Breakthrough Thinking at UGI Corporation: Leading Change Through Curiosity and Courage

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UGI Corporation’s Global Enterprise Lead, Learning & Development Wendy Laverty shares how “Breakthrough Thinking” is reshaping leadership, structure, and strategy at UGI. She explains how a series of workshops with team members has encouraged intentional reflection, language, and a culture of curiosity that’s unlocking new solutions and sustainable change.

 

Show Notes:

UGI’s Wendy Laverty shares many inspirational and actionable ways to inspire better thinking that leads to sustainable change. Her key points include:

• Breakthrough Thinking is intentional, not accidental. Leaders at UGI are asking “I wonder why/if/how…” to challenge assumptions, see blind spots, and design new pathways instead of defaulting to past practice.
• Language shapes outcomes. Words “get caught like colds.” The way leaders speak influences mindsets, behaviors, and results—so UGI is practicing saying the future they intend to create, then aligning actions to it.
• Structure enables speed. AmeriGas (a UGI company) shifted to a decentralized, pod-based model—returning authority to frontline managers, running weekly problem-solving calls, and using focus groups to surface gaps and improve the system.
• Trust + feedback fuel change.Transparent, authentic feedback sessions—and a bias toward curiosity over criticism—are building a culture where learning is continuous and leaders model the behavior they want to see.
• Lead with “both–and” and look ahead to AI-first learning. UGI equips leaders to hold healthy polarities (e.g., candor and diplomacy) and is exploring AI-first learning approaches to personalize development and drive measurable business results.
   

Wendy recommends the following books:

Navigating Polarities Using Thinking Transformation

Learning Revolution

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Transcript:Susan Cort: [00:00:00] In order to make meaningful, long lasting change in the workplace, team members can open their minds to new ideas and fresh perspectives using breakthrough thinking.

Wendy Laverty: It enables us to see our circumstance with fresh perspective. We move away from being critical, hesitant, and we can move into the space of curiosity and wonder.

We start asking, I wonder why. I wonder if, I wonder how and, and these questions enable us to see the unseen and to think the unthinkable, and it leads us to break through solutions.

Susan Cort: That's Wendy Laverty, global Enterprise Lead Learning and Development for UGI Corporation, an international energy company.

Wendy joins d’Vinci's Angeline Evans and me to share how Breakthrough Thinking is enabling the UGI team to reimagine company structure, processes, and strategy - next on Powered by Learning.[00:01:00]

Announcer: Powered by Learning is brought to you by d’Vinci Interactive. d’Vinci's approach to learning is grounded in 30 years of innovation and expertise. We use proven strategies and leading technology to develop solutions that empower learners to improve quality and boost performance. Learn more at dvinci.com.

Susan Cort: Joining me now is d’Vinci Client Solutions Consultant Angeline Evans and our guest, Wendy Laverty, Global Enterprise Lead Learning and Development for UGI Corporation. Welcome, Wendy. It's really nice to see you again.

Wendy Laverty: I'm delighted to join you today.

Susan Cort: We're so glad you're with us. Wendy, start out by sharing a little bit about UGI corporation and your role there.

Wendy Laverty: Absolutely. So UGI corporation is an international distributor and marketer of energy products and services, including natural gas, liquified gas, [00:02:00] electricity, and renewable solutions. And we've been in business for over 140 years and we do operate in all 50 states as well as 17 countries in Western and Central Europe.

Angeline Evans: Wow, 140 years. That's incredible. And tell us a little bit about what you do for UGI.

Susan Cort: And tell us a little bit about what you do at UGI.

Wendy Laverty: So I've been with UGI for 10 years now as the Enterprise Director of Learning and Development. I'm part of the global talent team, and essentially I'm a human capital solutions architect, which means I collaborate with the executive team and we build strategic development solutions that strengthen leadership impact and equip our employees with the skills, competence, and confidence they need to really thrive in their roles.

Angeline Evans: That's wonderful. And I know when we last met you went, you had mentioned that you went from leading a team of five to being a team of one with global responsibility. [00:03:00] And I just wanna make sure I started that upfront. 'cause that's a lot to digest for our listeners and I think that's gonna shed a lot of context on what you are bringing today, today to share with everyone?

Wendy Laverty: Yes. I have one team member that helps and he's really, he's really focused more on video production for the various different business units. Um, so my focus is really leadership and talent development. So we are a team of two, but I'm the one that carries the responsibility.

Angeline Evans: Wow.

Susan Cort: You're the dynamic duo for UGI

Wendy Laverty: and I'm a global team of two.

Angeline Evans: Wow. So how did that shift change how you lead or how you approach scaling impact?

Wendy Laverty: So it's taken Breakthrough Thinking, um, which we're gonna be talking about today, right? Um, just being able to identify every single efficiency that we can and just reimagining the way we do everything.

