Podcasts

Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ. I have with me today Greg Verdino. And he's one of our AQ certified coaches. So welcome.

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Greg  

Thank you, thank you very much, Ross.

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Ross  

These were super rare people and individuals that were pioneering the way forward with us. And we're just at this tipping point of I think we're at 98. So we're just about to hit the 100. And you're a business futurist. And as it describes a digital transformation expert, and I think that's an amazing area where people are really looking at how are these inert things, all of this digitization of the world, has it really land for people and land value, and you've had a career at the forefront of change and advising hundreds of organizations, many of the Fortune 500 I think probably 10% of them by the looks of it have? 

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Greg  

At one time or another they were in the Fortune 500. And everybody has fared equally well over time, right?

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Ross  

Very true. Very true. And I want to begin actually, Greg, back with why did you choose sociology as a degree?

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Greg  

So what interested me about sociology was the sort of its focus on the societal forces that shape who we are as people, and the ways in which societal change changes who we are as people. And it was interesting, because when I graduated college, and I started looking for work, I knew I wasn't actually at one point, I thought I might be a sociologist, and was gonna, maybe this is my first adaptation, perhaps, but I was thinking of becoming a sociologist, and continuing on my education, getting a PhD, maybe working in a university, and one of my faculty advisors suggested, “Look, I'll support you all the way if that's what you want to do. But before you do that, go experience the world for a year or two.”

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Ross

Sound advice.

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Greg  

Sound advice. And I said, well, crap, that means I have to get a job. So I decided that I would look for work in advertising or marketing and started applying at ad agencies in the middle of this terrible recession in 1990. And one of the most consistent questions that I got when I was first, when I was interviewed for these jobs, were was always sociology, what does that have to do with advertising? And I'm like, “Are you kidding me right now?” And that to me it was pretty apparent, right? That advertising was in fact, a social force that was shaping human behavior.

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And, but the people working in advertising, at least the people that I was speaking with, weren't seeing that at all. To them it was like, nope, it's about generating revenue for a company. It's like you're shaping consumer behavior, you're shaping the way humans believe, and how they behave. This is not to be kind of, pollyannish about it, but that's what advertising does. It's one of those really powerful forces. And I was maybe, I kind of think of myself as a reformed marketer, right? I kind of grew up through marketing for a number of years. And as marketing became more and more social, as the internet happened and social media happened, it became all the more obvious how sociology and marketing at least were very much related.

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Ross  

It's interesting, and these were big agencies, right? This was such in such a this is wonder man, this was digitus. these were people and organizations that were shaping the communications for some of the biggest brands on the planet. And as you said, this responsibility of how do we influence people's thinking? And we think about that a lot when we look at politics and voting, various social issues. We might not make that connection when we think about commercials and business. Ultimately, for you studying, it's the same thing, right? We're shaping the way people see things believe, behave and act.

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Greg  

Absolutely. And I think what's interesting not to interrupt you is that finally now, it seems that at least some brands and the agencies that work with them are starting to recognize that as we're seeing more focus on things like sustainability and inclusiveness and diversity and do all sorts of things now.

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Ross  

And it is as I see it, because we share a similar background, that was my, Ross 1.0 was the brand marketing guy, before my own adaption, but the responsibility we have, when we communicate, choosing what we communicate, and then also on the other side, choosing what we hear. And often there's a massive challenge of those Chinese whispers, we've all played the game of it starts one way, but by the time it's been repeated 20 times, it's something completely different. And I think that's one of the challenges in terms of how we as human beings go through our lives, how we adapt, and how we shift from one way of thinking, how we can let go of it, and how we make room for new thoughts and new opportunities. And so what happened for you, after that kind of journey of advertising and marketing and where you shifted a lot in terms of doing a lot of speaking, authoring, and advising organizations in and around change? Tell me a story of what were some of the pivotal moments of that for you, Greg?

