In this episode of The LeaderLab, Patrick Choquette, Director of Learning & Development at The Obama Foundation, shares lessons from a career spent helping people learn, grow, and create impact.
Drawing on experiences from the Peace Corps, One Acre Fund, and The Obama Foundation, Patrick explores why managers are often the highest-leverage investment an organization can make, and why development is most effective when it’s reinforced through systems, incentives, and everyday habits.
Patrick reflects on his own journey from educator to learning leader, the management lessons he learned while leading teams across multiple countries and cultures, and the approaches he’s used to help organizations build environments where learning sticks.
You’ll hear Patrick’s perspective on:
Patrick also shares practical examples of how organizations can create stronger learning cultures by connecting development to everyday work, not just workshops, courses, and training programs.
About the Guest:
Patrick Choquette is the Director of Learning & Development at The Obama Foundation. His career spans public service, education, international development, and leadership development. Prior to joining The Obama Foundation, Patrick led global learning and development initiatives at One Acre Fund, supporting thousands of employees across multiple countries. He began his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana and has spent more than two decades helping individuals, teams, and organizations learn, grow, and create impact.
Quote:
“From the training standpoint, managers are your highest ROI. They’re the ones that make the difference.”
– Patrick Choquette, Director of Learning & Development, The Obama Foundation
Workshops:
Programs:
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Transcript
Patrick Choquette 00:00
From a training standpoint, managers are your highest ROI. They’re gonna be the ones that make the difference no matter
what, and if I’m gonna intervene, I’m gonna improve anybody, it’s the manager that is gonna be the highest return on my
time. And LifeLabs came in and basically provided a through-line experience for every employee of the behaviors that
matter. Trying to set these managers up for success by providing them training on these behaviors and endorsing the idea
that there’s many ways to do things, but this is the way that we think would be most efficient for you.
Micaela Mathre 00:32
Welcome to the Leader Lab podcast. I’m Micaela Mathre, Chief Marketing Officer at LifeLabs Learning. If you’re a senior
people leader, you’re navigating a workplace that’s changing faster than ever. This season, we’re exploring what it really
takes to build resilient and adaptable leaders, managers, and teams. Let’s dive in.
Micaela Mathre 00:51
Welcome to The Leader Lab, my name is Micaela Mathre, and today I am joined by Patrick Choquette. We’re so excited to
have you. Thanks for joining us.
Patrick Choquette 01:00
Awesome, thank you.
Micaela Mathre 01:01
Yeah, we’re really excited to be recording down here live in Charleston, South Carolina today. Patrick Choquette is the
Director of Learning and Development at the Obama Foundation. His career spans public service, global development,
innovation, and leadership development, from serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana to working on the 2008 Obama
campaign to leading innovation partnerships at the Peace Corps with organizations like Duolingo and NASA. He led global
learning and development at One Acre Fund, supporting more than 9,000 employees across eight countries in work that
impacted over 1.5 million farmers. Today at the Obama Foundation, Patrick focuses on building stronger managers, more
connected teams, and learning cultures that can scale across the organization during a transformational moment tied to the
opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Excited to hear more about that.
Micaela Mathre 01:52
Patrick plays a crucial role in shaping a multi-year partnership with LifeLabs Learning, focused on leadership development
across managers, individual contributors, and frontline staff. He has helped shape more consistent leadership practices,
stronger communication, and shared learning experiences across the foundation. In this conversation, we’re going to talk
about winding career paths, leadership in mission-driven organizations, scaling learning across diverse audiences, and what
it really takes to build cultures rooted in growth, adaptability, and hope. Welcome again. We are so excited to have you on
the podcast today.
Patrick Choquette 02:31
Well, thanks. Thanks for that intro.
Micaela Mathre 02:32
First off, how are you doing? Your sole parenting this past weekend can be a little full on.
Patrick Choquette 02:38
Yeah, I’m basking in the joy that brings and then the belief of it being over.
Micaela Mathre 02:45
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then you appreciate the partnership. I feel like there’s been a little bit of a trend here that folks that
we’ve had on the podcast are raising toddlers. So I also like to ask, like, how many hours of sleep did you get last night? Do
you want to put that down?
Patrick Choquette 02:59
We’ve got good sleepers in our house professional trainer over here.
Micaela Mathre 03:05
Well, you should probably come over to my house, because I think last night I got like four hours of sleep. So I’m always, it’s
real. I’m always telling the team, I’m like take everything I say with a grain of salt, because I’m slightly.
Patrick Choquette 03:17
No, been there, it’s just, you know, like we’re in a good phase.
Micaela Mathre 03:19
Yeah, yeah. And how old are your kiddos, Patrick?
Patrick Choquette 03:21
I have a four-year-old son and a one-year-old son.
Micaela Mathre 03:24
And a one-year-old. Amazing. Well, we start every episode with the same question. And that is, can you share one small
behavioral shift that you’ve made recently as a leader and what impact that had?
