of self-compassion. And then know your— be aware of your energy management. And so, because like, to your point where you're— those who fall down and get back up are going to fall down more often than those who never get back up.
That's right. A great way to say that. Totally said.
Yeah.
So wow, thank you. Thank you for sharing so much insight and wisdom and bringing a real voice to this problem that people are facing. The burnout is real. Wow. So thank you for those, Taylor. Oh, thank you. And for those who wanna learn more, they can reach out on LinkedIn. They can go to catalystconstellations.com. Where else would you wanna send them?
LinkedIn is perfect.
Okay.
Or go look for the book on Amazon, Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out: The Catalyst's Guide to Working Well.
Awesome. We'll have that in the show notes. And is there an audio version they can listen to that as well as read it?
Not yet, but it's a yes, it's gonna happen.
Awesome. Excited, excited for that. And so, and thank you to today's sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you're struggling with burnout or someone in your organization is, reach out. Reach out to Tracy and Shannon and the team, and they'll look at where your problems are, help you map this out, and get you going again. So we will see you on the next episode of the Chief Podcast.