Greg  

I mean, I think to me, some of the earliest pivotal moments, maybe not in my very first job, but by my second or third job even, what I discovered and maybe I should have been clued in from that interview process, with marketers not understanding why sociology was relevant. But probably a couple of jobs in, I started to see that even the biggest agencies I worked for were pretty change-resistant. Like, if you were an agency that made its bread and butter, selling TV campaigns, or direct mail, doing direct mail execution, or whatever it was when the world started to change around you, most people in the organization, I think, had a generally low level of awareness as to what that change would mean for them, both individually, but ultimately, as an organization, and probably even fewer people in the organization wanted to be the person to drive that change and make it happen.

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So almost by default, in some ways, I mean, I've always been interested in new technologies, and even changes as a force. But it was, I would like to say it was by design, but probably more by default, I found myself in the seat of the guy that was kind of doing the thing nobody else wanted to do. So it was things like, sort of an early on in my career, helping, almost I'm stupid now. But I was working, we were working my client was Ford Motor Company, and Ford Motor Company had never targeted, I mean obviously not never, but had never targeted Generation X, when Generation X was still young.

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And, I was the guy, who raised my hand and said, “Well, wait a second, they're not so young, as as to not be car buyers, right?” These are prime people who are in the prime market for new vehicles, first vehicles, etc. at the time. So convincing a client to even make that kind of shift, think consider a new target audience and what tactics might be appropriate to reach and engage that target audience to traditional agencies saying, “Well, we're not really gonna, we want to see what happens with this internet thing.” And me saying, ”No, no, no, we need to launch a business, right?” And skunk works, I skunk worked a digital agency inside a traditional agency, right.

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So it was kind of like this realization that so many people in traditional organizations and legacy style roles, we're not really making, we're not as open to change as they could or should be, I think that was kind of a pivotal moment or set of pivotal moments in my career. And then it just kind of snowballed, frankly. And I kind of found myself, when digital first bubbled up and became something of interest, generally, I was one of the earliest people, well what does this mean, but I always came at it from a perspective of not just what does it mean for the business, but what does it mean for its customers, that sort of sociologists hat, never came off so to speak.

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And found that I almost, I built a muscle or a set of muscles really for being able to lean into and change to adapt in the face of this changing environment I was in. Whether that meant finding new opportunities for the business I worked in, carving out defining new roles, making sure that I was a student of change, kind of tuning into the signals that were all around everybody, but nobody else was paying attention to. And that kind of became the kind of almost like the hallmark of my career.

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And then the mode by which as the time went on, the mode by which I could deliver value to customers or to people in general, gradually changed, where I was doing less and less consulting, and more and more advisory and speaking, and how do I scale that by writing books and so on, and so forth. So it's been an interesting ride.

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Ross  

Why do you think change is so hard? And you mentioned there, maybe there's this natural aversion, human beings, and by then virtue organizations have against change? What is it about change that we're so about? 

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Greg  

I mean there's a lot of things, I think to me part of it, I think, at the human level is, I think aversion to change, in some ways is hardwired into us. In some ways, it's interesting, right? Adaptability kind of is tied to this whole idea of the survival of the fittest, but at a certain point, you get to a point where change in your environment becomes a threat. And I think a lot of people just kind of, have it so embedded in them, whether it is hardwired, or it's just a mental conditioning that change is risk and  risk is bad, and I will avoid that at all cost.

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I think that some of it is certainly conditioning, especially in a business environment, where in so many companies risk is not rewarded. In fact, it's quite the opposite. So even if we might be more inclined to take risks or to adapt in the face of change, I think people, a lot of people very quickly learned that that will not be rewarded. And in fact, I will be rewarded for doing quite the opposite. And then you've got the organization, where the organization, the culture gets calcified right around optimization, most organizations get really good at what they do and when they succeed, they just keep getting better and better and better at it. But don't have a lot of incentive, or drive to get better at doing new things. That's changing now obviously, as the world changes so much around us, but it's sort of the steady state for a lot of large companies in particular, that they you know.

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Ross  

The operating model was all around, as you said, optimization about managing risk, protecting what people have. And often then we're not only adverse to it, but we're blind to opportunity, and it just comes in with a label on in the front of it, that we can't read that opportunity, we just see threat. And that reality to be able to wear new glasses that can identify things correctly is hard when you're on the inside of something. So I guess it's one of these dichotomies of advisors and consultants that see through their own lens from the outside. How have you managed to shift the behavior on the inside? So if this whole challenge of change is there, they’re seeing things as risks, how have you managed successfully over your career to help them see things differently, to help them see change as good and to rewrite that relationship with change? What are some of the techniques or stories or elements around that, Greg?

