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navigate change effectively · Humanity Working

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well you look you look fantastic, so thank you.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Means a lot.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: The theme has come through on the podcast quite a lot that's been personal change.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's interesting.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we when we started the podcast, I don't think we thought that it was gonna come through quite as much as it has, but it has in terms of our own thoughts and then also a lot of the uh of the guests that have uh that have come on the pod as well.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We'll notice how a lot of them have uh you know substantially changed their careers or moved into uh into one very different uh field, even if it's the same company from the other field that they were in.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess that's just a reflection of the fact that the world is changing a lot more than than it used to.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, of course, there's the aspect of um changing your behavior, right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Changing your behavior to be effective um in this very, very different world, this unstructured, ambiguous world in which uh in which we now sit.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've also obviously had quite a lot of discussion about how any form of change is difficult and why that is.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So building a new habit is very hard.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even if it's a habit that's really good for you, it's really difficult to build those new habits.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there are certain things that you need to do in a consistent way to actually build and maintain the habit.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then on our podcast last week, um, Nick Law spoke about uh this idea of yeah, but which is yeah, but I could do this, or yeah, but but the other world might be different and I might not like it, etc.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Nick mentioned, of course, how hardwired that is into us.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he used the example of uh um, you know, way back in time where a couple of us are walking along together and and uh and you don't have the yeah but gene in you, so you say, hey, let's go wander into that cave, and I go, yeah, but there might be a bear in there.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it it's it's useful historically, it's useful from an evolutionary perspective to have caution about change, but our brains think about that and apply that sort of inbuilt, yeah, but capability to warn us off change and to make change difficult and change scary.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we know that that is a natural thing, it's a natural way in which our brains are wired.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, for people to overcome that, they'll need uh specific techniques in order to do it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they do it against, as I say, a background of the rate of change in our lives, the rate of change inside our organizations, the rate of change in terms of the technology that we use that surrounds us is higher than it has ever been and is only going to get higher.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's not easy.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, I guess it's not surprising that it's come up a lot in this podcast and probably will continue to come up a lot over the course of the next weeks and months.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and when and I know when you work with people, you you use particular techniques to draw this out, to identify what needs to change and execute on it after they figure it out.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe let's outline some of those techniques.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the observations that we've had over the past couple years is there's actually kind of a bifurcation of techniques, which is unfortunate.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's things that have found their way to individuals that are really more centered on the individual, on the person, um, techniques, habit-forming things like atomic habits or pomodoro technique and those sort of things.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then if you look at the organizational level, this is something I dealt with quite a bit as a transformation officer, is you look at all these techniques that are designed to massively create change or to create change across a large set of people simultaneously.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we look at some of those things like enterprise architecture, organizational change management, portfolio management.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, those are um techniques, if you like, um that exist only in the enterprise.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that's really interesting about this that we find interesting is to date, there really has been very little cross-pollination between those techniques that you find in the enterprise and those you find in individuals.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's unfortunate because there's a lot of value there.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things that enterprises can learn from personal development.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things that people, individuals, can learn from these techniques that are traditionally found just in the enterprise.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so we look across those things.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: We try to we try to look at what provides value regardless of where it um engendered.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, one particular um uh methodology, uh it's a change management methodology that we think is very applicable across both of those segments is uh is ad car.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's ad car?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: ADCAR um is uh really effectively a model for individual change.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the interesting thing about it is that even though it's a model for individual change, as Ryan mentions, it's used classically in an enterprise context.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, for example, you're planning on implementing a particular change inside the enterprise.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: In order to manage that change, what you're really doing is you're uh working through tens, hundreds, thousands, potentially individuals through their own personal change journey.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so AgCar provides a structure to allow people to do that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the structure is based on the letters inside AgCar, which uh stand for awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the interesting thing about it is because it is a model for individual change, it can be easily turned from something that is used to help others change into something that can help you change yourself.