How Jordana Cole Thinks About The Volume Of Change

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Jordana. Oh, uh, she is an igniter of individual and team potential. She's not leaving anyone out. As a multi certified coach, facilitator, and consultant, Jordana has worked with thousands. That's thousands with a T. T. Uh, for those of you who are confused globally. Through her organization, ignited to translate research and real world strategy into accessible, actionable, energizing packages that anyone can implement. Even you. Um, that sounded like an insult. It's. I didn't mean for it to be one. Just keep rolling with me. Combining her master's degree. I don't know why I saluted. In applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Expertise in leadership development and more. Decade of global enterprise learning and development leadership spanning multiple industries from nonprofits to Fortune 50s. Jordana is committed to creating impactful behavioral change that not only sticks but spreads. Welcome to the show, Jordana.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Kenny. Um, I'm, you know, I'm so glad I saw you spinning the sign that says come talk leadership to me. And I mean, you're really good at that, so I'm glad that I, you know, I, I watched you and then we, we started talking leadership and you invited me here.

Speaker A: Yes, it is. And I, I, I need to get a sign, uh, that makes me think of, like, the clearance, like the, the guys who can, like, flip it upside down and catch behind their back. I wish I was that talented. But unfortunately, I keep knocking myself out cold, so I think I need to get money back for my lessons or just, just keep trying. But today, Jordana, tell me what is on your mind.

Speaker B: Uh, what is on my mind is the thing that I feel like is on everybody's mind. Because it's the thing that I hear about, no matter who I talk to, what organization I'm in, what role they're in, what level they're at. And that is Taylor

Speaker A: Swift.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, it's close. Close. I mean, she has gone through eras, and she is on everybody's mind. She is on era's mind. But I was thinking, actually, what, what's on my mind is change.

Speaker A: Change to changes.

Speaker B: So, David. What?

Speaker A: Yeah, what? We're gonna keep making the music references Bowie. Uh, we already have the Beatles. I think we got like two or three more. And then we've named everyone and Taylor Swift. I'm gonna leave that out. My daughter would be upset at me. Well, what about change is on everybody's mind? And how is it different than maybe people's perception in the past, recent past, or long, long time ago when they read from scrolls? What's. What's the deal with. What is change? I don't know. I went with a, uh, Seinfeld reference there.

Speaker B: I. I don't know that you want to, you know, quit your day job and start going towards impressions, but, you know, but who

Speaker A: knows,

Speaker B: maybe you can incorporate that with the sign spinning. We don't know.

Speaker A: It

Speaker B: could

Speaker A: happen. Sign spinning. Impressionist. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: that's really. That's my backup plan. Plan is my retirement fund is all being funded by that. But

Speaker B: there you go.

Speaker A: So talk to me about change. What, what is it about change today that you're. You're picking up on as a trend?

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, the thing that I keep hearing from people is that is the speed of change. Speed of change

Speaker A: is

Speaker B: increasingly more rapidly than ever before. You know, we are in a point in time where technology is just accelerating. And, um, we've never experienced this before now. I wasn't around in, in the scroll times, but I actually think it's wrong. I don't actually think it. The speed of change is different. And I think the way that we're thinking about it is actually incorrect. It's not the speed of change, it's the volume of change all at once.

Speaker A: Okay, gotcha. Let's. Let's unpack this. The same, maybe the same. The rate of change remaining the same. Like, change happens, change keeps occurring. The old saying of the only thing constant is change.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, but it's. It's one thing to handle. Like, hey, like, two big things in my life are changing right now versus I've got 17 major aspects of my life that are changing this week.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, so what. What brought that on? What. What change made that change for us? And what are you seeing and how people are. Are either coping or conquering or something in between the. This, this new volume of change that we have to deal with today?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think there's a, you know, there's a few things and, and kind of the reason I think a lot about this is because ultimately what I do is I help people change behaviors. I help leaders change behaviors. I help organizations identify behaviors and the behaviors that help create the momentum and the outcomes that they're looking to drive towards. And I've seen a shift in the past year where, you know, change changes to your point, always constant. It's always A topic change leadership is something that people are thinking about, talking about, but now it is the first thing out of everybody's mouth. And the second thing out of everybody's mouth is we need to create change resilience in our teams because the world is changing, the world is moving ahead, and they need to get on board with it. But here's what I think is changing right now that is a little bit different. And that is to your point, there are 17 things all at once. So it's not like we're just dealing with AI. You know, we are dealing with AI on top of things on a global standpoint, whether it's inflation, global crises that are going on. We have layoffs that are happening within organizations. We have roles that are shifting, and roles that were, you know, really prominent a few years ago are starting to shape quite a bit differently. The people that you're working with are changing. How you are getting work done is changing. The process that you were doing last week is suddenly different than the one that you're going to be doing three weeks from now. And we don't quite know what that's going to look like just yet. And it's all compounding. And with every change that we are creating in an organizational space, there are micro changes underneath each one that we don't think about. So for every reorg or restructure that we do, yes, that means that roles are shifting, but it also means that relationships are shifting. Who people were talking to, who was,