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Greg  

Yeah, so I mean, there are so many things that I could probably point to, I think for me, a lot of it comes down to what are the small things? And this is, I've been involved with digital transformation programs of some shape or form for longer than people were calling it digital transformation even. I didn't think of it this way even but inside, ad agencies launching a digital division, or I worked for a while at Arbitron, which is now part of Nielsen, but they were the radio ratings company here in the US, looking to figure out how they could play, kind of stake their claim in the internet measurement business, and what were the new ways of measuring digital media that were frankly not available in the world of traditional media at the time.

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And what I found was that, and then again, kind of working as an outside advisor with other companies on their digital transformation programs that were these programs tended to fail, they tended to fail for a number of reasons. One that I found fairly consistently, was when an organization tries to change too much too quickly, a transformation can crumble under its own weight. And so one thing that I would say, as sort of a general guiding principle is this idea that change because it is a journey,transformation is a journey, should be undertaken one step at a time, which sounds obvious. But the number of times I've worked in organizations or with organizations who feel such pressure to catch up or get ahead, that they are willing to kind of move fast and break things, but they’re a legacy business with billions of dollars of revenue and tens and thousands of employees and it's just unsustainable, it's not feasible, it's not possible in most cases, communication is key.

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In so many organizations, even if the leadership has a strong change vision, that vision doesn't get communicated through the organization, and it doesn't get explained in a way that gets the organization, even the people down to the reception desk on board with that change. What will it mean for me, how will my life be different or better, but also a candid, how might my life be worse? Which is something that a lot of organizations shy away from. So communication is key. 

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One of the biggest pieces of advice I give leaders when I work with them is always to be a student of change and you kind of, reference this a bit of with people not really seeing or not being willing to see change as it's happening around them. Or they get so embedded in their day to day that they don't make the time to really think about, not just see it, but study with a change as it's happening all around them. Or they take a very narrow view of that change. “How are my top two competitors changing? Not how is the world at large changing? Not how are companies outside of my industry innovating in ways that might hold lessons for my business?”

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So to me, that's one of the biggest things is really, advising people to be students of change, but also helping them to do so. Even down to like, creating a curriculum almost. “So here are some things you should be reading, here's where I get my information, here are some sources you might consider.” For one client, we actually literally made a worksheet where they could put in daily, what are the three things I'm going to do today to learn something new about something happening outside my company. And it was very much unnecessary evil, in some ways are unnecessarily tool for this organization because they were so driven by day to day workload and week to week optimization and month to month revenue numbers, that they just didn't make the time to look outside of what's happening right now because they couldn't find the time. It was kind of crazy, but it was practical and useful.

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Ross  

I had these two pictures forming in my head, Greg, as you were talking. One was when I walk my dogs in the morning, and we go through the forest, and I catch myself at certain points looking at the floor. And I'm looking at the ground because it's a bit uneven, because there's some tree roots and various bits. And I do that for a little bit. And then I figure out “Hey I'm on a walk, I mean nature it's niceI need to look up and see the sun and see the horizon.” And that gives me a sense of perspective and place. And I guess it's this ability to have that ambidexterity to look up and look down, look in and out.

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And the other picture that was going on in my mind, because my mind has gifted me in a way in which it creates these pictures and stories was actually as bizarre as it is Greg, but I want to share it. It was a set of penguins, I don't know what you call a load of penguins. There'll be a name for these penguins, but where you have them all huddled together for warmth, and the outside goes into the core, and the core goes into the outside. And so you have this edge to the hive, to the colony. That might be what they’re called colony, let's go with it. And they're aware of the environment. They're aware of what's going on and in the core, they're so insulated from it. They're comfortable, they're nice, they're happy, but they've got to go and brave it. They've got to go and brave it on the edge.

