Leadership, Resilience, and Performance Behavioral Profit | Victoria Pelletier

Welcome to the Behavioral Profit, the show where

we explore the behaviors, patterns and decision

-making habits. that shape performance culture

and long -term profit. This show is designed

to help leaders understand how behavior directs

outcomes and how simple, intentional shifts can

transform how people work, lead, and grow. We

accomplish this by bringing on executives, innovators,

and experts who share the strategies behind their

success, the challenges that shape them, and

the lessons that drive real change. Each conversation

gives you practical insight to strengthen your

leadership, elevate your teams, and create measurable

behavioral profit in your organization. Today

I'm pleased to introduce Victoria Palichier,

a highly respected executive recognized for her

leadership at the intersection of technology,

people, and performance. Though her work with

collegial, and unstoppable you, she guides organizations

in aligning innovation with human behavior to

drive results that are both strategic and sustainable.

Her journey is marked by resilience, re -innovation,

and meaningful transformation insights she has

shared globally, including through her TED Talk

on resilience. Victoria's perspective challenges

leaders to rethink how culture, performance,

and technology work together and how intentional

behavior becomes the real competitive edge. Good

afternoon, Victoria. Thank you for being on the

show. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

So let's start with a few questions and then

maybe we'll make it into a conversation however

it goes. The intro that I just... Gave you is

what the points here. Okay that I would like

to focus on Tell me what do you focus on? Mainly

what is your area of expertise specifically that's

broad. I have a few funny enough I referred myself

as a multi potential light so very diverse interest

and experience across a multitude of things,

but I started my career very very early at age

eleven funny enough i worked at a bank when i

was in university and got promoted through the

ranks very quickly. I got recruited out of banking

operations at age twenty four to be the chief

operating officer for an outsourcing company

and that began my career into the world of be

to be professional services i stayed there ever

since. doing large scale transformations more

than forty merger acquisition or divestiture

transactions from due diligence all the way through

to the integration work. I know a few industries

quite well in the professional services sector

technology in fact can roll the company work

for today is a tech company. And I said it, I

lead our people in performance business. So all

the enablers around technology, but I've also

spent a decade running corporate travel businesses

and human capital businesses. Another 10 years.

That's still kind of at the heart of what I do

today. So B2B professional services is the specialty,

but I've got some, some nuances and some other

both industries as well as some functions that

were parts from ops and in human capital that

I know quite well. Interesting. Okay. So What

challenges or transformations have defined your

professional journey? Making the shift I went

from into professional services. I had a goal

of being a lawyer. That was the plan when I was

in university, but I enjoyed the corporate world.

So as I got promoted through the ranks, I decided

to take a year off before going to law school

and never went. So that was sort of a transformation

pivot number one. And then second was when I

went into professional services, I loved the

dynamics of the business to business environment.

You're serving multiple constituents in both.

the client that pays the bill, and then ultimately

the end user or customer, whether that be their

customer or their employee. And so that just

creates challenge, which I like. But I've also

had one for me as a leader. So as you talk about

behavioral shifts, I became an executive at age

24, the only woman, the youngest by a couple

of decades, I felt I needed to show up in a way

that wasn't necessarily akin to how I am as a

human. It was what I experienced in my own journey

in terms of seeing leaders, that kind of command

and control. And I found out that I had a nickname

as the Iron Maiden, which I thought was because

I made very difficult business decisions, transformation,

restructuring. But I actually found out it's

because I showed up all business all the time,

not a lot of emotion. I thought it was a sign

of weakness. So it took me several years to recognize

that perception's reality. I needed to be intentional

around showing up differently. So now my nickname

is the turtle. I'm still extremely resilient,

tough exterior, but soft and marshmallow -y on

the inside. And I do let people see that. Right.