Speaker A: um,

Speaker B: sitting next to them, who was grabbing lunch with them might not be there anymore. Who they're reporting into in that relationship that they had. It might need to be started over from scratch. They might even be reporting into somebody who's no longer in the same location or even country as them. And they've always had a manager nearby them. The process that they've perfected, now there's a different tool that they need to learn and adapt to, and that's not even including what might be going on at home. So there's. There's so much that's happening all at once, and each change has a series of. A lot of little changes underneath it. But I think the biggest thing that feels different for me now, and, um, I'll be curious if you've kind of felt the same and if you have heard the same with other leaders that you talk with, is we aren't closing change out. So we start a change, but we don't end it. We just kind of put it to the side and then we introduce Another change on top of it where because technology is accelerating, we don't give the amount of time to see how that change plays out until we switch course or introduce something new. So I kind of equate it to like we have created hoarders houses in our brains of the amount of change that we're expected to carry because we started something and then it just kept going or it just slowly dissipated and we. It's kind of like throwing it in the back of our closet and we'll deal with it when we get to spring cleaning but we never actually get there.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's really interesting. So we have, we keep opening loops for change and never resolving them.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, it's like I forgot what TV show where they were trying to torture somebody by singing I want my baby back. But they never resolved like the, the melody like I want my baby, baby, baby back. I warm up and, and but they never went into the chilies like they never went into that part and it like drove that person mad. And I, I think that there's some validity to that also. Curious if there isn't there, There's a couple of things as you were speaking that, that jumped out to me. One, I'm wondering if given the present time because I think the, the rate of information.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Generated and consumed like just. We'll just go with generated. Um. I forgot what it was but it was like we've been increasing and it's probably somewhere along like Moore's law where it said like the transistor like we could double the amount that we needed every two years. And I think we're way past that.

Speaker B: But,

Speaker A: but the volume of information that we're able to generate in a 48 hour period is probably on par with what we could do in the first 2000 years

Speaker B: M

Speaker A: of, of. Of you know, human existence. And, and the rate of that information. Like there's a lot of good data but not all of it is insightful and not all of it is actionable. What I would consider intelligence that we can, you know, move forward on, act on, do those sort of things. Is it that people today, because of the Internet, really because of the Internet that and, and television and news cycles and things like that they're used to. There were always conflicts and issues and new technologies being launched but they sort of like took a while to matriculate out like the news of it, the information about it, the change of it was sort of like uh, gated even. You know, not, not intentionally but because of our communication systems. We Couldn't become aware of it. And so we probably did have that room to breathe and let the last thing sort of like close up shop and resolve itself before we heard about oh, and now there's this new thing. Um, I, I do think, I don't know if I'm, I'm fully on board with that. The, the pace of change has, has remained unchanged. I do think that in some, some arenas of, of our world, I do think that the rate of change has increased and I do think part of that right now will be due to AI. But it does feel like less of the change is coming from an internal locus of control and desire to improve your life and instead it feels more like the change is happening to you.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Do you think that there's any truth to that? Whereas like, I want to take on a new job. That's change. And I understand all that comes with that. I want to start a family. I want to do these things like all these major life pieces. But now it feels like in addition to setting some of those goals, other things are disrupting us more than we are being disruptors. Do you think that there's. Is that fair to say that that part is maybe the challenge for so many people is we're not in control of uh, the change as much as we used to. We accepted some stuff was outside of our control, but we could disrupt a lot of our own lives. And now our lives are just being constantly disrupted out, you know, against our will almost.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's an interesting question. And now that Elsa, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be stuck with the Chili's theme song in my head the rest of the day. So thank you so much for that. That was not in my control, but

Speaker A: that's a little gift.