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And I just had that same picture, as you were talking about an organization, that when you're in the core you're so focused, so comfortable, you almost need that toolset of where are you gonna go and try new, where are you going to the edge, and to have a look out and to look beyond your feet, where you're keeping your egg from dropping on the ice, and managing that risk. And I want to cover a little bit, Greg. In terms of you've created something called the Adapt Manifesto. Before we get into that because I find it fascinating and the areas of where you've articulated a number of values really touched me deeply. But I want to rewind as to why did you create it? What was the inspiration behind creating that, Greg?

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Greg  

So I co-created it with a colleague guy named Ian Patterson in the UK actually up in the north. And he and I were both sort of itinerant digital transformation consultants, we had worked inside same companies at certain times, but we're off doing our own work with our own clients and other times. And we always would kind of use each other as sounding boards, and thought partners as we came across challenges or issues or opportunities or something, “Hey, I don't know how to do this, have you done that?” And as the more stories we shared, the more we realized that it's sort of like almost the mythical stat of 70% to 80% of all transformations fail was actually true in practice, right? It's not just something…

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Ross  

It's like, 80% of all statistics are made up, right?

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Greg  

It turned out to be right, more or less. And we were seeing that with our own clients, frankly, were more often than not, initiatives we were involved with would fail to achieve their full potential at a minimum. Which might you might say, well then you're terrible consultants. And maybe we are, but the truth is that what we started to see was that in the organizations where transformation failed to take hold, and failed to achieve its objectives, there were sort of a set of, essentially there was no operating system for change in place. And in the organizations where change was more successful and things were going relatively well, there was an operating system for change in place. The organizations were just more change-ready.

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And we started to talk about, “Well, what are the attributes we're seeing? And what are the things that these organizations are doing differently?” And we wanted to as we began to kind of, as these things began to coalesce into a common set of traits that we were seeing, we wanted to find a way to articulate that, to document it and kind of put it on digital paper. And we were inspired by functionally or form wise, the Agile Manifesto, which obviously has lots of legs, and has changed not only the way software gets built, but the way business gets done in a lot of ways.

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So we kind of followed their form. But our objective wasn't to necessarily tell a company how to run a project. But to kind of suggest a set of behaviors really or action steps that leaders in an organization could take to drive change more effectively in that organization. We didn't want to say what the change should be. Because for one organization, it might be we're expanding into the next geographic market over, for the next it might be a whole scale digital transformation. For another it might be a business model innovation or whatever, we've gone from remote from physical to virtual, whatever the change is. But we wanted to make sure, we wanted to kind of articulate to leaders like there are things that you should be thinking about and doing in your organization as a sort of a set of road rules in essence.

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Ross  

Yeah, principles for the new operating system for change. I want to dig into a couple of these, Greg, and I'm going to take us through and share and perhaps I'll share, maybe the first three, and then pick one of them, and riff on that one. So the first three that you've got in there of sort of values is people and culture over tools and technology, people and culture over tools and technology. Second one, always on adaption over one time change. So always on adaption of a one time change. And the third one, evolutionary change over revolutionary disruption. So all of those three, dive into one of them for us, Greg and put some technicolor on it.

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Greg  

Sure. So let's go with evolutionary change, which really is what led us to thinking about this as adaptive business or adaptability in business, as opposed to transformation. And you're pulling from the value set, there's also a set of 10 principles. And it's no accident that one of those 10 principles is revolution through evolution. So what we were seeing in organizations as they were in, again the roots of this, it came out of digital transformation, but we believe it is much broader than just digital transformation, but it came out of our work in digital transformation. And what we saw was essentially one of two patterns in most legacy companies.

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One was trying to do, as I already referenced, trying to do too much all at once. You kind of under this sort of like disrupt or die kind of mentality and essentially disrupt or die in those cases became disrupt and die. GE was a perfect example, right? They were going to be driving the transformation of the internet of things, they were driving internet of things. And then they kind of crumbled, they went from poster child for transformation to pariah for transformation in a lot of ways. So companies either would try to do too much all at once have this everything was a big bang, or they would kind of fall prey to, I'm sure you're familiar with like Alvin Toffler Future Shock, right?

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They would kind of fall prey to it's like redheaded stepsister Shock of the Now, right? There's so much changing so quickly, in so many different ways and areas and spaces and markets, that we're going to do nothing. We don't know where to begin.

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Ross  

We’re rabbit in the headlights.

