Change Manager: The Role You Need With Richard Carson

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 the Change Proof podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and we're going to have a really interesting conversation today. Great guest. I'm going to read a little bit about his history, CV, a very accomplished human being, a very accomplished person in the area of business leadership, thought leadership. He's written a lot of books. He's spoken and trained and consulted for many of the world's top organizations. And I think he's got some really sage advice to share with us today. I'm looking forward to the conversation. I know you're going to enjoy it. Let me read a bit about him, and then we'll jump right in with the first question. So Richard Carson is a consultant, practitioner, author, and academic researcher in organizational change management, OCM. He is also the CEO and president of Carson and Associates, which provides consulting services to private sector and public sector organizations. in change management, organizational development, strategic planning, and performance management. I could say a lot more about him, but I've got one question to begin. So stay tuned for this episode of the Change Proof Podcast with Richard Carson. All right, Richard. So it's fun to hear your bio, I think, still at this point. Yes. I, I know I enjoy it sometimes listening to people introduce me and share, share all these things about my life. You know, I go, oh, that's interesting. But what my question for you is, what is one thing that is not part of that introduction or that CV, if you will, that you would love for people to know about you? One thing that's not included in that.

Well, maybe it's the title of the book, Book of Change. It's kind of a takeoff on the Book of Changes or the I Ching. And I just had, I've had a real interest in China. I've been there twice. I adopted daughters from there. I do tai chi in my age to keep fit. So basically that was it. The Book of Changes actually is a book of divination that the Chinese use to kind of foretell the future and to answer questions. And so the Book of Changes is a takeoff on that, but that's really what it's for in terms of organizations is to help them find their way.

And you mentioned the I Ching. Could you say a little bit more about that for people that don't know what the I Ching is?

Well, the I Ching is an ancient book of divination that was used almost as you might— the Greeks might have used oracles as a way to foretell the future and to guide certainly emperors through difficult times, through wars, through famines, upheavals. So I really kind of associated with that.

Yes. So let's put it into a, let's, I guess, recontextualize it for today based on this title of the book, Book of Change. Is it a book?

Yes.

Is it a book that portends the future or is a guide to the future?

Well, it can be. It basically, It's a process that I developed that helps organizations go through difficult times. Let's put it that way. And every organization usually has a person, a large organization called a risk manager, whose job is to make sure that things don't go bad personnel-wise or otherwise. What I really advocate for is having a person who is a change manager. That's a totally different approach. And a change manager basically is a person who not only takes you through changes as they come, both internal or existential, but somebody who is always scanning the horizon for those internal, external changes. You know, you need to listen to your own employees. That's a skill that's often, often lacking in executives is the ability to listen well. They talk a lot. They give orders a lot, but listening is a whole other skill. So the change manager is a person who listens from the bottom up and looks at potential threats that are existential. Now, existential threats could be anything from a pandemic like we've just gone through, could be economic, political, could even be a natural occurrence like the fires in California or Hawaii, there's any number of things that you need to plan for and be, you know, basically one of the, the other thing that's really important, I think, is to have a person who is a change manager, but to really have a strategic plan, 3 to, say, 3 to 5 years that is really actionable, that actually has resources dedicated to it and has people who are accountable For those actions.

Yeah. I, I wanna kind of parse that out a little bit more. Yeah. Too, Richard, because I think for the people that are listening to this show that are part of organizations from a leadership standpoint, or they may get great value out of this idea. And I wanna, wanna kinda understand this change manager's role just a little bit more because it seems like part of it is like soothsayer. Part of it is the forecaster, is the person that's looking out on the horizon for the icebergs and, and other things, whether those are You know, internal, they're external, et cetera, et cetera. And someone who's listening.

Yes.

Who's also, and, and that's more of an internal function, listening from the bottom up, listening within the organization for certain things. And that, that person has to be both a sort of strategic-minded, but also has to be somebody that's, that's looking out to see and predict almost when, when things are going to require change. Is that correct? I got that right, Piers? Yes.

Let me give you an example. I managed an organization. It was 175 people, about $75 million in terms of annual budget. I created a position of change manager, and that person's job was basically on a daily basis to go around to the different organizational units and make sure that they are following the strategic plan that they were undertaking and participating in the actions that were in the plan. And it's one thing, you know, a lot of organizations create a strategic plan with a mission and a vision, and then they throw it on a shelf and ignore it, or they don't really work it. And the change manager's job is really to work the strategic plan on a daily basis and to make sure that people are accountable and have the resources to accomplish that. Now, the change manager's job is also to basically listen to stakeholders. And stakeholders can be everybody from the frontline staff all the way up to the leadership group. And Stakeholders are also vendors, the public, customers. So, you know, it's also the job of the senior executive, the CEO, the president, whatever, to do that. But quite frankly, having been in that position, you spend a lot of your time kind of in firefights. In other words, it's a daily issue that comes up in terms of, you Not just working the strategic plan, but you just got a lot of issues to deal with. So the change manager really is almost a listening post for the executive and basically coming back and saying, look, this is what I heard from these people on staff. Now, as a consultant, I've been brought in as the kind of change management agent to do assessments. And that's what I'll do. I'll start with with the frontline customer service staff and work my way through the entire organization doing interviews to find out and basically tell folks, look, what you tell me is off the record. You can be completely honest. I'm not going to quote you. I'm not going to point my finger and say, ooh, that's this person said this. So my role as the consultant change manager really is It's nothing to get out in the field and talk to the same stakeholders I mentioned to get feedback. So listening is really important.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why 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 resilient 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. It is. And, you know, again, for people that are listening to this, maybe the only org— they have most of their experience in business in, in 2 or 3 different groups, you know, on 2 or 3 different teams, so to speak. Or maybe it's even just the same team. I know there's still plenty of people who've been with the same organization for 20, 30 years, and that puts you in a bit of a silo sometimes in the sense that you don't know how other organizations are doing it, what their structure is like, how hierarchical is it, command control, is it something different? And I guess my question is, for those folks that have— are listening to you, maybe they think that a change manager's role is commonplace, but it isn't, is it?

No, it's not. It's not. It doesn't—

I say that only because our—

The change manager role in most organizations doesn't exist. You have a risk manager to do damage.

Exactly.

You don't have a change manager. The field of organizational change management really started about 1947 with Kurt Lewin. And if you— I looked at over 22 major kind of change management models, and they all follow basically the same overview that he created. So that, but that really hasn't, hasn't changed much, but it's not commonplace in most organizations. You know, one thing I wanted that you, you mentioned, I wanted to touch on, and that is you have an organization that's been around for some time, could be family-owned, it could be a Fortune 500, whatever. But what you find when it comes to change is if you talk to people about change, their first reaction is, why would we do that? We've always done it this way, right? And getting people, you know, and so people react very negatively to change. It freaks, you know, basically it freaks them out. They don't like it. They've been doing the same job for 20 years, for 30 years, and you come along and say, well, you know, why don't we do something different? It's just like, oh my God, you know, that's a reaction you can have. So one of the jobs of the change manager, whether it's on staff or a consultant, is to co-opt the employees into the process. And so it's not scary. One of the things I've done is set up teams within the organization, basically said, look, we want you As staff to look at this and tell us what you think. You know, take, we're going to give you ownership of this. So you tell us how you think we could change this so that it would be what I call the 3 E's. Okay. More cost effective, more performance efficient, and more culturally empowered. And if you go to them and, you know, everybody likes to be asked for their opinion. So if you go to folks and ask them to participate in the process, Then it's not so scary. And you'll get a much better product too, because they know at their level what works and what doesn't work. And if you ask them what they would do differently, they'll be glad to tell you.

You know what I'd love for you to do, if you would, Richard, is just go through each of the 3 E's separately. And again, I really am glad this came up because I wanted folks to, you know, again, to hear it since we're always in our like Again, in our own little ecosystem, sometimes it's not so little, of course, but yet this concept of a change manager role responsibilities, just typically in my experience working with lots of organizations as well, doesn't exist. And you've confirmed that, and I appreciate that you did that because maybe some people are considering, well, what would it look like? What could it look like if we were to bring this function on board or redeploy reconfigure even assets and talent within the organization to be focused on this. Well, for 2 questions. First of all, before we get to the E's, one question before that. Where, where does this function typically sit in your experience? What we're talking about, managing change. Change itself is more ubiquitous today than I've ever seen it. And the pace of it, the velocity of change only increasing, it feels like. So the exercises that are, that organizations and leaders and teams are going through right now in various changes, everything from You know, from mergers and acquisitions to spinoffs, and then, you know, lots of other changes that, that affect the workforce, including lots of changes to the workforce. You know, this is just ever-present. So change is, is a constant. It's not the exception in, in any respect today. And disruption, same. So, so I'd love to know where, where does this typically sit in the organizations that you've seen? And then I would love for you to walk us through those 3 E's as well.

Okay. I'll take the where the, where the person sits. Literally. And what I mean by that is, again, I'll use my own example. We kind of restructured the organization spatially. So in my office, next door, I had a human resource person, and next door in the other office, I had the change manager. So my interaction with both of those people was daily, was hourly. And that's really important because you need that Constant feedback, the human resource person. And a lot of times the human resource person can be the change management person. You don't, if you have a smaller organization, they can get training in that and become that person. So anyway, so where they sit in the organization is they have to be part of the leadership team. They need physical proximity so they can come in and tell you immediately what is going on with the employees. in terms of human resource or what is going on with the stakeholders in terms of the change management person.

That makes sense. Yep. You also advocate that this person be a part of the C-suite or not as senior?

Yes. Yes. You know, you may have kind of a cross-section. You have people who are division managers or section managers who have particular units that they run. But in terms of a management team, you also have another group of people. You have a finance manager, a change manager, a human resource manager, and they manage functions. So having that kind of cross-pollination is really important. So those people are all part of the management team. They have to, and it has to be very clear from the CEO or president that the change manager's standing is equal to any section head. In other words, because otherwise what happens is the section manager who is running a group of people in, say, some kind of a production plant or something, basically will ignore those people and say, well, I'm really more important than the human resource person or the finance person or the change manager. And they can yada yada all day long and I'll ignore them. But you need to make it really clear that they have equal standing. And that you pay attention to what they're saying. If need be, you bring in the change manager and the section person together and say, look, we need to deal with this problem. We need to change this.

So, let's walk through the 3 E's because I think, again, that feels like a very sort of solution-oriented structure. So, yeah.

The 3 E's are really our outcomes. The process itself, The organizational— the model that I use, which is people-sustained organizational change management, because organizations are people. And, you know, if you don't approach change management from the point of view that there's human beings here that are going to help you or derail you, then you've got a problem. So the PSOCM process is kind of It's 3 overall steps. There's 10 other steps under that, and then 39 individual actions. So, you know, the way it starts all the way back to Kurt Lewin in '47, almost every one of the 22 models I looked at follow the same kind of high level, which is, you know, your first step is you do an assessment of the organization. You fit, you Follow that up with implementing the actions, and then the third part of it is you maintain those actions. But, you know, drilling down from that is— I'll take you quickly through the 10 steps. I'll explain that. You know, you start with the first steps, which is kind of the identification scoping process. You kick the program off, It's important because you really, like I said, you need to get people on board from the bottom up. They have to understand that change is not about punishment. It's not about necessarily causing pain for them. They're going to be culturally empowered. They're going to be part of the process in developing the answers. There's a data collection analysis piece. I can go into that. I actually use a The heart of this whole process is a kind of the diagnosis. I actually follow, I use a model that was created by the National Institute of Health for patient diagnosis. And because organizations are people, and if you approach it from that point of view, that, or in terms of organizational health, then that particular model is, it's very detailed, but it's also very Very, very useful. The 4th part is you get feedback from stakeholders internally, externally. When you implement it, I use both process mapping and the BPR, or kind of re-engineering process. Then you manage the restructure, locking in the change. There's a whole series of things you can do to lock in change. And finally, you have to find the, maintain the changes. And it's an ongoing, that's an ongoing process through a strategic plan and other, you know, other things.

Right. You know, again, just would you lay out just the terms? I caught the one that I really want to talk about, which is the culturally empowered, that particular E. And then one was about efficiency, but—

Yeah, the first one is that any business gets, which is cost-effective. What is the bottom line in terms of being profitable? In the private sector, it's profit. In the public sector, it's perception.

Sure.

Because you're dealing with politics. Performance efficiency is not the same as being cost-effective. There's a lot of things you can improve your performance on that don't necessarily get to the bottom line. For example, this is something I noticed on your website, getting back to your customers in 24 hours, right? It's not necessarily going to make you more money that you can identify, but getting back to people in 24 hours is really important. It makes them feel better. They feel like you're paying attention to them. So there's a lot of performance efficiency things you can do that are not necessarily affecting the bottom line.

Right. So, this is self-serving when I'm asking this question because— Yeah. And I say that because I've got a book coming out as well, a brand new book that's gonna hit the shelves in a few months that's about culture, business culture. Yeah. And we've all seen, you know, there's been a change and I would say a sea change in culture since the pandemic. So, I wanna get your thoughts on that statement, whether you agree with that, disagree with that, what your thoughts are there. And then I want to get into the 3rd E, which is this culturally empowered piece, to understand what you mean by that. But let's just start with, do you think culture has changed much since the pandemic? Is that, was that a catalyst for change? What's the state of culture in the world of business today?

I think we have gone through 2 cultural tsunamis at the same time. Number one is just what you talked about, the pandemic. The other is artificial intelligence. The pandemic basically changed everybody's attitude about working remote. So now you've got people who work in an office, people who don't, who work 100% remote, and then you've got hybrid. You have a situation where everybody had to learn to work remote, which went from— I'll give you an example. My wife and I have our own offices, in our house. She works for a major energy company. She'll work remote. It worked great. Other people though, they were married, they had kids, they had a computer in the corner of the kitchen, and it was a nightmare. So then you've got the situation where everything flipped and everybody said, you know, from Trump into any numerous organizations, you have to come back to work now. I mean, that kind of whipsaw really affected a lot of people emotionally, economically. Some were made to change easily, others didn't. So it's the other part of that. The other cultural tsunami is artificial intelligence, which by all accounts could create, at least by the United Nations, massive unemployment. It certainly will change What people do, how people do things that, you know, there was a recent trend in the last few years that a lot of people became, got involved in terms of coding, right? That whole field is going to vanish.

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 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. A whole generation of kids were told, go to school and become coders. I mean, right? Like, what do we tell people to do? Right?

Right. And I feel this is going to vanish because they're not needed. What, what is going to happen? Anybody—

my view is that I'd say some things Sometimes stupid and controversial. Sometimes, you know, I think that anybody that went to school and paid, you know, like whatever they paid, maybe they're $100,000 in debt today for an education in coding, that the government, which the government wastes tons of money all the time. So nobody should get their hackles up when I say the government should pay for this because God knows what we pay for already. That's utterly ridiculous. So this could fall in that category. Yeah. But literally should wipe out any debt of any person that went to school to study coding because they were told in high school, this is a burgeoning field, this is what we should be doing, this is what you should do. Yeah, wipe out that debt and let them start fresh. That'd be my opinion.

They would have been better off being in solid waste management, driving a truck.

Become a plumber. I mean, you know, like any vocational skill or any other training would have been better than, than to tell them to get into that area. When the likelihood for anybody that literally had their finger on the pulse of technology in this country would've been able to say, that's ridiculous.

Look at the entire field of trucking. Trucking has been a mainstay for a lot of middle-class America who, you know, they got— they may have graduated from high school or not, but being a trucker was a fairly good-paying job in terms of being middle class. That being a trucker is going to vanish because you're going to have— you already have automated—

Autonomous. Yeah. Yep.

So the cultural tsunami in terms of AI is just, it's mind-boggling. You know, there's no way, you know, you get people on both sides say, well, it's going to— we'll have 40% unemployment. You have people on the other side, well, it's— well, they'll create all kinds of new jobs like coding. So that's something I'm not going to try and predict other than—

Robot maintenance and repair.

