Why Leaders Should Start With Execution With Nellie Wartoft

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

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Welcome back to the Change Proof Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm so happy to be sitting in the seat today. I've got a great guest. I'm gonna share a little bit more about her in just a second. Her name is Nellie Warthoff. She is the CEO and founder of Tiger Hall. She shares a similar drive to revolutionize how large enterprises and small ones as well approach change and transformation, something we at Workwell lean into pretty heavily as well. At Tiger Hall, Nellie has enabled companies like AWS and Cisco to replace outdated communication methods with engaging and measurable content. I know you're going to love this conversation, so sit back and enjoy my discussion with Nellie Warthoff. Okay, Nellie. Well, you have a really impressive CV and I love reading other people's bios. I don't love to listen to my own or even listen to other people read mine or share that way, but I quite enjoy reading other people's and fascinating what you've done in the world. My first question to you is really It's what's not on the bio. I would love to know one thing that's not part of your bio that you would love for people to know about you in this moment.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me on the show. One thing that is not on my bio is probably not on the official bio, but my plan B was to be an EDM DJ. Huge EDM fan. And if it wasn't change and transformation, I would probably want to be a tier B EDM DJ. That would be a good dream.

Tier B. Okay. So now I got to lean into that. I love, I love EDM music, but I'm not like a, I won't call myself sort of any more knowledgeable than to say that. So I have no idea what Tier B is. What, and maybe some other people listening to this don't know either. Actually, we should probably tell people what EDM is to start. I'm just saying, and then go to Tier B. Would that be okay? Yeah.

EDM is electronic dance music. So think Tiësto, Avicii, Kygo, and yeah, electronic dance music. Tier B is more a self-depreciating comment. So I would probably not be Tiësto level. I would probably be like one level below, you know, the one who's like playing everyone else's tunes.

Oh, man. Come on, Nelly. If you're going to— I mean, if we're going to create the fantasy, can we please be tier A? Can we just like—

We can be tier A. Yeah, maybe let's aim for tier A. Tier A tends to start a bit earlier in life though.

So— I think, Nelly, you just— After 30. You would absolutely rock that out.

Okay. To tier A EDM DJ. Love you guys.

I'm clapping for you already. That was killer. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now, we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. You know what? I ask that question

a fair amount of time, having done more than 300 episodes of this show.

I always love it because people are kind of caught a little off guard by the question. We don't give the question ahead of time, so it's never canned, you know, for my audience that's maybe curious about that. But that's one of my favorite— that's one of my favorite responses ever. I just like so did not expect that and love it. So what is it about that music? I want to just lean into that, you know, a little bit more here. I love to dance personally. I love electronic dance music. I love all kinds of dance music. But what is it about EDM that really, you know, literally resonated with you and when? And when did that start for you?

So I've been a massive EDM fan since I was, I think, 11 or 12. Like, I mean, way earlier than I could go clubbing, but just love the energy of the music, the beat. It's kind of like the soundtrack to my life is EDM. And I'm one of those, like, I listen to EDM in the morning when I wake up. I listen to EDM when I go to sleep. I listen to EDM on flights. I listen to I listen to it when I travel. I listen to it when I work out, when I walk. So I know some people's relationship with EDM is only when they work out or they do like a high-energy activity. But my relationship with EDM is all on 24/7. Every part of my life is EDM-fueled. And some of my friends, I was texting with a friend yesterday and they said like, oh, maybe we were planning some like travels around her wedding. And she was like, oh, maybe that would be a little bit intense for you. But then I remember you're Nelly, so everything you do is intense. So it doesn't really matter. That's right. Love from EDM comes in as well. It's just like, it's intense, it's high energy. And I think that matches the life I'm living as well, probably.

