AI change management is the work of leading a burned out team through disruption it did not choose, not just rolling out new tools.

If your organization is asking people to adopt AI while they are already stretched thin from years of restructuring, budget cuts, and shifting expectations, this episode is for you. Resistance to change rarely means people reject the technology itself. It usually means they do not understand why the change is happening to them, or they feel like they have lost all agency and control.

Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, sits down with Diana Mohan, Executive Director of Transformation and Change at Seneca Polytechnic, whose career runs through Deloitte and PwC. Diana shares the framework she uses to explain burnout: a high level of uncertainty paired with a low level of control, and why celebrating small wins, including one team member's first Excel macro, moved an entire AI rollout further than any polished business case. She also opens up about the belief her mother gave her that still shapes how she leads today.

If you are responsible for bringing a tired team through change, this conversation will change how you lead the next rollout.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why employees resist AI adoption is rarely about the technology itself, and what leaders miss when they treat change as a communication problem.
• The framework Diana uses to explain burnout.
• How Diana rebuilt momentum for an AI rollout inside a resource constrained public institution by starting small with senior leadership instead of mandating adoption top down.
• The difference between being right and being effective, and why data and good intentions alone rarely move a resistant team toward change.
• Why vulnerability, not certainty, is what builds trust when leaders are asking people to adopt a technology that could change their own role.

We talk about:

00:00 Why leaders misread resistance to change

01:29 Diana's moment of gratitude amid parenting chaos

03:05 How Diana and Laurie built trust years before this conversation

05:00 What makes higher education so disrupted right now

07:00 Why is burnout really about lost control, not workload

09:11 Starting small, how Diana built AI momentum with senior leaders

12:10 How do you keep a resistant team feeling like they still matter

15:07 Being vulnerable instead of certain as a leader

17:01 Why data and good intentions were never enough

20:00 The difference between getting the work right and the experience of it

22:29 The belief her mother gave her that still drives how she leads

27:17 Where to connect with Diana Mohan

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Connect with Diana:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-mohan/

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

What if resilience was never about becoming who you were before?

Most leadership advice treats recovery as the goal. Get through the hard thing, return to baseline, pick the plan back up. Lauren Posesorski's experience says otherwise.

In this episode of The Impact List, Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors sits down with marketing leader Lauren Posesorski, a marketing leader with seventeen years of experience building teams from the ground up for one of the most candid conversations this show has featured.

In 2021, Lauren went into preterm labour at 28 weeks. Her daughter Eleni lived for 60 days. As Lauren puts it, when Eleni went, a version of herself went too, and that version never came back.

What she rebuilt in the space that followed is the reason she is on this list. A different way of asking her team how they are doing. A different definition of what she owes the people who report to her. And now, a deliberate pause instead of a reach for the next title.

This conversation is about what leadership looks like when you stop trying to return to who you were.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the trust Lauren experienced from her team while she was on leave taught her more about real leadership than any framework could, and how to build that kind of trust before you ever need it.
• The exact question Lauren changed when she returned to work, why simply asking someone how they are doing stopped being enough, and what she asks instead.
• Why losing a former version of yourself is a normal part of leading through crisis, not a sign that something has gone wrong.
• What Lauren says every leader gets wrong about mentorship, and why cross functional relationships often teach you more than the person you report to ever will.
• Why Lauren stepped off a linear seventeen year career path to take an intentional pause.

We talk about:

00:00 Meet Lauren Posesorski and her leadership story

01:46 What gave Lauren pause this week

04:07 Going into premature labor at 28 weeks

05:02 What did her team do while she was away

07:41 What must a leader believe to fully let go

09:42 Returning to work after unimaginable loss

10:25 Losing the version of yourself grief takes

12:12 How she leads differently since coming back

14:43 What people actually need from a leader

16:31 Why she is taking an intentional career pause

25:15 The leadership belief she had to unlearn

28:24 The leader who shaped her career the most

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Connect with Lauren:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-posesorski-kerhoulas-54a2b220/

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

Most bad hires aren't skill problems. They're fit problems. In this episode of The Impact List, host Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, sits down with Amber Johnson, CEO of Forge Performance Group. Amber has spent over a decade helping companies in energy, construction, oil and gas, and healthcare hire and keep strong teams, and she breaks down why chasing the resume instead of the person is where most hiring processes go wrong.

Amber shares how she uses core values conversations and DiSC profiles to spot real fit before a resume tells the story, why promoting a top individual contributor into leadership without a coaching plan is one of the costliest mistakes a growing company makes, and the story of her very first client, whose advice changed the trajectory of her business.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why promoting your best individual contributor into a leadership role without a coaching plan is one of the most common and costly startup hiring mistakes.
• Why authenticity in an interview, on both sides, uncovers whether someone is the right fit instead of just skilled at selling themselves.
• Why trusting your recruiter or hiring process, even when it feels uncomfortable, is often the real skill a first time founder needs to build.

We talk about:

00:00 Amber Johnson introduces Forge Performance Group and her hiring philosophy

02:09 The client story that shows why core values beat a perfect resume

04:06 What leaders miss about themselves in the hiring process

07:00 How to give a candidate an honest picture of a role

09:01 What to do when a candidate stops showing up as themselves

12:00 What it takes to stay authentic across every environment

14:07 What Amber had to unlearn from her early oil and gas career

16:52 Why leaders assume everyone should operate exactly like they do

22:55 Why promoting your best individual contributor can be an expensive mistake

27:08 Who is Sean Stinson and how he shaped Amber's leadership

32:06 How to connect with Amber Johnson and Forge Performance Group

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Connect with Amber:

• Email: amber@forgeperform.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forgeperformanceservices
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forge-performance-group/people/
• Website: https://www.forgeperformancegroup.ca/

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions