Managing change effectively

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In the modern business world, the one constant is change. It’s essential for growth, adaptability, and long-term success. Organisations that embrace change with a well-thought-out strategy that involves key stakeholders are able to unlock new opportunities and overcome challenges more effectively. This was undoubtedly true during the pandemic when organisations were tested as never before. Some showed how well and how quickly they could navigate change, but many others found the fast-moving circumstances far more difficult to deal with.

Organisations that thrive are ones that can respond to an ever-changing environment but the ability to change has to be built into an organisation so it can deliver and adopt to change both in the present and future.  This requires change capability, the comprehensive and dynamic way organisations adapt, learn, and innovate, to manage change effectively. Combining leadership, culture, engagement, and strategic alignment it ensures an organisation remains resilient and responsive in an ever-changing business world.

Change capability is not just about dealing with occasional changes, it reflects a more fundamental and ingrained capacity to continuously evolve and thrive. It means an organisation can navigate its way through different types of change and respond to internal and external shifts. It shows how capable an organisation is of delivering long term change with minimal disruption to its operation and its stakeholders.

This of course makes the ability to manage and adapt to change an essential skill for any business leader. Driving change requires leaders who are adaptable and able to prepare their organisation to withstand external pressures and then come out fighting. Leaders who can’t deal with a rapid rate of change quickly lose their credibility and fail to achieve the required results. Its therefore imperative that organisations ensure that the critical capability skills of its leaders are competitive and relevant.

In today’s complex business environment organisations and leaders need the ability to navigate change. Building sustainable change capability can ensure that changes made to the structure, operation, or culture of an organisation are accepted and long-lasting, that leaders are proactive, innovative, and resilient in the face of uncertainty, and contribute to the long-term success of their organisation.

Journaling for self-awareness and growth

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Keywords

Resilience – Journaling – Leadership – Self-awareness - Growth

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Antonio Garrido, an expert in leadership transformation and Founder and President of My Daily Leadership, discusses the importance of journaling for self-awareness and personal growth. Antonio explains how he was led to journaling, how it helps develop emotional intelligence and resilience, and identify blind spots. He emphasises the need to be intentional and specific in writing down thoughts and beliefs, and how important it is in building self-awareness and gratitude. Antonio also provides practical steps for starting journaling, including affirmations, setting goals, and reflecting on progress.

Main topics

  • The importance of journaling and how to start it.

  • How journaling can enhance learning and personal development.

  • Prompts and exercises for journaling.

  • How journaling helps with self-awareness, resilience, emotional intelligence, etc.

  • Journaling to help in setting goals and affirmations, beliefs, and commitments.

 Timestamps

1: Introductions - 00:02-00:18
2: Antonio's Background - Antonio shares a brief overview of his background, including his Spanish and Greek heritage, his experience working for large organisations, and his decision to become a coach - 00:50-02:34
3: The Conversation with the Group Chairman - Antonio recounts a conversation he had with the group chairman, where he was asked to write down the characteristics of a terrible boss. This conversation serves as a practical exercise - 12:09-15:38
4: The Importance of Journaling - Antonio discusses the significance of journaling and how it can enhance learning and personal development. He shares his own experience of journaling and explains different models that can be followed - 19:40-26:59
5: Setting Goals and Closing Gaps - Antonio emphasises the importance of setting goals and closing gaps. He suggests starting with affirmations, core values, and personal and business goals, and encourages the audience to write about them - 28:01-31:47
6: Commitments and Evaluation - Antonio introduces the concept of making daily commitments and evaluating progress. He explains the process of morning momentum and evening evaluation, encouraging the audience to give themselves a report card - 33:13-35:12
7: Resources and Conclusion - Antonio provides information about his book, website, and resources related to leadership and journaling. He expresses gratitude for the conversation and concludes the podcast - 36:31-37:26

Action items

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Navigating an organisational pivot

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Keywords - Resilience - Organisational Pivots - Change - Personal Growth

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Jason Shen, an executive coach with a focus on resilience and reinvention who is renowned for guiding entrepreneurs through crucial transitions.  A former national champion gymnast Jason faced multiple setbacks including layoffs, lawsuits, company failure, and traumatic knee injuries, so he understands what it takes to adapt and overcome adversity!

Jason talks about the importance of continuous learning and personal growth and talks about his background in the commercial world, including working in marketing roles and starting companies. The conversation focuses on organisational pivots and the importance of making changes earlier rather than later and Jason emphasises the need for leaders to adapt their leadership approach during these transitions. They also touch upon personal resilience and how taking care of physical and creative/emotional needs is essential. Cultural considerations are mentioned, such as differences between men and women's expressions of emotions or vulnerability based on Eastern/Western philosophies.

Main topics

  • The concept and process of organisational pivots

  • The impact of founders in organisational pivots

  • The relationship between resilience and pivots.

  • Cultural considerations in coaching

  • Exploring different coaching approaches

Timestamps

1: Introduction and Background - 00:02-00:44
2: Understanding Organisational Pivots- 02:17-04:06
3: Navigating Organisational Pivots - 04:06-06:23
4: Developing Leadership Capacity during Pivots - 07:21-07:30, 07:55-08:59
5: Cultural Considerations in Pivots - 09:46-12:07
6: The Cycle of Learning and Support - 14:46-16:02
7: Overcoming the Fear of Not Knowing - 16:35-17:32
8: The Role of Coaching in Organisational Change - 20:37-22:19
9: The Path to Pivot Book - 22:19-23:41

Action items

Jason’s book is called "The Path to Pivot," or find out more at jasonshen.com

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.   

Using anger for positive change

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 Keywords

Resilience – Anger – Change – Abuse – Personal Growth – Speaking Up

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Alyse Maslonik shares her inspiring story of overcoming poverty and domestic abuse to become a successful advisor. Despite facing numerous hardships in her life, Alyse maintains a positive perspective by focusing on the good people and communities around her. She discusses the importance of resilience, how anger can be transformed into a tool for growth, how past experiences shape us as people, and how women are often discouraged from expressing anger. She shares her personal experience with abuse and how she had to transform her anger into something positive.

Alyse also highlights the need for funding social programs to prevent future problems and save lives and touches on the societal pressures that prevent women from speaking up for their rights and changing the status quo. The mission of her organisation RedefinED Advisors is to redefine education in the United States, particularly for underprivileged students. The organisation raises funding for public school students who are failing due to lack of resources and provides scholarships for those experiencing financial hardships or trauma.

Main topics

  • The idea of resilience and how it can be learned.

  • How anger can be used as a tool for good.

  • The importance of learning from past experiences.

  • RedefinED Advisors, and their work in the education sector.

  • The need for action and creating actionable items to create change.

  • Why women are discouraged from expressing anger

Timestamps

1: Introductions Russell introduces Alyse Maslonik. They briefly discuss Elise's upcoming appearance on the news and her recent achievement. Elise talks about her background and starting her life in a domestic abuse shelter. - 00:00 to 01:50

2:  Resilience and Overcoming Adversity. Russell and Alyse discuss the importance of resilience. They talk about how people can rise above difficult backgrounds and use their past experiences to propel themselves forward. Elise shares her own story of going through a criminal trial after experiencing abuse. They discuss the idea that people should not be ashamed of their anger. - 04:46 to 13:49

3: Redefining Education and Scholarships. Alyse talks about her organisation, RedefinED Advisors, and their mission to provide scholarship funding for underprivileged students. Russell and Alyse Elise discuss the importance of education and scholarships. They briefly touch on Elise's upcoming book. - 25:08 to 29:46

4: Taking Action and Creating Change. Russell and Alyse discuss the need for action to create change. - 31:07 to 32:39

Action items

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Training and development – just as important for older workers

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With the UK government making plans to try to attract the over 50’s back to the workplace, it’s essential that businesses are ready to give older workers more training and development opportunities.

The UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt recently stated there are currently 6.6 million “economically inactive” people in the UK, with one million of those aged between 50 and 64. Whilst getting some of these people back into the workforce may well help reduce the current number of vacancies, a large number of the over 50’s already in the workforce are suffering a form of ageism through a lack of training and development opportunities.

Ceridian’s 2023 Pulse of Talent survey shows that as a worker’s age increases, their chances for workplace learning and development opportunities decreases with 31% of respondents aged 45 – 54 and 54% of those aged 65+ saying they hadn’t received any such opportunities over the last year.

Although employers often assume it’s more important to invest financially in training younger staff, on average older workers stay in their jobs longer which provides an extended period for employers to see a return on the initial cost of training. Additionally, many older workers require training that builds on their existing skill set and this can considerably improve the productivity of experienced staff. There is also the loss of a vast amount of information, both technical and organsiational, that older workers possess so it's a huge missed opportunity if their knowledge and experience isn’t passed on.

There are significant returns for companies that invest in growth opportunities for older employees. These can include greater productivity, higher engagement, and less customer turnover through the stronger business relationships older workers often build. The key to achieving this is to have an inclusive approach that makes the most of training resources and having employees of all ages participating fully in the appraisal programme.

No matter what their age, all employees require learning and development opportunities throughout their working life. As the population’s median age increases so too will the average working life. Its therefore essential that older workers are supported and encouraged to stay in the workforce for their personal growth and for the organisation's success.
 

 

Choice, growth and resilience

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Amy Eliza Wong has been a leadership coach for ten years and partners with leaders and teams on growth, transformation and flow with a particular interest in communication, which she feels is the entry point for all things transformation. Before she became a leadership coach, she worked at Sun Microsystems for ten years having studied mathematics at Berkeley. After having her first child she gained a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, a subject she found fascinating, and this combined with her Maths background provided the perfect balance for coaching.

Psychology is the study of mental processes in human behaviour but Transactional Psychology is not limited to mental processes. It looks at the systems view of the human condition, factoring in things like consciousness in the womb, consciousness as a whole and also pulls in ancient wisdom traditions so becomes a much larger study of Psychology. 

