Cultivating Resilience With Janine Hamner Holman

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 Markell 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 Markell, and I'm so thrilled to have my guest today. A dear friend, a colleague, somebody that I truly love and admire. And I know you're going to love her as well. Her name is Janine Hamner Holman and she is an internationally recognized speaker, bestselling author, and expert in organizational culture, change, conscious leadership, inclusion and emotional intelligence. With experience spanning nonprofit leadership, Fortune 200 companies and the public sector, Janine brings unique insights into diagnosing and solving organizational challenges. Her firm uses the DADI model that she developed, Diagnose, assess, design and implement to help organizations thrive by identifying challenges, designing solutions, and implementing changes that foster growth and and resilience. Unlike many consulting approaches, Janine's method ensures lasting impact and support throughout the change process. She was recently named by USA, USA Today as a keynote speaker to watch in 2024. She's also been recognized by LA Weekly as a trailblazing entrepreneur and won the CXO 2.0 Leadership Award. I know her as just the most incredible human human and somebody that you are all going to vibe with and learn from. So sit back and enjoy my conversation with Janine Hamner Holman. All right, Janine, I first of all, it's I'm so thrilled that I got to introduce you and I got to share about you and you. I just have nothing but mad love, honestly, for you and I don't mind declaring the world either. So you're a very special person in my, in in the universe and I'm really thrilled that I get to interview you today and share or have you share with our audience a bit about the work that you do in the world and what excites you and everything. But the first question I want to ask right out of the gate, which I love asking this question actually is what is one thing that is not a part of that bio that your CV and all the rest. What is one thing that you would love for people to know about you at the beginning of our, of our conversation?

It's such a great question. And you know, as, as you noticed by the deep breath it had me create it like that's a question that Creates space. And so you may notice over my shoulder right there, if you're, if you're watching us, is a painting of the ocean at sunset or maybe sunrise. But I almost never see the sunrise. So for me, it's sunset. And the ocean is my happy place. The ocean is my source. The ocean is my release. It is where I go to when I. When. When I need space, when I need rejuvenation. And it's, it's my connection with the divine and the eternal and the ebb and the flow. And, you know, when I get into that, oh, my God, the sky is falling. A place where many of us get. And some of us are at the moment, it. It is that reminder of the fact that for better or for worse, nothing is permanent and everything changes. And the work that you and I both get to do and sometimes get to do in partnership with each other is all about helping organizations develop and individuals develop that resilience, develop that ability to keep. Keep it on in the face of whatever it is that's happening and to learn to do it well. And so when you had me create that space, the first thing I thought of was the ocean. So. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. He brought me right into that space. You brought me there. And I love the ocean. My wife, you know, and I, we. We both sort of settled in our lives on being near the ocean. That's, that's how we've. We have arranged our, Our. Our world at this point, to be near the ocean as often, as frequently as we possibly can. Because it is. It's immense. It's. It's awesome. It. It's. It's everywhere. I mean, it's so much a part of what helps us to live a healthy life. I think many people probably know that most of our oxygen, our clean air, comes from the ocean. So it's vitally important. And there's so much life in it. And it's also a dark, scary place. I mean, I have experience having been a lifeguard at the ocean. Many people know that my history includes that kind of early, early on, those types of experiences. But so much of the ocean is unseen. The depth of the ocean is. You know, there's dark and unknown places. And I think for a lot of us, even to this day, even as adults, the dark, the unknown, the uncertain kind of scares.

That's right.

A little bit. Which I think maybe is.

We're just big kids.

Yeah, I mean, that's a probably a good, A good lead in. Maybe it's a good lead. And we'll see to the, to the, to this thing that you and I both have a love for. We, We. We love to work with people. I'm speaking about us like, you know, I'm speaking for you, but. Correct. Correct me or, you know, no, you're right.

You, you know, I think I know you.

You love to work with people. And, and I do as well. And, and genuinely. So now it's business. So there's an element of working as in you work for a particular purpose. And, and we all get what that purpose is, or at least part of the purpose. But I wouldn't do that work. I would do work. I would do solitary work. I would do some other work that, that did involve me interacting with people regularly. If, If I didn't, if I didn't enjoy it that much I know about myself, I wouldn't, I just wouldn't have tolerated it all these years if, if it was something that didn't fulfill me and fill me up. So I know you're the same way. I want to get. I want to lead in with that. I want to ask you, what is it about working with people and in particular, just to create context here, working with. Inside of an organization, we, you and I, are both asked to, and given the honor, the privilege to work with teams with leaders within organizations that are wanting to create some change or improvement. What is it about that that really fulfills you or fills you up? Like, you know, in the broadest and even the most narrow sense?

