How Bojangles Is Rethinking Leadership Development

Learning leaders are often asked to solve performance challenges with more training but that may not be the answer. Kathryn Murrow, Director of Leadership Development and eLearning at the restaurant chain Bojangles, explains why the most effective learning organizations spend more time asking questions than building courses. She shares lessons on collaboration, leadership development, AI, and creating learning experiences that people truly own.

Show Notes:

Kathryn Murrow of Bojangles talks about the importance of co-creation with learners, diagnosing root causes, and using AI to elevate the role of L&D. Her key takeaways include:

• Start with the root cause—not the training request. Before building another course, learning leaders should ask what behavior needs to change, why the problem exists, and whether training is actually the right solution.
• Build learning with your audience, not for them. Involving leaders and frontline employees in designing learning experiences creates stronger buy-in, better content, and more sustainable adoption.
• Learning succeeds when the conditions are right. Organizations need alignment, clear expectations, leadership support, and the right performance environment before learning initiatives can drive meaningful change.
• An LMS should be more than a compliance checklist. Kathryn shares how Bojangles is transforming its LMS into a personalized learning hub that connects development opportunities with business outcomes and measurable ROI.
• AI should create space for more human work. Rather than replacing people, AI can automate administrative tasks so learning professionals can spend more time on coaching, strategy, performance consulting, and measuring impact.

Powered by Learning earned Awards of Distinction in the Podcast/Audio and Business Podcast categories from The Communicator Awards and a Gold and Silver Davey Award. The podcast is also named to Feedspot's Top 40 L&D podcasts and Training Industry’s Ultimate L&D Podcast Guide.

Learn more about d'Vinci at www.dvinci.com.
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Transcript

Susan Cort: [00:00:00] The best learning solutions aren't created for people, they're built alongside them. 

Kathryn Murrow: We're building with, not for.

And I think it's been such a huge pivot in mindset but- What it's done already is just create so much more of a partnership because it's not something that's being given to them and saying, you know, "Do this." It's something that they're a part of, and that they'll really rally behind, and that they're able to lead without us.

Susan Cort: That's Kathryn Murrow, Director of Leadership Development and eLearning at the restaurant chain Bojangles.

Kathryn joins d'Vinci's Jenny Fedullo and me to share how learning leaders can create stronger partnerships, solve the right problems, and drive lasting performance. Next, on Powered by Learning. 

Announcer: Powered by Learning is brought to you by d'Vinci Interactive. d'Vinci's approach to learning is grounded in 30 years of innovation and expertise. We [00:01:00] use proven strategies and leading technology to develop solutions that empower learners to improve quality and boost performance. Learn more at dvinci.com.

Susan Cort: Joining me now is d'Vinci's Director Learning Experience, Jenny Fedullo, and our guest, Kathryn Murrow, Director Leadership Development and eLearning at Bojangles. Thank you for joining us, Kathryn. It's great to see you again. 

Jenny Fedullo: Hi Kathryn, great to see you. 

Kathryn Murrow: Hello Jenny and Susan, thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to be here. 

Susan Cort: Well, we're looking forward to the conversation, and we enjoyed speaking with you when we did our pre-interview a few weeks ago. So now we're, we're really looking forward to having this conversation and sharing it with our listeners. Um, Kathryn, start out by telling us a little bit about Bojangles.

People have probably seen signs, uh, in their community or as they go on road trips, and talk to us about the company as well as your role there. 

Kathryn Murrow: Well, if you are like me, I was a Florida [00:02:00] native. I now am a proud North Carolinian. Um, but there was not Bojangles in Florida when I was growing up.

So, um, what I have learned and, and grown to love is that they're a Carolina born restaurant chain and really focused on home style food. So, southern chicken, biscuits and tea. That's our business- chicken, biscuits and tea. 

Susan Cort: You can't go wrong with that. 

Kathryn Murrow: No. Unfortunately for my waistline. We are actually coming up on celebrating our 50th anniversary as a brand.

It was a restaurant founded in Charlotte, started here in Charlotte, but has grown quite a bit. We now are... I checked this morning actually, because every week it changes, but we're up to 882 restaurants- and 17 states. So really what started in the Carolinas is moving towards a national brand, and our expansion market is booming.