Patrick Choquette 03:41
A shift I’ve made recently is a bit of just like a reminder of how I learn. It’s a reflection of that. It’s I, I’ve moved to like project
based learning for myself. So I felt like I got into like a habit of just listening to podcasts like this one, watching some
LinkedIn learning video, reading some marketing email from culture amp or whatever, I realized that like I had blocked
some time off for this like learning to happen, you know, on my calendar. And then I was always, I was never doing it.
Patrick Choquette 04:13
And so I just was like figuring out like why that is like, so I switched to just like a, like, okay, what do I, how do I learn myself
a little bit of reflection and it’s sort of like project based learning. So I kind of created a task with something that I didn’t
think I could do. And then went about learning everything I needed to know to be able to do that task. Interesting. So that
really, and then I found myself at 11:30PM at night. Yeah. Learning that was like an indicator that that’s like, Oh, that’s a
reminder of like how I actually want to learn myself.
Micaela Mathre 04:47
That’s so interesting. So instead of just like more topical, you’re like, here’s a thing I want to do. And then I’m going to figure
out how to do that. And then in the middle of that, pick up kind of the skills and what I need. What are some examples? Like
what are some of the projects that you’ve done?
Patrick Choquette 05:00
Trying to figure out how to do AI better, how to use it, you know and how to use it with the tools that are available this week.
As opposed to the tools that were available three weeks ago when I last formulated an understanding of how it worked. And
so this one was like got some data.
Patrick Choquette 05:19
That’s in workday. I want to visualize it and share it across my team. Basically just went to Gemini, it’s like here’s the
problem. This is what I want to do, ask me a bunch of questions about what I you know. Figure out what I actually need
when I accomplish it. Push me to be more simple about it, you know nudge me and you know, To learn different things and
just like a pretty good like prompt that basically just said like this is what I do. But like I want to learn how to do it. That led
to me like building a bunch of like dashboards.
Micaela Mathre 05:55
How was the end result like how did that product look when you were?
Patrick Choquette 05:58
Great! I mean it is amazing now like the fact that you can just have this AI who, can kind of just like coach you through any
problem. I don’t know how like it’s not working or like the filters messed up like what could be the problem. And to me It was
just like a recognition of like how it can just sort of guide you through whatever issue you have to get to a product.
Micaela Mathre 06:25
Totally, I think a lot of us have had that experience specifically with AI as well. And it sounds like some of that bled into like
life outside of work too. Like you’re saying you’re working until 11 o’clock at night. And I think that’s something I’ve noticed,
especially as, honestly, there’s a learning curve with all the AI models, right? Like I’m a Claude super user at this point. And I
still barely scratched the surface on like what’s capable, but also you stretch your BT for a long time. And with all of these,
it’s like, there’s not time in the workday to do that. So, and I think that’s a trend I’ve noticed with books. It’s like, well, I spent
the weekend trying to figure out X, Y, Z. And that’s where for me, a lot of that kind of learning is happening.
Patrick Choquette 07:04
Completely agree. I feel like it’s hard to put a time bound on that because you just it that kind of like forces you to skip over
some stuff where it’s supposed to be like what did I do there like You know asking it a bunch of questions to help you
actually absorb it as opposed to just building something quickly, you know
Micaela Mathre 07:21
I think there’s like actually a great nugget in there too in terms of like as we’re learning these technologies to really have
something specific that you’re trying to do with it. You’re like I want to visualize this data for this audience by this time and
then that’s going to kind of force the motion versus right be a little bit more broad because I do I also like an avid learner
and I find myself listening to podcasts and things and I’m like oh my gosh these are all great ideas. I’m like driving the kids
to daycare and I’m like this is amazing this is such a great idea but then like getting to that like implementation that’s the
challenge.
Patrick Choquette 07:51
100%! I just realized that that’s on to the next podcast before I ever like pause to extract what I was actually gonna do
about it. So then I was like filling my head with a bunch of stuff and doing the same thing I did before.
Micaela Mathre 08:08
Exactly. So interesting. And probably there’s some tie-ins here to learning in the workplace in general. Patrick, I’d love like a
quick tour. Can you talk about kind of your current role, what you’re doing at the Obama Foundation, and then maybe a little
bit of what brought you there as well?
Patrick Choquette 08:24
Yeah, so my role now is Learn Development Director. So I sit on the people team, team of one. So that means I focus on
figuring out what the highest ROI interventions might be. At the end of the day, increase our staff’s perception that this is a
great place for them to develop, because it’s kind of like the North Star that I’m kind of working off of.
Patrick Choquette 08:47
So that looks like a lot of system building, some training. My time at the Obama Foundation is kind of chapter three of my
Obama journey. Started with the campaign in 2008. Went to the administration for four years, working with the Peace Corps
admin. And then now the foundation. So the trifecta in between there is a lot of classroom teaching. So taught high school in
the Peace Corps originally. That was my first job. Did some basketball coaching and actually a little bit before that taught
middle school science for a while. So that’s been sort of like the journey. It’s been teaching mixed with Obama throughout
and brought me to what I think is just like a really interesting, like perfect spot for me. Figured when I was applying, I was
like, there’s no way I’m not getting this job, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than it was. But at the time I was like,
man, if like in my heart like this, it just feels like a perfect fit. And I just, can’t I communicate that in an interview?
