Becoming A Driver Of Change With Lisa Carlin

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Welcome to the Change Proof Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I love the guest I've got. You're gonna really enjoy her presence and her, her way of thinking, her insights, et cetera. I'm gonna share a little bit more about her in, and then we'll just jump right in as usual. So her name is Lisa Carlin, and she is a strategy execution specialist. She helps business leaders to plan and execute their strategic projects such as AI in tough environments. She's run her own successful advisory business for more than 25 years, delivering more than 50 transformation programs in organizations large and small. We're gonna talk about some of those today as well. Her newsletter, Turbocharge Weekly, is read by almost 8,000 executives. Again, this conversation's gonna be chock-full of, of really interesting stuff, and you're gonna love it. Sit back or walk, run, whatever you're gonna do, but just Put yourself in a position to truly be present and enjoy my conversation today with Lisa Carlin. Okay, Lisa, so I'm already anticipating what will be an epic conversation. I loved our bit of warmup before we even hit the record button, and now you've just heard me introduce you and share a little bit about your background and the CV and all that good stuff, your experience. What is something, maybe one thing that is not part of your bio, the standard intro and all that kind of thing. One thing that you would love for people to know about you?

Well, you know, Adam, when people meet me and they read my bio and they know what I do, it's all about people, right? So it's all about behavioral change at work, culture, getting things done at scale in organizations through understanding human beings. But underneath all of that, I'm actually a tech geek. When I was in high school, my father was— he imported one of the first— I grew up in South Africa. And my father imported one of the first computers and built it from scratch with the motherboard and all soldering all the chips onto it. And then we, it just got infectious and I started learning how to program. And at that age when that wasn't taught at school, and when all my friends were playing Atari and Pac-Man and all those sorts of things, I was writing these stories, that interactive games. And I've always just been a bit of a tech geek. So I had a Palm Pilot and then after that, one of the first smartphones, which was called a Treo, way before Apple came up with the iPhone. And that's why I just love AI underneath all of it. Yes. And it was such an interesting—

when you're a lover of more interpersonal work, and I think you and I, we have this in common. I was in the law and for 20 years I was in that sort of area of my life as a lawyer. But the interpersonal stuff felt like that was the stuff I enjoyed the most, but it was the least of what I did. It was certainly the least of what paid the bills in that particular arena for me at that time. And the work I do now and the work you do working in organizations with teams, with leaders, etcetera, it's very much an interpersonal thing. And yet, even though we love that, I also so geek out on research side of things, on the data. I never would've believed that that would've been the case. And I love tech on so many levels. And, and we actually developed an AI bot, a clone of me about 3 months ago. We went into beta with it. We've been working on it for several months before that. And even at this stage where AI is quite well developed and a lot of people obviously can see that it is here to stay and it is prolific and ubiquitous, all, it's gonna change the world even more than it has already. I still feel like we're a little ahead of the curve that not everybody yet has got to that stage. It's fun that you and I have that in common. We love tech on top of it.

Yeah, that's exciting that you've built your own bot. I go and talk to different CEO roundtables and audiences about AI and how to, how to plan into the strategic planning for AI. And I ask a show of hands who's dabbling in AI, who's using AI in their business. And it's quite interesting that the proportion's really low. So if you ask people, have you ever tried ChatGPT? Almost everybody will put their hand up now. They've tried it, but then that's it. And they're just still— it's taking a while to get over that fear, I think. When you like technology like you do, Adam, you don't fear it. And so that's why you've become one of the early adopters. And I don't either. The tech professions scare people. They do. They use all these acronyms and people think, oh, that's going to take my job. Even when the internet came out, if you think back to that, and nervous people were at first to experiment or, and couldn't quite understand that they could actually find things out there. And that's part of all the resilience that you talk about, really. It really is. It's just having that resilience to I guess, try things out. Yeah. And make that conscious decision to try things out.

You remember, obviously we both remember the turn of the century. It's an amazing thing when you could have part of your life overlaps an actual turn of the century, which is pretty cool, right? And not be like so young that you don't even remember it or so old that you don't even remember it. You know, the turn of the century, obviously in 2000, among it being this amazing experience, and I remember like seeing the fireworks from Sydney, Australia on the TV and it was the Opera House there. It was right behind the Opera House and that beautiful Sydney Bridge. I mean, it was pretty indelible in my memory now. But the other thing that was also hard to forget was the paranoia around Y2K. Do you remember how, how like off-the-wall nuts people were about what was going to happen?

When all those computers clocked over and then, then it got 1 January and it was like an anticlimax. And then we were merrily carrying on and then we had the dot-com crash and then everything. Yeah. It's just all these cycles. Yeah.