Um, but it's really just good southern food, and our hospitality is [00:03:00] something that we pride ourselves on as well. 

Susan Cort: Sounds like good comfort food. 

Kathryn Murrow: Yes. 

Susan Cort: And tell us a little bit about your role and your journey getting there. I love, uh, your background and how you started out in education, so share a little bit about that.

Kathryn Murrow: So I started, like you said, started out in education, but, you know, I was a 22-year-old English lit degree major coming out of college, and teaching was something that I thought, "You know what? I can do this." I loved to learn English, and so I said, "Well, I'm sure I'd like to teach it," and I did. I fell in love with it.

Um, and that evolved pretty organically to me moving into what we call in the education system an instructional coach role, which is really just a non-evaluative peer coach that works with teachers to improve not just their content knowledge, but also the pedagogy side of it. So really learning and development, although I think it's, it's called that more nowadays.

You know, back [00:04:00] when I was in that role starting in 2012, um, there wasn't as much talk of it. And moved from an instructional coach into a larger district. Um, I was from Central Florida, so if anyone's from Orlando, you'll, you'll know what I'm talking about. But I moved into a district that was incredibly large.

It's the seventh or eighth largest district in the United States. It actually changes sometimes based on enrollment with another neighboring district. But it was Orange County Public Schools, and I was there for about four years. Moved through about four different leadership roles there, but, um, that was where I think I really started to fall in love with leadership development and started to recognize that what I was doing had a name, you know, that it was leadership development.

Um, and I met someone, my mentor, my former boss, she really just changed my life in that role that I [00:05:00] was in throughout the course of about three years. And we ended up founding the first leadership development department in the district and, um, started a new team there and started working to help our principals, our school leaders, um, of all ranges and roles, but we started with the principal because they're the head of that school.

And our, our former deputy superintendent, Dr. Aaron Brewster, I don't know if he'll ever hear this, but he'll laugh if he does. But he would say, you know, a school will rise or fall based on its principal. And we started working with them to start what we call diagnosing root cause, and that's where it- evolved now to me in this role, but without her in that role and that process of really understanding how to look at a situation, how to diagnose root cause, how to uncover the true [00:06:00] nature of why things were happening and to work from there, that has just transformed my work and really guided me, um, to where I am today and where I, you know, hope to go in the future.

Susan Cort: What a great foundation for what you're doing. And just give us a brief overview of your current role at Bojangles. What are your day-to-day responsibilities? 

Kathryn Murrow: Well, um, I, we are a small but mighty team. So within our training department, we have, I guess you could call it the left arm and the right arm, and in one of those arms, I'll pick right, um, we're the leadership development side.

There's a lot of training content. There's... We manage the LMS, and so we're, it's, it's very content heavy, but also there's a lot of strategy in that, and partnership and collaboration across departments within our support center at the corporate level, but, um, also our field leaders and m- especially our senior field leaders.

And then on the other side, we [00:07:00] have our field trainers who support our new restaurant openings, our franchisees. We're a company who is about 75% comprised of franchisees, and so I would say out of our corporate restaurants, we have almost 300. So there's a, there's a pretty big split there, and we support both.

But what we're really focused on right now is developing what I've dubbed, our enablement ecosystem, and looking at, as an organization, how are we enabling people to be the best versions of themselves and giving them the tools and resources that they need so that they either move up internally, which is of course what we want, or that they just grow as professionals, and wherever they choose to go, they are equipped with those strategies and soft skills and those resources where they can go and make a difference.

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story. I'm always intrigued, 'cause you don't meet many [00:08:00] professionals at, at this level that chose L&D as their- ... as their field of study in college, right? Or, purposefully did that. So it's always so interesting to connect to others to find out how you, how you landed in this field.

Susan Cort: That sounds like the perfect journey.

Jenny Fedullo: That's for sure. Exactly. So I know what initially brought us together was your response to a LinkedIn poll that I posted asking what, you felt, you know, learning professionals out there felt was the biggest challenge in our field right now, and you answered, "Doing more with less."

So I think that resonates with almost everyone in our field. So when you say doing more with less, what does that look like in your world today in, at Bojangles', in your role now? 