Micaela Mathre 09:54
Yes, absolutely. What an awesome through line. When you think about the difference between teaching young folks like high
schoolers and adults, what are some of the differences? Are there that many differences?
Patrick Choquette 10:05
I feel like in the L&D world, we talk about adult learning all the time. I always am trying to de-blur what that exactly means. I
find that’s a lot of the same principles that I really honed when I was a middle school teacher are the same things that I’m
doing, especially when it comes to the facilitation and training part of the L&D work, which I’ve actually tried to make less of
my full-time job. I feel like that’s where that part of it. I think I understand what works and what doesn’t work in terms of
getting people to engage. Sidebar when I really figured out teaching was probably in year three or four of teaching middle
school kids who just have this amazing feedback loop of letting you know when they’re not engaged.
Micaela Mathre 10:56
Yeah, it’s so true.
Patrick Choquette 10:58
And so therefore, when I was in Peace Corps teaching in Ghana to high school kids, they looked like they were engaged.
They’re looking at me, they’re very well, everybody’s like well-behaved, but I was just figuring it out. And in retrospect, they
were not engaged. They were just complying. And so in middle school, I think I learned what creates engaging facilitation,
what creates engaging content. And I feel like those lessons I’ve learned, I applied now to adults. And the same thing, I get
people to engage.
Micaela Mathre 11:33
I love that middle school is a training ground. I actually taught middle school for a year. I lasted for one year. And it was, to
this day, I think it was the hardest job I’ve ever had. Like it’s full on. I like the way you said that though, about the feedback
loop. Absolutely. They’re very vocal about what’s landing and what’s not. And they’re gonna give you hard criticism, real
time feedback. It’s so true, you’re literally learning on your feet. You’re like, okay, like that didn’t land yesterday, but I really
need this to translate today. How am I gonna try something new? And I felt like I was just constantly iterating. And the thing
that I oftentimes found work in my classroom, at least was connecting it more to how folks were feeling and like what they
were showing up with in their personal lives. And that tended to be a lot more resonant. And that was hard, you know, and
like breaking into small groups and trying things in different ways, but absolutely like such a proving ground. I think for
many folks in education.
Patrick Choquette 12:29
Yeah, you don’t have to ask for feedback.
Micaela Mathre 12:31
You do not, you do not. They will give it unsolicited and it’s usually spot on, right? Which is like…
Patrick Choquette 12:37
Yes, especially about my appearance.
Micaela Mathre 12:37
Exactly
Micaela Mathre 12:41
I think this is so common in L&D that we hear about these kind of non-linear career arcs and yours spans education, public
service, political organizing, and now you’re at the Obama Foundation, looking back, what do you think was kind of a
common thread through all of those?
Patrick Choquette 12:59
To me, there was, like, L&D is like the howl right now, but the mission and like the what I’m trying to do has kind of been the
same throughout. That started when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, kind of my first baptism into the real world and just as a
young person, 25 years old, moving across the world to Ghana and being confronted with just basically inequality.
Patrick Choquette 13:27
Daily, like in my face for two years, I think, became my, I don’t know if it’s the why or the what, but it’s kind of like that’s the
problem I’m trying to solve. I feel for me, that’s like what I’m passionate about is. I think the why being like, understanding in
those relationships that I built with the people there at such a formative time in my own development. And like why is it that
they have that opportunity? And why do I have my opportunity? And confronting my own privilege and all those things.
Before I even knew what that even was, it was just like a gigantic formative emotional bond to what I want to do. Since then,
it’s been all about, okay, what’s the mechanism? How do I be most effective? How do I have the biggest impact on that? And
that’s taken lots of different forms. And specifically kind of focusing on inequality and access.
Micaela Mathre 14:20
That’s so interesting and it’s interesting to think about like that you went to Ghana when you were 25. Like how different
maybe that would have been if it had come later in life. Like it’s really like those early years where you’re kind of like
forming self and trying to figure out like what is my contribution in the world? Like how am I going to show up? And that’s a
pivotal moment.
Patrick Choquette 14:39
And the Peace Corps experience is uniquely magical in that way, and maybe, especially for me at that time, you can
imagine you’re coming out of your college time, you’re seeing beyond your own nose for the first time, questioning a lot of
everything, and I felt like I was in an environment that basically forced me into really learning. I didn’t have a phone, I don’t
have internet, I don’t have TV. There’s nowhere to escape, so it’s like, you kind of go out, you experience something, and
then my one thing that I did was journal. And I think, again, that was intentional.