Exactly. Literally the thought that the world was going to end. Yeah. It's an interesting thing to be so much of the social sciences, and I was an English major in college and just steered away from all that math-related things or science-related so much to be so embracing of it at this phase. And in part because I feel like there's an element, and when we talk about AI, when I deliver talks, keynotes, and things like that, or we do work with companies, We often are talking about it from the standpoint of how it can contribute to wellbeing in the workplace, which is not a technologist's perspective on it. Because the ability to use it as a tool for productivity, but also for creating this more sort of harmony between your work life and your not work life. There's so many tools available. I mean, even the term artificial intelligence, which I know goes back into the '50s really when these things were really first being coined, as I understand it. I prefer, and we've been using the, the term more augmented intelligence. Mm-hmm. As a way to see how does it augment the intelligence of the universe, our intelligence, collective intelligence of our teams, of organizations, which is an interesting way to look at it, we think. I wanna get your beat on it cuz I know you work with leaders and you work to empower them and even create transformations within organizations. I wanna get a little of the backstory on how you got sort of pointed in that direction, and it's obviously it has stuck. But I'm sure there's some earlier pivot stories of things that you were doing and that were leading to this. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Could you kinda bring us back maybe to one of those moments where maybe you were still searching for what would feel good when you got up in the morning to do?

Yeah. There were 2, really. I was working at Accenture, and that was in Cape Town. And I did that for a short while and couple of years, and We were developing some systems. So I thought I'd go into that because I love tech and it wasn't for me. I missed getting out there and I wanted to work with people. But what I had this epiphany, I guess, is around we had developed all these great systems and the work was such high caliber that the organization was doing. And then people didn't always use them in that, like in the right way. They were scared to use them. Like you talk about Y2K. I remember training one guy and he was an older man and we filled out all the information on the screen and he had to press the return enter key, and he was actually scared to do that in case he put something in wrong. That fear. I realized the people side of things were really important, so I became interested in change management. And then cutting a long story short, I went to go live in the US and I had the opportunity to work for McKinsey, and that was fantastic. We were doing all this amazing strategy work and we delivered these brilliant pieces of strategy work to the clients. And McKinsey does some fantastic fabulous work, amazing. And then I'd have this sinking feeling that they don't have the will or skill to do anything with it. And so they've got the strategy, but like, where to from there? And again, I became really interested not only in the change management, but also in the culture of organizations and how do you get that strategic influence to move forward and get things done. And that was really when I— so those 2 experiences, led me to really wanna focus on getting things done in organizations through people and culture. And that's when I started my own. I went to go work for a firm that focused on that and then started my own business in 1999. Yeah.

So you had the entrepreneur sort of DNA, I guess, right?

Yeah, I never really thought about it that much because I just knew this is what I wanna do. And it was more like the solopreneur, like I'm just gonna go and do this myself because I've got the skills to do the work. I know I'm gonna put it all together and run these multifunctional projects and programs of change. And that's what I've done. I've done over 50 of them. And I wanna work directly with clients without having the interface of a consulting firm. So when you work on your own, you've got a lot more flexibility around working with the client and the way you wanna work with them. And you don't have to pay for an office, so you can—

Pass on the savings.

You can, and you can work there for longer, you know, rather than hiring a firm that, that can't wait to get you out because of the expense.

We find the same thing. And I would say agility is not just a word. Being agile is really— you can see almost from the start just what it looks like when you're working with an organization that is sort of stuck in process and stuck in their own systems and not therefore able to be flexible and adaptive, truly adaptive, which is ironic. Systems are required and structure is required. And yet people can get locked and stuck inside of those things. I would love to, if we can, maybe take a little survey of the journey because you mentioned, and it is part of your bio, this sort of 50 transformations in organizations that I'm sure span like this massive diversity of everything we could probably imagine. Let's see, is there a through line in looking at 50 organizations? What can we say is the— is there a common sort of a thread that runs through them all when it comes to change? Let's start there. How do organizations typically either sort of fail at change or sometimes better than would be expected even? What have you found in having that many organizations to draw upon in terms of your experience?