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so this is one of those areas alongside some of the other areas that Ryan spoke about, whereby we've taken a deep look at that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've started to look at how this can be applied as a mechanism for personal change among individuals that are looking to move from, if you like, an as-is state uh into a to be state.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's been hugely beneficial, I can tell you, um, in in both forums for for me personally.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I really became a student of change management um as a discipline uh when I was uh again a transformation officer at Microsoft.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that I never even heard of, if I'm being honest.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh it really, I don't think, as as a as a discipline has gotten its heyday even yet.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some people know about it.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that is typically like people that hold you know roles like transformation officers or very forward-thinking managers.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you think about project management's been around forever.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um change management has really just started getting popularized in the 2000s.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was in John Cotter's book, Leading Change, that really set it off.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, and then ProSci really scaled it um with ADCAR.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and it's it's at applied at an enterprise level.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's incredibly insightful.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you that um when you start running uh things through ad car is what we usually say, run it through ad car, um you realize how uh horribly designed some of your programs are.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like does it check that does it check the boxes on these things?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's amazing how few boxes that you you actually check.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um from a personal perspective, I started running, um, and my family I'm sure hates me for it, but I started running everything that we do, all of our decisions, things that we do in our house, you know, through ad car.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's been tremendously beneficial to help um get to kind of the root of why we're doing what we're doing, but more importantly, to truly understand what is going to be required of each of us to truly change.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Not just say we're gonna do it, not just know we need to do it, um, not even just learn how to do it, but but truly to do it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: So you gather everybody around the whiteboard and go through the ad the ad car, yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it's we literally did those things.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um we bought a physical whiteboard when we started having to um uh homeschool the kids during the pandemic.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and every morning, every morning we went to the board and uh and and we ran the day through through ad car uh and it was extremely effective, which brings up another great point.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it um why ad car isn't um permeating education um is uh is is interesting.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: So so that makes a lot of sense.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: A D K A R.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let's uh let's go through each of the stages.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: Let's start with the first one then.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think Paul said Paul, you said it was awareness, yeah?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so um, when you think about this from um uh a business standpoint or a corporate standpoint, um, typically the way you define the A awareness in this case is um you want your employees to be aware that uh this endeavor, this change is important.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's very important to have a spokesperson for that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's traditionally, you would say, you know, you need your CEO or senior leader to really stand up in front of everybody and talk about this.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh they have that connection, then the the individual employee has that connection to the importance of this.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's the very first step is not just making people aware of it, but making them aware that it's important to the organization.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you could apply the same thing, you know, inwards, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's not um somebody else being the spokesperson, but you being the spokesperson for the own change that you want to make.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just really being aware of the fact that this thing is important to you and you know, repeating it to yourself and reminding yourself of its value and its important, and you being your own spokesperson for that change.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think what's intriguing about this once you start to turn it inwards is that you know, traditional ACAR applied to the enterprises kind of makes an assumption that you've already like figured out the change that needs to happen, and the CEO or somebody along those lines is communicating that change.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the first step to bring the organization along with the change that you've already decided to make.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, here it is a little bit different, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You it before you can begin any process of change, you have to understand what changes are actually needed.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And inside any individual's life, um that can be a complicated and murky picture that you have to work through with some of the personal discovery self-curiosity techniques that we discussed in in uh in previous episodes.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's complicated, of course, because our lives themselves are complicated.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And at any one time, we probably have, you know, five or six or ten things that ideally we'd love to change about ourselves.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want to be 20 pounds lighter, we'd love to have the fast car that we've never had before, or um, we would love to uh to go back to school or whatever it would happen to be, right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have all these things potentially that we want to do that might involve change in the way in which we live our lives or might require us to change in order to be able to accomplish.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you need some form, uh some set of techniques to really understand in the first place what is the change that you're looking to make, and what of all the changes that you could make in your life, what are the most important changes that you want to wait, uh you want to uh take right now?