Yeah. So you know a little of my backstory, of course, and to share with your listeners. I originally started, actually, my first plan was to, even though I didn't know you, was to follow in your footsteps and to be an attorney. And I'd had a crazy experience in high school working for a brilliant attorney at Harvard Law School. And he then hired me back for the following two summers, three summers. And I thought, okay, this is. This is what I want to do. Like, I'm smart, but I'm not that kind of smart. And, you know, this gentleman was the youngest tenured professor ever in the history of Harvard Law School. And because he was a tenured professor, he was taking all of these very interesting cases, sometimes pro bono. And it was. It was heady and fun and fascinating. And thankfully, before I went to law school, I worked as a paralegal for two really big law firms in New York City, Scadden, Arps and Sherman and Sterling, and realized, oh, no. So that I didn't have to have a fart attack like you did. I had my own fart attack about other things later in life, but I realized this is not what I want to do. And so I did a tiny little pivot and went to work for nonprofits for the next 17 years and was in leadership and working, doing a lot in terms of helping the organizations that I was with move through change, even though it wasn't part of my job description. In nonprofits, you do everything that's needed to be done, often like in for profit organizations. And then in 2008, when the economy got bad again, I decided to take a step back, and I got recruited by Waste Management, world's largest trash and recycling company. And the very first thing I said to them was, okay, y' all are really not a nonprofit. Like, what in the world would I do for you? And they said, well, we need people who manage people well, who understand budgets, who understand how to run a team. And a lot of the work that you've done has been with people and building relationships, and we need people who can do all those things. And so I was there for almost a decade. And then when I decided to go out on my own in 2017, I hired a coach to figure out what the heck is the through line between this nonprofit work and now this Fortune 200 company. Like, what's. What's. What holds these things together. And what we figured out is that I have been on a mission to have the world of work be one in which everyone can thrive. And so that's really what drives me, and it's part of why, as you said, the work that I do and the work that you do is working inside of organizations. You know, people. People who aren't familiar with the work that we do often will say to me, so you're an executive coach? And I say, no, because if I had to coach each one of the humans, I would need to be 5 billion. I would need to live to be 5 billion years old, and I'm already tired. Like, that plan is not going to work. So I work inside of organizations, and that's where you get to experience the things that are really working inside of organizations and where things may be a little bit challenging or a little bit broken or a little bit, you know, they might need a new system put into place in order to have one of my best friends calls, you know, we need to make routine things routine. And often many of us are good at making routine things complicated. And so I get to figure out how to help bring the people together so that then the processes can run right and then sometimes there's technology needs that happen and I bring in somebody else to do that because that's not my job. Yeah.

So you know what? I love how you created that trajectory for us. And I want to, because I do know your backstory and our listeners don't. I want to ask you not to, not to get into the details of the particular thing that I want to get into. But I want to use it as a, as a jumping off point or as a pivot point, if I self servingly use that term yet again. I wish I had, I would love it if I had just, you know, even a penny, even the low penny, every time somebody has used the term pivot since I wrote that. So. But at one of those, in one of those employment contexts, I don't even need to say which one. You had a, you had a bad boss, you had a manager who was not, who is not warm and fuzzy. And you might say more about that if you want. But I want to ask you about your take. What's your take on the world of work today? And I want to in particular focus on, on the, the area of safety and trust within organizations. I want to talk about a lot of things with you today, but I think just because of your, you brought up your history, your work history. That was a pivotal moment for you, working for somebody who was a bit of a, of a. I mean, and you could fill in the blank for me there. A scrooge or whatever you want to call it. Right.