Speaker B: So, so it's an interesting question and I actually don't think that we are in less control of the change. I don't think we've been in control of changes. I think most change has happened to us. You go back in all periods of history, like even go back to the olden days, somebody sacks your town, that was something that happened to you. Somebody gets sick and there isn't a cure, that happens to you. Somebody passes wine, childbirth, there's a plague, there's an economic collapse, you have new machinery come in that takes away jobs. That's always been the case. There's very little that we are actually in control of. And in fact most of the change that impacts us in our day to day life is out of control. Somebody else decides that we're hired. Even if we applied for the job, somebody else decides that we get admitted into school, somebody else decides to have a kid, and we show up into the world. There's. There's very little that's actually in our control. I think what is different now is that illusion of control has gone away. Because we've been conditioned to believe, especially in the workplace, that if you get an education, if you build a career, if you work really hard, if you're loyal, if you go above and beyond that, you will have job security. And we are now seeing that organizations that are profitable are laying people off without rhyme or reason to performance or tenure. It's no longer something that's happening as a last resort, and it's no longer something that's only happening to underperformers.

Speaker A: Is, is the change of change that. I want to sound like a Dr. Seuss book. Is the, the. The change that has happened with the nature of change is that change has become less predictable?

Speaker B: I don't know that change has ever been predictable. I mean, I think that again, if you look at human history, we've gone through serious industrial revolutions that were probably as disruptive to our culture as AI is to at that point in time to that particular worldview. Scientific discoveries that were as disruptive to that worldview of,

Speaker A: um,

Speaker B: where those people were in that time.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker B: I think, I think the distinction that I think about, you know, with AI now is you kind of brought up the rate of technology adoption instead of the rate like, as in thinking about the change curve, where because of our communication timelines and things like that, because of accessibility. It came in a wave. And still to this day, there are still people in pockets of the world that even pockets of this country that don't have access to. To Internet. However, almost everybody has a cell phone. And when AI came into being, it wasn't like a wave. It was like a light switch that was turned on because it's suddenly in everybody's hands now. I think the thing that is different now versus before is this kind of. You brought up, uh, the access to information is greater than we've had before, and, and it's at our fingertips. And we live in a culture where we feel like things are always on. And what I think has actually shifted is as. As. Yes. And. And. Yeah. Are there places where technology has ramped? Yes. Do I think that means that change has sped up? No, I think it's just manifesting differently. And again, there's more of it.

Speaker A: M.

Speaker B: But what is, what is happening is our focus is becoming more and more shorter term and we are making decisions, and particularly in organizational spaces that are focused on maximizing efficiency, effectiveness, growth, profitability, no matter what it is in the shorter term. And because of

Speaker A: that,

Speaker B: that's having longer term ramifications that we aren't thinking through. And that's causing more down the line crisis management, iteration, adoption, because those short term decisions have long term costs.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's uh, the, the comparison that what you're saying makes me think of is in the world of sports, um, and is the, the tenure of head coaches, I think across multiple sports has gotten progressively shorter and shorter.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But if, but if you look at traditionally the most successful coaches in history, they were the ones who tended to have a longer tenure and people think, oh yeah, that's because they were winning. Not all of them were winning right out of the gate. Some of them weren't winning for several years before they built the team. They built the culture. They did like any good organization. Right. They had the time to be effective. If you're only optimizing for efficiency, if you don't win the first year, get the hell out.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right. And so I, I think that there's a lot of truth to. We've started because we never could optimize for efficiency um, the way we could and tell the Internet and technology and SaaS and now AI.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right. All building on each other. We've never been able to optimize to this level without throwing like just a crap ton of people at it, which is something that very few organizations have the luxury of. But now one person companies, you know, like mine, like I can, I can optimize for a whole lot as if I have a company of 20 something people and, and there's nothing wrong with efficiency. But one of the things that I've, I teach my clients and, and it is really inspired by the predictable success model and, and if you're interested in more of that, um, people can go and check out episode 100 with Les McKeown who wrote the book and created it. But he talks a lot about when we're growing and we're, we're in the, those early stages which can actually last, you know, a lot longer than most people think. But, but we need to focus on doing the right thing. So it's on being effective. After a certain point we reach a level of complexity where we have to focus on doing the thing right. And then that's when efficiency kicks in.