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there are other techniques that come into this, such as um Innovator's Gift, which we briefly touched upon in a in a previous podcast, such as future state visualization, such as complex gap analysis associated with your with your future life.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: But um it sh it it won't work if you don't have a clear understanding of the change that you're looking to make, an articulation, if you like.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and this can be a single sentence, it can be a single word in some cases, but some kind of indication of the change that you're looking to make.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then as Ram points out, effectively making yourself aware of that change.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then we get into uh the specifics of how you implement it, but that first part can be the part that ironically is the hardest for everybody.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you sat most people down and you said to them, all right, what do you want to change about yourself?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then people could probably write down a list of 10 things and then you'd say which one of those is most important.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people would get stuck even at that point.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also they might even get stuck in terms of how they'd expressed what they want to change, uh, what they want to change about themselves.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They might frame it in the, they might frame it in terms of somebody else, something that's not personal, right?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or they might frame it in such a vague way that they can't actually visualize it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's all kinds of things you need to do just at that first piece, in order to even just create the awareness of the change that is necessary.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you're dipping into self-awareness too, because it's like absolutely you may say, you know, I'm really bad at you know, public speaking.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: And everybody in the room is like, actually, no, you're one of the better people we have at public speaking.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you so self-conscious?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so now your awareness shifted to this other thing.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's that there's like I love that idea because what effectively we see that all the time.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we see is that people are saying they want to change something about themselves, but because they haven't got feedback from other parties, they're looking to change the wrong thing.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're it's exactly right.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying, I want to I want to be better at public speaking or I want to be more charismatic.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then everybody around you thinks you're super charismatic.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, what you really are dealing with is another issue, and that's the that's the issue that you want to change for yourself.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, yeah.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: And there's so many layers under it and tools you can use just to get to that first awareness piece.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 14:33
  unknown: Okay.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: All right, let's go to the D.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk desire.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so desire um basically is what builds upon uh from awareness.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And really, that is something that, again, from an external perspective, you're if you're running this inside an organization, that's around creating the desire for change, the want, the need, if you like, the personal need.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if we were to borrow from from Six Hats, uh, which is the um the De Bono thinking style, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This would some of this would be Red Hat, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is in there, what is inside you that makes you desire for this change to happen?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um a key piece of this can be getting to the essence at a personal level, getting to the essence of what is important to you.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've discussed several times here the five whys technique.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good example of um of something that you might use in order to create that desire.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, I want to lose, I want to lose 10 pounds.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why do I want to lose 10 pounds?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, if you keep going through that five whys, then you come to something that is actually personally and viscerally important to you.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that that's a big that's a big one.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think the the key word there is visceral, you know, that that visceral desire, and then really drilling into what is what is it you're actually desiring.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: And and yeah, weight loss is a good example there.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think uh that's a very interesting one and such a psychological one and so many different triggers.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I don't know about you guys, but during the pandemic, uh I lost a bunch of weight and then gained it back throughout that course of that year based on psychological factors.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh it's and presumably that was not what you desired.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't desire to lose weight and then gain it all back.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, not at all.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, you know, half pandemic, uh, we'll travel.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Billion Minds has taken over a dozen years of research into the habits of the most effective among us in this new world where work and life are merging.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: They've distilled it down into a 90-day program targeted at employees that do unstructured, ambiguous work.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Employees from five different countries around the world are using Billion Minds to help them start each day with a purpose and end it with accomplishment.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you or your team wants to discover how Billion Minds can help employees optimize their work in the context of their broader life, go to billionminds.com slash learnmore today.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's billionminds.com slash L E A R N M O R E.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: Billion Minds, providing practical tools for our way too busy lives.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about the K.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about knowledge uh now.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this is the one that um organizations typically get right.