Very good. Thank you. So how does your consulting

intersection of tech people and performance?

which is broad, which we had explained before,

right? That you do when you kind of combine them

together, right? How does this affect or relate

to the behaviors that you see at your workplace

previously or now? Obviously, we cannot predict

the future. So whatever we can see if it's previously,

Maybe it's something that we can learn a lesson

from what i'm trying to do is one of the things

anyway is to. have these podcasts and i have.

Close to thirty now of behavioral profit and

i also have another one the six figure shift

show which is like entrepreneurs that started

with nothing and have a six figure business or

whatever and what i'm trying to do is get people

executive business owners whoever managers from

all different. ranges, broad ranges of industries,

companies, and maybe somebody who listens can

relate to the industry or the type of business

or whatever that we have the podcast on because

we're all basically tying into all these podcasts.

We're tying them all into the behavior. and the

personality and getting rid of negativity that

i talk about it's all tied into one but it's

compiled of all people from completely different

industries and like i said and companies and

positions or whatever so whatever the differences

of that podcast now i'm doing a i so i basically

take anybody because as long as because that's

why cuz i'm trying to get. the broadest range

possible so now i get a few people with a i.

So who comes to me are those are the issues that's

what i believe whoever comes to me and says i

want to be on your show and this is the business

that i'm in or this is the position that i have

that is what the issue is because if it wasn't

those people wouldn't come to me so there's a

good chance that somebody's listening is gonna

be. relating to this at all. And then that will

help them to be motivated maybe to make a change,

different things like that. How does all of this,

the consulting intersection of tech people and

performance and these different positions and

stuff that you were mentioning before that we

just spoke about in this whole entire podcast

so far, how does that relate to behavior? personality

change, getting rid of negativity, and did you

do it? Did you accomplish it? And how? That's

very lofty questions, plural. I'll say, first

of all, people do business with people, people

they like and they trust. And I'll say that all

the time when it comes to networking, when it

comes to sales. And so for me, it's about building

authentic relationships with people. And so I

learned that early in my career. In fact, when

I made the shift from a business to consumer

environment to business to business, and all

of a sudden I was leading sales teams, et cetera.

So I needed to really focus on how we showed

up as humans and built connections. So I've always

known that. Even when I showed up as the Iron

Maiden versus the turtle I am now, I recognize

that. I was probably better at do as I say, not

as I do, and showing some of those emotions.

I think we saw much more of, I'll say, a crescendo,

a noise. around the behaviors and how people

showed up post -COVID. And I don't love the social

media headlines. They're good at grabbing attention

around the great resignation or talking about

quiet quitting. But the reality is people wanted

something very different. They wanted to work

for leaders they liked and they trust, not the

kind of leaders I entered the workforce and quite

possibly maybe I was as an early executive. And

so I have left companies. purely because of the

culture and leadership. Despite having built

some great teams and having strong business performance,

it's very important to me to be focused on the

right kind of behaviors, to build the right kind

of incentive models for employees that drive

the right kind of actions, outcomes, and behaviors

we desire. And there is no trade -off, I will

say, around Client, I will say engagement and

focus on strong positive culture and business

performance. Like I think there are people think,

oh, I know it's a, it's a dirty phrase right

now in the U S but to talk about diversity, equity

and inclusion, but in saying like, that's not

a tick in the box that actually drives business

results. So stop thinking about it as an additional

cost as we hire chief diversity officers, et

cetera. So I've been very, very, very focused

on that. I had to your question around, I personally.