Well, it's been an interesting ride and I've been very fortunate because I'm a dog with a bone, like a dog with a bone. Like, I, I'm incredibly persistent and I will find a way through to get things implemented. I've had 2 failures out of the first 50 programs I've done, and, and so I'm pretty proud of that. And I've learned from those failures. I think the hardest thing that people don't— and they don't think about them with change and all the different organizations— is that if I always say to people, understand culture. Of the organization. Understand culture, not just to change it, but actually to navigate through it. Understand culture to navigate it, not just to change it, because people talk about the culture of the organization and they talk about how they wanna change it to be, I don't know, more innovative or more performance orientated or whatever it is. But effectively, to achieve change, leaders have got to navigate through the existing culture before they can even think about changing it. Especially new leaders. Like I see there's so much churn in organizations. You see people coming and going. The new leaders come in and they're often the ones that want to achieve change and they want to achieve cultural change. And unless they actually fit in and accepted by the organization, they can't change anything. And so they first got to understand the culture. And there's always— by understanding the culture, you can figure out how to get through the difficulties and how to get things done. So I'll give you an example. In a very large bureaucratic bank. They'd merged in, they'd actually acquired another significant business in financial services, and they were trying to integrate them together. And I ran a stream of work there to do the integration. And there was such— people identified with their silos. They were— it was a very siloed culture, and we needed cross-functional participation and integration to get things over the line. And I formed this cross-functional group, and the way we formed it and the way we got people involved and the way we worked together, I found a way to get them all to identify with the same success measure. And then, only then, could we really get people thinking outside their silos. Like, they come from marketing or their product area, wherever they come from in the bank, they all want this particular project to be successful. And then it becomes a bit of a game, right? Because you've got a timeframe and you've got to get it done and everybody's pulling together. Then you get excitement and you get some visibility. You give some visibility to the folks that are involved so that they feel like it's really the success of this project is critical for them in their career, right? You find like those kinds of reasons why people want this to be successful. And it all works. And we got in, we got the project done on time, got the integration happening, and everybody was thrilled because it was really hard. It was really hard to do And because of that siloed culture, that's where it's really hard. You find these aspects of the culture that is going to stop things happening and people working together. And I find that all the time.

Yeah. I just was having a conversation this morning with a colleague of mine about this, and I'll tell you what we were talking about and ask you the same question, which is in an organization where you're trying to assess where things are at, if you speak to people, often When it comes to advocating or discussing what change might look like or change that has to happen, people will advocate for their own existence. They very rarely are going to advocate for something that makes them vulnerable to obsolescence or to redundancy or any of those things. So you find that status quo, even though we all know that status quo is not a reason to wake up and be excited about your day and And status quo will ultimately— and when I ask people about this, they always nod, you know, yes, of course that makes sense. Status quo will lead to mediocrity. It will lead to toxicity. It will ultimately lead to the devolution of a system because we're either growing, you know, systems are either in some form of growth or they're in some form of decay. And everybody gets that. And yet again, people will not advocate against their own interests. It's a kind of a default way of responding to things. So when you are looking at an organization and trying to assess culture, it's really difficult to kind of ask people about it because they're like the fish that's in the water and all that kind of thing. What are some of the things that you look at? I mean, what are some of the things that after having done this so long that you can almost, as a matter of gut instinct or as a litmus test, or it's just something that is tried and true for you, like a smell that you just go, mm, Yes, I can smell fear. I can smell that this is a fear-based culture or whatever the things are that we find that are getting in the way of true evolution. What are some of those things for you? And is there a funny story or an interesting cautionary tale in there that you've seen? Anything like that?

You just have these conversations with people, like it's those water cooler moments, right? What's it like to work here? Do you like your job? And that's even a closed question. I'm trying to ask the open questions, right? Like, what's it like to work here? But even if you ask a closed question like, do you like your job, right? That is like red rag to a bull, and you'll get all sorts of things. Really, just— I spend time at the beginning of every project really getting to know the organization. And I start with the leader who's hired me and say, tell me what it's like to work here. And then people share the most interesting things. I mean, I worked with one CEO So she told me that she was planning to leave confidentially and why she didn't want to stay in the organization. And it sort of hits you, right, when she starts talking about it, that why it's not the place that she wants to be and what's wrong with what's in that culture that's not working, which is ironic because the CEO has a huge influence over the culture that she wants to create. And she could, you can create leaders can create and change the culture. It takes a while. It's like a ship, turning a ship, and it's slow. I just ask, I just talk to people and they tell me stuff. And if you've spoken to at least 6 to 8 people in an organization, by then, after about the 8th person, you're not gonna hear anything new from a cultural point of view. You just pick up those tips. And what advice I give to people is I have a membership that I run called the Turbocharge Hub. And what we do, it's all about how to get influence at scale in an organization to get change to happen. And everything I teach looks at that culture lens, and I give them a list, people a list of different types of culture. I say, well, pick 1, 2, 3 at most attributes of the organization that are the most significant in how things work around here and prioritize them. What's first? What's second? What's third? And People can do that, and that's going to be as accurate as these. I've done multimillion-dollar cultural diagnostics, and there's value to those in some ways too. But people have these conversations, and people know. If you explain to them how to define culture, they'll know. Don't you find, Adam, in all your work that you hear a lot of, oh, this is a great place to work, or this is a great culture? And that word great, what does that mean anyway? It doesn't define things.