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Greg

Right, rabbit in the headlights, right? So you would have one of these two things, too much transformation or none at all. And what we recognized was that the organizations who were most successful in their transformations, were the ones who were able to take a more considered approach and kind of a set of small but sequential steps that add up over time to be true transformation.

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Ross  

Kaizen approach of continual improvement, but deployed in a way in which was cumulative, to achieve the transformation. And I guess it comes back to your starting with these small steps. And I think whilst these, as you said, the values, you've also got a load of actual principles of be a student of change, embrace ambiguity, and you mentioned revolution through evolution. But in terms of an organization and what you've experienced, does it have to be the same across all? So all areas that organization has to look at evolutionary and incremental? Or do they have, as you mentioned, like skunk works that can exist in this little playground that deals with this type of revolution or evolution over here? What's your thoughts in that kind of balance across organizations versus individual practice or principle?

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Greg  

Yeah, so, no it doesn't need to be the same everywhere in the organization. What does need to be consistent across an organization from what I've seen in my belief is an ability to learn and share lessons across the organization. Even if changes, kind of spiky in different places, right. A lot of organizations…

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Ross  

It’s wiggly, messy and tangled. 

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Greg  

Yeah and that's why there's another principle called, that we call the power of and. And when we put that within the context of particularly a legacy organization, it's this idea that you can be innovating in one area without destroying value in another. And that also means you can be fast in one area and slow in another, you can be the leader in one but a fast follower and another, you can be a traditional organization and innovative organization. It's one of those, kind of, holding the two things in your mind kind of concepts is, a lot of times I'll talk with you, but we're a bank, we're not a technology company. It's like, well, no, no, you need to reframe that. You're a bank and a technology company, what does that look like? And how do you not, and a lot of, well banking is another example, like this idea of well, now that the world is opening up again, we have to reinvest in our branches and get people coming into the branches.

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Maybe, like, I wouldn't advise you shut your branches, right. But at the same time, you can't count on the world going back to the way the world had always been, and you can't take your foot off the pedal of digital innovation. So absolutely, organizations can and should have sort of different speed approaches. It's almost like the two speed or two curve organization, where you've got kind of like the fast and the slow, but with a lot of rigor around how you take the learnings and the improvements that you find in one area of the business, and think about how to scale it into the rest of the business.

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Ross  

I think that's a key point, Greg is that whatever's going on the shift, and I liken it to between an individual that has a brain, and an organization that has a mind, which is a collection of brains. And this ability to have fast and open feedback loops. So that we can instead of, “Oh, I don't want to share that, because it's seen as something that didn't go right or wrong” between “Oh I’ll share it just within my team, but I'll share across the organization.” And then of course, you've got this challenge of information noise that as organizations scale, there's more and more noise, more and more metrics, more and more measurements more, just saying and, that's hard.

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And one of the things that we've talked about before and through the process is this ability to unlearn, and to be able to let go of things. And I was intrigued by one of the other values that you've got, and they interlink in lots of places, but this curiosity over certainty. And that challenge to do that is an interesting one. So tell me a little bit more about either curiosity over certainty. And it's kind of linked a little bit to flexibility over firm plans and structures for a modern organization, and perhaps how it might link to one of the other principles as well.

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Greg  

Yeah. So, obviously, many experts tend to be very sure of themselves, in the areas in which we are experts. And that leads to sort of very strict worldview if not tempered with curiosity. And I think in a lot of ways, we were speaking to this sort of notion that there's almost like a set of false knowns in most organizations, the assumptions that around which the business operates, that people presume remain true, even though the world has changed. But leaders in that organization remain resolute and believing in those assumptions. And there's a phrase I've been using in my speeches for about seven or so years, that the way you've always done business will be the way you go out of business. And we wanted to speak to that concept essentially of if you think something is true, you need to think again.

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Ross  

Revalidate it.

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Greg  

Right, revalidate it.

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Ross  

Give yourself humility.