Patrick Choquette 15:17
But in retrospect, I recognize how, especially now I see these LifeLabs behaviors of what it is, it’s like, I was basically
extracting the learning pretty much every day. That just caused me this beautiful loop of stimulus. An unbelievable new
experience, journal, extract something, try something new, experience something brand new, fail at it, go back journal about
it. And I don’t think I would have had the discipline now to do that if I had any other option. But with Peace Corps, the
electricity is, there’s only candle burns from, sun goes down at six o’clock and it’s right on the equator. So six o’clock, sun
goes down, candle burns for a little bit, there’s only so much reading you can do, and then you got your thoughts.
Micaela Mathre 16:11
And then it’s just you. That is so interesting and I guess like even now like if there was electricity there like how that
experience would have evolved.
Micaela Mathre 16:19
Similarly I spent about nine months in in my early 20s in Tanzania and Mozambique. And I also did not have a cell phone
didn’t have internet. And I reflect on that time and I’m like now most folks in the places where I was absolutely have
electricity. And so it got cell phones and internet. But how powerful that was. I remember like specifically I was in northern
Mozambique pretty rural and I remember just like after a long day where you’re trying to communicate. I was trying to learn
Makua and Portuguese at the same time and then your brain is just like so fried at the end of the day. But you’re like so
engaged and like reflective.
Micaela Mathre 17:00
I spent a my early career actually working in international education because that was so informative for me early on. And I
so strongly believe that like those experiences are huge catapults for folks in terms of understanding not just like inequality
but like how people live and operate around the world. And how it’s different but like also not that different. I remember like
my closest friend in northern Mozambique I still think about her often like her life is so different than mine but we were very
similar people right and that is like powerful when you’re in your 20s.
Patrick Choquette 17:37
Completely that’s what make it special. And if it was some alien life form, that you had nothing to connect with you’d be like
oh that’s interesting that they do that. But you can see yourself and what they do. So I agree I think that just like creates
like something in your brain. It’s like some emotional connection to the issues that I think we were lucky enough to have
those experiences.
Micaela Mathre 17:55
Shifting gears, I’d love to hear a little bit about, you know, you were part of the 2008 Obama campaign working out of Iowa.
Years later, you mentioned you’ve kind of had the trifecta. You’re now back at the Obama Foundation during a really
interesting time as they prepare to open the center. So I’d love to hear about kind of what is that full circle journey mean to
you personally.
Patrick Choquette 18:19
Kind of going back on that Peace Corps experience. Going through that sort of emotional, I don’t even, I don’t wanna call it
emotional trauma, but just like emotional stimulus of that experience. My mother sent me a book called Dreams From My
Father, written by one Barack Obama. And I read that probably about like 75% through my two years, followed up quickly by
The Audacity of Hope, Barack’s second book. That again, it’s like timing wise, Barack’s message of like a clear unflinching of
like explanation of how the world is, followed by like a vision of how the world should be, basically gave me hope. And so
that, I’ve kind of clung on to that.
Patrick Choquette 19:02
So out of that Peace Corps experience, I came back with like an understanding of like what I wanted to do, or like what I
wanted to try to do, or have a, or what meant something to me. And then hope that it can be done, plus a real, like you were
mentioning, like a realistic view of like how the world works. So I wasn’t like naive. So that hope filled me to stick with this
like hard problem that is, I don’t know, intractable, I don’t even know how to explain it, but just like at least I feel motivated
to stick with it, right?
Patrick Choquette 19:35
And so Barack, to me, it was that he represented like a hope of like a belief that we could do something about it, and not
that he could do something, but I could actually do something about it. And that if it’s even a small part, other people too
are doing their small parts and we can all do that. And that, frankly, it’s like the effect, it’s like the narrative of the museum.
You know, our mission at the foundation is to inspire, empower and connect people to change their own lives.
Patrick Choquette 20:01
Fortunately, I got to go with my full family, dad, brother, sister, my nephews, my niece, and my kids and my wife, and went
to the museum recently, it’s about two weeks ago. It is a full circle moment, honestly, back to like just like reflected on the
last 20 years of my life doing it, and like maybe what made it like really special was we went on Mother’s Day.
Micaela Mathre 20:27
No, it’s great. It’s like a really good moment. When we met for coffee a couple of weeks ago and you were telling me about
your work with the Obamas. Was that kind of your
experience when you brought your family?
Patrick Choquette 22:03
So like when Barack won, I worked for basically a year and a half every day, talking to people, trying to organize and like
basically communicate and like get people on board with this message and giving people hope, which was like an amazing
experience, like went to six different states all across the US.
Patrick Choquette 22:23
I got to organize around gun rights in my district in Colorado was had Columbine High School in it. Got to go to talk about
racial equality in Canton, Mississippi where like the book A Time to Kill is based. That was just like again just kind of like
opportunity after opportunity and amazing form of experience and so like by the end when he won it was I kind of it hit me
like I had like seen him except it was I wept like a baby
Patrick Choquette 23:03
So the museum experience, it reminded me of that experience. So I had these like overwhelming, like joy and like reminder.
