Elise Smith Transcript
Clint Betts
Elise, thank you so much for coming on the show. It means a lot to have you here you are, the CEO of Praxis Labs. Can you tell me how you became the CEO and Co-founder of Praxis Labs? Let's start there.
Elise Smith
Oh, I love starting there, at the beginning. So yeah, at the highest level, I mean, Praxis Labs is an immersive learning and development company. We're focused on building the critical human skills needed for the modern diverse global workforce, giving feedback, navigating difficult conversations, all of those great things. And we use simulations and gen AI at scale to do that with clients like in the Fortune five, 1000.
But my journey to Praxis Labs, I mean, is personal, and I think that's probably true for a lot of founders. I am very much inspired by my family and my parents' story in navigating systems and structures that were set up for them in the Chicago education system. And so, for me, I've really focused on how you scale access and opportunity so that luck isn't the main contributing factor to the outcome. Scale brought me to technology. I ended up at IBM, and they had announced this cool thing they were calling Watson, that it was playing chess. I saw the applicability of using machine learning and AI technology, but only for learning. How could you use it to both personalize and measure learning experiences? So, I ended up spending a handful of years at IBM before the Watson group was announced, building out some of the first generation of Watson for education products. Loved the innovation of that, took all of those things that I learned there, have applied them at Praxis.
But I think another piece of the journey that led me to Praxis was the role I did after, which was I was an investor at a philanthropic fund, investing in innovation and learning. Again, every through line has had learning and education at its core. And I was in a portfolio investing in leadership development platforms and vendors and entrepreneurs.
And it was in that role where I was asked to ladder up the impact of the portfolio year over year that I realized a lot of the learning solutions we were providing in enterprises weren't always research backed. They weren't always using learning science or behavioral economics. It meant a lot of them were one and done not continuous and reinforced, which is how we learn best.
It meant that a lot of them were awareness-based learning experiences, not practice or experiential-based learning moments. And it all meant we couldn't measure beyond how many people went through a learning training and how valuable they thought it was on a scale of one to five. What we wanted to know was what attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors this intervention changed and what that meant for the organizational outcomes that have invested in this type of training for their people. And so it was also at that fund that I got exposed to immersive learning out of the lab at Stanford and immersive experiences more broadly. And I just saw the power of using immersive to not just help us build empathy and perspective for new and different backgrounds in our own, but to help us practice behaviors in a safe space where we can make mistakes, we could continue learning, where we could measure everything in an immersive environment.
So you could give personalized feedback. You could see trends in the aggregate. I was lucky enough to end up at Stanford, where I earned my MBA and Master's of Education. I had a coffee date with this brilliant woman named Heather Shen, who was wrapping up her master's in electrical engineering. We bonded over the belief that workplaces could work better for everyone and that products and services could better serve everyone. And we've been on the journey that's Praxis Labs since that coffee date was with Heather Shen, who's my co-founder and chief product officer.
Clint Betts
What do you think about education now, particularly in relation to AI? I mean, you went to Stanford, and you have a master's in education from there, as well as a master's in business administration from there. So how do you think about education and in particular how it applies to what you're doing now in making sure that we're preparing the next generation to enter a workforce with the skills that they need?
Elise Smith
Yeah, absolutely. We work predominantly with a middle manager population in a Fortune 1000 company. So, company A might have 5,000 people who work as people managers every day. When we think about how we meet a learner and transform and help them develop and become better leaders, it starts by meeting them at a point that's relevant to them. So oftentimes, to your point, it's a new manager or someone entering an organization or someone who just got promoted or right before a performance review.
If you can meet a learner in a moment where they are really eager to be better, really eager to learn, you're going to have a lot more impact on behavior change. And one of the things that we found is that generative AI has unlocked a realm of possibility and opportunity for us. So everything from how you can personalize when you first meet that learner to a lot of our newer simulations are actually generative, where you're interacting and practicing how you might give feedback to someone with a gen AI character. That AI is then also giving you in-the-moment coaching on, "Hey, you gave feedback, but you didn't say why this matters."
And sharing impact actually helps people understand why improvement is needed. So the AI coach will give you that. Then, we're also measuring how you're doing against the discrete skills that you're practicing. And so all of that is happening in a much more personalized and responsive way that actually drives more change outcomes. And that's what ladders up to value for all. That's what ladders up to engagement and inclusion and belonging and retention.
Clint Betts
What does a typical day look like for you?