Yeah. It's going to be painful. It's going to be pervasive and it's going to be as we've survived for now the pandemic. What, you know, one of the things I talk about in the book, it's more than just—

We should also say there were some people, and again, this is neither you or I obviously have a crystal ball on this, so we're just, there's a little prognostication here, but we can look back, the great crystal is always history and always look back to see what actually occurred as some, something that informs, you know, how we look at change today. And there were people that made their living putting shoes on horses. A lot of people that—

They still do.

There's, there are a few people that are blacksmiths out there, I'm sure. Right. But that was a major source of, you know, form of activity and employment and occupation at a point in time. And then this motor vehicle thing happened, you know, the automobile happened. So it's not like we haven't been through this kind of sea change.

Yeah. One of the things I talk about in the book—

People used to read books and read newspapers too. Yeah.

And the book talks, I talk about more than just the, the, a process of change, but take a look at exactly what you're talking about. I mean, we, we came through a major pandemic and if you don't think we're not going to have another pandemic, then I feel sorry for you. Because I read that the 1918 Spanish flu killed 100 million people. That's as many people as died in World War I and World War II. Our ability to deal with pandemics, epidemics, I just, I don't believe that it's necessarily going to be easy the next time. My father fought in World War II and He got married and no sooner than he got married, they bombed Pearl Harbor. So there are things you just cannot predict, but they are basically just repeating themselves, whether they're wars, pandemics, the economic crash in the '30s, the Great Depression. I remember my grandmother, if I took her to a restaurant, She would take all the ketchup and mustard packets.

Yeah.

Because her mindset was stuck in the 1930s. So she would collect things like that, which was, I thought was totally ridiculous, but for her it wasn't. So,

yeah. Well, there's a book that came out some years ago called The Black Swan. Forgive me for interrupting. It just, I feel like what you're saying, and I And this really, I mean, I feel intuitively that this is true, that there are no black swan events. There was a book by that, you know, by that title. And, and, and I think in part what we can say about change, and I think, you know, in winding down this conversation, which is never a winding down, it's just an opening up further and further to the idea that change is the natural order of the universe. In fact, my, I would often, when we are working with teams or even delivering keynotes on this kind of topic, the first thing we have to do is create a, bit of an awareness around change itself because change is the process of growth. There's nothing that exists on this planet or beyond this planet isn't the result of some evolution, some growth through change. So we don't want change to stop. I don't know that we want it to kill us or kill others. I don't think anybody would ever wish for that, but that does happen at times for sure. Yeah. And so if there are no black swan events, then what we really have to think about is How do we actually forecast or prepare for change when we don't know what type of change is ahead of us? Right? Does that make sense?

An ancient Greek said that the only constant is change, right? And I actually spent some time and was able to talk to Nicholas Taleb, who wrote The Black Swan, and I would recommend that anybody get a copy of it and read it.

It's a good book. Yep.

Because he talked about there are white swans, gray swans, and black swans. And black swans are, you never see it coming. Could be a world war, could be a pandemic, could be a recession. And I talk about that in the book, what the possibilities are. Could be natural in terms of wildfires. I live in Portland, Oregon, And in 1980, I was driving down a freeway and witnessed a volcano blow up that spread ash all the way across the Plains States. So you can't predict everything, but that's not an excuse for not trying to contemplate it.

I think the Coast Guard, and it's been a minute since that book was sitting on my desk and I was reading it, and it is dense. So it's not a a happy-go-lucky book, and it's not a quick read, at least not to my, uh, to my brain or intellect. So, but really important information conveyed in it, and The Black Swan, that is. And I, it may have been in that book where I was introduced to the, the Coast Guard, the way the Coast Guard approached change, its process for change management or change for forecasting or—

Contemplating.

Yeah. It, it was like, I'm trying to recall the term that was used for this, but it was It was literally playing, almost gamifying, not gamifying, but laying out a game strategy for a potential change. Yeah. And when 9/11 occurred, which again, whether it's volcano or any of the things that you just mentioned, or 9/11 itself, none of these things are really black swan events. When you look back at it, there are lots of signs that could have been and should have been sort of looked at and observed and assessed, et cetera. So what the Coast Guard had done years before 9/11 was to actually map out and futurecast, I think is the term they actually use now. It's coming back to me. Futurecast the potential scenarios, even the most bizarre ones, like for example, being invaded by Mars, Martians or aliens or whatever have you.