And then you know, it’s also painful a bit, one to just be reminded of, you know, knocking on people’s doors. Not all of them
are so friendly, just like the pushback that we were getting and the misinformation, you know, in retrospect, now I recognize
how that like kind of blossomed into this counter movement that exists today. So it was a bit of like a reminder of that, that
part of the experience as well, which is, which was sad. Yeah, I was very sad. I remember being sad at the time.
Patrick Choquette 23:43
Yeah, you know, it didn’t make any sense to me. At the time, still doesn’t. And then there’s just like, there is just like a level
of disappointment of like, I’m not naive enough to think that it wasn’t worth it. That’s not how I feel at all. I feel like it was
complete. We made a gigantic difference.
Patrick Choquette 24:04
What we’re experiencing today is a ripple effect of the gigantic difference. It’s hard to not feel a little bit disappointed on just
like how a counter narrative caught on with certain people that led to this moment we’re on. So a lot of a lot of emotions that
go there. And I think that’s hitting pretty pretty much everybody who goes there.
Patrick Choquette 24:29
I remember one of the first changes we made, like in a meeting after having people go through the museum. Nothing to the
museum, my colleagues have done an unbelievable job putting it all together. We had to put tissues into the because people
needed those.
Micaela Mathre 24:44
Yeah, it’s like actually, really emotional.
Patrick Choquette 24:45
Yeah, so like it’s hitting everybody. Yeah, in a way. And I think it’s like a release of what we’ve like, swallowed over the last
years. You know, I don’t know how many years
Micaela Mathre 24:59
20, 20 years. Yes, it’s crazy, right?
Micaela Mathre 24:59
Shifting gears a little bit, I love for listeners to hear about your work at One Acre Fund. And maybe even before we get into
that, if you can explain a little bit about One Acre Fund, I’m familiar with them because I spent a significant amount of time
in East Africa and always like really admired them from afar and was really inspired by that organization. But while working
there, you were supporting learning across this massive organization with thousands of employees and dozens of
languages. Tell us a little bit about One Acre Fund and kind of your work there and how that informed what you’re doing
today.
Patrick Choquette 25:36
It’s a one acre fund is a farmer supporting social enterprise with a mission of essentially solving poverty. I mean, it’s super
ambitious and the mechanism being providing access to better seeds, fertilizer training to help a farmer grow more on their
farm. And in turn, get more money. The bottom line is, is basically an ROI. Like how much money can we be taken in terms
of donor funds and how, what’s our ratio to turning that into increased dollars for our clients.
Patrick Choquette 26:14
So we’re always looking for like, measuring impact in a really crystal clear way. Which allowed us to run a nonprofit and
think like a business. Basically, that’s one of our principles there. So amazing experience of like showing how a really well
run organization can make a huge impact. To me that was like a eye-opening moment to me is, is that not that I didn’t know
this, but it’s not about just like wanting to do the right thing, but like that there is like an execution factor.
Patrick Choquette 26:47
You know, I was heartbroken by the fact we learned about like a lot of nonprofits that take $1 and turn it into 50 cents for
people. And we were laser focused on not being that. And I have a lot, a lot of credit to our leadership, Andrew Youn and the
CEO, yeah, these guys are like amazing leaders and I have like amazing managers. And so for me at that time, I was
basically exposed to like, what a environment is that allows for like gigantic individual growth while you’re there.
Micaela Mathre 27:22
Interesting, yeah.
Patrick Choquette 27:23
So a system of like, you’ve got measures, you know, if you’re moving up and down, you got honesty, you got feedback,
you’ve got an amazing manager. All those things, like it just exposed me. I hadn’t had that experience before. And it’s really
the inspiration for me of like, okay, how can I recreate that environment as an L and D professional? Because I feel like that
systematic environment is what led it wasn’t a magical PowerPoint training. I mean, it was all those things combined.
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Micaela Mathre 27:54
And your role there, were you working in learning and development as well?
Patrick Choquette 27:59
It was my first like L and D title role. So I was like, I was global learning development director, which basically meant I
managed by the team of 15 folks across our eight countries who ran L and D programs within their own country programs.
But personally on that journey was, you know, I think it’s interesting cause it’s like, I was learning how to do L and D, but
really I was learning how to be a manager. And there was like this just fundamental structural issue that caused me from
moving from an individual contributor mindset to a manager mindset. Which is that I don’t speak Luganda, Kinjirwanda,
Kiswahili. I can’t, it’s hard for me to connect culturally with eight different countries. And I had these facilitators and my staff
who could. And I realized that like, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. And so I had to figure out a way to how to empower these
folks.
Micaela Mathre 28:55
Yeah, it was like a real constraint.
Patrick Choquette 28:57
Yeah, it was a real constraint.
Micaela Mathre 28:58
Actually, this is not even like, oh, I’m just going to do it myself. It’s like, no, I’m actually incapable of doing that. And
therefore I must figure out how to give these folks the skills and resources to do the work.
Patrick Choquette 29:09
Completely. The real, the actual real constraint, I think, I don’t know if I ever would’ve got there. Because I feel like
everybody kind of understands that, but most people still act as individual contributors, you know?