Elise Smith
Oh, I love a good routine. So I wake up pretty early. I am a morning person. I listen to a news podcast. I listen to The Daily every day, I make a coffee, and then I do a meditation. I do a gratitude journal. And that doing those things gets my day in a really good place. My husband and I have a dog. On the best days, I get to go on a walk with my husband and our dog, Scott. On other days, I might dive straight into some calls. But getting that morning right is so important for me. And then, after, whether it's calls with the team, with clients, with investors, ending the day with a walk with my husband and the dog again, it couldn't get better.
Clint Betts
Yeah, that's the best thing in the world. There's actually nothing better than that. There's no peak to that.
Elise Smith
Yeah, exactly.
Clint Betts
So what are you reading? What reading recommendations would you have for us?
Elise Smith
I love both fiction and nonfiction. I recently finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which I don't know if you've heard of that book.
Clint Betts
Oh, of course. Yeah.
Elise Smith
I love it. I literally have been sharing it with all of my group chats. So that's been a recent read. I also, there's a book called Into the Magic Shop. It's all about the kind of power of neuroscience and manifesting and believing and working hard to achieve your wildest dreams. That book has been incredibly inspiring to me in this moment. So that's been a fun read too.
Clint Betts
As you think about the future of AI and how it's already transforming companies and humanity, and obviously everybody's thinking about this question and nobody has a great answer for it, but I wonder what your answer might be, and maybe it is great, around what does all of this look like 10 years from now once AI is kind of a mainstay and is a little bit more figured out and the use cases are more applicable?
Elise Smith
Yeah. My hope is that we use technology in a way that helps us be more human. I think that the more that we can leverage tools that help us actually connect, leverage systems that help us actually understand and compute, and draw insights that we otherwise wouldn't have, the better the world will be. And I think my hope is that we have guardrails and that we create safety protocols that enable us to use AI in a really intentional way, one that brings along all of the perspectives.
I think that's been a lot of fear. I think that there's been a ton of research around the lack of not just diversity of those building with AI systems, but the outcomes when the data sets or what have you are not diverse, that aren't inclusive. And so my hope is that we're able to bring everyone along on this kind of transformation that we're going to, I think we've just dipped our toe into.
And that I think that's a big risk. And I think it requires us to be really thoughtful about how and who and our building, but also what questions we're asking when we're building, what processes we have as we build. If we can harness kind of all of our perspectives, we can bring the best of society's diversity to bear in designing, creating, and ideating what even gets built. I think we're actually going to have a pretty great outcome.
Clint Betts
Do you think we will? Do you think that will happen?
Elise Smith
I have to believe we will. Otherwise, it is too dark for me.
Clint Betts
It gets kind of scary if that doesn't happen.
Elise Smith
It's absolutely scary if that doesn't happen. But my hope is that at some point, humanity will kick in and we'll be able to put those guardrails up. We'll be able to put those safety checks. We'll be able to bring those voices in the room. Because I don't think any of us want to get to that dark outcome.
Clint Betts
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right about that for sure. In your opinion, as a leader, and you're a remarkable leader, and you've built a remarkable company, what are the three most important traits for a leader to have?
Elise Smith
I appreciate that question so much. I think on my leadership journey, I think first and foremost, is just knowing my values, knowing what matters most to me, and being able to come back to that. I think one of the most detrimental things is to lead from a place that's inauthentic. And I've had to learn that the hard way, where a management book might tell you to do something one way, and you try it, and you're like, "Woo, that did not feel good. I wish I had done it differently." And I think a lot of my leadership journey has been unlearning what I've been told is a good leader and trying to form a new path. Some days I'm successful, some days I'm not. So I think the number one thing is to know yourself, know your values, and know how you want to show up as a leader so that you can practice that every day.I think two is surrounding yourself with people who are way smarter than you, which I've absolutely tried to do. I hope to never be the smartest in the room because if I am, we got to make the room bigger, we got to find some more folks. So that's been absolutely something I've tried to prioritize.
And then I think the third thing, beyond knowing yourself, beyond building great partnerships with folks who are smarter and wiser than you are, is three, making sure that you actually have the support of people outside of that, of whatever you're trying to lead, that you have a community, that you have a group of folks you can go to and just be true and real and share what you're feeling, cry, laugh, complain, celebrate because the journey can be incredibly hard. It can be the lows are low, the highs are high, and having the support around you, I think, is critical to be able to do one and two well.
Clint Betts
You mentioned values, and I think about values a lot, both company values and personal values, and I'm sure you do as well. How do you come up with your values, both personal and company actually, and what are they? What's that journey like? I think that would be really interesting for a lot of people.