Kathryn Murrow: You know, it's just recently that I think we started to, um, accelerate in the kind of embodiment and full, [00:09:00] I guess you could say just mental model maybe of that, that idea of more doesn't need to be faster, more doesn't need to relate to quantity. And what we've been doing as a team, and it's really started to permeate throughout some of our partnerships as well, is pausing and looking at whatever the situation is. Maybe it's a training request, maybe it's an initiative, but thinking about, "Well, wait a second.

Why is this needed? What are we trying to accomplish here? What is the behavior change that we want to see? What does success look like?" You know, starting to ask ourselves some hard questions and also thinking about, you know, are we actually building something to solve the problem that we've identified?

Or are we trying to come up with a new initiative that looks like it might be a solution? Or, "Yes, sure, we can build [00:10:00] this training for you. We can retrain." You know, that's a, a... We, we get a lot of, you know, "Can we retrain on this?" And I've started to ask, "Well, why do we need to retrain? What's going on?

What are the behaviors that we're seeing that would... Is it really a retraining issue or was it ever trained correctly in the beginning? Is there a knowledge acquisition issue? Are we giving them what they need from an enablement point of view?" 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: And I think what's, um, one example I can give you is we've taken an initiative that we launched last year and I was telling my supervisor, she's our senior director, I was talking to her about this and I said, "You know, I think the reason it hasn't stuck the way that we want it to and, and the way that we envisioned is because we created it for our field leaders.

We did not create it with them." And I think that's probably commonplace in learning and development. You know, training creates things. L&D creates things. And I told her, I said, "If they sat at the table with us [00:11:00] and created it with us and we were doing this together, they'd own it because they're now developing it."

And so that's what we're doing. We're, we're coming back and we're aligning and we're looking at what is our goal here? What are you already doing that's working? What does this realistically look like in your role? Because we know the day-to-day changes and is very fast-paced. But we're building with, not for.

And I think it's been such a huge pivot in mindset but- What it's done already is just create so much more of a partnership because it's not something that's being given to them and saying, you know, "Do this." It's something that they're a part of, and that they'll really rally behind, and that they're able to lead without us.

Um, I think anyone that will listen to this will probably resonate. You know, when you have this amazing training, this amazing development initiative, and you're like, "This is going to work." [00:12:00] And then it, it goes out and it might work for some, but it's kind of just, meh, you know, it might plateau. And I really...

You know, looking back, the most successful things that I've ever been a part of have always been a collaboration. And, and I think to the point of doing more with less, we're doing more, and our team might be small immediately on training and development, but now we're pulling in our field leaders.

So we're able to do more with some of our partners, even though we're a small team, and start to really enable them. They're learning and growing, we're learning and growing. It's really been a cool process. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah, I know at d'Vinci that is something we really pride ourselves on too when we begin a project, right?

The, the client might come in and say, "Hey, we want you to build a 30-minute, you know, e-learning module." It's like, "Wait. Let's, let's back up and have this conversation to ensure the learning solution is both needed and, and capable of addressing the [00:13:00] issue," right? What is... Let's diagnose first, you know, and, and make sure that, that we're gearing it.

What, what do you think you've learned the most through your experience of this journey of, of building that partnership of, of diagnosis alignment? What do you think, you know, has taught you the most about the importance of that? 

Kathryn Murrow: I think what... I, I've had a lot of time to reflect on this. I have a long commute too so, so there's days where I'm driving to and from where I actually get to reflect and kind of like, you know, transition from work to home and, and think about this.

But it's really Just made me realize and regret in some ways, but you obviously can't go back and change that, the number of times that I think there were missed opportunities or even outright failures in the sense of I didn't do what I could have to empower this person. Mm-hmm. And I think, you know, my title is leadership development, and a lot of, so many, [00:14:00] depending on the organization, so many things can fall under that umbrella.

It could be training, it could be L&D, it could be, you know, whatever you'd like to call it. But when I think about what my goal is at the end of the day, it is to develop leaders. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: And they don't develop if they're not an active participant in their own learning. And it's made me stop and think about every single thing that I'm creating and developing, like, "I need to get an operator in here to vet this with me.

I need to get a field leader in here to really, you know, flesh out my thinking." And that takes more time. It is a slower process, but what I found is that it's a better process, because the quality and your output and your buy-in and your engagement is just so much higher because number one, it's relevant to them and it's realistic.

