Denise Brouder — A Systems Approach to De-risk Flexibility at Scale Transforming Work with Sophie Wade

Denise Brouder, Founder and Head of Data and Insights at SWAY Workplace. As a flexible work skills expert, researcher, and consultant—with a Wall St background in financial oversight and controls—Denise discusses a risk-adjusted systems approach to implement flexibility and optimize performance. She explains why AI is a key factor driving us from fixed hybrid to flexible models as the only viable long-term solution. Denise explains the critical importance of empathy-based trust to effect flexibility at scale and fuel high-performing teams and that to work differently, we need to start by thinking differently.
 
 
KEY TAKEAWAYS
 
[02:39] From rural Ireland, Denise writes to Wall St. banks asking for an internship and gets one!
 
[03:55] Denise is systems-oriented, finding banks’ capital, economics, and operations fascinating.
 
[04:37] Denise compares Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs as organizations and employers.
 
[05:17] As a young mother, Denise leaves Wall Street to join a tech startup and get more flexibility.
 
[06:00] Denise finds she loves the process of starting with a problem and building something.
 
[06:48] Working in a large company becomes transactional while at a startup to see how your everyday effort contributes to progress.
 
[07:41] At a fast-paced startup, Denise learns to hustle, figuring things out as they build the business.
 
[08:22] Denise finds building and scaling with limited resources a very interesting challenge.
 
[09:02] Denise follows a colleague to LugTrack, launching with five people and a patent.
 
[10:19] Persistence, creativity, and grit are critical for success as a startup—which are emotional skills.
 
[11:06] Lithium-ion batteries catching fire on planes meant LugTrack’s business runway ran out.
 
[11:49] After a course on the Future of Work, Denise takes a big leap of faith and founds a company.
 
[12:30] Denise recognizes the work change ahead and wants to productize how to work flexibly.
 
[14:29] Denise wants to yell “AI is coming! AI is coming!” from the hilltop!
 
[14:45] Denise feels strongly about mastering flexible work at scale to propel everyone forward.
 
[16:10] Denise thinks that flexibility at scale levels the playing field for women.
[17:10] The first iteration of SWAY is a technology play using apps to convene the conversation digitally around new ways of working.
 
[18:15] The advancement of women will happen by changing the system from the inside out, making flexibility a gender neutral issue.
 
[19:38] Denise discovers she is a systems thinker and we have a systems problem.
 
[20:32] The Science of Flexibility helps de-risk flexibility as an operational strategy for a large company.
 
[21:17] If flexibility is demonstrated, measured, and communicated like a risk-adjusted talent model, senior leaders can get people on the same page.
 
[22:49] In SWAY’s work, EQ and empathy demonstrate the intelligence that is in flexibility that we’re going to need in an AI-influenced world.
 
[23:42] High-performing flexible teams are fueled by empathy-based trust.
 
[25:32] Emotions are fundamental to our human design, but we only just starting to understand them.
 
[27:47] Traditional working norms evolved around visual-based trust.
 
[28:26] In hybrid models, trust levels feel low and are questioned—these are growing pains.
 
[29:16] Flexibility at scale requires empathy-based trust.
 
[32:03] The social contract used to provide stability. Now, what is the system? Do we trust it?
 
[32:49] Reimagining the social contract may be an even bigger shift to prepare for in the future of work.
 
[33:40] Denise is concerned that some employees are not fighting RTO mandates anymore.
 
[36:05] In-office mandates are not long-term models, but the current situation is still malleable.
 
[36:45] In face of AI disruption, Denise’s goal is to articulate that flexibility is n