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but sometimes they get it too right.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, if you look at uh if you evaluated, remember I was mentioning earlier about the the programs that you would run, the change management programs and in the enterprise, um, if you look at the amount of energy that goes into each one of these letters, the case ranks the highest by far.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because what uh what traditionally organizations do, which is is actually a mistake, is they make they turn knowledge into training.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what it is, it's training.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got your mandatory training that you need to do this month.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: You've got your mandatory training, yeah, do this fiscal year, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's always under the banner of training.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and training's fine, uh, especially if it's good training and it's experiential and things like that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but that's overemphasized to the point where you're just kind of learning for the sake of learning.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a very critical step because it's not just about um learning about the habits that you need to employ or the tactics, even or doing things in a very different way.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also very important in this step to start to visualize what that future state looks like.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and actually, Paul, you mentioned earlier future state visualization.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's a very important aspect of it to see yourself um behaving in a different way and to model your behaviors after something.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's very important at that stage to um to look out and and use your visualization techniques for that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, now what's I'd say is the inverse of that is on the individual side.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think K traditionally ranks you know fairly low.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's um less energy that's put into truly self-evaluating, truly visualizing, and then truly learning about something, spending the time to really deeply think about something.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, a lot of times just jump in and do.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And there's nothing wrong with being action-oriented, but it's like I don't have the time to read the subject matter, experts' opinions on these things.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna, I'm gonna get in and do it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that that's under-emphasized actually when applied at the individual level.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a couple of other interesting points on that, actually.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one is that, you know, at the enterprise level, um they when they go to knowledge, they often skip the awareness and desire.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: They just go straight to knowledge.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of assume that awareness and desire will just happen.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that shouldn't really be skipped either at the organizational level or at the individual level.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then also, um one of the interesting things about knowledge is that knowledge typically comes from outside, and even in the individual sense, knowledge can come from outside of yourself.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is an area where as you're kind of building up the knowledge of what your future state's gonna be, how you're going to get to that future state, what your plan is, as it were, um this and how you're gonna know that you've accomplished it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, having an outside perspective, whether it's for you know, through a book that you read or through an external coach or an external mentor, can be really, really, really helpful as you understand the details of this.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because by definition, if you're moving from one state that is deeply familiar to another state that is unfamiliar, then part of the way of getting there is building is building up that knowledge.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And people who have knowledge of that future state are going to be a very critical part of your learning and your understanding.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that I know that you're a model employee, but what happens when at the organization training is delivered um and you don't have the desire to do it?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Next, next, next, next, next, complete.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: And and the other thing is, you know, the key to knowledge is not having it, but actually turning it into wisdom.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: So so embedding it, like we were saying earlier, is like embedding these uh these things uh into into your uh work, into your life because of the knowledge.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like the results of the knowledge uh need to carry value as well, which I guess kind of takes us into the to the next part here.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Which is, you know, ability.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Can you can you do something with the knowledge at the end of the day?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think in the individual scenario, this is uh an area where it's so intrinsically tied with the previous steps.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it is for a number of different reasons, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You plan an enterprise scenario, it's going to be part of a program of change, most likely.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the way in which people will change um is going to follow a set of defined patterns, what they're actually going to do.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the question is just do they have that ability to do it?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So do they have the soft skills?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are they able to, you know, emotionally handle, as it were, the change that is necessary?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do they have the knowledge?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do they have those other, you know, sort of elements underneath it?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in the in the personal scenario, it's bespoke, right?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Effectively, it is the, you know, the way in which you are going to change can be defined by you.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the techniques that you use can be defined by you.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, because it's bespoke, you can tailor it according to your own abilities.