No, it doesn't. And I agree with you that the question of what's it like around here, what's it like to work in this environment, leads to the most interesting, transparent revelations. People will— there's quite a lot of gossip, frankly. There's a lot of people that will just speak and tell you things you seemingly couldn't imagine anybody sharing, certainly not with a stranger, not with somebody who's even been hired to be in that investigative So it, that's interesting. And again, that's a reflection of what it's like inside of that organization, whether or not those things are in some ways either rewarded or are being modeled elsewhere where there's permission that's given or where it's even sort of a response to a lack of voice and a lack of people's ability to communicate their feedback. And when that feedback system or loop, as we refer to it, is not operative, then people have other ways of exercising their displeasure or they find other outlets for their thoughts, constructive or otherwise. To me, again, there are lots of little tells. That's one of them I've found inside some big organizations, the willingness to sort of crap on things and crap on other people and Is a tell. Sometimes it's just a person, but often it's not just a person. It's a person that may lean that way, may be predisposed to that on a personal level, but it's inside of that ecosystem that they're empowered to do that, or that's their response to the fact that they don't have any other, any other healthy outlets for it. I would love to know, in your experiences, is there some aspect of a broken culture or toxic culture or cancerous culture that you find is more prevalent? And the reason I say this is because to me, again, this conversation I had with a colleague earlier today was about the fact that it, you sort of looking at it from a, a nature's, like a holistic standpoint, you're always going to find something that's either in that phase of it's growing, it's evolving, or it's dying, it's decaying. And so if you look at an organism, it's not any different than looking at an organization which is made up of many organisms. It's either going to be in one of those stages or some variation in that cycle. Often we're brought in, I prefer to be brought into an organization that isn't, is actually in an evolutionary stage and phase. I prefer that because to me it's again a reflection of the leadership and even the culture that when times are good, they invest in continuing for times to be good and for them to be even better. They're not riding on whatever it is on their success or banking on it versus the companies that will only sometimes bring people in when something's totally broken. And then there are these other companies that when things are broken, they're in the greatest feeling of fear and scarcity, and therefore they won't invest any money in anything that isn't so like driving sales or cutting expenses kind of cycle. And that's even among public companies, right? So it's just shocking how The mentality is so repetitive, so commonplace. But again, is there something that you've noticed in your work that is just sort of the most prevalent tell of a culture that is in need of support?

Well, more so than even observing, when I've looked at the research, Human Synergistics does some really interesting research, and they've got millions of people that have filled out surveys on their tool, Organizational Cultural Inventory, OCI. And oppositional cultures come up as number one. This is where people are more likely to say no than yes, right, and be really cynical. And it's those cultures that— so you see those, that's what the research is saying. When I go into organizations that tend to be larger, that's where you would be most likely to see these sorts of oppositional cultures. Typical picture is the ostrich. It's no, and there's often an ostrich with its head in the sand. I don't want— but that just just like very focused on what's in it for me, right? And I don't want to hear your stuff. It's new. You know, you talk about that whole Y2K syndrome and new technology, new anything. I don't want to hear about it because I'm too scared. I'm scared it's going to show me up in some way that's bad. It's easier for me to point fingers and say why your idea is not going to work, and then I'm safe. And that's very dangerous in an organization. I'm sure you've seen that.

I might call that like the status quo bias.

Yes.

You're right. That sense of it's easier to say no. I saw that as a lawyer too, because in many ways what lawyers get paid to do in certain respects is to sort of say why something will not work. I mean, transactional attorneys or attorneys that are involved even in organizational—

Exactly. Pointing out flaws. That's what you're paid to do, right? Find the flaws.

Yeah. And it's easier to do that because it's safer. To do that than it is to say why something might work or could work or to advocate for it. Because if it doesn't work, then you said we could get away with that. You said we could do that. And clearly that didn't work out. It's on you. Yeah. I mean, it's, if we're diagnosing that, let's say, let's just say that's what we've found.

Let's say that comes out as your number one feature of your culture. We take it out. Narrow it down to just a few things. And what's the main feature of the culture? Yeah, oppositional.

We take out our prescription pad. What's gonna be on your prescription pad for that, for that leader, that senior leader team? What are you gonna tell them?

Yeah, well, my focus is all about how you can get things done and you can get forward momentum. And that oppositional culture is exactly the opposite, right? Because if you're gonna point out the flaws and find mistakes and It's the gas and brake. It's exactly diametrically opposed. It's really important that people have a chance to do some self-discovery in there so they can understand it and work through that and understand what it means. And then I help them develop the execution architecture, if you like, the way, the ecosystem that is going to help them to get things done. And I'll give you one easy trick out of all of this, right? for an oppositional culture. So I've got lists of different types of culture, and what I teach people is how do you set up that execution from a project management point of view, from a change management point of view, from a strategy point of view, from a leadership style point of view? How do you work within that culture to get things done? One example, when you're oppositional, you like to critique things because that's coming from your place of fear, and you're always going to do that before you ultimately, if you're going to agree to something, you're still going to start from that negative place. You need to give people that forum to be as negative as possible and get it all out first before you even turn to the positive. I set up a conversation that says, okay, let's go through all the problems with this idea, and then we're going to look at the positives and how it could work. And that simple way of doing things by starting with the negative, because you know people want that outlet for all their fears, Yes. and then focusing on the positive and how you can make it work. That just simple technique works really, really powerfully because by asking people, then they get out all their negativity, they get out all the issues and fears, and then by asking them to focus and brainstorm on the positive things and how it can work, it's when people start, right, oh, actually we could do this and we could do that, and then they tackle some of those fears that they've raised, and that's a really exciting process.