Elise Smith
Yeah. I guess, I can start with company values. I mean, when Heather and I met on that coffee date, I feel like our second conversation was like, "What do we want our company to feel like?" And mind you, we weren't a company. We hadn't founded anything. We hadn't built a business plan. But that's where we started of what are we aligned on and the values of curiosity, of open-mindedness, things that are personal.
I think they come from both of us as humans and people and our own individual values. But I also think one of the unique things about starting a company is that you have a blank space in front of you to create the company you wish you had worked at. And I think we've tried that. My favorite conversations with Heather are, "Huh, something doesn't feel right. We run this company, and it doesn't feel like a company we'd want to be in, so what are we going to do? How do we make it better? How do we live and go back to those values?" So I think for Heather and I, we really sat down and just wrote out all the things that we wanted for a company that we had worked at in other places or what we could imagine a company could look and feel like. For my personal values, I think those have been shaped and are continuing to be shaped over time.
I mean, even as a young person, I had this real focus on what is fair and what is equal or equitable, and those are the things that I've always sought out, whether it's educational or professional, and I really do care deeply about valuing the diversity and uplifting of others. Believe life in the service of others is the most beautiful way in which one can live. And so I think my values can shift, and how I talk about them over time can shift, but the core of it is about how do you live life in the service of others. How do you support and lift up everyone around you? And this fundamental belief that if you have opportunity, power, or privilege, how do you share that?
Clint Betts
How do you do that?
Elise Smith
Well, we're trying to. I feel like Praxis is a little bit of an extension of how you create workplaces that actually encourage not just what we have known as the kind of meritocracy but one where barriers are removed for those who have barriers, for those who've had to travel extra distance, that we can actually see that and value that. For value, not just where someone went to college, but what they have overcome, a hustle that they have.All of those things, I think, are part of what we try to do with Praxis by helping and developing leaders who are able to connect on a human level, who are able to ask questions, who are able to check their own biases at the door. So, Praxis is definitely an extension of how I think about sharing opportunity, power, and privilege. I think another is that a lot of people will help folks in their network.
So someone who you went to grad school with or someone who has the same investor, or someone who your best friend from high school went to wants to ask you for something or wants to get your advice or wants an introduction. And I think those are great. One of the things I've always tried to do is for folks who don't have shared connections.
So if I get a message from someone on LinkedIn who has zero shared connections but is interested in getting into startups, those are the folks who it's like, I'm not sure if you have access to this world that I do, and I want to share that. Because that person can then share it with their network, and hopefully, more people will have access. So that's an even smaller way. But I do think it's about acknowledging the systems of power and privilege that you're in and trying to get outside of them and trying to meet people in real ways that allow you to learn from them and allow them to learn from you.
Clint Betts
In a different time I imagine CEOs did not have to worry too much about what was happening in the world or in their country, or maybe even in their community, although they probably had to think a little bit about what was happening in their community. Being a CEO now is completely different. You have to think about that. It's almost a requirement for the job to be thinking about the world around you, what's happening and all that type of stuff.
And I wonder, we're in a crazy year, an election year in the United States, election year in a number of countries around the world. We're in an interesting political, economic, all of these various environments. As you think about that, one, I'd love to; what's your take on that? Where do you think we're at? And two, how do you think about your responsibilities as a CEO as part of that conversation?
Elise Smith
Yeah. It is a question I hear not just from CEOs but from managers. I think the pandemic changed how we engaged at work. The death of George Floyd and the murder of George Floyd changed how we engage at work and what topics are talked about at work. And I think not just CEOs having to look and understand sociopolitical events, but people managers are having to navigate differences of opinion, perspective, background, belief, and they're coming into the workplace.
It's one of the reasons why one of our practice simulations is around polarizing and divisive topics and how to manage it and how to rephrase and realign and reaffirm and ask open-ended questions and bring teams together who might have a divisive moment come in, a polarizing topic. Whether it's someone with a poster behind them on their kind of video chat screen or if it's someone who sends a Slack to a channel that is perceived incorrectly, all of those things.
So I don't just think it's CEOs. I think everyone's trying to navigate this. I think what is, I do believe CEOs have a responsibility. And that's not just me. It's actually, I think there was a poll that said 60% of the workforce believes, particularly younger generations believe that their CEOs should take a stand on some of these social political issues.
And I think we know that there is power in that. I was talking to a leader earlier today who is a DE and I leader and was sharing that she was trying to take on voting rights to make sure that everyone in her workforce, which has a large kind of field ground workforce, has the opportunity to vote and to participate. And they're a global company.
And I think those sorts of things are powerful. When you are a large enterprise and you have thousands and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people working for you every day, you have a real opportunity to not just transform kind of your business, but to transform communities. And I think CEOs really are starting to see that, and the best are actually taking stands on that.