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if I go back to that weight loss scenario that we were talking about before, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's say, for example, that you've you've got awareness that this is a change that you want to make, and you've built desire through an understanding of the why, what's underlying the way in which you uh will lose weight.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you build up your knowledge, then under those circumstances, what you're building up in this scenario is what are the different strategies that I could use in order to lose weight, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: There are a bunch of different strategies out there, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: There is traditional calorie-controlled diet, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is uh, you know, there are things like keto diets and things, uh, there are uh intermittent fasting, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are all of these different ways in which you can effectively uh effectively do it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You could join a program like Weight Watches, for example.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So as you're going through these various different things and assuming that you've defined the desire in the right way, you can now then start to assess your technique, your chosen technique, against your ability to execute.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, for one individual, the idea of being in a specific, you know, in an external program with external accountability might be the best technique that works with their specific set of abilities.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: For another individual, let's say they want to follow like the five, two diet, which is a form of intermittent fasting, whereby you eat however you like for five days, and then for two days you have a severely restricted diet.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually been doing that for the last uh eight, uh, for the last eight months or so.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, with that technique, what effectively you need is the ability and the and and the structure and the discipline to be completely, completely disciplined for two days a week, but not for the other five.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that in my case uh is a technique that I've built up in the knowledge phase that matches my abilities, my ability to execute.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So because of the sort of bespoke nature of this as you go uh as you go through it, um, you can actually use these early stages to help you understand what techniques match your abilities as well as the idea of just building up your ability uh to execute in the first place.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: Are you looking to hone the skills you need to thrive as work and the rest of our lives merge?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: If so, we can help.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: For the first time, Billion Minds has taken the program it offers to businesses and customized it for individuals in a program they call the Elements.
• 26:08
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• 26:13
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• 26:16
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• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Billion Minds, providing practical tools for our way too busy lives.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: I was reading recently there was an athlete talking about being in shape and being in ridiculous, you know, game game shape, uh, and and talking about weight loss and and the average person, and just just saying, you know, how do you maintain such a you know off-season?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: You just stay in this ridiculous shape.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: And he was just saying, most people don't know how good it feels to actually be in top shape.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: So therefore, the knowledge he gained of being in top shape leads him to stay in top shape because he doesn't want to fall out of it.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, most people never got to that point, so they they won't have that to grasp onto, which is kind of an interesting thought uh around it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um a bit disappo you know, disappointing, disillusioning, maybe to be like, well, then I guess I'll never know.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: But uh at the same time, that's that's kind of an interesting uh piece there is that that knowledge, that little kernel of knowledge of knowing, I remember what it felt like to feel that way, I want that again, yeah, turns into that wisdom.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then yeah, that's cool.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sort of related to that, there is uh, you know, there's so much evidence that even these things that we think of as being very physical, like you know, calories in, calories out, and things like that, how related they are to our own personalities um and what will work for us.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: They often say that you know, the that what's the best diet to be on, it's the diet that works for you.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had an athlete recently, a cyclist, professional cyclist, um, who was having you know a bunch of trouble maintaining the weight uh that he needed to in order to be able to be effective as a professional cyclist.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, professional cyclists are kind of like jockeys, they can't, you know, carry an extra ounce, really.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so in his case, the thing that flipped it for him was that he completely abandoned any um exclusion in his diet.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he flipped it on his head entirely, and he said, on a day-to-day basis, I must have this amount of water, this amount of uh of fruits, this amount of vegetables, and it was a very high number, right?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So all the unprocessed food, he had to eat all of that unprocessed food.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then whatever he did after that, if he wanted to eat chips or or burgers or whatever it happened to be, that was up to him.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so now he's flipped it from I'm not a I'm not excluding anything, but I must include these things, was enough for him to go through years of trying to maintain his weight, having zero problem with it at all.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all it took was effectively an approach that matched his abilities.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: Huh.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: So after he did his duty for the day, which works for him, which is fulfill your requirement of, you know, probably more than you would maybe he was too full at the end of the day after fulfilling his requirements.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't want a burger anymore, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's really cool.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: But he could have it if he wanted it.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he never had to deprive himself of it, consciously deprive himself of anything.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so just that flip was enough for him to be successful in maintaining his weight in a way that was not possible before.