Speaker B: Y.

Speaker A: And we can ride that curve so long, though, that we overdo it. Like too much of a good thing. Right?

Speaker B: Yep. Yep.

Speaker A: And so I think it's. I'm not. I'm not saying this as a, uh. I'm waving the banner of a. A return to efficacy over efficiency. I do think you need both. But I do think that is an. An order, a sequence to things that is hard. Like linear sequences in today's world make little to no sense to most people just because we've grown up on the Internet with hyperlinks and we can bounce any which way we want to go. But I do think there are places where sequence and order matter and then finding the. The sort of like point of diminishing return to where we have to start to bring some things into balance. I agree on focus, hyper focus on one thing forever without there being some. Some real costs and in this case, cost to people, which is probably the greatest cost.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's. There's a couple of things that you said that I wanted to hit on in that. And one was what you're just talking about. So Aristotle has a, uh. As a phrase called the golden mean. And he talks about it in the world of. Of virtues or, you know, character characteristics, character strengths, character virtues, whatever you call it. And. And that the aim is to find the golden mean of those virtues because too little of that virtue can be problematic and too much of that virtue can be problematic. And this is true in every context I think of humanity, but certainly in organizations where a good thing that's overused can go bad to the point that you bring up. And we. We like to see things as either or. Like we can. We can focus on profits or we can focus on people. So we wind up doing these huge pendulum switches.

Speaker A: Yes,

Speaker B: because we over index on one at the cost of the other. And that's also something that causes change, is the constant swing of this. And we're running from one side to the other when it really is identifying that actually the sweet spot is both ands. And how do we right size the two and I love what you brought up about the coaches. I'm a huge hockey fan and I've actually seen that in the NHL and there's truth to it. And what's interesting is you're right. It takes time to build a winning culture. And so many organizations talk about we need to win. Winning is the mantra, yet they operationalize for winning the game, not even winning the season. Sometimes it even feels like just winning the quarter or period or half, whatever game that you are playing. And the aim isn't just to win one game. The aim isn't even to win one season. We sit there and we create three to five year strategic plans. The intent is really to create a winning culture, a legacy of winning for the long term. But when we focus on short term results quarter over quarter at the cost of the longer term strategy, we tend to get way too narrow focused on winning the game

Speaker A: and

Speaker B: we're losing sight about how that's actually setting us up for failure for the season or even seasons beyond. And that's when it becomes more expensive to have to rebuild the team and a culture of winning. Yes, you could have really great systems, you could have really great tools, you can have really great data. But it's a mindset and it's behavior in people. And when people don't feel like they matter or they're not taken into consideration, when people's capacity isn't there to learn a new system or to meet a new teammate because it's the sixth team they've been a part of in a year, because it's the fifth manager or coach they've had in two years. Because you know, they're still figuring out this last system that you brought to them two weeks ago. You're probably introducing these things at the same rate and speed that you would have anytime you introduced it. But we don't have the capacity because we've been throwing too much on the person and expecting it to stick and expecting them to automatically be able to win. And I think that's where we've m. Made the speed issue. We believe that the speed to execution has shrunk. Our expectations of how fast somebody can ramp to peak and how long they can stay there have outpaced our reality.

Speaker A: Well said. Yes. So this is, you know, a podcast for, for people in, um, places of leadership.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, and so I feel like we, we've, we've talked about and maybe diagnosed and diagrammed how this is affecting the vast majority of, of people in an organization. Let's think about the leadership.