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Greg  

At a minimum, be curious about whether something has invalidated something you're certain of, but also more importantly, embrace the idea that there are “inexpert” people who might come to the challenge with a very different point of view, and embrace those different points of view. I once did work with a large defense contractor. I don't know if I can name them, but they do obviously, military defense, but they also do things like signal crossing systems for railroads, for example. And one of the leaders there kind of told a story about a competitor, an upstart competitor had just been funded, and was producing what most of the engineers in the organization considered to be just barely good enough technology.

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And their point of view was, look if we're keeping people safe from driving across a train track, there is no room for just good enough. And he said, well, the markets where they're selling their systems are markets where there is no safety signaling on those train tracks at all. So while we might have the technically best solution in the market, in a market where there are no signaling systems good enough is a hell of a lot better than they have today. And it was a classic disruptive innovation play, they were doing just good enough, low into the market with of course, an intention of improving over time and taking on the big boys. And it was one of those examples of somebody who the assumption was our systems need to perform flawlessly. And the competitors assumption was our systems only need to perform better than no system at all. And it was allowing them to kind of to chip away at the low end of the market. So it's that kind of thing of course, is happening all the time now, especially with digital, right?

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Ross  

It's a balance for brands, isn't it? In this sort of, as you mentioned, the rabbit in the headlights, that might lead to no action or procrastination that “Well we're not going to launch that yet,” because it's not at the level for our brand, or for the safety or insert issue as to why we're not launching it, versus if you're not embarrassed by what you're launching, you've launched it too late. And that permission to be iterative with the collaborators called your customers that they can be involved in the creation process.

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And I remember years ago a book, it was a real thin little book, it was by Seth Godin actually, and it's called Ship It, as in shipping products, ship it. And it was a working book that you filled out. And I did at the time had this idea for many years of something, and it just sat on the shelf, because I'm busy, I've got clients got all these things. And I made the commitment to complete this Ship It book, and within a few days, I'm now shipping that idea and that product. And I think this boils down to again, this balance of how are we shaping our thoughts and behaviors for this operating system and operating manual where I know it's got to be dead right before it goes out. 

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And this everybody on board I'm interested in on this subject, Greg. So something that we believe in is, leave no one behind one of your principles, everyone on board, create alignment, and linking that to a value of collaboration and inclusion, over competition and exclusion. So in a commercial organization, this idea of inclusivity, and diversity has been there, they're running a shift to figure out how to do that better. But I'm not sure that they're really embraced or adapted to this thought of competition, not being competition. And tell me a little bit more about how you see that, as someone who sees the future, who spots the trends of what is the thinking behind that.

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Greg  

So, first of all, I think you're absolutely right. In terms of where organizations have kind of where they've come forward, and where they've kind of been stuck. I want to say something else before I get into it, is that one of the things that to me was beautiful about the Adapt Manifesto was that nothing I mean, and maybe to me, so nothing in there is brand spanking new, right? You almost look at it and go “Yes, of course.” And because, people have been writing about adaptability for ages, right. But for some reason, these things tended to get lost in the shuffle of the day-to-day madness of running noise of

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Ross

The noise.

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Greg

The noise, absolutely. But one of the things that I think is apparent is that sort of businesses moving towards more ecosystems, we've seen the rise of the platform companies, which are valuable for their ecosystem, much more so than they're valuable for what they in themselves provide, other than the fact that they have, the interface between the customer and the company in a way. Airbnb would be nowhere without owners and renters and Apple essentially this would just be like an expensive brick if it weren't for the App Store and services.

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So I think, organizations need to develop this sort of ecosystem thinking, which I think in many cases, at least calls for them to consider the way in which competitors might be collaborators. Especially in a world where the challenges we need to address are much larger than the challenges any individual organization is likely to be able to address. And that was kind of one of the other pieces of thinking around, kind of around the Adapt Manifesto and also my book Never Normal is that and I posted something the other day on LinkedIn that, and I don't think most people, we're so focused on digital disruption. I don't think most people are thinking or realizing, even though we should be that digital will be the least of all disruptions. I mean, it will be child's play, was child's play compared to COVID. But it'll be child play compared to sort of the economic changes that are happening, where capitalism itself may be called into question, the political turmoil, the certainly the climate crisis, and all of these things that companies will need to adjust to adapt to.