You're, you're getting the perspectives that you need. But number two, they're, they're involved, and it makes them want to learn. Mm-hmm. And I think that's the [00:15:00] most fulfilling part about being in L&D, is you see people that want to learn, want to grow, and then realize that they can. Mm-hmm. Because you're providing an environment that is conducive for that.

Absolutely. 

Susan Cort: And that has to translate into also a greater learning impact. You know, if you're creating that training with them and not for them, and you're seeing that engagement, then have, have you seen that translate into, uh, better results? 

Kathryn Murrow: So one initiative, um, that we're focused on right now is we have, um, we call them regional training managers on our corporate side.

They, they oversee training for an entire geographic region. So to put that in a number, about 60 stores. Hmm. Um, and they work in tandem with a senior field leader. And we really wanted to redo some, a foundational leadership series for different roles within our field. You know, "Welcome to this role.

Here's, here's a session where you can really start to think about who you are as a leader, who you want to be, [00:16:00] and, and what it's going to take to get you there." And the first time that I, I shouldn't even say partnered with them, it was, you know, I created the development, the presentation, the session, and I facilitated it, and I was like, "Why don't you guys watch me do it, you know, and get a feel for it, fully understand it?"

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: I said, "And the next time we'll do it side by side, and then it, I'll release it to you," you know, gradual release model. It sounded great in my mind. And it fell flat. Um, they were- They didn't, I think, fully grasp the content. And I asked them, I was like, "What do you think it is? Because I know you guys know these concepts, but it seemed like you weren't connected with the learning."

And they, they were just like, "We weren't, we didn't feel like we knew it. You know, obviously we're not developing it." So what we did is the, the next time that we hosted a session, before that I did a table read with them, and we went slide by [00:17:00] slide and we talked through everything. And one of the, the training managers, she told me, she goes, "I need to know what the purpose is of each section and how it relates to them.

You know, what's the intent? What are they supposed to get out of it?" And I said, "Perfect. I can tell you that, no problem. But also, I want you to tell me what you think it is so that we're aligned." And we started having those deeper conversations. And when I tell you the next time that we were facilitating a session, it was night and day.

Jenny Fedullo: That's great ... 

Kathryn Murrow: they had a chance to make real edits. They had a chance to share feedback. And so again, that partnership came into play, and it's just been so much more rewarding, I think, on both ends for us to be able to work together in that way because it's not me handing something to them and say, "Hey, this is what we're going to facilitate.

I need you to learn it." It's, "Hey, let's look at this together and think about what this could look like in the field. Is this accurate? Is this what they need? [00:18:00] Is this what you're seeing?" And that has made a huge difference. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Susan Cort: That's great. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah. I know we had talked about organizational change, and you see this in so many organizations, right?

Organizational change means senior leaders, they do this, and they pass it to the frontline workers, and then launch initiatives before the right enablement conditions are in place, right? So I know you've talked about enablement. So what are the, some of, what are some of the most common signs that an organization isn't ready?

And maybe you have, you know, specific examples there for a change in- initiative, and what needs to happen before moving forward? How do we better connect? 

Kathryn Murrow: So I learned a phrase back when we were in, um, deep in the pandemic- Okay ... and I was working in Orange County Public Schools, and we had a very large push in that time of social and emotional learning and psychological safety because half of our kids weren't in a physical building to connect with [00:19:00] others, and we needed them to feel connected so that they were able to learn.

But the phrase was conditions for learning, and it was actually embedded into the performance evaluation model at the time. And it was something that we looked for no matter what immediately. Like, the first thing when you enter a virtual classroom or a physical classroom is what are the conditions for learning?

Do students have what they need? Is there a warm atmosphere? Are there supplies available? You know, d- are there directions so that they know what to reference? Just basic things that you think are commonplace, but when they're missing, it's very glaring, and it causes- almost an immediate disruption to the learning.

It, it's a stopgap. And so that's a, a big thing are the conditions for learning. You know, do we have the resources available to just establish a baseline for whatever it is that we're trying to change? And I think a big part of those conditions for learning [00:20:00] is Are the senior leaders who are at the helm of whatever change is, is being pushed forward, are they in agreement on what success looks like?