how bad to make that shift i told you the horrible

nickname i had i needed to show up differently

i work in a global and most of my career has

been working for large global organizations and

different cultures and respect for that my early

years in the outsourcing environment that you

think outsource technical support or back in

the day much more telemarketing that wasn't like

the desired career. That was when you're a new

immigrant to the country, you're underemployed,

you're unemployed, you do it for a period of

time. So for me, it's like, how do I make this

the best environment for the time that I have

people here, keep them as engaged and productive

as possible, and ideally for longer. And that

again, drives business results and drives our

costs down. So I recognize as a leader, as a

human who needed to show up in a very different

way. I'm focused on being, I refer to it as a

whole human leader and showing up that way. And

I've seen great results doing it and where it

hasn't worked well in the companies I worked

for, I've left companies because of that poor

leadership and the behaviors that people were

bringing to the workplace. Very good. That was

very good. Thank you. I appreciate that. Another

one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast

is because A lot of people are afraid or make

excuses or are in denial of the fact that they

need to do exactly what you did. And that is

to leave their job if they're unhappy, if they

have better goals and dreams, if they need to

make more money, if they know that they can do

more productive work or whatever. for a higher

position whatever the situation is that they

don't feel that they need to be at that job and

they do not do anything about it and they sit

in suffering go to work every single day make

a minimal paycheck go work live from paycheck

to paycheck and they live a horrible life in

essence that's really what it equals and because

of that. their whole life is now miserable, not

only where they work, because most of my life,

believe it or not, if I were to add up all the

hours, whether I'm working from home or going

to a place, whatever, if I add up all the hours,

that's a lot of hours that I'm actually working.

So that affects my home, my family, my neighbors,

when I go to the store. So whatever attitude

I develop at home, I mean at work, then I bring

that back into my home. And this is another thing

that I do also because I do life coaching also.

So that's this is another whole section of it.

So you did this and you knew that you needed

to do it and you accomplished it. And what happened?

Your life got better. You came out on the other

side and you knew that that was going to happen.

So what would you say? Because like I said, there

are a lot of people out there that will not do

this. And maybe they're turning on this podcast

or maybe another one, maybe looking, searching

for keywords or topics or whatever, and they

want to make a change and they don't know how.

That's really the bottom line. I want to also

try to educate people and motivate them. So what

would you say to somebody who is cannot do that

or is really just doesn't know i find majority

of my social media post with two hashtags. One

is unstoppable and that's quite frankly nothing

is going to prevent me from achieving a goal

or objective i set for myself. The other hashtag

is no excuses which by the way drives my children

insane but it's more around that. You have choice.

No, we cannot prevent challenge or adversity

that might come our way all the times. There

are some who I think invited in. But in most

cases, there's things that will come. We can't

control that. We can control how we show up.

And it doesn't mean that we're not emotional.

So I'm very quick to emotion. And so I will encourage

that with people. You need to process the trauma,

the adversity, the challenge. But then you need

to be strategic and intentional about taking

steps to move forwards towards the goal or the

objective. And that comes with it. That's the

thoughts. It's the language and it's the behaviors.

So that's what I mean by like no excuses. We

have a choice in how we are going to move forward.

But what I'd also tell people is control what

you can control. Now I say that sometimes I need

to remind myself of that and take my own advice.

You can influence and try and control those things

and those you can't. then you say no. So for

me personally, in terms of how I choose to lead

my life and spend my time, if it doesn't bring

me personal or professional joy or value, I say

no, I delegate or I outsource. And then I guess

the last piece of advice I would say is... find

an accountability partner or maybe it is an executive

or career coach who are going to help you. There's

probably some blind spots you're not seeing.

And so if you're miserable in that place and

you're having a very difficult time being intentional

about the thoughts, the language, the actions,

the behaviors to move you forward, then find

someone who's going to help you develop what

that path is and hold you accountable to it.

Yes, those were some very good suggestions. Thank

you very much. I appreciate that. And I totally

agree. And these are issues to me, very, very

common. What you just explained and suggestions

that you gave that people go through and they

struggle with every single day. So I'm curious

about this. You spoke about the unstoppable you

a little bit. I'm curious about this other thing.

I can't even pronounce it, but I'm going to spell

it. K -Y -N -D -R -Y -L. What is that? I would

like you to say it for me. Kindle is a technology

company that spun out from IBM four years ago.