Speaker B: Yeah,

Speaker A: Leaders and their rate of change. Because most leaders. And we'll just think about senior leadership teams for a minute. They may listen to this and go, you know what? Fair enough. Uh, I've been pushing the rate of change on people. I've been, I just keep opening a new loop, a new loop, a new loop, and I'm not adequately closing the last one and helping people move through it. I'll take my lumps on that and own it. But the, and And I think to what we were saying, generally there's a tension to be managed and it's the tension part isn't bad. Um, my business partner Bill Green likes to say all the time that that tension is the signal. That's what we need to pay attention to. And, and I, I think we're, we're saying that in a lot of what we've been, you know, highlighting the, both and, and all of those things. But the lead and some people may go oh yeah, like our, our leaders are just trash because they keep uh, whatever the latest thing is and the most popular thing is and look and, and you would probably be right to say so and valid in your feelings. But let's talk about and to that leader.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They have their own tension to be managed.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: That not everybody gets to see, feel, experience, know or understand in it. Uh, and it may sometimes be explain and communicate and convey. Unless you're living in it.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I think that there's an expectation that like if we don't do X.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Then y company is going to eat our share of the marketplace. If we aren't the first or one of the first to adopt in the adoption curve. If we are not what I forgot the name, name of the book or the chart. But it's like crossing the chasm sort of thing. If we're not one of those early people, then we will be forgotten. We will be left behind, we will no longer have a company. And, and whatever you believe about uh, leaders, how they hold the value of all the people in their company beyond just their own, like what's my status? Who cares about everybody else. But there are those leaders and I've met them and I'm sure you have too, that they may have thousands of people that you know are directly impacted by their decisions and they feel the weight of that is.

Speaker B: Yes,

Speaker A: I know I've asked a ton of them and then I see this in the marketplace and I want to make sure that all of these people have a job that they are equipped, that they are cared for. But we have these demands outside of the office that we are combating that they may not be privy to, that they may not be aware of for one reason or another and they ultimately aren't really responsible and held accountable for. So can you talk a bit about and the tension of change from that seat.

Speaker B: Yeah. And all of that is real. And you know I, I think all of us are doing the best that we can. I don't, I don't know many leaders that wake up in the morning and go, I want to ruin people's lives today. That's, that's not you. Actually the decisions that you are making, you're thinking are in service to creating longer term success, resilience, survival, growth for the business so that the people in it can grow too. And I don't know that we give that message enough. And I think that's one of the things that I see a lot of senior leaders struggle with, is because you operate at the enterprise level, your day to day reality is thinking about the success of the business. The success of the business is your success and is how you hold the success of people. And you're also thinking ahead in a way where the people that you lead and the further down in the organization that they go, they are more focused, narrower on their, their scope and in the moment execution. And when we convey to people why we are making business decisions, we often speak to it as senior leaders in the language of the business because that's what resonates with you, because that's how you are measured. But it's not what resonates with the frontline person. And the other thing is as a leader, you've been weighing these choices. You don't ever make choices like that, even when you have to make them quickly, without options, without navigating that tension, without you thinking about what is best. So you've been processing it, you've been thinking about it. Even if it's a hard decision to make, you have gotten closer to the acceptance of the reality behind it and you can understand the why behind it. Yet when we share the change to our team, they're hearing it for the first time and then we don't understand why it's taking them so long to get on board. Because it's hard for us to put ourselves back in their seat. When we thought about that idea for the first time, when we heard about it for the first time, even if it's not something that we chose, even if it's something that the market dictated to us or a board dictated to us. We had an initial reaction, but then it took time to get us in thinking and planning and involvement to get to where we are today. We don't afford our team with that same time and again goes back to speed of execution and the expectations there. We tell them this is what's happening and now here's what we need you to do. And people react emotionally and they need a space to actually have that emotion and to be able to share that emotion. So I think that one of the best things as a leader you can do is actually create a pause and create that moment of vulnerability to talk to the business choice at a human level. To say something without going into the details of, you know, the transparent or the, the confidential information that you can't share. To say something along the lines of look, these are hard decisions to make and we believe that we have to make this decision now because if we don't we will be falling behind the market and it will be that much harder for us to get that market share back. And that might cause us to have to make harder decisions or decisions around catch up. So we feel like it is worth the risk in moving ahead because we believe, and here's why we believe that thing and to take ownership and vulnerability. I recognize that there's been, there's been changes in the past that maybe we've said similar things and haven't worked out. That's the nature of uncertainty.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: We, we play the whole idea behind is we are placing bets based on the information that we have in the moment, based on what we think is going to work best for the business. And we learn and we adapt based on what comes back to us. And I recognize there are things about this I don't have answers to. I recognize there are things about this that I might not see. So I want to give you a moment and give you some space over the next couple of days just to reflect on what are some of your reactions, what are some of the questions you have, what are some of the things that we're missing that you might, that we might not be thinking about. And my aim isn't to defend those or to judge those questions. It's to surface the things that are on your mind that I might not be noticing and to hear what you have to say.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's really good. Something that I don't know has ever occurred to me until just in this moment. So it's a uh, it's not even freshly baked. It's way undercooked idea. But I'd be curious of your take.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: When presenting those sort of things or maybe when you're absorbing those sort of things, do you think knowing what the other options that were considered makes a difference in our ability to adequately or positively process the change from a communication standpoint is that and, and you're the leader. Are you over communicating all the things and like confusing. It's like so what are you saying? Like we thought about this and then we're going here and then we're gonna do this. Like, I mean, there's a bad, uh. Let's just say that whoever is speaking as a skillful, you know, presenter, you can confuse people by giving them too much information.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: But if it just. If you don't know that. Well, we thought about this option and we eliminated it because of X. We thought about this other option and we eliminated it because of Y. And then we came to this option. And while we don't like A, B and C about it, the downsides were far less than these other things. Therefore, we're going with this option. If you're a hearer of that and the changes is more maybe happening to you than, uh, by you, does that help you process more effectively or at least feel like the choice wasn't flippant?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting idea and a really great question. And I. I mean, I'll flat out say I don't know the true answer. I have some hunches, and my hunches. It depends on the person, and it depends on the situation. Like, everything, it's nuanced. You know, when we're having an emotional reaction to something we cannot hear expansively. It's. It's. Our, uh. Our brains are kind of heated up. They're overheated. And in that moment, giving more information isn't going to help. We actually need a space where the emotion can come out and where people can feel like they have a voice, where I think there is, you know, some truth kind of in what you say. And also, I recognize that sometimes we can't tell them all the options. Like, we can't say, well, our other option was to sell the business, or other option was fire