Yeah, it is, especially when you see that people shift. And it is, I mean, people are, can be tough nuts for sure, but it is also possible to see these sort of micro movements and you could call them changes or behavioral change, but it's really not, like you said, it's more of a default mode, if you will, that people lean toward, as you say, opposition or naysaying or waiting to see whether or not other people will adopt or other, how it will be going before they— Yeah. commit to, whether they're bought in or not, that self-preservation, really.

Yeah. And I've used it for some of the toughest leaders I've come across. So one CEO said to me, his people, his CFO had asked me to come in and have a look at the structure they've got for growth. And I didn't think that what they had, it was a global growth plan and it wasn't gonna work. First spoke with the CFO, then went into the CEO and started talking to him after doing some work around what are some options. And he paid me but did not want to hear my answer that he was wrong. Very oppositional, very brash, very arrogant style. Very hard for me to come into his organization after a minute of being there and tell him he's wrong. And I used that same technique. And you know what? He turned around and he said to me, yeah, actually, I want what you're saying. I understand that other option is the way I need to go. But I'd given him a chance to think through again the positives and the negatives, and he could see the issues with what he had in mind.

Yeah. I'm curious just on the side of business development for, as an example, just to have that conversation for a moment. What's the most difficult part about, because before we even hit the record button, you and I were having a moment and just vibing on the good news in our lives and our work lives. That we get to work within groups of people, within teams and organizations, and see, either see an actual ripple effect of positive change that occurs in level of engagement and the performance and, and many other metrics that, that get measured throughout one of our engagements. But we also get to assume it, even if we can't see it, if we don't see it at some point. We just know that if we can have a positive impact on someone who's in a leadership role, Or on a team itself, that there will be this ripple effect that we may not be around to see. It could be 2 years from now, 3 years from now. There's still some true benefit from it, which is quite exciting. And yet to get inside, to be given that, the proximity, it's a privilege. It's an honor. We, we're paid to do it for sure. It is not an everyday occurrence, and it's not a, a thing that, that is where that access is given lightly. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Just curious, what do you find is the greatest challenge in some of the, just the early conversations that you have with either someone who's a champion already or someone that's been referred to you, or you've been given introduction and now you're having conversation and it's, it's like a person that you see on the street that's walking with a baby carriage and you look inside that carriage and you see a baby in there. You would never say, oh, what an ugly baby you have. A, you wouldn't say it because it's not true. I don't think there's ever, ever an ugly baby. I'm saying that. I don't really believe that. But even if you did think somehow that that was not an attractive baby, it would be the most insulting possible thing you could ever say to anybody.

That is why— sorry, I'm jumping in the middle here. That is why consultants never say, this is your problem. They will say, this is your opportunity.

It's dicey, right? Yeah. I mean, especially if you're sitting down with somebody who's in a senior-level role, maybe even a CEO, and you could just tell, like, because you've done it long enough that you just go, you're the problem. You're a part of the problem. You're, you're part of the problem. I know that's what we're gonna find out. But I mean, outside of something like that, what are those conversations like for you? And, and, you know, you did share that there were 2 engagements that didn't go well. Would you mind just Giving us not the gory details, but I'm sure people would be curious, like, what didn't go well or right and why? And what did you learn from those experiences?

Yeah, the one which was a major point in my life, I guess, which was I'm wired, like I said to you, to just be really persistent and find different alternatives, different solutions, and to find those solutions to make things work. And so that's what I'm used to, and they just work. And I was in one organization where we had a steering committee for the program, We had a project, we had almost every key executive, each of the different functional areas on the steering committee as a decision-making body, and they would not agree on anything, Adam. I've never had so many corridor conversations in my life trying to get people to think broad, you know, help inspire them to think broader than just their own area. And then they'd come into that steering committee and none of them would, just could not get them to agree on anything. And what I should have done is go to the CEO because that was a mess. Right? And what happened eventually is some of the key people that I was working with, they were just real high performers in the business, left and resigned because it was just— we weren't getting anywhere. The project sponsor, who was the marketing director, exited the business. It was just— the project was wound down. I was let go all within the same week. Absolute mess. And they'd spent all this money trying to fix this problem, this business that was losing money. millions every month. And they were, you know, we were all trying to fix it and it was just a mess, not good for anybody. And ultimately what happened within 6 months, every single member of the executive team and steering committee, bar one, had left the organization and ultimately the CEO as well. A disaster. And it, I felt very personally responsible because I, as the program project manager, whatever you wanna call me, I was responsible for developing this new strategic plan that would save the company basically. And I'd Over the years, I'd done a lot of soul searching. What could I have done differently? Because clearly, we had a dysfunctional team. And at the end of the day, what I realized, and so some things were outside my remit perhaps, but I believe in thinking about, well, what can I do to make that difference? It's Stephen Covey stuff around circle of influence. What could I influence? And what I really should have done is I should have gone to the CEO at the time. And had a conversation about that this was not working. And I didn't. And the reason I didn't is because I didn't have the confidence. I hadn't met the person, met the person, but I hadn't got to know them properly. And I felt I couldn't run around the project sponsor that I had, go above his head, and I just didn't. And I should have found a way to do that.