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And so we've got these huge challenges we need to solve as organizations. And if we can't solve them ourselves, we can't just throw up our hands and say, “Nope, not us.” So how do we partner with other organizations that share our vision for the future, share our commitment to making the world a different place, if not a better place? And how do we come up with solutions that actually benefit people? And increasingly, ecosystems are becoming the way to do that, it's being able to share resources, share assets and even to the point where I've seen McKinsey's done some thinking about this, Tata’s done some thinking about this. The idea that industries may ultimately disappear, there's so much blur between industries even today that will there be an automotive industry tomorrow? Will it be a mobility industry where the car company has a role, but maybe not even the central role? And how do you prepare your company to actually have a role and to either be an ecosystem maker or a valuable ecosystem participant?

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So to me, when you think about everybody on board, that might not be where I start, right? If I were a leader in an organization, I think more about how do I get the people in accounting thinking about customer experience problems, and the people in sales thinking about a back office issue? Or how do I make sure that the people that are junior in the organization have a voice in the organization? And are we inclusive and diverse enough that we can actually be a better business? And are we hearing our customers? But certainly at some point thinking, how do we actually change, affect change in the world on a much grander scale than we could do if we were just making breakfast cereal.

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Ross  

And I think if change was hard and if we think about as an individual and Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror starts with yourself. And if that's hard for an individual to give ourselves permission of how we change, what we might think, how we might behave, whether we're influenced by a great campaign that Greg did in his advertising years, or we're primed by a film we watch or a conversation we have. When we then complicate that with teams and organizations, and then we figure out what change really are, collaboration is even harder. This is a piece on top of that, where I'm reminded of what's fed us to now, what's got us to now and how we program society to function. And of course when we're in schools, we were in this dichotomy, this paradox of saying, “Do projects together, but we're going to test you on your own,” how can you work on projects, go and do that bit of homework with your research partner, but in the test, no, I can't copy off Greg, that's cheating.

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And so we have this dichotomy of our upbringing and our perceptions of what is right and wrong, what is good, what is bad, what's effective, what's not effective between knowledge, change, collaboration. And I loved how you made it really practical there Greg of collaboration at the beginning, it can be cross-departmental, cross-functional. Collaboration at the next stage can be cross-organization, at the next stage can be across industries. And how if we're motivated by a similar problem, and we have a vision for a future then everything else is up for grabs, up for play. And if we can shift from a scarcity mindset of risk, of competition, of control to one of abundance that will unlock I believe a future that is filled with hope that we can have strategic action over endless as you call it analysis of all of these things.

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And as we come to the end, Greg. I’m really interested from quarter of a century of experience around change. And at the forefront of all of this that is a perpetual motion, as you talk about in one of the principles, learn, relearn and all of this cycle that we're on. How my organization's start, they can sign up to your manifesto, and they think I get it. But what do they do next? What are some practical steps where they can see some outcomes to help build that muscle as you talked about, and send them on the path to Utopia of dealing with uncertainty? What are some of those practical steps Greg, that they could take? 

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Greg  

Sure. So I'm trying to think of where to start because there are so many, and this actually is a principle in the Manifesto, but I'm saying it not because it's a principle in the Manifesto, but because I've seen it trip so many companies up so many times, is and this seems weird that this might be a place to start, but you need to actually fund this stuff. Which sounds logical, it sounds obvious, it almost sounds stupid. But anybody who's worked in any large organization knows that at the beginning of the year, you have a 10% Innovation Fund, by the third or fourth month of the year, when you've maybe missed a number, that fund goes away, not the fund for the things that fail, but the fund for the things you haven't done yet.

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So organizations do need to invest. And when I say invest of course, financially, yes. But I would say, I mean, I think it's more mythological than it is practical in the case of Google, but like the idea of like 20% time or whatever, kind of structuring and kind of setting aside some allocation of resources to allow your people to explore, to learn, to innovate, to ideate, experiment, I think is critical. And that's something that leaders can do even if not financially, “Here's, 10% of our operating budget,” but even just from a time standpoint, giving people that kind of flexibility and permission.