Yeah, that's cool. So like, tell me about the start of the day and where EDM meets you at the beginning of the day. Because I'm fascinated with that. I talk a fair amount. I speak fairly regularly about that kind of ritual, the beginning of the day from a wellbeing standpoint. Where our company Workwell is brought in often to work with organizations on change. That's something you and I are going to talk about today. And we focus specifically on the change that means creating a healthier place to work for people. So that's sometimes partly the responsibility of the business, the organization, because structurally there are some things that are unhealthy that are a part of that organization. And then there's the whole bit about people just showing up as themselves. And not really knowing very well, having never really learned at any depth or in a meaningful way how to take care of themselves. I know it sounds odd, but it's a reality. So if a person's showing up to work and they're bringing their trauma with them, as they will and they do, or they're bringing unhealthy habits, or they're not at their best because they're— they just don't know how to take better care of themselves so that they can actually be more ready. Then that becomes, you know, either something we look away from and ignore potentially, or we roll up our sleeves so that it becomes, you know, the way you would get involved if it, it were somebody you loved, you know, like you just wouldn't just stand idly by. So it's— I'm really curious. The EDM is really high energy, as you said, and it's intense. So how does that meet the morning for you at the beginning of the day? How does that serve you?

So I'm a big believer that your actions influence your mindset, not the other way around. And I'm also a big believer that execution drives strategy, not the other way around. So I don't believe in creating a big grand strategy and then go figure out how we execute it. I believe in let's execute, test, A/B test, figure out what works, and then that goes into the strategy. So it's the same for me when it comes to mindset and action. So If I don't, like, no person really wakes up and go like, oh my God, like I'm super high energy, gonna attack the day. I know a few people that do, but I think that's a really hard place to force yourself to get into. So I do the opposite. So I listen to EDM and then I get into that mindset from the EDM music. And the same with working out. Like I'm a huge Barry's Bootcamp fan, for example, and partly because of the EDM music that they play in the class. But that's the other thing, like you don't have to get yourself into the mindset to then go work out. You go work out and that will then get you into the mindset. So I build much of my routine and habits around like, I need to do this and then that will get me into the mindset. And the same with work, whatever it is, like I pack my calendar with meetings and that gets me into a really creative state of like coming up with great ideas for the business. I'm not someone who can sit on a Saturday afternoon and be Socrates and think about a lot of creative ideas. I need to get myself into that mindset by taking the actions that I know will get me into that state of mind. So that's what EDM does for me. It gets me into a state of mind of high energy, high excitement, creativity, and just excitement about life in general.

Yeah, that resonates with me so personally. And just thinking about what I even did this morning as part of prepping for not just speaking with you, not having a podcast, but just being in the right sort of space As it turns out, we're recording this on a Monday. I just had a great weekend and like, you know, no different from when I was 10 years old and I'm a lot more than 10 years old now. But, you know, I never want the weekend to end. I mean, I love what I do. I love work. I work all the time. But weekend is weekend or downtime is downtime. You know, there are things that are really enjoyable to do. And so, you know, Monday can be a bit of a slog for me. It has been even I don't get this. When I was a lawyer, I used to get sort of depressed on Sundays. It would start early in the day. It wouldn't even be Sunday night. It used to be like it was the nighttime, you know, when I was in school and knowing, oh, Monday, it's like back to that, right? Or whatever. That's the kind of student I was, uh, or my enthusiasm level at the time. But, and then as a lawyer, I would just feel it like earlier in the day. I could feel the heaviness of, you know, things being, being back to that. Mm-hmm. So I don't feel that at all anymore. I just know that when I wake up in the morning on Monday, having had a great, great weekend, I need a little something to just sort of— and yeah, my spiritual practice or work on the mind, which is to me still the catalyst for everything we create, you know, that's fundamentally the hardest work I've ever known. But there's a hack to that, and music is that hack for me as well. So I hopped in the shower, I turned on this old Colin Hay. Music that I absolutely love that I sing out loud, you know, like crazy singing out loud in the shower, you know, whatever. And it just changes the energy in me that ultimately then is a catalyst for better thinking. And I think that's what you're saying is that the cart and the horse for you are sort of that action and the music being one of those action steps that will then change your thoughts, especially if your thoughts are not maybe the most empowering at a certain point. Yeah. Is it? Am I tracking that right?

Yeah, you're tracking that right. And it sounds like it's the same for you, like turning on the music in the shower and then you get energized by that, right? Because I know many people are kind of like, oh, I don't feel great today, or I'm not in the right mindset. And then they start procrastinating and they don't get things done. And like they allow their mindset to affect them to a greater degree instead of just accepting that, okay, like today I don't feel fine, but I'm going to do ABC. And I know that that's going to turn me into the state of mind that I need to be in to get these things done that I want to get done. So, so yeah, right. Absolutely.