But worse, you know, we, all of us humans are complicated. And so I don't want to say. And this was a woman, so I don't want to say that she was a fill in the blank. She's a very complicated person. And her management style was born out of dysfunction in her family and bad bosses that she had. And you know, it's like parenting. When we have bad parents, we often don't parent well. Sometimes we do the flip side. Sometimes we say, I'm not going to do that to my kid. If we are self aware. She unfortunately is not particularly self aware. And so her style was that she would raise people up. And probably for a complicated set of reasons that I've decided to let go of trying to figure out I was her favorite person to both raise up and, and it would sound like, oh my God, you guys. Because that's how she talked. Oh my God, you guys. Janine is so brilliant. Janine. Anything that you need help with, especially if it has to do with like writing or anything that has to do with putting stuff together. Janine's the one that you want to talk to. God, she's just so smart. And. And of course, that was fun. It was fun being praised like that. The problem was that you always knew that the fall was coming. And in my case, it wasn't just that I would fall out of grace. It was that I would fall underneath the outhouse, like with the poop. And. And she would publicly shame me. And she would say, you know, Janine is an absolute effing idiot, and here are all the mistakes that she just made. And, you know, just like her voice would get so excited, her voice would get hard. And she would do it in front of people who are accountable to me. She would do it in front of my peers. She would do it in front of people that I needed to work with in other parts of the organization. She would do it in front of my customers. And one way or another, she was my boss for the whole time that I was with this organization, which is about eight and a half years. And what I didn't realize, it's that frog in the pot of boiling water. What I didn't realize was that was really the impact that that was happening on me and on my sense of self and on my sense of efficacy and on my sense of worthiness as a human. And eventually I realized I was in trouble. And so I went to the aforementioned best friend and I said, I think. I think I need some help. You have a psychiatrist, right? I think I need to go on antidepressants. And so she referred me to Dr. Rosenberg. And I went into Dr. Rosenberg's office and I was there for 10 minutes. And he said, okay, here's the thing. You are in massive crisis and you're pulling so hard from your adrenal gland that it is because women don't have testosterone. So to like to get it up to be in that environment every day. I was on the verge of adrenal burnout. I was massively depressed, and I really didn't even know it. And so I ended up being out on six month medical leave, which ended up. You know, obviously this is a. This is a horrible story, and unfortunately, it is way more common than we think. I just recently recorded, which will probably be aired by the time this airs. It's going to air on November 26, which is actually my birthday of the Anti Bullying Summit. That is a group of dozens of high powered people who were victims of bullying. And obviously, you know, this, this is a form of bullying. And, and what it created in me long term, obviously not. Then what it created in me long term is a deep need to help organizations be better and to have this not happen in organizations. And one of the things that gives me an enormous amount of hope for the future is that the younger generations in the workforce, the millennials, and the Gen Zs, they, because of their upbringing. And of course when you're talking about two generations of humans, there are many exceptions to what I'm going to say, but as a group, they have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of behavior. And in part it comes from the fact that, you know, these are the people that you and I raised. And maybe not so much you and I, but this is the generation that got trophies for just showing up and we poured into them and we told them that they were brilliant and magnificent and could do anything that they wanted. And so they have a sense of.

And shockingly, they believed us. They believed it, Yes. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but yes. And they believed us. Right.

They have this sense of self that I had lost that they are not willing to lose. And they are not willing to put up with this kind of behavior in the workplace. And layer on top of that, you know, they have a, some would say a slower maturation, some would say a stronger relationship with their parents. And so moving back home is not a big thing for them. Moving back in with mom and dad, great, I'm going to side hustle things together, I'm going to couch surf. Like they, they have a much more fluid feeling about how life should go. I remember I had my first age related Crisis. I was 25 and I was living with two other people in a one bedroom apartment in New York City and we had like cinder block shelves and I turned 25 and I was like, okay, this is not, you know, in my 25 year old version of adulting, it's like, this is not how an adult should live. And 25, that's an adult age looking back and like, aw, you sweet little thing. But right, but these young folk, they don't have that, they don't have that. Like this is not how it's supposed to go. And so it gives them so much more creativity and ability to stand up for themselves. And so the reality is that the average tenure, and you know, many folks our age, we may still have it in our head that millennials like these are kids. Well, the oldest of them are now 43. So these are not kids anymore. The oldest gen zers or zoomers as they're often called. They're 27. So, you know, older than I was when I, when I had my, my temper tantrum about being 25. So they. I lost my train of thought. Give me a second. I will get it back. And you will. And the potatoes team will brilliantly edit this part out. So.

We don't edit. Where I heard you tracking too. And my job, the memory here is this, that the idea that we don't tolerate bullying today, or let's say the people who are the leaders of today and tomorrow, because there's many folks who are already in that are millennial age that are leading, but let's just say Gen Xers and baby boomers are. They are still in the bulk of the highest levels of leadership. And by 2030, I understand Gen Z and Millennials will be the largest segment of the workforce by far. So that's.

Yeah. So millennials are already. Today, as we sit here, they are the largest group in the workforce. They have overtaken the Gen Xers, and as you said, many of them are now in positions of leadership and they are changing the face of work. And I have gotten into many challenging conversations with older, often white men who, you know, no shade thrown at you because you're a very different kind of white man, but older white men who are entrenched in the way. This is how we've always done things here. And I had to fight and I was bullied and I paid my dues. And these young folks, they gotta pay their dues. And this is just a phase that we're in. Yeah, but it's not. It's not a phase that we're in. And one of the things that I say, I'm working actually with a law firm right now on exactly this issue. The, the older partners are annoyed that they have to teach the young associates the things that they need to teach young associates anyway. And then the, you know, the perpetual feedback and the other things that this generation, these two generations coming up need in the workplace.

And, and like, they're like, like feedback, like regular feedback, like opportunities for growth, like a safe, A safe environment in which to show up and be who you are, whatever, ask questions and ask.