Patrick Choquette 29:20
So in parallel, I was going through that on my own experience as a manager and running into failures, trying to be an
individual contributor still, right? Had a bit of a mindset shift, like enforced by that like structural aspect of it, and then had
some success as a manager. And saw impact scale exponentially when I realized, when I got out of people’s way and
actually supported him like a real manager.
Patrick Choquette 29:47
And I think that effectively allowed me to be able to recognize what good managers do. I also can empathize with like the
manager experience. You know and most people I’m working with are still in that journey. They’ve never been forced out of
the, being an individual contributor. It just basically gave me a vision of like how it could be. A real clear understanding of
like that transition and what that emotional journey is like. And then also just like the experience of having employees that
work for you and recognizing like you set up a system for them to thrive. I have Emmanuel, worked for me in Kenya. He was
basically, he worked in the mail room. Once I sort of figured out how to like explain what we were trying to do and measure
it. And make crystal clear on like, here’s how, what success looks like. He was so smart. He could figure it out. And then he
started just like blowing up.
Patrick Choquette 29:57
Now he’s like my job at like care international and Habitat for Humanity. Like it’s just like insane. There’s just like multiple
stories like that. And I think it, for my own D folks, like sometimes I was thinking about preparing this interview and it’s like,
it comes back to like, I had this magical retreat.
Micaela Mathre 31:05Yeah, really? Yeah.
Patrick Choquette 31:07
I feel like that’s a fantasy. Yeah, right.
Micaela Mathre 31:09
And that kind of is the catalyst.
Patrick Choquette 31:12
Yeah, there’s like fantasy that like, oh, if we had this like amazing team retreat, everything would change, but I think I had
an experience like that. Where I went from trying to like present information to people to like having a clear point of view on
the behaviors that I want them to do. Challenging them directly with how to be more consistent in those behaviors, and how
to measure the impact of those behaviors basically by success metrics. And anyways, it was just like a experience of like,
just a total mindset shift of like, how to actually develop someone. And it was like a kind of a breaking point there from
basically knowledge-based advice giving to skill building and behavior building habits, which is what LifeLabs is all about
basically.
Micaela Mathre 32:04
Yeah, and I imagine a lot of effective frequency and also commenting and noticing, like, yes, that is the thing. That is the
right behavior, like reinforcing the good because I think that helps people grow as well. Maybe shifting gears a little bit. You
actually met Megan Wheeler, who is a friend of both of ours down here in Charleston. You met her at a garage sale, and she
is incredible. I’m sure many folks that listen are familiar with Megan. She’s an LND director now as well, but was a founding
member of LifeLabs and really built out a lot of our facilitation team and facilitation style. But you met her at a garage sale,
and then I’d love to kind of hear about that. What was the origin, and then why did you end up working with LifeLabs?
Patrick Choquette 32:49
So we were both going for like a broken down F-150 power wheels.
Micaela Mathre 32:54
For yourselves, right?
Patrick Choquette 32:55
Yeah, which now I realize they’re just thrown away on the side of the road all the times you can just get them all the time.
But at the time I was like, I need that, you know. So her and her husband, Anton, and my wife and it just kind of connected.
And then just quickly pick up that like Megan is like a really smart person, knows what she’s doing. And also like as an L&D
person I’m always wondering like, am I doing the right thing? What are you doing, you know?
Micaela Mathre 33:19
Yes, social feedback.
Patrick Choquette 33:19
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, that’s where I first I’d never heard of LifeLabs already, you know. But so I kind of knew that
she worked for LifeLabs already. I started like learning a little bit more about it. And then eventually I was thinking, okay, so
like how at the foundation I’m a team of one. I was already convinced of all these experiences. We just talked about that
managers are the focus and like getting managers to do it. And I knew that you had to have like some set defined behavior.
In my back of my head I knew what a good intervention would look like. Interesting, yep. And so started like looking at
LifeLabs already a little bit. But then eventually I just asked Megan straight up and they’re like, you’re my neighbor, my
friend, like is this like a legit? And she said yes. I personally don’t have a high view of like L&D consultants.
Micaela Mathre 33:19
Totally.
Patrick Choquette 33:19
Yeah, yeah. Not that I
Micaela Mathre 33:19
Have you had some bad experiences in the past or it’s just more of like the?
Patrick Choquette 34:16
I think it’s just like systematically set up to placate a leadership’s want for an easy fix to a problem that’s not easy. I always
thought like once I if I ever go broke I’ll just be an L&D consultant.
Micaela Mathre 34:33
*laughter*
Patrick Choquette 34:35
But at the same time, it’s like, yeah, structurally, you don’t have the facilitators, the relationships to like drive these
behaviors into habits. So I was very skeptical of basically anybody
Micaela Mathre 34:48
coming in from the outside
Patrick Choquette 34:50
Yes, coming in from the outside. I just didn’t know if it was like possible. But I saw in LifeLabs like they’ve got a really strong
point of view on the behaviors. I recognized that they have like, I trusted their research on these are like the generic
behaviors that’ll help us no matter what the problem is. Because we don’t know what the problem is half the time, right?