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: Are they in agreement on here's what we want to see, here's what we don't want to see, here's how we're going to measure if this is effective? I think there's been examples where I've seen, you know, in multiple organizations where you'll ask different senior leaders about the same initiative, and they'll tell you a different definition or, or they'll have a very different perception of it.

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: And so automatically you see that while they're looking at it from this vantage point, and they're looking at it from this one, and not that they're wrong, but they're not aligned. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: And so then you have a disconnect at the highest level, which to me means when you're trying to cascade it, you're at a huge disadvantage.

It's going to cascade in different ways depending on the leader that you're either reporting to [00:21:00] or that is most closely connected to you. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: So I think it's, it's an alignment issue. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah. Yeah, I love that, conditions for learning. It makes me think of really conditions for performance, right? So as learning leaders, when, when peers come and, you know, other, you know, sales managers are, you know, "Hey, I have a, I have a problem.

I need training," right? One of the first things we ask is, well, do they have all the tools they need to perform, you know? Or what are the support systems? Do they know what their, uh, goals are? You know, things like that. So it's making sure that the right conditions for performance are in place before we decide that, hey, we need to train them.

But I love the slick in the classroom too or, you know, the learning environment. Do they have the right... Are we gonna have, are they gonna have an, a successful learning experience? I love that. 

Kathryn Murrow: And I think conditions for learning lead to conditions for performance. 

Jenny Fedullo: Performance. 

Kathryn Murrow: It's so connected. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Love it. So you mentioned one of the biggest transformations you are leading is helping Bojangles understand that an [00:22:00] LMS means so much more than just compliance training. What, tell us about that journey and what, what it's taken you right now to, to shift that mindset. 

Kathryn Murrow: I have been an LMS user and administrator, gosh, all of my professional career because when I started in education, I was a user.

As I moved into leadership roles, became an administrator in some capacity. But, um, have been at the We would call it super admin right now, but h- you know, you're managing it for an enterprise level right, I've done that, um, in the school district level and also here. And I think what I've seen in some ways in both of those is that it essentially can be just a very expensive checklist.

You are paying six figures to go in there and confirm that someone completed, and I say completed, not necessarily learned, whatever [00:23:00] module is required. And obviously there's compliance trainings that you do need to verify. But What I've been able to, to... There's a plan in place, and we're in the early stages for sure, but a big part of shifting that mindset from the LMS beyond just, "Oh, let me log in here to do my training.

I have to go complete this," it's, it's almost, it's just a negative sort of, you know, "Ugh, let me go do this." It's very task oriented. And our LMS provider is Docebo. They have been incredible with some of the most recent developments they have integrated into the system. And their CEO, I actually, I attended their conference this spring the, for the first time, and their CEO is so focused on learning.

He says it so much. And you can tell, because in the platform they are coming out with different additions, products, things like AI simulated coaching that focus on the learner's experience. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: And one thing that we [00:24:00] recently launched where I'm calling it the learning hub, I hope people start you know- tagging along with me, but I really do want it to be that, is we launched, um, dashboards. We have now advanced insights dashboards that were built through QuickSight, and it gives our GMs at the store level, it gives our above store level field leaders, it gives our very senior most field leaders all the way up to our chiefs, views at a glance of what's going on at a training level.

And it's completion to a degree, but it also shows from a leadership development side, who is even choosing to attend some of these classes that we're offering. Is there a particular region or area that's sending a lot more people? You know, if so, we wanna start asking questions. You know, you sent five people in this tiny geographic area to a leadership development session.

What are you seeing as a result? Is it translating to metrics? We're starting to [00:25:00] connect it to our BI metrics and looking at, you know, if you're sending someone to a class that is focused on labor and scheduling, we would want to see improvements in labor and scheduling. And so that's where we're starting to make the connections to what they, the data that they're used to looking at, but linking it back to learning.

Because for us, it's really great information on the development side of, well, if they come to this class and they take the time out of their day to be out of the store to spend the money to travel, we wanna make sure that there's a, there's an ROI for them. 

Jenny Fedullo: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Murrow: There's also something, you know, we're, we're trying to do gamification in a way.