In fact, I was working at IBM when they announced

that they would spin it out. I ended up leaving

before the transaction closed and went to Accenture.

And then my former boss who had recruited me

into IBM joined Kindle. Now I left IBM for a

reason. I tested a lot of things before I made

a decision to join Kindle. culture and things

like that were very important to me. And there's

some great things that they've done around their

ways of working and trying to have values that

we all lead by. I love the leadership handbook

that everyone gets when they join. So around,

again, what kind of values belief system and

how are we going to work? I love what I lead

for Kinroll globally. So we are a Now full service

technology and services firm what spun out from

IBM was the infrastructure and managed services

business and since then we built a full consulting

business that might my leader he runs that globally.

I need our people and performance practice there

was a study recently you said you've had some

folks and i on your show debbie there is a research

paper by one of the major management consulting

research terms bcg. Boston Consulting Group,

and they actually said that the value of AI is

a 10, 20, 70 model. Only 10 % comes from the

AI algorithm itself. 20 % is the data and the

technology that supports it. 70 % is people and

process. And so I love, I'm a very in -demand

person within our organization leading that practice.

So everything from value realization, how do

you build the business case, the value case?

How do you govern and make sure we're delivering

for it, assuring it, calling out risks, stakeholder

management? I lead our PMO, so delivery around

that. Business process transformation, we're

not going to automate and build AI agents on

poor processes. I also lead our culture and change

management practice. You need to ensure successful

adoption and enablement of any kind of change

or transformation, not just AI. And lastly, workforce

transformation and re -skilling. Everyone's jobs

are going to change dramatically with AI. The

organizational structures change. The job architecture

changes. And we need to do sort of a mass re

-skilling. So I get to lead all of this within

the firm. And so that's supporting all of the

transformation that we do for our clients. So

as you can tell, I'm pretty excited about it.

This is one of the things that i've been talking

about a lot is that a lot of people think that

is gonna replace their job but meanwhile you're

talking about the ten twenty seventy so. It's

not really a fact but if i think that it's gonna

happen so and that was one of the reasons why

i really was really happy when. People came to

me and they wanted to do podcast about AI and

they were experts with AI and behavior. So it

worked out good because that's kind of what they

said along the lines of what you said. Cause

nobody ever said out of all the professionals

and people that I spoke to and people that use

AI, nobody's ever said that they thought that

AI was going to replace them. That's a fear that

people have and it's not again. I just want to

try to clear the ground a little bit for people

who maybe think a certain way or aren't sure

or need some clarity or just even need an education

because it's not, if the person's unhappy, then

maybe they're doing something that they could

change. And that's really the bottom line. I

just wanted to mention last thing about the Ted

talk on resilience, which is very good. I love

Ted talk. He's awesome. Can you talk a little

bit about that topic and why it's so important

to you? Why you did a TED talk on it? So must

have been very influential type thing. Yeah,

it's one. I'm not a person who needs a vision

board, but or that I need to manifest something.

But that said, I set a goal for myself. I achieve

it. But this was one for me. I said, I want to

do a Ted talk. I was hoping they'd approach me

versus me having to apply, which is exactly what

happened. The organizers of TEDx in Miami had

seen me do other talks. And the theme of the

event was resilience, which happens to be one

of the things I speak on. So I was thrilled,

privileged, quite frankly, to be the opening

speaker for that on resilience. I spoke on healthy.

resilience. And it's important to me for many

reasons. So I come from extreme childhood trauma

and a multitude of things that have happened

through my, not just my childhood, my adulthood,

both personally and professionally. And my ability

to be extremely resilient has helped me. I've

also been able to lead organizations through

significant challenge. and transformation and

the ability to be resilient helps in that setting.

But the talk was on what I refer to as healthy

resilience, and in part because I didn't always

have it. I'm always resilient, the healthy part

I didn't have. And so, and for me that means

just dealing with whatever the trauma adversity

challenge is and moving forward with never really

processing it, dealing with the emotion and that

comes with it. And so for me, I just, I had this

like suit of armor that I wore all the time to

not, again, not showing emotion for many reasons.