Speaker A: everyone.

Speaker B: Right. Right. To close down this product line or to ask everybody to, you know, forego health insurance for a year. Like, uh, I think in some emergency situations, like, like Covid times, I was at an organization that furloughed 85% of our staff at that time. And we talked about why we made that decision, because the other option was to lay people off. And we felt like we could come back to the business. And I thought that was a really good moment of doing what you called out. But I think in some of these moments, especially when it does feel like decisions are being made for profitability and people are suspicious and the level of trust isn't there, I'd almost prefer to say we did evaluate options and we felt that there's no perfect solution, but this is the one that we're willing to go with. Because of X, Y and Z. This is why this is the right solution for right now. Because of X, Y and Z. Because from a risk standpoint, X, Y and Z. Because we can connect the dots between X, Y and Z. So rather than here's all the other things that came up, articulating that this is not the only option we looked at. We didn't do this without some deep thought. Because I do think sometimes when you don't have the aperture into those leadership meetings, the assumption is they're just sitting in a room and throwing stuff at the wall. So to say that you took a thoughtful approach to this, you looked at research, you looked at industry standards, you looked at the data, you looked at

Speaker A: trends,

Speaker B: and we looked at the risks and we went with this decision because of X, Y and Z. Now here's the piece that I think you can provide a little bit of security. We talk about what's changing, but we don't talk about what's not changing. So people make our own assumptions of this is going to result in X, Y and Z. And to give people security in that moment of change, to say this is changing, here's what's not. What you're being asked to deliver this week for clients is not changing. Who you are reporting into right now is not changing. Your comp structure is not changing. Recognizing that even amidst, uh, changes, there are things that are still secure, that is helpful. And then where can we bring people into the conversation? So they might not have a choice in the change, but they can be involved in helping to maybe identify questions that were unanswered and if you set a first milestone of what progress would look like, how we're actually going to make that happen. What we need in order to implement that, what's the best way to communicate updates that gives people sense of control and voice, even admits changes that are coming down to them. And too often we design changes for people without designing it with them, and that's when we make mistakes.