Questions, even challenge things, and a respectful challenge, status quo. We're talking about doing this thing, and it doesn't make sense to me. And, and those things, having open and clear communication, having often high, what's called emotional intelligence, which is really just about how we understand ourselves and relate with other people. Having organization that really values mutual trust, not that trust that we have in a parent, which is often how hierarchical organizations are set up. Do it because I tell you to do it. As we said to kids when, when they were two, like, no, these are, these are grown up humans who in this case are lawyers and they're baby lawyers. They're just learning. And so we get to invest in them. And the thing is, whether we're talking about a law firm or any other kind of an organization, when we fail to do that, we are putting ourselves in jeopardy because as you just recently said, the Xers and the boomers, we're leaving the workforce. The Millennials are now the biggest group in the workforce. And the average tenure of the Millennials and the Gen ZS is still 18 months to three years. And it is that because we are not letting their voices be heard. We are not enabling them to have the experience of belonging. We're not giving them feedback in a way that works for them as opposed to just once a year. And so they leave. The problem is we X ers and boomers, we are the wisdom keepers in organizations. We are the institutional knowledge holders. And once we leave, that information is going to be gone if there's nobody to impart it to. That's why a lot of organizations, you know, we're still talking about the gray tsunami and the. I'm working with an organization right now, 50% of their workforce, and they have 1800 employees, 15% of. No, I don't mean that 50%. Half of their workforce is eligible for retirement. So if these folks decide to just get up and leave, in all likelihood this organization, it's not going to happen immediately. But this organization is going to fail because all of the information about relationships that have happened with customers over time is going to be gone. And so we've got, we've got to crack this code. Organizations have got to understand that this is not a phase, that this is because of how these generations were raised, often by the folks who are being pissy about doing what these, what these younger folk need in the workforce. But we, we fail to pay attention at our own peril. I said to a client the other day, so here's the thing, we can either change the five of you or we can change two entire generations. Which sounds easier. They kind of got it.

Yeah. And there's, I want to understand better what, what does it look like? The term psychological safety is being used a lot. It's been used for a while now. And so in, in order to create greater trust in a situation where they're, where the trust is lacking. I mean, the fact that the attrition rates are as high as they are, as you say, that tenure is reduced to 18 to 18 months to three years for a large segment of the working population, well, there's something that's not working. So have you identified? I mean, you've already given us a lot in that area, but on the recommendation side of things. On the what? Okay, so we understand this is an issue, this is a problem. What do we actually do? Or what can we do? What's possible, what has worked that you've seen that you could share?

So there are two fundamental things that underpin psychological safety, which is a term that was coined by Dr. Amy Edmondson out of the Harvard Business School. And it really is about what we were talking about before. It is a. About my experience of being able to ask questions and wonder about stuff, even make mistakes without fear of negative reprisals. So, you know, with the boss that I was talking about earlier, if I made a mistake, there was a huge negative reprisal. So that organization or that team, because it was a fairly large organization, and so there are many, many teams within the organization. So I'm certainly not painting the organization with one brush, but inside that team, there was a significant lack of psychological safety. And the problem is, when you lack psychological safety, you also lack innovation, you lack creativity, you lack new ways of thinking outside the box. You lack honest information. Because if people are afraid to make a mistake, if people are afraid to say something that, you know, hey, here's what we're hearing from customers. And I know, Mr. Or Ms. Boss, you may not really like it, but here's the reality, and we need to understand that reality so that we can make the changes inside of our organization to respond to our customers needs, right? So if, if I as a frontline employee cannot share that with my reconnaissance, right. My boss is then making bad decisions. And it just goes, it goes up and down the hierarchical ladder in an organization. And so the cost of not having psychological safety is enormous. So then in the face of that cost, the two key things that run through creating psychological safety are open communication and trust. And you know, that's not a revolutionary idea given that we are all in relationship with many different kinds of people. You have your wife, I have my husband. You have your children, I have my stepchildren. You have all your friends and family, I have mine. You have the organizations you help, I have the organizations I help. We are in community with all kinds of people and all kinds of community and relationship. And we Know that trust is an incredibly important component. And clear, honest, open communication is an incredibly important component. So you know, newsflash, this is an incredibly important component in the world of work. And when I was coming up in the world of work, we kind of had it that you had one set of rules at home and one set of, you know, Janine behaviors at home and another set of rules and another set of behavior in the workplace. That paradigm is now broken. Just like these young folks want to have work life harmony, they. And because of cell phones, because of modern technology, the lines between work and not work are much more blurred. And so clear, open, honest communication and trust are critical. So then you think about, okay, so how the heck do you build trust? Well, part of how you build trust is being, being consistent, doing what you say, being predictable. So the same boss, she used to say a version of go get me a rock. And so you'd go out and you know, you'd, you'd create a document or you'd do whatever and you'd bring it to her and she'd say, no, that's not right. So then you'd go and try and do it again, but you weren't getting any feedback. Like, okay, I get it that it wasn't what you wanted, but like, do you want it in a different font? Does it need to be laid out differently? Did the content stink? Like, what's, what's the, what's the problem? Right? And so when we are clear and when we are consistent, then people know that they can trust us. The other thing that's tricky about trust is we often have it that trust is a particular thing. Like it's a finite. Like, Adam, you and I, after having known each other now for more than five years, we have trust. But you know, this other person and I, we don't have trust. Except that's not actually how trust works. You and I have breakdowns and then we, we repair it. And you know, I say I'm going to do something, I make a commitment, and then I get to decommit to that thing because I didn't do it. And then I get to make a new commitment and my not doing it is, it's a break of trust. And when, you know, I tell my husband I'll be home from work at 6:30 and I roll in at 7:30, I have not done what I have said. I have broken his trust. And so then I just get to own it. I know I said I was going to be home at 6:30, here I am rolling in at 7:30. I'm really sorry. And I recommit to continuing to try to get better or not try, but you know, continuing working on really getting clear about how long things are going to take me and what time you can expect me to be home because mostly he works from home.