Problem is evolving all the time so I knew this is like a safe bet that this would be like fundamentally evergreen skills.
Patrick Choquette 35:18
And I also you know spent a lot of time at One Acre Fund coming up the experience of like building facilitators and I knew
how hard that is. I mean I was teaching experience. I found out how hard it is to be a good facilitator. The fact that I got
exposed to some of these facilitators. The Obama Foundation, we’ve been lucky to have kind of two facilitators, that have
gone through tens and tens of workshops. Brittney and Darius. Who are amazing facilitators. And I think they’ve been able
to build a relationship, they have an emotional connection. It’s almost like they are a part of the team. Except I didn’t have
to train them.
Micaela Mathre 35:31
Yes, yes
Patrick Choquette 35:30
And so we have like great behaviors we’ve got trainings that are in there 34th, 35th iteration solid feedback loops. So all I
just kind of started seeing all those things at LifeLabs and I was like that’ll work. I just knew that that would work, if I just
look for like the structure of it. And through the competitive process of figuring out who to give the contract to like LifeLabs
just won that process they matched kind of the mindset that I had just came to understand to be effective over time
Micaela Mathre 36:02
Interesting. I appreciate that context. And I think it’d be interesting for our listeners to hear about, like, you came into the
Obama Foundation, you’ve got this L&D experience, you have an expectation and some thoughts about how you’re going to
build this out. How did you kind of go about, like, who are you going to train first and then next? I think one of the interesting
things I know about our work with you is that we’ve trained a full range of folks, from leaders to managers to even frontline
workers. I’d love to kind of hear about, like, how did you think about that as you were building out the programming?
Patrick Choquette 36:53
My experience at One Acre Fund, I learned so much about like what how to be an L&D person. And so my time the Obama
Foundation, I was like, okay, now I’m gonna like do it right from day one. And so it’s kind of two big ideas. One, I knew that
like, from the training standpoint, managers are your highest ROI, right? That they’re going to be the ones that make the
difference no matter what. And if I’m going to intervene, I’m going to improve anybody, it’s the manager that is going to be
the highest return on my time. And secondly, I knew that they have to be in a system that is like helping them. So I actually
spent a lot of my time when I first got there, no training.
Micaela Mathre 37:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Choquette 37:41
To, to every, to my leaderships, like, I don’t know if they were like, okay with that, but I was like, okay, I need to think about
incentives for learning. So I spent a lot of time on the performance review, making sure that it’s happening, making sure that
the incentives are lined up, tied it to like bonuses. Like probably the important change that I made to the performance
review was we do 50 50. So 50 is what you accomplish and 50 is how. And I made sure that like for managers, the how is
management, interesting behaviors of management. So that frankly, so in theory, let’s see if everybody executes correctly,
but in theory, 50% of their performance review is how they’re doing as a manager based off of behaviors defined in the
model. So, and then for everyone, a third of the how is embracing improvements. It’s like, try, try to create ways that like
created incentives and motivations for people to actually learn. Did not want to just like fall into the fallacy of it’s a supply
problem. Right. I think a lot of, I don’t know if people actually believe that, but they, that’s how they act, they act like,
Micaela Mathre 38:50
Yes and how they try to solve for it.
Patrick Choquette 38:53
Yes we need to offer more workshops, we need to watch for more tools, and that’ll, I recognize that the tools are out there.
Micaela Mathre 39:01
I think we’ve seen a lot of that with like e-learning too, where it’s like, well, it’s to check more of a check the box motion is
how we think of it. Like, well, you just put it out there and then if they need it, they’re going to go use it. And it’s like, is that
how I’ve ever learned anything in my life? Literally no, like.
Patrick Choquette 39:14
And if they don’t do it. It’s kind of on them.
Micaela Mathre 39:18
Yes, right, right. Less accountability for the organization trying to drive that change. I love that.
Micaela Mathre 39:22
So you kind of started with that performance review bucket and then moved into Incentives like what motivates folks and
would actually drive them to want to participate
Patrick Choquette 39:33
And then another big thing is just like measuring. So another big thing I did was like implement like an engagement survey.
So when we did an intervention, I’d have some sort of like longer term sort of outcome to tie it to before I got to any sort of
training. It was incentives tied to that measurement and then LifeLabs and LifeLabs came in and basically provided a
through line experience for every employee of like the behaviors that matter, provided a manager, you know, we did
manager core one, manager core two, individual contributor core. So we had a manager trying to set these managers up for
success by writing them training on these behaviors and like endorsing the idea that like, there’s many ways to do things,
but this is the way that we, that we think would be most efficient for you, right?
Patrick Choquette 40:21
And then also training their employees on those same behaviors so they don’t have to build the buy-in and the vocabulary.
Once we opened the center and we started hiring a new group of employees who have less disposable or freedom in their
time had to be even more concise. And there we worked with LifeLabs to do a customization of essentially influential
communication workshop that was sort of rooted in the behaviors and skills that would provide exceptional customer service
to our visitors that come to the center.