We don't have to be like sort of helpless in the face of our, of our thoughts. I mean, yeah, we, I mean, we really are if we don't have a way. I don't love the word hack so much. I'm not gonna use it again. But, you know, it's like a way around that. We don't have a workaround for our thoughts. We're stuck in them for some length of time and they can really Man, they can screw up relationships. They can screw up like deals. They can screw up like so many things, right?

Yeah, exactly. And I find that so many people are very self-judgmental also, like they instead of just observing how they feel and what they think, they judge themselves all the time. They then judge themselves for not being in the best state or feeling a bit off instead of just accepting themselves. So I'm very big on self-acceptance, just like however I feel like That's okay. Now, what can we do about it? And not every day has to be a 10 out of 10 day, right? So I think more people would do better with a bit more self-acceptance and just like, it's fine to have a bad day and then just have these actions that you can take to change it if you want to, or don't change it if you don't want to, but don't dwell on judging yourself for emotions or feelings or thoughts that you have. There's no point judging yourself for how you feel because you feel the way you feel and that's what it is.

Right. But certainly means it's meaningful to have options. And what I love about what you just shared is that's another way to look at it. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, he talks about or has talked about this idea of sort of being in proximity to opportunity. Like the tree of opportunities is, you want to be— when the apple falls, you want to be there to catch the apple as it falls off the tree. Or if not, then be the first one to pick it up. Yeah. from the ground. Yeah. You know, when it's done that. And so, I'm just saying, even in our own company, I remember bringing that back to our leadership team and saying, hey, you know, how do we create more opportunities to be in proximity, I should say, to the opportunities? And I think that's also an aspect of what you're saying is that when you execute it, when you said earlier, execution drives strategy, I think on some level, You're saying put yourself in the way of opportunity. And in doing so, you will learn what works and what doesn't work and what could be done differently. But I want to hear, I want to get more from you on what does that mean? What does that look like? And in your work with organizations, how do you implement this sort of ready, fire, aim sort of strategy?

Yeah. So overall, What you were saying, like putting yourself out there, start executing, like doing something is usually a big step for many people. Just start doing something, right? And start testing it. I think many get stuck in this all-or-nothing mindset where like we need to do 10 things or none at all instead of like, let's start with 2 and see how those 2 go. And then we can always reiterate, we can always pull back, we can always double down. Having that feedback loop with what you're doing and being able to measure it and see what works and doesn't work, that ultimately then goes back into strategy. And we see this happen And that's happening all the time in corporations, right? Where they develop, they spend millions and billions on developing great, beautiful strategies, and then it all fails when it comes down to execution in the field. And that's why we still have the statistic of 70-80% of transformations fail, 70-80% of change fails because it's on PowerPoint, it looks great, but then when the rubber hits the road or the plan hits the people, Then things start to go sideways, right? So that's where many are going wrong. And I think that's because they spend way too much time and money on that first strategy and planning phase and way too little on execution. And if you look at just the dollars being spent in these areas as well, you have around $180 billion a year that are being spent on strategy consulting and then $10 billion spent on execution. So $180 versus $10, and that's where I'm in favor of flipping that a bit to do more execution, see what works, what sticks, what doesn't work, and then be able to pivot and iterate from there. And I'm also a big advocate of feedback loops in the work that we do in change activation, having very tight, real-time, short feedback loops instead of what many organizations do, which is a 90-day feedback survey or an annual NPS, even worse. And like seeing how it lands just once a quarter. But then you've already lost 3 months, and 3 months is a very long time when it comes to implementing a strategy. So, having those tighter feedback loops around execution, knowing what lands, how does that work, what doesn't work, and being able to then bring that back and implement in strategy, I think, is absolutely crucial to succeed in change and transformation.

Yeah, that sounds like a big mindset shift that's required to embrace that. But And so I want to get your sense of how people meet that with you and how they respond because it feels to me like I can hear people thinking or saying, hey, that's really wasteful. We could burn up a lot of resources, time, energy, money in doing something only to learn it doesn't work. Shouldn't we think about it first? Shouldn't we plan ahead? Shouldn't we be super dialed in before we start putting shovels in the ground and things like that? So when you meet that mindset, which is clearly one that is risk-averse, I mean, I was a lawyer for almost 20 years, so I know internally in companies, the legal department's often like the department of no. So there's a classic risk aversion there and also a desire to just sort of be safe and a fear of what? Wasteful mistakes. Look like? So how do you meet those objections and that mindset of sort of risk aversion?