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I think that another thing that organizations or people in organizations can do, and in fact, I think in many ways must do is the leaders need to actually walk the walk. Far too often, I joke all the time companies hire Chief Digital Officers, so then what does that make the CEO, the chief analog officer? There is no analog business anymore, all organizations must be digital to the core. So why is the CEO not the Chief Digital Officer, and there always seems to be this sort of built-in mechanism of pass it along. Creative role, make it functional, put walls around it, make it somebody whose job so now you have a catalyst on the one hand, great, but a lightning rod on the other.

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So I think for leaders to take personal accountability for being the change agents for their organization, rather than the sort of the CEO of the status quo. And that has obviously a lot of things associated with it that's being a student of change and embracing ambiguity and all these other things. But I think being the role model for change in your organization is an early and immediate step that any leader that is serious about changing their organization needs to take.

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And I guess it kind of even brings us back to like AQ. And I think that understanding of, one thing that we didn't look at the Adaptive Manifesto is “Okay, now, how does this kind of get down to the individual's ability to do any of these things,” which obviously is where AQ comes in and gets down to those dimensions, those personal characteristics, environmental traits, and so on.  

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And and I feel like you're to me, it became important to establish a benchmark for personal change readiness in organizations. It's like, “Okay, great, we get it, the 10 principles make perfect sense, sign us up.” But then you find invariably that you have people all along the adaptability curve, and you don't know how, when or where or why these people are being held back. Is it something in their character or is it something in the environment for example. So I think, kind of getting a gauge on the level of adaptability as it exists within the team is, I think, a fundamental and important early step as well.

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Ross  

I think it's a responsibility of leadership to take it seriously. In funding that future, you haven't got a problem if you can write a check for it, you've then just got a project. And so to think about this in terms of, “Okay, well, we might write a check, we might give time.” But then what are we doing about this? How are we measuring it? How are we giving the feedback loops? What's the systematic structure to go from this being an event to being part of our culture? And the payoff of that is thriving and sustainability. And it comes back to the adapt or die or adapt and die kind of situation, that the risk now of not taking risk outweighs anywhere where it was before.

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So I'm fascinated by your thinking, I'm very proud and grateful of you and your work, of championing the importance of thinking about adaptability sensibly, to consider it to be a student of these things, and to expand a movement and I love the way in which you position it, Greg, in terms of this is a movement for people to reimagine and to rethink the operating system that we need to take us to next, in this never normal, as you mentioned of your book.

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If people want to engage, and you have delivered some incredible talks all over the world on a variety of stages. If they want to engage with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch, Greg?

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Greg  

Easiest way is put some email is probably an easy way. And the easiest email to remember is probably me, Me@GregVerdino.com obviously you can contact me through Adapt Manifesto as well or through my website or find me on all of the social networks that you enjoy or not, as the case may be, but I'm on all of them, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, etc, etc.

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Ross  

And my last question for you, Greg. And it links to the curiosity and doing things for the first time and I'd like you to share it. Final story of what did you do if you can share it, without it being too… What did you do for the first time, Greg? That was the last first time you did something if that makes sense?

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Greg  

The last first time I did something, geez.

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Ross  

There's a cognitive twist to that one.

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Greg  

Yeah, there is. So the last, I would say, I mean probably the last most significant thing I did was teach myself to DJ and start posting sets online. So I've got a little following of folks that follow my DJ sets.

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Ross  

And what's your genre of choice, Greg? 

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Greg  

I've been DJing house music, although I don't listen to that much house music, but that's where I started.

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Ross  

I love it. And that thing for all of you as you're listening, not only when was the last time you did something for the first time but is that becoming part of your life perpetually. As children, every time we're doing things, it's for the first time. Let's keep our inner children alive by looking for doing things for the first time. And it will keep us young. It'll keep us adaptive. And hey, it might just create the kind of future that we're better off having. So thank you, Greg. It's been a real pleasure. And I look forward to many conversations in the future with you.

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Greg  

Thanks so much, Ross. Have a good one.

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Voiceover  

Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive in the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo-yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill, and breakthrough? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ visit "AQai.io" To gain your personalized report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability for limited time enter code "Podcast65" for a complimentary AQ me assessment. AQ AI transforming the way people, teams, and organizations navigate change.

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Outro

Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding AQ. Please make sure you subscribe to your favorite podcast directory, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.

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