Micaela Mathre 40:58
Right. And I know that the team shared a stat with me that you’ve driven over 85% attendance to the workshops, anything
to share with listeners on what that is, I think what I’m hearing is like, and I think this is a through line for you, like creating
the systems where people want to engage. But that’s a really strong rate that I think a lot of folks, you know, are striving for
numbers like that.
Patrick Choquette 41:22
It’s hard to, I think it is, I think hopefully it, you know, the theory of change holds, it is the incentives. But when I was in, I
especially to get going, I was in people’s DMS. If they weren’t there, I was just asking, are you okay? I didn’t see you at the
workshop. Like just establishing
Micaela Mathre 41:37
There’s an expectation.
Patrick Choquette 41:36
Yeah, establishing an expectation and then establishing. I love that behavior because it basically tells an individual that
organization cares about their development. So like, if you don’t go, I’m going to ask him like, why?
Gigi Mathre 41:50
Where were you?
Patrick Choquette 41:51
Yeah, where were you? And not in a, like you’re in trouble way, but just like, all I want you to know is that it matters to us as
the organization that you’re investing in yourself. So make sure that you like, prioritize that.
Micaela Mathre 42:05
Right, like we’re doing this as much for you and your growth for the organization to kind of move us forward
Patrick Choquette 42:10
A lot of DMs on Slack. I think
Micaela Mathre 42:11
I like that.
Patrick Choquette 42:12
Yeah. DMed every single employee.
Micaela Mathre 42:16
Have you? About a workshop or two. They’re like, he’s that guy. He’s in my DMs, about sending a workshop.
Micaela Mathre 42:21
We talked at the beginning about a behavior change that you’ve made recently. I’d love to hear one small behavioral shift
that you’d recommend for listeners who want to build more resilient, adaptable teams and something that they could try
tomorrow. Because obviously at LifeLabs, we can’t stop talking about behavior change and how critical that is.
Patrick Choquette 42:42
My suggestion is something that I try to do is like when you’re in your AI prompts. And I’m going back to this, like use your
LifeLab’s behaviors. Let alone that it creates a better prompt and a better outcome of what you’re doing, but like also is like
a great way to practice that habit.
Patrick Choquette 42:49
So like a lot of times with my AI prompt or a little chat, I will make sure I Q-step and I will ask it to Q-step me. I’ll look for blur
words in my prompts and try to deblur them. And then probably like most important is like pausing before shipping
something and like reflecting like, did I just create something that looks great? That feels good? Or is it actually worthwhile?
And like that little check there, go back. Most of the time you’re going to go back and you know
Micaela Mathre 42:49
Yes, refine it.
Patrick Choquette 42:49
Yeah, refine it. I think that it’s a cool thing because like you create better products, but also you’re like are living these
behaviors that you’re teaching everybody and it’s just such a great way to practice behaviors.
Micaela Mathre 43:47
Yeah, I love that. That’s such a great example. And I’m like, gosh, we could all do a little bit more of that in real time. And
even I don’t know if you’ve spent time with Lab Coach AI. But with Lab Coach AI and the platform, like you can actually go in
there and it’s all built on our content and the behavioral units that we teach. And I do that oftentimes. I’m like, I have to give
feedback. I’m going to go in and I’m going to like chat it through and then figure out how to do that in a way that’s within a
structure. Right. Because if you just go sometimes to the LMS or an open model, you’re like, oh, my gosh, it’s making me 20
different ways to do this, which is not helpful and like more refined.
Micaela Mathre 44:24
hank you so much for joining us today. Patrick it has been so lovely to have you on the podcast. If folks want to find you,
connect with you, follow up or ask questions. What is the best way for them to get in touch?
Patrick Choquette 44:35
I mean, I’m on LinkedIn and yeah.
Micaela Mathre 44:37
So are we. We all are. We all are, I guess.
Patrick Choquette 44:40
Yeah, but I would love to see you at the center. So like I think for everybody like go to obama.org to learn more about the
the center and come and visit. Check it out. It’s an amazing amazing experience and you will not be disappointed. Bring your
whole family, go eat in the restaurants around there in the neighborhood. Stay in a Airbnb In the neighborhood. That’s my
experience just so you can kind of like get the full experience of the south side while you’re there visiting the center.
Micaela Mathre 45:06
Oh, I love that. And I’m gonna probably take you up on that. I love Chicago and like it sounds like such an incredible space.
So congratulations to you on all the work that you’ve put in to that. Like it’s a big accomplishment. I know when is the grand
opening?
Patrick Choquette 45:08
June 10.
Micaela Mathre 45:08
Wow. Oh, nice.
Patrick Choquette 45:08
Yeah, it’s coming up.
Micaela Mathre 45:08
Wow.
Patrick Choquette 45:08
It’s gonna be here before we know it.
Micaela Mathre 45:08
Thank you again, Patrick. So great to have you on the Leader Lab.
Patrick Choquette 45:08
Thanks for having me.