Angeline Evans: So, starting with a little context, what has the past year looked like from UGI, like we know you went from a smaller team. What, [00:04:00] tell us more about all of that and, and what went on company wide.

Wendy Laverty: So similar to many organizations, I'm sure, sure many that are listening today. UGI experienced unprecedented leadership changes.

We just had numerous executives coming and going. Um, for example, in 2024, I reported to four different executives in just eight months.

Angeline Evans: Oh my goodness.

Wendy Laverty: As the company was stripping away the executive heavy structure across our companies. And I'm grateful to say that today we, we now have a far leaner, more agile company structure.

Less cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, which, which enables us to pivot and execute with a higher level of efficiency and impact.

Angeline Evans: That's a lot of change to navigate.

Wendy Laverty: It was. It was.

Angeline Evans: And you recently brought, uh, UGI's top 300 leaders through a four day breakthrough intensive with GAP International. And that's just an incredible lift.

Um, tell [00:05:00] us more about Gap International and just about this event.

Wendy Laverty: So GAP International comes in and equips companies and enables them and trains them in breakthrough thinking. That's kind of one of their passions. And um, and the reason why we wanted Gap International to come to our organization is simply the way we've always done things, no longer works. It, it no longer fits the fast moving ever-changing complex and ambiguous context all of us find ourselves in. So the breakthrough training, we, we hoped would unlock new ways of thinking, new ways of behaving. New types of outcomes 'cause we're asking ourselves, how can we take a different approach and where do we wanna produce a different result than what we're currently experiencing?

Angeline Evans: And do you feel it did that for you?

Wendy Laverty: Absolutely. I feel like we're starting, we're just in the very early [00:06:00] stages. We just went through training in May, and so we're just now starting to cascade down what we learned throughout our organizations.

Angeline Evans: And how did that come to play in practice. What did that look like in practice?

Wendy Laverty: So in practice it's just taking that time. Uh, first of all, we, we needed to, um, think through our, our behavior, our patterns of thinking and, and the words we were speaking right? And we are now in the very real work of the breakthrough, which is cascading it down to our company, teaching and equipping our people how to do it, inspiring them, influencing them.

And this takes time, months, and even years because we're just rookies. We're trying things out and learning what works and doesn't work. There's no experts among us. We are constantly aware of our own limitations and, and that's the right place to be when you're working in a breakthrough environment.[00:07:00]

Angeline Evans: Yeah, and I mean that, that certainly is a challenging undertaking, and we know that just in the rudimentary foundation, when you're developing training, when you're trying to change the way someone thinks, there's a lot more that goes into it than telling them to go do something afterwards, right? You're changing perceptions and

Wendy Laverty:  Yes.

Angeline Evans: Internal thought processes.

Susan Cort: And people have to want to make that change too.

Wendy Laverty: Yes.

Angeline Evans: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the motivational piece and absolutely. Um, so is there any lessons that you feel you took away from, are taking away from this process, right? You said you're in the midst of it. Like what has resonated the most with you right now?

Wendy Laverty: So, I think, um, well, going back to what you were saying, just about thinking, thinking, um, breakthrough requires intentionality. That would be the one thing I would take away from what we're learning. It's intentional, right? It requires us to ask. In what ways do I want to think differently, act differently, right?

In, in what ways do I need to think differently [00:08:00] and where should my thinking be challenged and questioned? So as leaders we're, we're trying to see our thinking, question our thinking and then let go of some of our thinking. Um, and, and that requires that reflection work, like taking time to self-evaluate because we first need to be aware of our patterns of thinking and aware of what we're saying to ourselves that might be undermining our ability to discover breakthrough in the challenges we face.

So it's when we can identify our biases and assumptions and how our own personal experiences and interpretations might be holding us back, it enables us to see our circumstance with fresh perspective. We move away from being critical and hesitant, and we can move into this space of curiosity and wonder.

We start asking, I wonder why? I wonder if, I wonder how? And, and these questions enable us to [00:09:00] see the unseen and to think the unthinkable, and it leads us to break through solutions.

Angeline Evans: That's really powerful. You had mentioned that there's also a, a piece around language, so actually the words you speak.

Wendy Laverty: Yes.

Angeline Evans: And, and what you're trying to create. Can you talk about that a little bit more and how it plays into the way you lead and how you support other leaders at UGI.

Wendy Laverty: Absolutely. Absolutely. The, the words we say out loud, they matter. People, people around us catch our words like they catch our colds, right?

Language is, language is a powerful force that it shapes internal states and external reality. And there's a significant body of research from fields like neuroscience, social psychology, and cognitive science. They all confirm that spoken and heard words. Influence our brain chemistry, physical health perceptions, [00:10:00] relationships, and our behaviors.