Speaker A: Yeah. One of the certifications I have is around, like process design and development and uh, they, they use this phrase all the time, which is if people can help write the plan, they won't fight the plan.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And I don't think, you know, that's, you know, obviously any of the good, good leadership or communication things can be taken and used manipulatively. So don't, don't do it as like, oh, well, let them have a vote in this and then they won't fight me. Like, it's not, not like that. But I think that that's really good, uh, saying what isn't changing, what is remaining the same. It also makes me think of, you know, one of my favorite books is Chris Foss has never split the difference and talks about, like, go ahead and name the thing up front. You know, he calls it an accusation audit. But it's like, you probably think we made this in the la. This decision in the last week. You may think we were focused only on the profits. Um, you know, all of those accusations that could be thrown at them for this. You know, they're well aware of them, but they probably think, well, if we don't say them, um, then they won't, you know, then, you know, we don't give them power. When actually, if you do name them, it can help lower the defensives and make people more open to it. As a matter of fact, there was even a study that showed people in an F. In a functional MRI scan simply by naming a negative emotion, like all of the activity and the fear centers and anxiety centers of the brain, like, reduced by over 50% just by naming it out loud, which is just like, crazy. So I think that combined with. I, uh, like, what you were saying is be detail, or at least name. Here are all the steps and the processes and the thoroughness by which we evaluated options. We don't have to tell you all the options that were considered, but we can tell you we. We did this sort of research. We talked to experts, we went and we met here. We got this thing. We actually talked with an internal group of employees and team. You know, we got a, uh, you know, customers. Like, we gathered all of this. And so we had a wealth of data by which to make a, uh, a decision. And I think anchoring change to a desired future state and outcome, we are optimizing for this particular outcome. We wanted to get here. And I. Because I also think people struggle with change when it doesn't feel tied to anything.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, Like, I thought we were trying to, like, positively impact, you know, 100,000 people. What does this have to do with that? Right. Like, but if we say we were trying to get here, and that actually in a good way narrows our options. And we had several good options. This one took us further, faster towards this goal. And so we opted for this choice. And I think that that can also help people if they know it's tethered to something. I think the change is easier to weather. You're tethered. I should put that on a T shirt.

Speaker B: That's a good.

Speaker A: That's

Speaker B: a good rhyme. That could be. That could be your

Speaker A: new

Speaker B: baby back ribs song.

Speaker A: There it is.

Speaker B: There we go.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Each other. When it's weather. When it's weather. But I, I'm so glad that you said that because I was actually right as you were going there, I was thinking about that and I think this is something again for those senior leaders. We need to stop talking about changes as change initiatives or a change because that's contributing to the hoarding of change and the volume of change.

Speaker A: Because

Speaker B: to your point, it's actually part of a larger change narrative and change story. And we are in. Organizations are ecosystems. They evolve. Talk about change as, uh, a change or a initiative or an independent thing. It just feels like a lot of disparate stuff when instead

Speaker A: it's one more thing.

Speaker B: Correct. It's an evolution in the same journey. That's

Speaker A: so good.

Speaker B: It's tied right to. This is our mission, this is our vision. And based on how the market has evolved, based on how technology has evolved, this is how we are evolving in alignment with, with that. And yes, that means X, Y and Z. About your day to day might change or we've had to make tough decisions about here then going into, to your point, the process behind the decision making so that it wasn't taken lightly. But we are turning it into change as a, as a novel, as part of the one central story versus it being a bunch of independent books on somebody's bookshelf.

Speaker A: That's so good. Yeah. The, the relational aspect of change that this connects to. This connects to the