Clint Betts
What do you think? It's interesting to me to see DEI become political. That's a political thing now. That's actually part of this election, I would even say.
Elise Smith
Yep. Yep.
Clint Betts
Which is an interesting thing, DEI, as I've experienced it, probably as you experienced it, kind of came from the tech business community trying to figure out how we make equal opportunities, things like this. As you think about DEI and where it stands now, I guess that's the question. What do you think about where it stands now?
Elise Smith
Yeah. I think it's unfortunate that there've been so many attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion as an acronym, right? Because I think there would be fewer attacks on the goals and outcomes of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. That is because we create more value for everyone and cause less harm along the way.
I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't get on board with that. And I think part of why we've seen this pushback is that strides were being made. And I think when you see that there is diversity in a candidate pool for a role where there didn't used to be, where there's maybe less competition, that can be scary. It can feel like you are losing power. But I think what we have not done as well is tell the story of how DEI actually benefits us all.
It actually makes all of our lives better. It makes all of our workplaces better. It makes all of our products and services better. And I think we learn some of these lessons when you think about designing at the margins that, oh, if you put in kind of slopes in sidewalks, it actually helps not just folks who are in wheelchairs or moms who are... Or dads or siblings rolling strollers, it actually helps a lot of different people.
And I think we've kind of lost that in the kind of back-and-forth messaging of what we're really trying to solve for here. My hope is that even with the politicization of DEI, workplaces, leaders, and community organizations will still be able to make good on what we were trying to achieve. And whether it's called inclusive cultures, whether it's called cultures that work for all, I care less about the language we're using and more about ensuring that there are equitable outcomes, that there are inclusive outcomes, that we are able to bring the diversity of society and perspectives into everything we're building and creating.
Clint Betts
What are some products, apps, or tools that you use on a daily basis or quite consistently that you couldn't live without?
Elise Smith
I think apps and tools I can't live without. I mean, I'm on email all day long. I'm on Slack all day long. But I think the tools, I do love listening to books and podcasts. So, whether it's my audiobooks or my podcast app, I use them daily. I am a sucker for step counts. So those walks with Scott and my husband, it's like, "Are we above 10,000? Are we approaching 20,000?" I love mid-walk; I'm checking. I'm adding loops if we need to. But truthfully, I have no social media apps on my phone. I try to stay off my phone as much as possible, truthfully.
Clint Betts
That is very healthy. Has that always been the case? How do you focus? I mean, obviously these walks are critical and important for you as they should be for everyone, but to have that discipline to not have any of these things on your phone is actually pretty remarkable. How do you think about your mental health? How do you maintain your mental health and what went into your decision like, "I'm just not even going to put these things on my phone."
Elise Smith
I have found that when I download Instagram, I will be on Instagram, and I'm grateful for the web developers who have made the web experience much less enjoyable and easy to use because it allows me to say, "I'm going to hop off." But I think that is part of my mental health. I don't love looking up and being like, "Have I just spent 30 minutes just seeing lives that don't even feel real?"
So, absolutely, that's part of my mental health. I think that my morning routine is critical to just feeling grounded daily. I go to therapy. I do couples therapy with my partner, with my founder, essentially. We do executive coach sessions together so we can work on our partnership. So, I'm a big proponent of having all of the support that you can build around. I've gotten into acupuncture. I find that incredibly relaxing and grounding. So I definitely do a lot of different things to just feel well, exercise being another one of them.
Clint Betts
Finally, we end every interview with the same question, and that is at CEO.com we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Elise Smith
So many people have given me a chance. It's hard to name just one. I think one that really stood out to me is when I was quite young. Actually, I had a fourth-grade math teacher, and I had been really high performing in math, and there was a competitive edge in me in the math class. And then I kind of missed something. I just didn't understand the concept, and I did really poorly on one test.
I remember he pulled me into his room and he was like, "What happened?" And I was like, "Honestly, I don't know." I thought, "I'm really confused myself." And he was like, "Well, we need to figure this out because you are high performing math and I want you to know that about yourself, and I want you to come back and retake this test."
And I think it is one of those things where I think a lot of times people can let one test fly by, not check in. And I think a teacher can be so powerful for transforming your perspective of yourself. I felt important. I felt like I was being taken care of and looked after, and I think that can go a really long way. And so Mr. Sweeney made a real impact on me.
Clint Betts
Thank you, Mr. Sweeney. Wow, that's incredible. Elise, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really, it means a lot.
Elise Smith
Thank you so much for having me. This is such a privilege, and I appreciate the time to get to chat. Edited for readability.