So breakthrough invites us to say how we want things to be. Then work to make it. So there's there's power in our saying. We, we speak the words, we say things that are unimaginable, and then we shape the reality around us to our words by identifying behaviors and actions. That are needed to make it happen.

So breakthrough flows from the words we speak.

Angeline Evans: Yes.

Susan Cort: It sounds very freeing you know, to be able to open your mind.

Angeline Evans: Yes.

Susan Cort: Especially in the workplace, like that's someplace where we're sort of conditioned to not think that way. It's kind of do what you do and do what you've always done, but, but to give people the license or the permission to think differently at work is, is really powerful.

Wendy Laverty: Yeah, it's, it's like removing the fences and allowing employees to go out and just play and try and experiment with new possibilities.

Susan Cort: It's kind of like Angeline, when we do brainstorms at work, you know, [00:11:00] no, no idea is a bad idea. Everybody just, we just get it all out. And then from that we usually land on something really, really impactful.

Angeline Evans: We do sometimes we'd say like, get, let's get to stupid fast. Right? Yeah. 'cause from there you can get some really cool ideas.

Susan Cort: Yeah.

Wendy Laverty: Yeah.

Angeline Evans: Absolutely. So AmeriGas, uh, a division of UGI is going through a transformation of its own right now. They're shifting from a top-down model to a decentralized pod based structure.

Wendy Laverty: What does that mean? Yes. So we started first with, with our executives casting. Vision and they were taking bold steps, right? They weren't taking small steps. They were taking leaps, um, with confidence and humility, and they had to build trust. With, with impeccable follow through. So the, the restructure at AmeriGas required the breakthrough that we're talking about today.

Executives reimagined company structure. They divided the 50 states into 91 different regions or pods. That's what [00:12:00] they're calling them. And they returned authority to the frontline managers who are the ones who are intimately aware of the challenges and potential solutions for their regions. So through weekly calls, um, they're able to problem solve in the moment and provide direct, immediate support.

And, uh, a few months ago we gathered the pod leaders into focus groups to talk about. What's going well and what would make it even better? So these transparent feedback sessions identified gaps. They built trust and increased engagement and strengthened the pod structure for success.

Angeline Evans: So really those raw and authentic feedback sessions were how you prepared leaders and then continued, continued the success. Would you say that?

Wendy Laverty: Yes. Yes. And identified ways to better support them, right. And make things more efficient and uh, and to solve some of the challenges that they were facing every [00:13:00] day.

Angeline Evans: And having that culture of feedback, I imagine is critical and takes time too. I, I mean, you can't just say overnight, Hey, we're gonna all of a sudden be accepting of feedback and use and, you know, um, coming up with more ideas.

So that's just, 5hat is a really big shift.

Wendy Laverty: It's an ongoing process of learning, right? We don't just check off the box and say, we've got that finished and it's, it's ongoing and it takes that openness and humility to recognize there's always more to learn, always other areas that can be developed and strengthened that we've never arrived.

Angeline Evans: Mm-hmm. So constant growth.

Susan Cort: Would you say then, Wendy? Is this now kind of baked into everything you do?

Wendy Laverty: We are starting, like I said, we, we just went through this training in May, so we've, we're just entering into the waters, right. We're, it's kind of like wading into the, the sea. You get your toes in, then you walk a little further and we're, we're still learning how to take this [00:14:00] out to all of our employees.

We're trying different things, but it really comes for us, the 300 that went through. It's, it's a lot about modeling, inspiring. Teaching and equipping our people and, and inviting them into this process of breakthrough thinking and behaving.

Susan Cort: And you're seeing results. You know, you're, you're knowing that you're, we are going down the right path.

Wendy Laverty: We are and there's excitement and anticipation and hope, um, across our organizations as we begin to walk into this together.

Susan Cort: Wendy, what would you say is sort of the ultimate goal for this shift in thinking? Like where do you see this taking the team members and, and the corporation in a year or two, five years?

Wendy Laverty: So, I really think the goal of breakthrough thinking is, is to maintain sustainability, right? And to realize that in the const, the environment of constant change, ambiguousness, um, just that there are no certainties there. There we're having to constantly pivot and con, constantly adapt. So what this breakthrough [00:15:00] does is it invites the employees and the leaders of the organization to be frontline participants in the change instead of reactionary towards the change.

And to come, um, to come with solutions to, to, to be able to even, uh, to bring their, their, their crazy out of box unimaginable possibilities, and share them and, and explore them.

Angeline Evans: I know you've also been exploring how leaders can navigate polarities. Can you tell us more about that?

Wendy Laverty: Yes. So…

Angeline Evans: I think it's super interesting.

Wendy Laverty: Yeah, it's, it is. So in our companies and our society as a whole, we constantly find ourselves in the midst of paradox and tension. Two seemingly opposite states that, that they have to coexist over time in order for success to occur. So we need candor and we also need diplomacy. We need [00:16:00] competition and collaboration.