It's so interesting to look backwards on those kinds of moments. It really is. Thank you for sharing that. It's gonna lead into just the last couple of questions I have here. Mental health. Maybe that's a good segue, or we'll build a bridge for one. But how are you assessing mental health with the leaders and the organizations that you work with? And what have you seen? So, you know, when we talk about culture, I think culture has changed quite a bit in my experience, pre-pandemic to now after the pandemic. A, do you see the same? And if so, what changes in culture have you seen? If there's something that's kind of a through line to that. And where does it tie into mental health? Because we're seeing more statistics coming out every single day about the prevalence of burnout and mental health decline. And I think it's certainly the thing to address. We address it. I'd just love to get your thoughts on it.

Well, what's interesting is that the obligation to look at things and to take care of people's psychosocial safety is becoming more and more important. In Australia, I'm based in Sydney, as you know, Adam, we now have legislation. It's a criminal offense if you don't set up an environment that's psychosocially safe for people. And some of the European member states are also introducing this kind of law. It's quite interesting that the onus is now becoming more and more on leaders to think about these things. So this is things like overload of too much work. And the other thing that's called out, for example, in the Australian law is the actual change process itself. The management of change needs to be done in a way that takes— got to think about the people. And if not, there, yeah, there's criminal sentences associated with this because there's definitely, as you say, since COVID there's been a prevalence of mental health issues. I see a number of executives saying they're overwhelmed, and quite openly now, which is quite interesting. It doesn't have to be all the way through to severe issues, but even just well-functioning people are saying that they are feeling overwhelmed. And AI is going to make it worse in some ways because of the sheer volume of content. I don't know about you, but my email box is overflowing and that content is brilliant. That's some of the things that I'm very focused on doing with the people that I work with and in our membership in the Turbocharge that we've got, that I'm curating what people, the information people get. So it's not this overwhelm of information, but it's actually what people need to be able to move the dial, right? Move forward and get things unstuck and get things moving in the organization. I don't know if that was a very coherent answer, but that's—

I'm gonna just go back to—

Those are the things I'm thinking about.

One part of the query there, speaking of the prompts, I'm in the middle of a project to a new book that is a book about culture, interestingly enough. In research and in conversations with folks that lead companies, we ask the question, you know, what was it like for you to get through COVID? What would you attribute the ability to get through it and get through it as successfully as you did? And that kind of thing. And often people will point to their culture. They'll say it was a product that we're here and we're succeeding because our culture was up for that challenge at the time, which is amazing. Thrilled to hear that. And then I'll say, and so what's it been like? What's the culture like today having out of COVID Is it the same as it was before? And people will either grimace or they'll make change in their facial expression or something. But And then often we'll say, no, our culture is quite a bit, feels different and is different than the culture that got us through the pandemic is not necessarily the culture we came out of the pandemic with. Or if it is anyway, the times have changed in that. And so things feel differently now. And I guess that's what I was wondering is whether you've seen any change in how people are functioning as teams within an organization. as a culture since the pandemic and whether there's been any sort of notice of what it was like before and what it's like after.

The biggest difference I notice is in the people that have the most resilience are the ones that clearly are performing the best and are surging ahead in their career. I have to say, Adam, I was saying before we started even putting the recorder on that I love your podcast because out of all of these podcasts and all this content that's out there, this avalanche, you seem to hone in on these exact techniques that people can find to build that resilience in them. And the one that specifically touched me was with Peter Neiman, who spoke about, about being better, not bitter. And I thought, that's exactly right, because whether it's, I've had a failed marriage, I could have come out incredibly bitter after my husband turned around to me after almost 30 years of being together. and said to me, do you think we've got a good marriage? And I'm like, what? But I've gone on to— it's a conscious decision for me to pull myself out of that and put myself into a better situation. I've gone online, I dated, I met this amazing man, and I've got this wonderful life and I'm so lucky. But I've also created that luck. It's that better, not bitter. Same with people in the workplace after COVID. And yes, we've all had a hard time, some people worse than others. But it's coming out of that and making that conscious decision. I've just thought about from your book, pause, ask, choose what future. And that's what I did coming out of that marriage that didn't work, choosing to go back and create a life. And it's those people who've chosen coming out of COVID to do things that are going to work not just for them, but also for the organization. I mean, sure, you can go and stick yourself at home for 5 days a week if other people are coming into the office. You've got to think about, well, what's best for the business and yourself. Maybe it's going into the office 2 or 3 days a week to be there and have a presence and finding solutions, choosing solutions that are gonna be win-win.