Somebody else that's done that is FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And I actually got a grant. I was a planning director for the Portland Metro area of like a million people at one time. I got a grant from FEMA because to do, and it's same thing, it's what's called a tabletop exercise. And the tabletop exercise had to do with the fact that along the Oregon, Washington, Northern California coast is something called the San Juan de Fuca plate. And it just basically is one plate going over the other plate. But every 750 plus or minus years, There's a Richter 9 earthquake. And a Richter 9 earthquake basically levels everything. And in the Portland area, that means the bridges go down, the buildings go down, and a million people— it's like being in Dresden in World War II. So the tabletop exercise basically that FEMA uses is to take you through that disaster. And you start from day 1, it happens, you don't know what the hell you're doing. And you react to it. And so what came out of that is through the FEMA grant was basically to create a strategy to deal with that with all possibilities. All the bridges go down. I-5 no longer is functional in terms of moving goods, moving help up and down the coast. So there are a lot of agencies that have really looked at that, but FEMA is a really good one in terms of Anticipating the worst case.

Yeah. Well, I mean, just to close the loop on that reference, the Coast Guard on the day of 9/11 were among the most, if not the most prepared for that event when it happened. Yes. Because they had forecasts, they had futurecast the potential for that very thing to happen. So I think, you know, when we think about change, and maybe this is a good place to land this conversation, yeah, we can't just always be in reaction and in resistance, because we know people, as you said at the very beginning, resist change. They fear it, they resist it. And if that's your approach to, to resist it, to react to it, or to manage people's reaction and resistance, you're really behind the curve. Yeah. As opposed to being looking out ahead and planning for it. And to your suggestion, even hiring or creating that post, that function of a change manager. To actually be very much ahead of the game when it comes to what changes are ahead of us versus just the ones that we're even dealing with at the moment. Does that summarize that just a bit? Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So, and just my last question for you is you're seeing a lot of things, Richard, as I do in these organizations. Is there one recommendation? I know this is a difficult question because there's so many things, you know, and we've got lots of process. You're a consultant and so am I and process is really important. So this maybe is unfair, but if you were gonna sit down with a, some decision maker, some champion, some leader in an organization, said, look, there's, there's one piece of advice I'd give you when it comes to how to manage the culture of this organization so that people are more empowered, are more, feel like they are not a victim to these decisions, these change decisions, but rather are participating in them and are going to be better for them, even if they don't fully, you know, can't see more than a few feet ahead of them. What would you say? What do you say in those instances?

Well, I think the most important skill that an executive manager can have is being a listener. I remember once I was, my wife had a problem she wanted to talk about and she was talking about it and I was giving her advice, and she stopped me and said, no, I want you to listen. I don't want your advice. I want you to listen. And that's really important. I mean, people need to know in the organization that you are listening to what they're telling you. And that's from the— you know, I used to walk around the organ— my own organizations on a daily basis and talk to people all over the organization, whether they were on-site, off-site, wherever. No matter what their job was. And it was important to talk to people and just ask them how things were going, what problems they have. So listening is really an important skill. And when it comes to a CEO or president, people expect that person to make decisions. And it's almost part of their DNA that they jump right on it and make a decision. And this is what we're going to do come hell or high water. Well, That's great. That's your job. But it's also your job to listen to what people are telling you and try and make sense of what is going on. And that's not a skill that all managers have.

Yeah, I think that's the understatement of the moment.