Big picture thinking and details. Employee development and cost savings. So, so learning to operate with a “both and” mindset is a top skill leader's need today. Navigating, navigating the paradox gives us better results. It improves morale, deepens communication, and strengthens our relationships. It, it enables greater possibilities than either of the competing perspectives on their own.

Because we, we discover a third way harnessing the benefits of both extremes, both poles, without excluding either of them. And, and so here at UGI we, we navigate polarities by using transparent, open conversations with a commitment to curiosity and humility. We actively invite opposing views. And actively seek honest feedback [00:17:00] and, and this is needed to remain competitive and sustainable like we were saying before, right?

And to remain effective as learning leaders, right? We desperately need perspective outside our own because we're, each of us is limited by our own personal experiences, personal perceptions, interpretations, and biases.

Angeline Evans: So this is so incredibly interesting to me because I imagine that it makes people very uncomfortable to have to try and like, you know, a lot of times you're taught to lean into your strengths and your strengths might be one side of like one polarity over another.

Like yes. You know, maybe you are very confident and you struggle with humility, right? So you, in that process, you have to confront the side that you don't see that often in yourself. How do you support leaders in doing that? And then finding that balance, 'cause it's gotta be difficult.

Wendy Laverty: It is. And that perhaps might be a longer answer than we have time in our podcast today.

It's, it's not a quick simple [00:18:00] answer to that. Um, it's, it's really learning to, to listen to both sides and then working together to kind of find the, the strengths of each and then working to agree together to walk that. That third way, right. And if you're interested in exploring further, I highly recommend the book Navigating Polarities Using Both and Thinking To Lead Transformation, um, written by Brian Emerson and and Kelly Lewis.

Susan Cort: That's great. We'll be sure to put a link to that in the show notes.

Angeline Evans: Absolutely. And just this whole culture that you've built with this open feedback and transparency and honesty, how, I'm curious. I'm, I'm sure it doesn't go perfectly all the time, right? How do you acknowledge that and bring everyone back to the center of where you want to be without it being discouraging and, you know what I mean?

You know what I'm trying to say?

Wendy Laverty: Yes. So. It's on. I I really think it, it's built on trust, [00:19:00] right? The ability to even engage and walk into these conversations. You have to have a strong culture of trust and respect and appreciation and understanding that we, it's, it's that understanding, realizing we, we desperately need each other, each other's experiences and perspectives, right?

And so it's, it's that it's, it takes, it requires patience. It requires wisdom. It requires not rushing, listening deeply, being curious, asking follow up questions, exploring others' perspectives that are so opposed to our own, our own personal experiences and, and, and perspectives and interpretations, right?

So it's just this constant continual walking in this, uh, space of curiosity and, and choosing curiosity over criticism and, and, and making that a value of, of our each, each ourselves, as well as our, our company culture.

Angeline Evans: I love that curiosity [00:20:00] is just so essential and not a space that a lot of us live in because we're moving really fast, right?

We live in a busy culture and taking the time to be curious and also taking the time to be vulnerable when you're curious is really difficult.

Susan Cort: I would, I would think it also sends a really positive message to your team that you're listening that, that your company cares about what they think and that probably would lean toward, uh, you know, greater retention of team members overall when they know their thinking matters.

Wendy Laverty: Yes, and that's the hope.

Angeline Evans: So if you had to name one place where learning leaders should be pushing their own thinking right now, what would it be?

Wendy Laverty: So I don't know if you've seen that the Josh Bersin company report called It's Time for an L&D Revolution. This report points out why current L&D models are obsolete and the need for learning leaders to embrace what they call AI first [00:21:00] learning to create dynamic, personalized, and performance focused development that drives real business results.

So this is where I feel we should be practicing Breakthrough Thinking as learning leaders and as, as L&D leaders, we need to have a wider sense of possibility. Uh, the, the German philosopher Arnst Block shared we as human beings carry within us the ability to imagine futures not yet realized. And every breakthrough starts with someone who sees a future different from today.

Block shared that when we stop breakthrough thinking, we stop innovating and solving. And so learning leaders who invite their teams into this collective vision of what could be are no longer merely reacting to the change they're helping to shape it.

Susan Cort: Wendy, this has been really thought provoking, and I would say good [00:22:00] advice for both the workplace and life in general.

Angeline Evans: Wendy, thank you so much for this just thought provoking and inspiring conversation today.

Wendy Laverty: It's my pleasure. I've really enjoyed just engaging in conversation and kind of exploring this topic of breakthrough with both of you today.

Susan Cort: My thanks to d’Vinci client Solutions consultant Angeline Evans and our guest UGI Corporation’s Wendy Laverty.

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