Yeah, it is a resilience skill set that you're describing and part of it. And I think for people, I have to say this is not quite a warning or a caveat really. It's just more for clarification purposes. When we talk about resilience and when we bring The concept of operationalizing resilience to an organization. We're not talking about people that just have that greater capacity to burn the candle at every conceivable end. It's not just a euphemism for suck it up, but it is seen that way as for a lot of people when they hear that term resilience. In fact, there's a medical institution, which I will not name, where we were up for an engagement. And frankly, we didn't get this engagement. But in the course of a very transparent conversation where I was advocating for a training that would allow people to develop resiliency skills before they need them, not just resilience is the result of having come through something difficult and be stronger on the other end. That's— people get that. And again, that's more the old paradigm. This is about how you actually develop resiliency skills before you will need it next. Because the pandemic is one disruption that was chaotic for many and tragic for many and tremendously opportunistic for many as well. And many more disruptions and many more changes. And some of them may even be that be greater in scope than the pandemic.

Right?

The AI revolution, we're just getting started with the kind of change that's gonna take hold. It's developing this capacity before you will need it. And to take that kind of a proactive approach is really powerful. It's very empowering to teams and to leaders. And frankly, I couldn't predict what the changes will be or the disruptions will be, and I would drive myself nuts trying to even prognosticate those things and be wrong more often than not. But what I can count on and what gives me certainty, and I'm a certainty freak, I'm a control, pro-control nut, as many of us are with this.

How ironic.

Right, exactly. In the world of the greatest uncertainty, this is right. You crave it. But I know what I can count on is my resilience. That's the part I can sleep well and feel confident because of that. I'm having this conversation with this person that's running executive director within this medical, this organization, and she says to me, we can't use the word resilience. We have been told we can no longer use that word. Because went on during the pandemic with this particular group of people was they were being told to be resilient, which they were being told really suck it up, stop complaining, do what you have to do, and we'll get to the other side together and all that. But it's the strongest, the survive, like it's a Darwinist thing. She was just like, we can never talk. We can't use that word. People will tune out immediately. They will object and et cetera, et cetera. So, so I really appreciate You just brought that up and in the way that you did, and it, which allowed for this clarification to occur as well. Is there something that you do personally for your own resilience? Is there something that you go to that is your, cuz as you said, this, the Peter Nieman podcast, which I recommend people listen to, Dr. Nieman is, man, I'll just say this. He lost a child to suicide who was a young adult, wasn't a child anymore, but any parent knows your, your 50-year-old child is still your child. Doesn't matter what their age is. Your child is your child.

I've got goosebumps down my arms as you talking because he so moved me. I've sent it to a whole lot of different people I know who very— yeah, it will resonate with for various reasons. Lost a child, a friend who's lost— somebody's lost a friend. Very, very, very moving and raw. And he was— and interesting how he contrasted him and his wife and how their different reactions to the situation. And your discussion with him was just— Thank you. He just had so much empathy, Adam. It was beautiful. For me, what works, I love nature. I have a garden and I spend time in the garden. That's for me is just if I need to solve something or an issue or rejuvenate myself, I'm in the garden or going for a bushwalk. That's the other thing I do. Lots of those walks after marriage broke up, after a project doesn't particularly have that really difficult time for me to have a project just fall apart like that. It's just a bit of time to reflect on it, figure out what I could do differently, acknowledge that irrespective of the situation, it seems like, well, we're not in control of everything, right? Other people are going to do things, but we are in control of our own response.

Yes.

Yeah. And so thinking about that.

I would love to close with this too, just because you are live in Sydney, but you're from South Africa. We've had a number of people from South Africa that have been on the show, including somebody that had quite a moving story to tell about her experience with apartheid when she was living there during that period. But one of the things that I've thought a lot about when it comes to Nelson Mandela and his life, his situation, which was quite— It's like The scope and the breadth, I don't even, I don't have words for it. But to people that don't already know this, he spent 27 or 28 years in prison in a cell, in a tiny little cell and all that, and then emerged to take on a leadership role and a transformative role and a liberation role. I was thinking of a different form of that word, but all the while he could have perished at any point along the way. While he was in prison, certainly all hope could have been completely lost to the depth of that restriction. His literal freedom to move, to do anything really, was taken away from him. Now, that's what prison can do. I mean, and that's obvious. But what's not obvious and what I've been thinking about is that his captors, those that imprisoned him, could not take away His right to think. That freedom could not be taken from him and was not taken from him. And that's what I think you're saying is that regardless of the situations that we find ourselves in and much of what we find ourselves in, you know, on one level we can't control, and on another level, and this is hard to swallow sometimes, we've created or contributed to consciously, unconsciously, whatever the case is. But these difficult times that we, you know, find ourselves in, the one thing in the midst of any of it that no one can ever take and that we can actually truly count on is our capacity to think. That is our greatest freedom. It is, again, a certainty in an uncertain world. That is truly our greatest certainty.