Amy looks at resilience in terms of growth. We are interfacing with the stuff of life and every moment is contributing to our growth. Perspectives and beliefs are growing whether we like it or not. Growth and resilience go hand in hand. We can think about our growth in two ways - by accident or on purpose. If we want to be resilient we need to take life by the horns and maximise our wellbeing by embracing both. Most people focus on growth on purpose because that's what’s wanted – its the things we planned for, were hoping for and were willing to get uncomfortable for but it's the growth by accident that we need to look at. This is usually related to shame, disappointment or embarrassment - the stuff of failures, mistakes and setbacks - but where we have tools to harness both categories that's when we live on purpose.

Amy uses purpose as an adverb - on purpose meaning that it is intentional and we are fully harnessing choice with full intension and awareness. When we can choose to be on purpose we choose to harness our choice and respond rather than react to life.  Doing things with a sense of purpose knowing where you are growing and doing it purposefully.

Amy’s book is called Living on Purpose which is based on her own personal stories about growth and transformation and conversations she has had with a diverse set of individuals. She uses these powerful stories with social neuroscience to present a roadmap of the five choices of perceptional shifts that we can choose to make in order to stop self sabotage and loose the self imposed limitations we have. These are born in our belief system and it’s the interpretations we make that end up muting the quality of our own life.

People want to achieve something. The thing could be to make more money, to own their business, become a CEO etc., but Amy feels that we only think we want the thing we want. What we actually want is the feeling we think we would have as a result of achieving that thing. We are trained to use the thing as a proxy – we became attached to the thing and the strategy of realising it. This is largely due to educational system and how we develop as humans. In school we do what we were told. To get good grades, to make our parents happy and get into a good college and university, then to get a good job, make lots of money and then we’ll be happy. We put all our trust into following this strategy because it’s what I’m supposed to do to be happy. It never works though because we never really check if that's what’s going to get me to what I really want to feel. The choice is to feel it out rather than figure it out.

The chief source of failure is choosing what you want in the moment rather than what really want. This captures the slipperiness of choice because we can say we want to be healthy but at the same time we really want a bag of potato chips and to watch the game. We have to look at what we truly want and be honest with ourselves. What is the choice that aligns with what we truly want rather than what we want in the moment. We are not set up to have deferred gratification and are constantly investing in cognitive processing and energy to achieve that. Aligning our chemistry with our purpose is important. Quick wins are important. Self care, getting enough sleep and eating well are all important because if we are if not in an optimal state it is even harder to find the band width and reserves to make the choice that truly serves us.

Her new book is Living on Purpose: Five Deliberate Choices to Realize Fulfillment and Joy (BrainTrust Ink, May 24, 2022).

Learn more at alwaysonpurpose.com. 

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Rewiring the brain. Self-talk, self-image and making it reality

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The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Rewiring the brain. Self-talk, self-image and making it reality.

Steven Campbell was a University Professor and Educational Dean in Northern California for over 20 years. Having initially worked in hospital administration, he went on to take his degree in Computer Science before going on to teach Psychology. The message he shares with his students is that ‘while I’m talking to you you’re also talking to yourself but 1000’s of times faster ‘. When people talk to you they use words but when we talk to ourselves as well as words we also use pictures and feelings.

In 1961, Dr. Albert Ellis wrote a book called The Guide to Rational Living. In it he suggested that our feelings about ourselves don't come primarily from how we are raised or our successes and failures but from our beliefs about how we were raised or our successes or failures. Some people say they don’t know what to believe and Steven feels that we want to know what we believe, we need to listen to what we are saying to ourselves – our self-talk.

One of the most exciting discoveries that psychology has made is that our brain believes what we tell it, without question. Everything we do today is primarily based on what we say to ourselves about ourselves, today. We can change what we are saying to ourselves about ourselves and our brain just doesn’t care if what we say is true or not. You could say to yourself “I’m not very good at Maths’ and your brain will say “Yes, you’re right. You’re not good at Maths” and then it will look for other times you got something wrong. However, if you say “I really like Maths’ the brain says ‘OK’ and then looks for ways to show it. So, if we say “I really can do this” the brain will say, “Absolutely” and find ways of doing it. The principle is that our brain listens to us and rewires itself based on the messages we give it. This is neuroplasticity. The way we are today is primarily based on what we tell ourselves today. When we say something it is the brains job to make it true.

We all also have thousands of self-images. We have a self-image for every single thing that we do, for instance as a father, husband, grandfather, teacher, or singer. Some self-images are really strong and others less so, but we are not born with them, they are all learned.  We are also born with certain natural dispositions or things that we naturally love to do. We may have had to learn how to do it, but the learning isn’t hard because it was what we could do naturally. So, our self-images are learned from our self-talk and our self-images are based on what we are saying to ourselves about ourselves, today.

What holds us back from learning, growing and changing is ourselves. If we replace our self-talk we will then replace our self-images. The more we talk the more it will becomes a reality. We need to take our self-talk and use it to make it work. It’s not about just having an opinion. Rewiring the brain takes time because the brain doesn’t want to change, it wants to keep us risk free.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Steven here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find our more about Steven at StevenRCampbell.com or find out about his book is Making Your Mind Magnificent – Flourishing at Any Age.