So I think there's, there's something, there's so many interesting things that you've said already that I could go down any number of paths. But, but I'll just say that the, the thing that's coming up too, in addition to doing what you say, that in building trust and establishing trust, that being somebody that you can count on, that others can count on, that's an element of it. That being predictable and using that example of your former boss as a clear indication of what it looks like when somebody is unpredictable. And therefore you never know where you stand. And ultimately you either walk on eggshells or you're always kind of like in a nervous, shaky state, frankly, because you don't know what's going to happen, who you're going to meet today. But, but then the other thing too is, and you've alluded to it, but I want to, I want to specifically say it too is effective feedback. And the reason why I think that trust is lacking in addition to things you just said is really a reflection of the fact that many people have. Are very unskilled and lacking in skills and lacking in any training, frankly.

That's right.

Or how to do.

It's not a surprise that they're lacking in skills because they've never been trained how to do it exactly.

How to give or to receive feedback. And that's a really big deal because when you're not good at something, as adults we've learned from the time we're children or even learned from other instances where we've had people react in aggressive ways or harsh ways to us. We learn that when we're not good at something, we tend to not get involved in those things. And if you don't feel terribly good at giving feedback, you don't give a lot of feedback. And again, this is, this is to the detriment of an organization, to detriment of teams, to the detriment relationships. When you simply can't speak truthfully with compassion. And somewhat, you know, long ago I was involved in a training where the way that was described is when you speak your truth without compassion, it's barbarism. You're a barbarian, you know, and, and that's how some people handle it.

That's Right.

When you add compassion, when you speak truthfully with, with compassion, then then you, you're really providing something very valuable to another, to another person, to another individual. And, and that is very different than the kind of passive aggressive form of communication that I think pervades in so many different arenas today. And in the world of work, I see this in and among teams in their, and their leaders and all manner of cohort that you could think of where the communication is just off. And in many ways this is a root cause for a lack of trust. So the other thing too, so you mentioned, you know, that open communication trust. Also think, what do you think of permission? How important is permission in this context? And I want to be more specific, I am often like you are often in a role where we're providing some level of advisory information and being given that again is a great honor to be an advisor to, to leaders, teams and the like. And, and in that role, you know, some, someone will say to me, do I have to do it the way, you know, like the way you're saying is, is possible? Do I have to do it that way if I've succeeded by doing it a different way? And I'll give you a good example. There are a lot of people who just, they like to be the first in the office or the first to log in in the morning and the last to log out and the last to leave. And that's their form of leadership, is that they put their work first. They're telling everybody, and I don't know that that's their, their motive. But if it's like it's part of their identity, they wear it in a particular way. This is how I show my loyalty to the organization and this is how I show my work ethic. This is how I'm demonstrating and modeling what it, what it takes to succeed here as well as what it would take to succeed anywhere. And they come from that place and that's fine. I never tell a person that you need to start sleep in another hour, you know, leave the office at 4:30 instead of at 7:30. You know, especially you mentioned lawyers, and I was a lawyer for almost 20 years, so I never go that route because I don't believe it. If that's made you successful, if you feel that's what fulfills you, it's what you want, do it. But the other side of that is those same people are, are by their own modeling, in their own example, without knowing it, they are, are denying permission to others to do it differently. And so when they say to me, and I want to get your take on this. When they say, do I have to change? Are you saying that I need to change? When you talk about how people are experiencing burnout and anxiety levels are epidemic levels, loneliness, I mean, by a recent study, one in every four people at work are lonely, whether they're remote or they're hybrid or they're full time in the office. Loneliness is its own, its own issue today. So you're telling me I have to change? And I say no, what you do have to do is enable permission. You have to give some people permission to do it in a way that's not like the way you do it. So you're saying absolutes say more about any of that.