Absolutely. And I just, I was just looking up, I actually, while you were talking, I just pulled up one of my LinkedIns because I post regularly on Nelson Mandela because of the values that he has. I'd love to read you one of the quotes that he had. He's got so many amazing leadership quotes about positivity and resilience, and I would love to read this one to you, if I may, which is exactly talking to your point, Adam. As you said, all these years in a cell that's like 52 feet big, hard labor. This is somebody who was a lawyer by background, and he says, don't judge me by my success. Judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

It's been an absolute pleasure to get to know you on a podcast, to have this conversation and be real with one another, even in the, in the, this false, you know, when you think about it, it's canned and constructed and contrived environment, the podcast, right? Because we know that other people are listening to this now and, and all that kind of thing. And yet, What I love about doing podcasts is how quickly and how accessible we are to one— can be to one another, that you can genuinely have a connection and have a real conversation that other people get to also participate in through their listening, et cetera, or sharing. Thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

It's been an absolute pleasure, Adam. Thank you. I've loved every minute of it.

Wonderful. Lisa had said, if this is an episode, if there are things that where we went today that would be valuable to people, that you know, colleagues, friends, family members, et cetera. I'm asking my, the community of listeners, share it with somebody because that's how the word of this gets spread as well as does something positive with the algorithm, which I can't control. But we all have the same goal in this, and that is that it is creating a ripple effect. And let's help the algorithm to help that happen. And when we know that there's somebody also that just might benefit Let's, you know, be, take that extra second to take a copy, a link, and paste it in a text or a, an email and say, hey, give this a listen. That kind of thing. I do that all the time. I love it when people do that for me as well. Lisa, thank you so much today. Thank you to our beautiful community that is ever growing, and it's a joy as always. Ciao for now, everybody. Well, as promised, from the moment that I turned on this sort of the recording, I just knew that the discussion with Lisa was going to be something interesting and special, and that we would follow the breadcrumbs, and they would lead in a beautiful place. And they have, again, as I've come to trust in this process in that way. But Lisa really— she showed up and contributed and was transparent and vulnerable and thought-provoking and all of that that makes for a great guest and a great conversation. Primarily that, that's what makes for a great guest is that we have a real conversation and a connected experience. And I could feel that and I just really enjoyed her presence. I'm sure that you all did as well. We talked about some really cool things that I think will be fodder for future thought, whether that thought is happening and, and is percolating right now for you, or whether it's something that you're going to come back to, or having taken some notes perhaps that you'll bring to your leadership, and look at where it is that something different might be possible. Organizations and organisms in nature, as we talked about, are either growing or they're decaying. That process of growth is, has to be ever-present. And how you cultivate continuous growth, continuous improvement, that is truly the secret sauce if there is any. And so there are a lot of things that we discussed today that I think could be the catalyst For that next phase stage of conversation that leads to growth down the road for you all. So if you're in a role as a leader or you're even working in someone else's, working in a role where you're not maybe so much a driver of change, you could still potentially be that person that is a catalyst for change. In fact, not even potentially. I know that to be the case personally, and I've seen it in many organizations that we work with. And if you are one of those people that can be a champion for change and a driver of change, today we talked about what good culture looks like. We talked about what culture that is having challenges looks like. We've talked about where it is that sort of change management has its roots and where it can get really stymied and stopped and where that process evolution can be actively opposed. Oppositional culture was the term that was used for that. I certainly loved our conversation today that got quite personal around becoming better, not bitter, and the focus on and how we integrate life's experiences and bring together the strands of those experiences in our daily lives to find a center and to find that place where we are growing and growing, but in our way of looking at things, growing and becoming more resilient, before that growth or that resilience is needed or called out of us, meaning we don't wait for the disruption, we don't wait for the tragedy, we don't wait for the change to be thrust upon us, but rather we are proactively working at developing those skills of resilience mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually speaking before things are hitting the fan, so to speak. Love the conversation with Lisa today. If you did as well, please leave us a comment, share a review on the platform that you are consuming this podcast, share it with a friend or a colleague, family member, et cetera. And of course, feel free to take your own assessment to determine just about how you're doing in this snapshot in time. How resilient mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually are you at this moment? RankMyResilience.com. It's simple. RankMyResilience.com. Is there for you to do that at any point. Use it with your teams, use it with members of your, of your family even. Just the insights are truly remarkable and it takes just 3 minutes. And that's probably the best part is that we can get to something real and true and useful in just so short a period of time. And not that anybody's looking to have another survey to take, but this one is so simple and it is so insightful. That's why I recommend it every chance I get. For now, anyway, I will just once again say thank you so much for being a part of this beautiful and growing community, and we appreciate you very much. Ciao for now, everybody. Have a beautiful and a blessed rest of your day, your evening, wherever we're finding you at this time.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.