Well, I would flip that and say like, what is wasteful is spending all of that time and money on strategy before you come to execution. Because if you think of $180 billion spent on strategy and an 80% failure rate, that's $144 billion going to waste. So if that's not waste, then I don't know what is. And you should still spend on strategy and planning and still do that work and put the time into it. But it's the extreme of like 90+% going into that and very little to execution. And I believe in a 50/50. So by all means, do strategy and planning. That's also key. But start execution earlier, get feedback earlier, get data earlier, and start smaller instead of going out and doing one big bang and Based on the strategy that we took 2 years to develop, and then it just falls flat in 3 months. That is waste, if anything.

Sure. I mean, it's a bit like constructing a ladder and you climb that ladder only to find that you put the ladder on the wrong wall kind of thing. So there's a lot of that. And there's also sort of the sunk cost fallacy where people start to build something or they're working on something, and at some point it may even seem like it wouldn't be a great idea, But they've got so much sunk time, energy, money sunk into that, whatever that is, that they won't pivot there. I wrote a book called Pivot some years ago. I mean, and that's also like one of those wild things to see people continue to pursue something that they sort of intuitively know, you know, will just die on the vine or just not work at all, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Sunk cost is such a big fallacy. And then you also have ego in all of this, right? Like someone owns the strategy, someone is the executive sponsor, And then it kind of has to work and they put their names on the line and their careers on the line. And I think that's another danger zone where you don't want to have too much ownership and ego going into it before execution, because that's also an area where I see many are going wrong.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. It sounds like leadership has to encourage mistake-making. And I'd love to get your philosophy on that. So, when you're working with senior leaders on this, because I'm assuming that in helping an organization to sort of flip the script, because it could very well be that they've been very much a planning organization and that's their process. We plan and then we execute. And you're saying execute, then plan. And the flipping of that script is going to require some faith. It's going to require some people to buy in, get other people to buy in, et cetera. I would think among those things you have to deal with would be how leaders encourage others to make good mistakes. Is that accurate? And what does that look like conversationally or from a mindset behavioral change standpoint?

So, I think the problem there is that too many people see the world as black and white, and it's like good or bad, right and wrong, failure or success. Whereas in Reality, it's more around what can we learn from that? How can we iterate? How can we change a bit? How can we improve? And I think that's the mindset that more leaders need to inculcate. So I wouldn't necessarily say it's like going out and saying, yeah, failure is great, or like encouraging failure, encouraging mistakes. It's more encouraging learning, focusing on the things that will actually take you forward and move you forward, and focusing on things like, what have we learned from this? What is going well? What is not going well? How can we remove what is not going well and learn from that? And how can we double down on what is working? So I see it more as a gray zone iterative process rather than like we're failing or we're succeeding, because that is also what instills a lot of fear in people, right? Like nobody wants to fail. Nobody wants to fail. Nobody wants to make a mistake, and especially in large corporations, because it's always punished and you lose your job and you need these successes to have in your pocket for the next career cycle and your promotions and so on. So I think that binary mindset is dangerous when it comes to driving change and transformation, and you need to have more of an iterative process. And that's why the execution side is so important. And with those feedback loops and the measurement and being close to the execution, as opposed to separating strategy and execution, which now tends to happen in one linear process. And I believe it's much more of a loop. It's actually a cycle. So what many organizations do today is they start with a strategy, might take them a year or so or even 2 years, and then they move into execution as the last phase. I think it needs to be cyclical. It needs to be you execute, that feeds into strategy, you try the new strategy execution, and then that execution, the data and the feedback feeds into strategy. So it's always iterative and it's always ongoing. And I think that's the mindset that more leaders need to build in their teams because change is the only constant and there's always going to be change going on. So we've moved from this mindset of change being very ad hoc, and you had it as like one initiative maybe every 2, 3 years. Whereas now, if we just look at the last 10 years, and there is Gartner research around this, if you look in 2014, there was an average of 1 or 2 changes impacting every employee every year. So 1 or 2 changes, and then you had 80% of people went like, yep, that's great. I can get on board. I can get behind that. That's super. 10 years later in 2024, that number of changes were 15. So 15 changes per employee per year. And that's when people now, like, now it's about 30% that say, yeah, I'm on board. So you have this big activation gap when it's more and more change happening and people are less and less inclined to be on board with it. And that is another mindset that needs to be changed again from leaders many times and saying that change is always on. We're always going to be iterating. We're always going to be transforming because the moment we stop changing, then we're basically dead in the water. So it's this, always-on iterative mindset, I think, more so than like a success, failure, mistake. Like, I think that language isn't very helpful in change.