One, perception of weakness in the workplace,

but two, I was afraid to talk about my traumatic

childhood or other experiences. And so I don't

think in some instances I'd fully process it.

So when I talk about healthy resilience, I talk

about multi -stage process. And although I think

there's, you can build the muscle, you can get

around resilience. At the same time, I think

there's, in my case, there's also an element

in my DNA, fight or flight. I'm a fighter. And

so for me, I have this like five step process.

One, be clear on the goal or objective you're

setting for yourself. That's always the anchor.

The next is being incredibly self -aware and

self -reflective. So when I think about how I

showed up maybe in my personal relationships

because of childhood trauma, until I was aware

of why I was showing up that way and being reflective,

I didn't understand it. And then the next step

is to be strategically intentional around what

I mentioned before, the thoughts, the language,

the actions, the behavior that get you closer

towards that goal or objective. and then surrounding

yourself with a community that will support you.

And by supporting you, yes, it's loving you.

Yes, it's encouraging you. But it's also people

who will challenge you. Identify the blind spots

that you have. And in some cases, that community

can be professional help, whether it's a psychologist,

psychiatrist, whether it's an executive coach,

an accountability coach. Find yourself that community

to support you. And the last step in that is

giving yourself permission to fail. Right? Like

not being too hard on yourself if you fall down

and stumble, getting right back up and focusing

back on the goal or objective. So for me, that

five step process, that sort of continuous loop

is around is what I mean by healthy resilience.

And I had to learn it. And so I gave the talk

because I want other people to learn it. And

I talk about trauma to triumph. And I do think

that healthy resilience helped me get there.

I like it. Thank you for the I had trauma in

my childhood and I came out on the other side

and became very successful in businesses that

I've ran, managed in the past. And now I have

my own business, obviously. So I was very successful

my whole life. And that's through all of the

bottoms that I've had, like I said. childhood

abuse, depression, a lot of things. I've overcome

those things. And now, like I said, I'm successful,

but I did that by changing my mindset. And all

of these things you're explaining to me are specific

ways that you change your mindset. So in essence,

that's really to me. What the goal is here that's

really what the messages i think that we're talking

about here so somebody a listener or whoever

can hopefully relate to one thing that we talked

about because this is a lot of topics we could

do a podcast on each of these topics because

to me they're very important leadership resilience

we could easily tie these into behavior and business

easily. if not even personal and business is

a very very to me important things that probably

very common and some things i didn't realize

that became very popular like a i and behavior

when different things like that so this was very

good podcast and i think this was very important

for us to look at this and discuss these topics.

maybe somebody got something out of it, which

would be a good thing. Is there anything you

would like to say in closing? Well, if any of

your listeners want to find a way to follow me

or connect with me, I have a website, which is

victoria -peltier .com. And from there, it'll

link out to all the different places that they

might choose to follow me. So thank you for having

me. It was great. Perfect. Thank you, Victoria.

Thank you for joining me on the show and sharing

your depth of experience and clarity around leadership

resilience and performance. Your insights make

it easier for leaders to understand how behaviors

shape outcomes and how intentional action builds

stronger organizations. Your story is a powerful

reminder that growth comes from the choices we

make, no matter the circumstances. I appreciate

the value you brought to this conversation and

I know our audience will carry these lessons

back. into their own work and lives. Thank you

for joining us for another episode of Behavioral

Profit Show. Each conversation is designed to

help you see leadership through a sharper lens

and understand how behavior drives the results

you experience every day. If today's discussion

inspired you, challenged your thinking, or gave

you a new strategy to apply, take it back to

your teams and put it into action. That's where

the real behavioral profit begins and that's

how meaningful change takes root. Thank you for

being on the show, Victoria.