We're giving badges when they come to classes. We're in the process of redoing the entire aesthetic of the LMS to make it very personal, where they're getting a greeting that is for them when they log into their homepage, where they can see, "Hey, here's your progress on your own personal leadership development journey."

Whereas [00:26:00] not, "Here's a checklist of your team members who haven't completed this training." So not that they don't have access to the same things, but we're really intentionally focusing on the learning side of it and showing them how the the enablement, you know, pieces, components that are in the system can work for them, but also their teams.

You know, it's that trickle-down effect. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's always been, you know, showing ROI, connecting ROI to learning. It, right, it's probably been the number one challenge for us in this field, and I'm so glad that there are now tools, you mentioned BI, just so many tools out there that now can help us tell the story through data and, and that linkage, and that's, that's so powerful.

So no podcast would be complete unless we talked about AI, right? 

Susan Cort: And that was a good segue.

Jenny Fedullo: It was. So I know you describe AI as a tool that's, that's helping you create more space for diagnosis, strategy, and human work. [00:27:00] So how do you see AI helping learning leaders such as yourself become more strategic and influential within your organization?

Kathryn Murrow: So when I log into LinkedIn, it is, you're bombarded with updates, and look what I did with Claude, and look what I automated with Zapier, and it's so cool, but in the same breath, a little overwhelming, right?

And I know there's been a lot of conversations recently about, you know, AI taking jobs. And... now we're, you know, you see the numbers, and they're scary about the replacement of people with AI. And it's so funny, I read just last night an article, and when I searched it again this morning, there's a couple different people who were talking about it on LinkedIn, but they mentioned IKEA, and it was this case study about how IKEA had, they had an AI agent that they developed.

I think the [00:28:00] name was Billy. Mm-hmm. And what it ended up doing was, from a customer service perspective, it was able to alleviate or take care of 47% of those requests. So then you think, okay, wow, what are you going to do with the 8,500? That was the number. That was 8,500 workers who were on the customer support side.

And you hear about people being let go, but what IKEA did is instead of letting them go, they took a look at what are the other, you know, 60 something or 50 something percent of those requests, and they found that a lot of them centered around design. You know, what would look best in this room? Uh, and it was very catalog specific.

So what they did, and this was over the course of a couple years, I believe, so they're just now, I think, able to report on it, but they upskilled those 8,500 people- Mm ... and they turned them into interior designers. Mm-hmm. And so instead of eliminating the role, they looked at, well, what's the other percentage of these requests?

Let's fill a need. They [00:29:00] upskilled them with, and obviously AI is helping with that too, but they said that, I believe the number was 1.4 billion they were seeing in a revenue increase as a result. Wow. 

Jenny Fedullo: Right. 

Kathryn Murrow: And I read it, and I was like, "This is so cool." This is, to me, that's what AI should be doing. It should be taking away the administrative work that doesn't Number one, I think for most people, like yield much in the sense of like answering emails and just, you know, being on the phone all day. But it frees you up to be creative, and it frees you up to start thinking about what does impact look like? How can I be in the field? How can I start linking things together? And so when I think about the future with AI, you know, for me, what I hope is that it becomes a tool that can automate so much of the administrative portion of work, where I can be physically present to actually see the impact and to report on the things that AI will never, you know, be able to report on. 

Jenny Fedullo: Right. I- we, we work [00:30:00] with clients to... You know, the tools are helping us do more with practice, right? Practice the job before you do it, and also, you know, support in the, in the flow of work. So the, the... I feel like the 70/20/10 model we all know is, is shifting with these tools.

'Cause we say 70% is on the job, 20% is mentor, 10 is really your formal... It's gonna shift that model, and 70/20/10, I think you're gonna find that, uh, learners are better enabled before they start the job because of these tools. So, um, using them strategically is really gonna shift, shift that. 

Kathryn Murrow: Yeah. It, it's, it's exciting.

Jenny Fedullo: Uh, it is. I agree ... 

Kathryn Murrow: you know, when I first... I think I heard about ChatGPT, gosh, 2023-ish, and I was just like... I don't know, you thought AI, you thought aliens, you thought like UFOs even. Right, right. Like, you know, artificial intelligence. Right. And then, you know, I'm such [00:31:00] a fan of it now, but it... There's been a lot of, I guess, personal upskilling where I've had to really take a look at if I'm using AI, and I use it so much in my personal life.