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the this is why, like developing um, as you go through those early phases, if you think about it, as you develop awareness and desire, you're kind of learning about yourself.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: As you're developing knowledge, you're learning about the field.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: As now you can map that in this personal thing to in a bespoke way to provide um for a solution that works with the abilities that you have.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, you can make it fit and make sure it that's and fits your ability.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's uh all right.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: So the last one, reinforcement.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so really the the back half of ADCAR, ability and reinforcement, you could probably colloquially call follow-through.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and reinforcement is probably the most missed one, um, I would argue, because it's it's it's the furthest of the follow-through, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you might think the way I introduced uh awareness at the beginning, that it would just be a bookend, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: That same leader comes up on stage and is reinforcing a message.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's actually not the way that it should work.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's often the way that people try to make it work.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: But really, what you're trying to do in reinforcement is live the change and have proof points that you're living the change.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so it shouldn't be just the spokesperson that started the movement, it should be the movement that is speaking.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so in an enterprise construct, it's now the managers are are singing from the same hymn sheet, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're behaving in the way and they're they're um they're they're being examples of the change, and they're identifying individuals that are good examples of the change, and they're and they're propping them up as paragons of change.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what's really critical is because now um you're starting to witness it, you're starting to see it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's not one spokesperson, but a thousand spokespeople, right?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way that that change cascades and permeates the organization.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you translate that to the individual level.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, reinforcement is really um, obviously, reinforcing it for yourself is very important, but this is where you rely on your network.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've we've talked in previous episodes about the importance of networks and that you have many networks.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, communicating the change that you're trying to drive openly, very important because then those are the people that can help reinforce.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and those are the people that you know, you're spending all day punishing yourself for the mistakes that you're making, things like that.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: But these are the people that will venerate some of the things that you're doing and really call out the positive attributes that they're seeing in you when you're making these changes.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's um that's an extremely important part um of reinforcement and and and rewarding yourself.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, those those wins, those little quick wins that you have, those are the things that give you the energy to keep on focusing on the K, the knowledge, and to keep on focusing on the ability, the practice, um, by rewarding yourself for instituting that change.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it seems like that then leads to, you know, obviously with with bringing people in, you have uh stakes and accountability when other when other folks are there, and at an enterprise level, that's really important.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: If everybody's kind of on the same page holding each other accountable, that can be really powerful to groove new habits, which as we know can be difficult over time.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: So uh this is excellent.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: And coaxing that out of your kids too, I mean, I think is really is really critical.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, so getting your kids to start communicating um what things they're trying to accomplish.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and and one, it's very good.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Anytime you can get you know children to communicate openly is is very positive.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but when you start to become champions of things that they're doing at the microhabit level, um, and then and then really reinforcing how much you're witnessing the positive change in them, it's a it's a it's a great just you know casual parenting technique just to just to think about that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, taking them through the five Ys, really getting to the desirability of what they're trying to do, but then provide those reinforcements.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then we did um the work from home podcast, and I was talking a little bit about those those behaviors at home.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember communicating to uh to my wife, Robin, that it was very important for me to stop doing what I was doing in terms of running into the kitchen, grabbing something and running back to my desk, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: That was a very it was a habit that I I was shunning on the last podcast.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's a habit to avoid when you when you're working from home.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and if I didn't have her stopping me, you know, in the hallway, sprinting back to my office, say, uh-da-da, uh-uh.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget, we're doing lunch together on the patio, you know, that it was that reminder that I needed.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was my reinforcement for that particular habit.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: Right on.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the stuff on uh on how personal this reinforcement thing is and how it relates to the people that you're working with is a is is really important and it can work in one of two ways.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in a team, uh, for example, and it's a change that you're making in yourself, and you've used, you've turned ADCAR in on itself, as it were, and you're using it in order to be able to uh to manage your own change in the way that we've been describing this podcast.