I can't say more other than you're brilliant, so. Or I have to say more other than, than you're brilliant. So you. I, I believe and in my experience and in my research, you are directly hitting the nail on the head. So if you Mr. Or Ms. Workaholic or super hard worker, super work ethic y person, if, if that's what works for you and you want to keep doing that, great. What you also get to do is to have a converse, is shine a light on it. You get to have a conversation with your people, especially if you are managing other people or if you are looked to as a leader because those two things are not necessarily synonymous. Right. We can be a leader and not manage anybody. We can be the janitor and be a leader in an organization because of how we, how we show up. So if you are looked to as a leader and, or if you manage other people, you, I believe, must say, this is what works for me and I love it and it's part of my identity. And I, I, I sweat if I even think about trying to change it. I am not asking you to do the same thing. If, if what works for you is to be in at 9 and be like, honestly, I actually don't care when you're in and when you're out. What I care about is that you get your work done right. We have had this paradigm and it's part of now what's happening with organizations saying we want everybody back in the office and they are using organizational culture as a sort of, as a hammer. Like we've, we've got, we have to maintain our organizational culture. And the only way that we can do that is with everybody in the office. I call BS on that. You can create an organizational culture in an entirely remote organization. You just get to do it consciously and you get to be clear about it and communicate about it. And so.

And it looks different and it feels different. And, and we're not. I mean, certainly you and I are not here to say that different is good or bad. It's. This is not. It's not a one size fits all.

For, for any of the other is not a. Here's what your organizational culture should look like. The question that I always ask first about your organizational culture is what does it feel like right now? And what would you like it to feel like? And what are your organizational values and what are you up to? What do you have a mission that's bigger than we sue insurance companies or we make shoes or we pick up the trash, or we make widgets or whatever it is that we do here? What are you up to that's bigger than that? Because that's another key thing that these younger generations need. They need a sense of purpose, and they need to know how their job directly connects to that bigger purpose. And so I don't give a flying hoot if you're in the office at 8am and you leave at 10pm if that's what it takes to get your job done. Well, we need to have a conversation about the amount of things on your plate, plate, or maybe the efficiency with which you get things done, because that's too. That's too many hours for a harmonious life. But if that's what works for you, if you love it, if the first thing you want to do every day is come to the office and the last thing that you want to do every day is leave the office and go home and go to bed, that if that really works for you, okay. But for most everybody else, like, just get your work done. If you can get your work done between 8 and 4 or 9 and 3 or 2 and 5, well, if you can get your work done between 2 and 5, you don't have enough work. So let's adjust that. But if you can get your work done in a normal amount of time, I mean, and we all know when we were at work, all the time we spent time on our computers, on Facebook and shopping and, you know, doing whatever other nonsense we were doing, we were not nose to the grindstone. So, you know, it's reasonable to assume somebody is working with focus. Maybe you see six to seven hours a day.

I think it's, it's productivity is the word. We're obviously, we're sort of circling around, and it's a word that's on the minds of economists of the Fed in the US for, for folks that are following economic policy here and Fed Chairman Jay Powell. Productivity is a very big component in the mix in terms of what monetary policy is likely to be or when it changes. And so AI and many other advances, but AI in particular, I think is the big question mark at the moment. I think there's already been tremendous productivity gains. Productivity has been high, at least it's been attributed to be high. And we're going to see more. And there's great, there's a lot of predictions being made, economic predictions, investment predictions on the value to productivity that some of these tools will provide. But I agree with you. I think we have to get out of that rigid mindset. There's, we are going to land the plane in a few minutes here on our conversations. I think a lot of this that we're talking about has to do with just how we see, see how we see things.

Yeah.

It'S, it's, it's a mindset that, yeah. That we get to as you say, be more conscious of, be more aware of, and then ultimately determine whether or not we're either rigid, too rigid perhaps to change or to pivot or to lean into more agility, more of an agile philosophy, or we're not. I don't think anybody ever think of themselves as being, or want to think of themselves as being so rigid that they cannot change. And yet and I've got, you know, the name of this podcast is Change Proof. I'm wearing a T shirt because in many respects I think all ultimately change is what is why you and I are in the roles that we're in because things Change is the great constant in the universe, which is a funny sort of paradox in and of itself. And people are really shitty with change. A lot of very, even really successful leaders and others who are not necessarily in those types of roles resist, resist change. So my last question is really one around how you've, because you've been, you've been someone that's, that's made changes and you've made them, I think, in a really elegant way from my vantage point. I know they've not been easy. I don't think many, many, many of the kind of changes that, that involve career decisions and, and other things are easy, but you've been resilient the whole for at least as long as I want to get your, your take on, on resiliency as it relates to change. And that'll be our last, our last inquiry for the moment today.