Yeah. And look, language is so important. And it's not just semantics, but I'm sure, again, just, you know, kind of hearing the voice of other people that may be listening to this too, they say, well, it's learning organization or, you know, learning, calling something learning versus calling it failure. is fine from a language standpoint. And yet in actuality, for stakeholders, for shareholders, for people that are just strictly looking at the numbers at the bottom line, something doesn't work, it doesn't work. Something costs the company money, didn't produce enough of an ROI or any ROI. They're not going to call it a learning. They're going to call it a failure. They're going to call it a mistake.

Why do you think that is though? Because anything that doesn't deliver an ROI, okay, we've learned that this doesn't deliver an ROI. Why do you think so many still call it a mistake or a failure?

Oh, I mean, I think that's the point of, you know, where our conversation is leading is that I just believe we're going back to childhood here. And the fact that, you know, like I will speak on behalf of our company frequently, I'll do keynotes and things like that. And I'll stand on a stage and I'll ask people, so when we were younger and we made mistakes, you know, what did we learn? And everybody always goes the same thing. They always use the same exact word. I say, when you make a mistake, there are— and everybody goes, consequences. And they know this. We know this from like, you know, grade school. And where I'm leading or trying to get to in that conversation is to talk about the kinds of things that produce that fear in us that will make that, you know, sort of a binary, as you said earlier, a choice between survival. And death, because ultimately making mistakes is dangerous to your health. And when you succeed or when you get it right, then you survive and maybe even thrive. So I think it's that sort of prehistoric in our amygdala and in our thinking. And so the question I want to get to with you is when that's working in the DNA of an organization, because it's made— fortunately today, organizations are still made up of people. Yeah. It's not algorithmic. There won't be any fear in an algorithm. We know that. There won't be intergenerational trauma that is impacting how the algorithm responds to a situation. And I hope that that's never the case because— and I don't expect it to be, certainly not in our lifetime. So people are still going to run things. People are going to be in charge. People are going to impact other people. And a lot of the ways that we impact each other is with our fear. Yeah. Our doubt and our worry, et cetera. So I wanted to get just a beat on when you're speaking with these leaders and you're saying, listen, to get people to adopt a philosophy of continuous learning, of regular feedback loops, part of that is that people have to let go of the fear that making a mistake or getting it wrong will lead to their demise, will lead to them being fired. I'm just curious how that conversation goes with you, you know, and do you talk about perfectionism at all in any of that? I don't know if you delve into that aspect of it at all.

So, I think what you mentioned around school is very true, and I have a lot of issues with school and how we have taught historically. I'm not sure if this has changed. I haven't seen inside a school in a long time, but the way that we were brought up was very much around like it's right or wrong. You get points on an exam, and when you do group work, it's like, usually one person pulling the whole piece, right? And the rest of it, you're not really encouraged to work together or to experiment or to fail. It's very binary again. So I think that's a big problem. Then when it comes to corporations, I actually think that CEOs always underestimate their power and how much influence they have. I think many CEOs think that they can do whatever CEO job they have and the rest should do what they should do. But things like leading from the front, what you reward, what encourage, what you call out, all of these things have such a big impact. And it's both my own realization as being a CEO myself and just like the words, like how much weight your words actually carry for good and bad. And that means that you can influence and shape culture and people and values so much more than any head of culture ever can, right? Yeah. And I think CEOs consistently underestimate their own role and the role that they play in change and transformation especially. And I've met CEOs of companies with 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 employees who ask me, can we just turn off the feedback loops in Tiger Hall? I don't want to know what people have to say. I don't want to know what they think. Because in Tiger Hall, they get feedback of like, what is working, what isn't working, and how is this going on the ground, and what do people think and how they receive it. And I've had CEOs ask me, can we just turn it off because I don't care? And that, of course, then sets the tone, right? And then if you look at, okay, who do they promote? Who do they bring into their executive leadership team? What behaviors do they reward? And like all of that trickles through. And sometimes you might say that, oh, it's about the entire ELT, the whole leadership team, and all the leaders we have in the organization. Sure it is, but everything starts from the CEO. And I think that is so critical. And if we look at many organizations where you have a very strong, say, like founder CEO, and I mean strong in the sense of like having a strong identity, like a Marc Benioff of Salesforce, for example, like very strong identity and like influence on Salesforce, right? You can see that his influence on how Salesforce operates is, it would be a completely different company if he wasn't there, right? And that's true for so many other companies. Satya Nadella is another great example of how he changed the culture at Microsoft. I think there's like one person, one role has a very big impact. And I think if the CEO is not on board with the type of culture that you want to create in the organization, the type of change you want to drive, the type of transformation, it's going to be really, really, really hard. And when I look at the companies that we work with, so Tyrell works primarily with large enterprises, a lot of Fortune 500 firms, and I see a very direct correlation between how the CEO behaves And what they do and what they value and how well the transformation is going. And where transformation is treated as something separate, they have their own office, they run their own thing, whatever, and the CEO is doing their own business as usual, it's always, always going to fail. So I think that's something that isn't talked about enough. We talk a lot about leadership in general, but I think the CEO has such a big role to play in this, and they themselves underestimate how big their role actually is in making it successful.