Speaker B: being

Speaker A: played. It's like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. But, uh, with change. Six degrees of Kevin. No, I'll work on it and I'll get back to you. But I, I love that concept. I could keep talking about this because I, I, I have come to the, the conclusion that the vast majority of the work that I do and, and it seems like, you know, similar on your side of the conversation is really helping people through change. With a lot of the coaching and consulting or strategizing or whatever labels we would want to throw around had, navigate it skillfully, with wisdom, with discernment, with care, compassion and those sorts of things. If there's a leader who's listening and they're feeling the weight of change in the marketplace, internally, on their team, in the whole organization. Right. What's a baby step that someone could take in the next 24 hours? Spending little to no money to start to navigate change more skillfully.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm Gonna give two options depending on where you sit and what makes sense. And both of them are things that are in your control. So if you are closer to the frontline leader level where you are a vehicle that, you know changes cascaded through, it comes down to the conversations that you're having. So, so one thing that you can do if you aren't clear on how a change decision was made, ask. Say I want to be able to communicate this, this well to my team and, and dispel any fears that they might have. Help me understand how we came, what research we did or how we came to this decision so that I can clearly be in alignment with your message and clarify that to my team. So I think you can ask up, uh, going down. Give your team the space to have the emotion. So to the point that you said about naming the emotion, just saying, listen, I know change. There's, there's been a lot of change. I know it comes with emotions. Just want to create a space. How are you feeling right now?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: What does this change mean for you? And then repeat back what you heard. I hear you're frustrated because of X. Is that right? I can understand that. I wish I could do something about that. I can't. Things that this is happening. I appreciate you sharing that with me and just creating that moment of connection, conversation and seeking to understand, seeking to understand where somebody is. Seeking to understand how a decision was made that's in your control. And then if you are in the more senior seat, I want you to think about this idea of spring cleaning. Reflect on, go back through your decks, through your strategy docs, through your business reviews. Take the past six months. Which of those have you actually closed the loop on? Pick one. Pick one to speak to and say, I realize we haven't closed the loop on this and I want to come back to it and tell you, you know, where it is. If it is. If, if we did stop, where we stopped, why we stopped, what we learned from it, if we didn't stop, if, if it evolved into something else. Connect the dots. It might have felt like this was disparate actually. This here helped us inform this strategy here. So this is actually step one of this thing that we're in now. So it's part of the same process.

Speaker A: Gotcha.

Speaker B: Clean it out.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's so good. I love that. And simple may not always be easy, but it's at least simple, um, to do. Thank you so much for, for sharing that. I, I love the conversation. You and I have had a lot of Fun. If people want to know more about you, more about Ignited or just have maybe some follow up questions on what they heard from you today, what's the best way for them to connect with you and learn more about you and your work?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm gonna give you three places to find me. So number one, you can check out my website, ignitedbyjordana.com and you'll see spots where you can reach out to me there. Two, find me on LinkedIn. I post a ton about all things leadership. I post a lot about change. The good news about having a name like Jordana is there aren't many of us. So if you just search for Jordana Cole, you're pretty much guaranteed to get me, which is great and I'd love to hear from you. DM me. I love, you know, comment. I love engaging with people. And three, if you are struggling with uncertainty, if you are struggling with I have no idea what's going to happen next in the world, guess what? I did a TEDx talk last fall that's gone viral that is all about this topic that is helping you reactivate what's already inside of you. Who you are, who you've always been. A skill set that you've always had to navigate uncertainty better for yourself and as you lead others. That's called what to do when you don't know what's Next. It's on YouTube. We tried to come up with a, uh, Would you come up with a number for the number Kenny, that I've got? Like it's

Speaker A: no. 3. 350,000. Somebody leave a comment like we have quarter million, half million. Like we need something cool for 350,000. So if you could come up with that and comment and tag us, that would be phenomenal. Um, I just don't have the creativity to do it. It's going to have to be expressed in other, other ways. Today

Speaker B: we'll call it the Philly million in honor of baby back ribs for now, but I would like a better term. So if you want to join one of the Chili Million people with my TEDx talk, if it it, it's there to help boost you through leading through uncertainty. So check it out. And yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker A: That's uh, awesome and congratulations on that. That's a, I, I have that set as a goal TEDx talk and then hopefully it would do well. So mad respect for doing that and providing so much value to so many people. Jordan, I love the conversation. I would love to have you back in the future. I'm sure that we can find a chili million worth of topics for us to talk about. I feel like that's going to work its way into the description or something. The AI will pick up on it. So thank you, listener. Thank you. If you have made it this far, congratulations. You are a learner. We understand that you have many options when flying your podcast, and we thank you for flying Jordana and Kenny on Chile Airways. I'm. I'm getting very, very hungry. I, um, want some big mouth bites. But I know that you have a lot of options. There's a million, actually 3.5 million podcasts out there. And so it means a lot that you would listen to, to mine and to this episode. And, um, whether this is your first time or your 101st time listening, thank you. If you wouldn't mind, drop a comment like, rate, review, subscribe, whatever the action button on your platform of choice is, I would deeply appreciate it. Not just because I'm always looking for feedback to make the show great and valuable for you, but also this is how the algorithm picks up on valuable conversations like the one that Jordana and I just had. And it's an easy way for you to help put this conversation in front of a fellow leader who's just trying to take their next step in leadership. And won't that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? But until next time, change the way you think you'll change the way you lead. We'll see you.