It's in the process of helping me DIY some of my house projects. Um, but I've also just really learned that I have to spot check myself, and I have to, to really look at what is it actually giving me? Because it will- Yeah. Absolutely ... and does hallucinate. It does. 

Jenny Fedullo: It does. 

Susan Cort: Yeah ... that and it, it's a reminder to all of us of the importance of keeping the humans in the loop, whether you're… 

Kathryn Murrow: Absolutely.

Susan Cort: …creating training or that wonderful story about the IKEA workers. I mean, that sends such a warm, positive message to, to customers of IKEA, that they have found a way not just to give those team members something to do, but maybe something that's even more important and more valuable. So hopefully it can translate for all of us in, in those kinds of ways as we look to leverage it more.

Jenny Fedullo: Yeah. It almost ties back to the, the doing more with less. So to bring that full circle- Right ... what brought us together was, like your answer to that survey question. [00:32:00] Give me one thing, those, those learning leaders that are listening, where should their focus be? Where, where should they put their energy first if they wanna create meaningful and, and, and lasting impact?

Kathryn Murrow: The one thing that I have continued to, I think, keep in the forefront of my mind, and if I'm ever frustrated, I c- I go back to this. But, you know, when I was working in Orange County, my boss, uh, again, don't know if she'll ever hear this, but her name's Dr. Cathy Schuler. She's incredible. She's the chief learning officer, um, right now.

But she would always tell me when we were in school, she'd be like, "Katherine, what's the root cause? What's the root cause? Why is this happening?" "What do you think is the reason for this?" And she just changed my thinking so much. So now my initial go-to is what's the root cause? What's the root cause?

What's the root cause? And I, I mean, it's so repetitive, but when you really start thinking about what's the root cause, I, I think what you'll find is that your initial answer is not the root cause. And that you [00:33:00] have to always dig a little bit deeper. But what I've found is that when you find it, it typically solves more than one problem, because you typically discover that the root cause is a systems issue, and if you can fix a systems issue, you're fixing quite a bit.

You know, that's a large umbrella for most people. Mm-hmm. 

Jenny Fedullo: So- That's great, great advice.

Kathryn Murrow: ... if you think of anything, root cause, root cause. Great, great. 

Jenny Fedullo: I like it. I like it.

Susan Cort: And we're gonna look up your mentor, make sure she hears this. 

Jenny Fedullo: Oh my gosh. Let's tag her. 

Kathryn Murrow: Yeah, let's tag her when we post it. 

Oh my gosh. She'll, she'll love it. She'll give me a call. She sometimes... The last time she texted me, she's like, "I just went through a Bojangles and..." Oh. She goes, "This is good." I said, "That's 'cause I didn't make the biscuit, Dr. Schuler." Oh. 

Susan Cort: Well, we will think of you every time we see a Bojangles. 

Jenny Fedullo: Absolutely. 

Kathryn Murrow: Yes, please. Go get some chicken biscuits and tea, everyone. My shameless Bojangles plug. 

Susan Cort: Well, thank you so much. This has been a delightful conversation. We appreciate your insights, and, and I think you're definitely empowering a lot of [00:34:00] people to think differently. So thank you, Katherine. 

Jenny Fedullo: Yes, thank you, Katherine. I enjoyed it.

Kathryn Murrow: I appreciate 

you. Yeah. Thank... And Jenny, thank you so much for just a random survey question. I would've never thought. Anyone out there, if you ever hesitate to do a poll, don't, because you never know where it could lead. Right. 

Jenny Fedullo: Lead 

Kathryn Murrow: to. This has been so great for me. I feel like I've learned a lot and been able to reflect a lot, so thank you. I appreciate this.

Susan Cort: Well, thank you. 

Jenny Fedullo: You're welcome.

Susan Cort: Continued success in your role, too.

My thanks to d'Vinci's Jenny Fedullo and our guest, Kathyrn Murrow from Bojangles, for joining me today. If you have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out to us at poweredbylearning@dvinci.com.

And don't forget that you can subscribe to Powered by Learning wherever you get your podcasts.