Wonderful. So one of the things, you know, I. One of my areas of work is change management, which is, you know, another one of these weird constructs, because of course, we don't manage change, we manage change processes and we manage ourselves in the face of change. And the reality is that literally the pace of change is speeding up. And it's part of why we as a global society are more depressed, more anxious, because us humans and this machine in our head called our brain, it does not like change. And so we've had goodness the last five years. You know, we're coming up on the anniversary of the beginning of COVID which was, I just realized the other day in March that's going to be five years when, when things shut down and. Which doesn't quite seem possible. And, and when we think about all of the changes that we have gone through and all of the uncertainty, and obviously here in, in the US there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment. And, and it's. It has sort of become the water that we're swimming in. And so then how we manage that is really through resilience. And, and you're the one who has taught me a lot of. About resilience. And I think when I look back on my life, you know, we, we know that the big changes, they are hard and they are painful, and it is when we grow. And so I think part of the trick for me in managing my own resilience has both been to pay attention to when I need recharging of my battery. And for me, we're going to end where we started. For me, that is spending time at the ocean by the ocean and unplugged and also being really clear. Just like we've become more clear about the process of grief, becoming more clear about the process of change. And you know, often when, when a change is first introduced, we, we get mad and we rail against the machine and you know, this is, this is bullshit and this is not the way it's supposed to go. And. And then we get sad and. And then we're in an uncomfortable period where we're letting go of how it was and we haven't yet gotten really clear about how it is yet to be. And that is the uncertainty period. And man, we hate it. And. But being clear, like, oh, okay, I'm in the uncomfortable middle. Got it, boy, I don't like it. And here we are. And what can I do to get into action? Because the thing that moves us out of the uncomfortable middle is getting into action towards the thing that is becoming and finding ways to be enthusiastic about that. And it can be hard, especially if what we're letting go of is something that we really liked or something that was connected to our identity or you know, and, and with the way that work permeates our lives more of us. You know, it used to, it used to largely be men who self identified with work and so when they had to retire or were forced into retirement or whatever that end of the work time was like. It was a really big transition. It was really hard because their identity was so connected. It's now most of us and so getting that this transition is difficult and I don't really like being in this uncomfortable place. So what can I be excited about that is in the process of formation and how can I get into action around that? That's what moves us out of the uncomfortableness of the middle and then into the new thing.

Yes, and, and, and because I love the way you led us through that, that continuum that the thing that to me also follows or is in the sequence becomes commitment, becomes full commitment. Life is, life is messy. For those of us out there who are either perfection or recovering perfectionists. I, I'm sorry to say there's no, there's no straight lines in the universe. Just hold your arm up and you can see it's not straight and all the rest. Haha giggle, giggle. But, but ultimately this is not about trying to seek something perfect again in that grieving that people experience when change happens, happens. It's letting go of what their vision of what should be. You know, and that idea of what it should be is that for many of us that perfectionists view of the world. So as you say, it takes some letting go. But we're not after perfectionism anyway. I think we're after impeccability. And I'm not just splitting, you know, hairs. I think it's, it's more than semantics. It's the meaning here is that to be impact impeccability is something we can strive for. Perfectionism not so much at least without a lot of pain and agony. Frustration and agony is optional I think. But impeccability we can strive for. And to me impeccability is the ability to be fully committed to something. When you're fully committed, you're impeccable doesn't mean you're always gonna win.

You always do it.

Right, right, exactly. But, but that's different. And, and being, being in that state, moving through that continuum to only to end up in a place where you can be fully committed.

Yeah.

Is, is really to me the end goal to coming out of change or working change, utilizing it, leveraging it for everything it's worth. And that takes energy. It takes. Right. That energy. I think people, they're willing to sacrifice their energy so readily when they're caught up in, in the rip current, the riptide of change because. Exactly. Couldn't say it any better and I wouldn't want to say it any differently, they just like you said at the beginning, they resist. And when you resist change, when you resist anything, you ultimately exhaust yourself in the process and that will not enable you more, more readily, quickly, agilely to get to that place where you could be fully committed to leveraging change. So it's, it's just self defeating, ultimately. Janine, thank you so much for everything that you shared today, for your insights, for leading us through that, that beautiful sequence around change and resiliency. And just as I, as we began the podcast by me saying, you know, just how I feel about you, again, I want to reiterate it. You are amazing as a person, as someone who's helping other people, I just feel, I feel blessings for them that they get to utilize that brain of yours and those insights and your experience which, which comes from things, things that have been difficult as well as things that have been really have worked great. So thank you for sharing all of it or pieces.

It is truly been my honor and it has been my honor to be on this journey with you and I'm excited to see where it continues to take us.