Yeah. This is just amazing timing. I was on a debrief call just about an hour before you and I got together for this discussion. And the debrief was for a speaking engagement that I just recently had. We always do that. We love to close the loop with that organization for 2 reasons. One, to find out, you know, did we hit the brief? What could we learn? What worked? What didn't work? What could be done differently? That's the feedback loop that you're talking about. The feedback loop. Yeah, exactly. And in having that conversation, one of the interesting things that came out was the fact that they'd had a great event, absolutely spectacular. In this instance, because I had a bit of time, they brought me in to do both the keynote and a workshop. And I had a bit of time with this group. The CEO was involved there, seated at a table in the front for both segments. And I got to, you know, we had participation and engagement. It was just— it was absolutely wonderful. And they were thrilled with everything they had heard and the surveys that came back. It was just like, you know, couldn't have been better. So I said, well, what did the CEO think? You know, because we had had these interactions together, etc. And I was just curious. And they all sort of blank stared at me. There were 6 people on this, my team and 6 of their folks. And everybody was sort of waiting for somebody else to say, that the CEO had said something to any number of any one of them about the event or about, you know, and there was nothing. And I thought to myself, and I didn't say anything at the time to them, of course, but I, in a follow-up call with a member of my team, I said, can you believe the fact that it's been 2 weeks and this event team put on a, you know, very, very involved event, cost them millions of dollars to do it, lots and lots of people from All over the globe. I won't say which company it was, but there were a number of regions represented. And here, this events team, this production team had not heard from the CEO at all about what a great event it was or how great it went. And I thought to myself, that is remarkable. It was like whether it was onto the next thing or whatever that might be. And I don't want to be judgmental because it's possible that they're going to get There's going to be some kudos, there's going to be some congratulations or something that they'll hear about in the future or maybe in some meeting. But 2 weeks after the fact, and there wasn't anybody on that call that could say that they'd heard something positive from the CEO about how that event went. And it's just like you say, what's the influence? I get it, that person's probably very, very busy. It's a lot of moving parts. They have a lot of responsibility and lots of fish to fry and again, stakeholders that they have to answer to and a board of directors and whatnot. But what does it actually, what does it say? What does it mean when that CEO doesn't understand the potential influence of their actions or their inactions in this case? And I think you're right.

Yeah, because silence is also an action. Not saying anything and not highlighting it, it also means that it's not important. And that could also be used very effectively, right? Like if the CEO doesn't give something attention, then you know that this is not as important as the areas that the CEO gives attention to. So, that also signals something. But yeah, silence speaks as loud or even louder than words many times.

Yeah. Interesting that that came up. So, we've got a couple of minutes here. I'd love to just talk about change, you know, in the context of the world we're living in right now. As you said, it's the one constant. It's kind of a paradox of sorts. That's the one thing we can count on is that things will change and change continuously. I mean, the velocity of change has just only increased.

Yeah.