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you've done that in the absence of trying to create awareness and desire amongst your teammates for the change that you yourself are making, they may wind up being resistors, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: So they may be like, well, hang on, you know, such and such used to uh like answer emails every every hour on demand, and now she's not answering emails every hour on demand.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now she's doing it twice a day.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in that case, what you've done effectively is you've made a change in yourself, you've been successful in it, but you've not communicated to the people around you what that what that change is and why you're making that change.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you do go through that extra step, then when you come to the other end, then almost naturally in many cases they'll be like, oh, yeah, I remember before and you were like this, and now I see all these, I personally see all these benefits associated with it.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you can really flip that on your head when you're trying to make a change that has uh, if you like, an impact on other people.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then um when it's turned in, when it is fully turned inwards, and it is a change that you're looking to make in yourself, it's important to remember that any change that we make, um, until it's been embedded for some period of time and become effectively the new normal, it's always going to be easier to go back to where you were than to stay where you are.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so this reinforcement uh piece at a personal level is a way of embedding what you are and who you are in this new world.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and without it, you'll slip back into who you were and you'll slip back to that previous set of behaviors.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so doing it on an ongoing basis, on a consistent basis, uh having accountability, if you again it comes back to that idea of having an external coach, right?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Having an external coach helps you ensure that this new behavior is more effective than the old behavior that you had.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's if you want to become more personally effective, which obviously is what this podcast is all about, then learning how to be personally effective is one piece of the puzzle.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, having an external party reinforce it, help you understand, help keep you accountable, but also help you understand what you can do differently is such an important part of actually turning something from an interesting topic, like we discuss on this on this podcast, to an to a change that is actually embedded in you as a human.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's interesting too, because you know, you can have positive ripple effects from your own personal experience in the weight loss example uh or or the not the changing your email habits example.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you're communicating it, you can say, hey, look at the all the benefit I got out of doing this.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: And somebody say, that's interesting.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I'll try that, you know, or you know, how did you lose the weight?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: What did you do?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know, it's it's that communication that also reinforces it because then you're able to teach it, you're able to talk to somebody about it and have those sort of uh really beneficial conversations too.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: So uh that's that's really with caveats, right?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think I think that's one of the challenges that we face in these personal scenarios, because exactly great, often often asked question.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: How did you lose the weight?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in my case, I lost the weight through a five, you know, through a five-two um intermittent fasting method.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that the five-two intermittent fasting method works for Matt or for Ryan?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the more accurate answer is what did you do?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought about what I what outcome I wanted to drive.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: I created desire in myself to drive that outcome.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I created effectively the knowledge of the different approaches that I could use.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I picked an approach that matched my ability.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then I continued to reinforce that approach by tracking my progress and not doing the classic thing that we all do once we reach a weight goal, which is basically I've reached my weight goal, I'll now go out and have a big burger.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Which effectively is the old world calling into the new world saying, bring me back to where I started.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the real answer as to how you lose the weight is ADCAR, not the five, two method or keto or any of these other things.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: Excellent.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this has been really exciting and really interesting, guys.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Any other final thoughts?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think one that I'd just say is that as we're looking into these areas, this is just one model that we use, right?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: For uh for personal change.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and people are human, um, so people do drift.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's useful and important about these methods is it just helps us to apply a bit of rigor to something that won't naturally happen.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: You will not, if if you desire a change in your life, even if you've got that desire, right?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you don't have the other elements, it won't happen.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're vaguely aware of things you might want to change, those things won't happen.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: They will not happen magically.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you do need some form of rigor and approach to implement any change that happens in your life, whether it's personal, whether it's with groups of others.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this is just one example of that.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully it's helped people understand um the a way in which uh a technique that can be used fairly effectively if there are changes in your life that you'd like to make.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: The Way Too Busy podcast was presented and produced by me, Matt Neal, and was brought to you by Billion Minds.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to get in touch with us, tweet us at Rising Billion or email us at WayTooBusy at billionminds.com.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Billion Minds, creating practical tools for our way too busy lives.