Wonderful. Everybody. You'll, you'll obviously just stay tuned for a moment. I'm going to share some post notes a little bit afterwards on our conversation today, as well as where you can find out more information about Janine Hamner Holman. Of course the show notes will have links to her website and more about her role with Workwell actually will be in there as well. And we'd love to get your comments, your feedback because it's vital to us. So you can go to AdamMarkel.com podcast, leave a comment or a question for Janine or myself and I promise you it will not be a bot, it will be actually us that responds to that. And lastly, of course, the feedback that you provide in the form of a rating on the platform that you're consuming this podcast, we'd love a five star rating, but whatever it is that makes sense for you is just really valuable to us and we appreciate so much for taking the time to share that feedback as well. I totally love that conversation with Janine, I get to speak to her frequently. She's a friend, she's a colleague. And every single time I speak to her, I learn something. Every time I speak to her, I find myself inspired and more and more enthusiastic about the work that I do. Her energy is contagious. Her sense of humor and her way of looking at the world, I think is really amazing and unique in many respects. So I so enjoyed our take today, our conversation and looking at. At both her work history and she shared vulnerably a story from her past. Having been bullied at work, I'll use that term, somebody that I think has really come through some very difficult work experiences with profound insights, with uncommon insights into how it is that we create greater psychological safety in the workplace place. She gave us a history of many of those concepts and really shared with us some very sage ideas, sage wisdom, I would think, I would say, around how it is that we develop greater trust and open communications in the workplace and ultimately how it is that we're able to be better at leading others as well as leading ourselves and even in our roles as individual contributors. Because all of these skills, all these tools that we were discussing today are applicable in every area of relationship, be it personal, be it professional. And frankly, I think our discussion around how it is that we develop greater trust by doing the things that we say we're going to do, by being predictable, by providing feedback and being open. Open to receiving feedback. And even as I. I was wanting to plus an ad and contribute something to that conversation by giving other people permission as well, to do it differently, to succeed in a way that's different than the way that we've learned to succeed. And that's difficult. You know, often that's. That even that piece of it allowing and letting other people succeed in a way that's. That's different than the way that we are, that we are accustomed to or the way that has worked for us is difficult, but the conversation is vital. As Janine said, we have to be able to speak about these things. We have to feel open, that it's safe to be open and be in open dialogue and communication and in community with one another in regard to these very. These. These difficult, difficult topics and difficult situations to navigate because we're just people and we're imperfect. But ultimately we want to. We want to be able to navigate the. The one constant, the one great constant that we all experience, and that is what the universe is comprised of, which is change, that things must constantly be evolving because if they're not evolving. If they're not in a state of evolution, then they're in a state, state of decay, they're in a state of entropy. So change is the one thing that we as, as individuals, as, as, as leaders, as people that are involved and in relationship to others organizationally and, and in greater communities of our society. We have to know that change is always going to be the one, the one constant. And when we realize that we're not great at change and where we resist it and we see it as a threat, that it interferes with our need for control, even that when we have that level of self awareness, then we understand that we must become better at change, at working through the cycle. The sequence, as Janine shared with us at the end, sort of toward the end of our conversation, that idea that we have to see, acknowledge that we're going to be mad sometimes, that our first reaction to change things change, changing the status quo or something else in our world changing. That we may be mad at first, that there's anger associated with it. We may become sad. And that's also likely to occur. That it is would be ordinary for, for us to move from sad, from mad to sad. And then, and then ultimately in that space of uncertainty that we feel unmoored, that we feel confused and lacking in clarity. But that on the other side of that, when we are able to emerge from that, that state, looking at that change as something that is, that is both required. Because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. I truly believe that whatever is happening is happening for a reason. It's certainly not random and it's certainly not by accident. That in that sense it's recorded, required. That when we emerge from that process, understanding that this is something that will ultimately serve us or serve others, even if we don't know how it will do so, that we can then get to the place where we can fully commit to it. Not to try to create a new form of perfection or to become inoculated from change in the future that will never happen. But that we can be impeccable. And by impeccable I mean that we can be fully committed, that we can move forward with full commitment and that will ultimately leverage that change and create an exponential benefit from that event. Whatever that change was, whether it was something involved directly in a professional or in a business context, or it's something in our personal lives. And all of that was just precipitated by how Janine led us through her personal story, through her own roller coaster, through her what was a rock bottom moment in her career to the point where now she is inspiring and educating, leading insightful leaders to do better, to be able to lead more effectively through period, through the constant period of change that we're all experiencing, living in. And as Janine said, that that's only accelerating. In all likelihood, the pace of change velocity, if you will, is only increasing over time. And so we really desperately, in many cases, need to learn how to be better with change. And of course, me having, wearing a T shirt that says Change group, having a podcast with that name, writing a book with that title, changes really very much on my mind. And I know it's on the minds of all of us. So what a perfect guest to help us to wade into that dark water and not feel somehow that we are not grounded. And Janine is a very grounding person and I'm sure you got that listening to her. And so again, if you'd like to find out more about the work that she does and the work she actually does in collaboration with our organization, work well as a facilitator, leading trainings and even keynotes on the topics of psychological safety, on inclusion, on emotional intelligence, on conscious leadership, and other topics as well, please feel free to engage with us on that. There's more about Janine and her work in the world in our show notes. For now, anyway, I just want to say thank you again for being a part of our community. Stay change proof, I suppose. But more than that, I wish you a really beautiful, peaceful day. A day when you can be in your heart, you can feel clear that in the moment, in this moment, you're not just safe, but you are doing something to advance, to grow, to evolve. And what's out in front of that evolution for all of us is something more beautiful than we can even imagine. I wish you the best and thank you again for being a part of this community. Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proof. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcast for more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com BecomeChangeproof.

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