Yeah. One of the things I found that as a consultant, a board of directors, a city council, whatever, will will hire you and bring you in and say, you know, we have, this is a problem we have, okay? And we want you to fix this problem. Well, after you've talked to people, you realize that's not the problem. They really don't know what the problem is, that they don't, in terms of what's, it may be outcomes they don't like, but what they think is causing those outcomes may not be a fact. You know, I did a study For one organization. And the problem was a person, and the person was a manager who, I, if you know the movie Miracle on 34th Street, they had this, the personnel manager who was a bit retentive. Let's put it that way. This guy was making people report their activities in 15-minute increments. Think about that. All day long, you're reporting in 15-minute increments. You're not doing anything but reporting in 15-minute increments. He took his time management class too seriously. So what people think is the problem and maybe the problem, or it could be 2 different things. And listening is really important as a manager because you'll find out something, things very interesting.

Yeah. I just so appreciate you saying that, Richard. And I think it's a perfect place for us to put pause on this conversation for the moment. In our show notes, this is to to the audience listening right now or watching potentially on YouTube, full information about Richard's organization, about his new book. And, and say the, say the title of your book again, Richard, please.

The Book of Change.

The Book of Change. And there's a, there's a website. Go ahead.

Yes. The book is Change.

Book of Change. Got it.

Yeah.

bookofchange.com. Always good when you have a book to have a website to go along with it. Not everybody knows that. Not everybody does that, but I think it's a great Best practice. And so all of that information will be in the show notes. We appreciate, as always, your time and your listening, because you're literally the people we're speaking to right now are listening to us. Yeah. So we would love to listen to you. And if you've got thoughts, if you've got questions or comments, please feel free to share those with, with us. I say Richard and myself by going to adamarkel.com/podcast and leave your comment, your question. And it'll be answered there by us when we receive it. Thank you so much for, as always, being a part of this community. If you love this conversation, if you think this would be meaningful, useful to someone else, please share it with them, whether it's a friend, a colleague, a family member even. That would be fantastic. For now anyway, I will just say thank you again and ciao for now. And Richard, thank you as well.

Thank you.

I love that conversation. I hope you guys did. I mean, it went into some really interesting areas and directions. I love the fact that I can have these conversations be as unplanned as they are, meaning we have a sense of what we want to talk about. We kind of do a little preframe beforehand. We select our guests quite carefully. That is a whole process in and of itself and making sure they're a good fit for for the show, for you all, and, and all that. Uh, but then beyond that, it's just a lot more interesting to me to have the conversation be organic and not have a canned set of sort of questions. Um, I always tend to open in the same way and, and try to close in the same way, but other than that, everything is, is a bit up for grabs. So love the discussion with Richard today, talking about things like black swan events and whether they're actually black swan events at all, or they were entirely predictable. in the first place in the context of change, because change is just, is ubiquitous now. It is everywhere. It is upon us. It is happening faster, faster, not just more readily, but faster as well. And AI being one element of that. So speaking about his process for change and what change looks like, talking about some of the aspects of his book and his consulting, And the 3 E's in particular. And that just to me was fascinating. And to hear somebody that's been so knee-deep, elbow-deep, neck-deep in change management for so long, also phenomenal. Love the fact that he shared with us a, what I consider to be a best practice at this point, that organizations must have a change manager, a function and person, a human being, that is responsible for shepherding change, for looking at change, and for really listening. We spoke a lot about the importance of listening and how difficult that is in many contexts. And from the highest levels of leadership, sometimes it is also so sorely needed and so lacking as well. The Book of Change, or Book of Change, is the title of Richard's treatise on this topic. And I highly recommend that you all check that out. And other things that Richard and his consulting firm are up to. I know this was an episode that I think had a lot of value, has a lot of value. So if there are people in your ecosystem that you think would really benefit from hearing some of what we discussed, please share this episode. If there's a, you know, if you got a good feeling from the show and you wouldn't mind taking 2 minutes to rate this episode on the platform that you consumed it, giving it that best 5-star rating or whatever rating makes sense to you. Um, just want to say once again, thank you. How, how important it is to us and that you took the time or will take the time to do that is also greatly appreciated. Thank you for being a part of this community. We hope that you're getting value out of it and that if you've got questions, comments, concerns, whatever it might be, that you'll reach out to us and let us know. Uh, very easy to do that, team@adammarkel.com. Or you can leave a comment question at adamarkel.com/podcast as well. For now, anyway, I will just say thank you again and ciao. We'll see you on the next show.

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 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.