And I see in the organizations that we work with, the ones that we don't get to work with, frankly, a lot of the times it's because they're hearing things like, you know, our budgets just got cut or we're in a spending freeze or we're in an exercise, you know, another one of those really interesting euphemisms for we're laying people off. Right? Reorganization. In other words, the umpteenth reorganization. It's really interesting that we still have not evolved out of this cycle of fear and reaction because you and I both know, as does anybody listening to this, that a year from now or 2 years from now, whenever it'll be, they'll be hiring those people back again. They'll be looking to get that talent back. Mm-hmm. And they'll wonder at that point and have us come in or we'll have a conversation when they have a budget about it as to why there's limited psychological safety in that organization, why people don't trust one another. And they'll wonder why, how's that impacting their bottom line? Well, it's because every 10 seconds based in fear, you react this way and people know that it's not us. It's us or them. It's binary, like you said.

Yeah.

So, I'd love to get your take on what you're seeing in the world of change today. And whether you see there being a shift, sort of whether it's in the DNA of the CEOs that are taking shape, you know, because again, demographically, there's a shift that's happening. Do you think we'll ever break free of this cycle where despite the fact that change is a constant, that predictably speaking, that CEOs and other senior leaders will respond in fear-based ways to changes in the marketplace or changes in the ecology that we're all living in? Because that's what seems to be a very negative repeat cycle, like a vicious cycle, if you will.

Yeah. I think the bigger question that humanity will have to answer in the next 10 years is what is the value of human beings? I think that's ultimately what we're getting into because looking at, if you take everything happening now with the political climate, you take the corporate values, if you will, like out with anything that is people-related, right? Like screw DEI and lay off everyone and like, and some of that sure is right and some of it might not be right, but that's very much the sentiment right now. It's not very people-centric. And then you take AI on the top of that and how AI replaces much of what humans are doing, right? I think the big question that we need to grapple with, a conversation that we need to start having is what is the value of humans? And where does that value come in for corporations or in a capitalist society in general? Because if you look at a capitalist society, which is the one we're living in, the value of humans usually comes down to productivity, results, output, and a lot of just like ROI on capital and efficiency, right? But if technology can do that better, even in the areas that aren't as like manufacturing, for example, like where it's a process or even like creativity, right? Like creativity, art, writing, like when those areas are not human-led either, I think it leaves us with a question of what is the value of humans and do we need to repurpose that from productivity and output on capital to something else? Because clearly, I mean, corporations will always want to generate a profit and that's the role of corporations to generate a profit for the shareholders. But how is, what is the role that humans are going to play in that if AI and technology can do it so much better from a productivity angle already and very likely soon, even from an intelligence and creativity angle. So I think that's the bigger question when it comes to all of change. And I think the answer to that will determine what is the role employees are going to play in an organization. And then what kind of CEOs do we need to have to lead that organization or lead that group of people, if there are any people left in organizations? And to me, the answer to this is almost, or like, I would be comfortable if everyone is in the same boat. I think my biggest fear is that it's going to be 2 camps and we're going to live in 2 parallel societies where it's going to be extreme inequality. You're going to have the AI tech lords who run Silicon Valley and the world, and then you're going to have everyone else, and that's not going to be a good outcome. But if we're all in the same boat and we're all chilling on our UBI and we have our universal basic income and can do other things than working for a corporation, and I know one project now, for example, called U Dash BI. They're focused on how can we fund UBI with personal data, for example, and sell our personal data to these large AI corporations. And that's how we then fund the UBI, which I think is an interesting concept as well. If we're all in that boat, I think we're going to be fine. I think the danger is if it becomes the value of human beings, like the bottom 50% of human beings, let's say evaporates entirely, but the top 50% of human beings don't really care about that value of human beings in the bottom 50% evaporates. So I think that's the bigger question that we need to answer that will then lead to what is the type of change that will be ongoing? What type of CEOs do we need and how are corporations tackling change in the next 10 years?

Yeah, it's fascinating. I won't digress with this other than just to say I've been thinking about something in a similar context, but in terms of personal GDP, sort of the way we pay debt, Or how we managed to stay ahead of an upside-down balance sheet in the United States anyway is to produce the world's greatest GDP. I mean, it's just continually you have to produce more and spend more in order to pay the debt service on everything that you've borrowed and everything that you owe. And as long as you stay ahead of that somehow, well then, you don't go bankrupt. you don't lose supremacy or whatever it might be. And I feel like truly there's so many reasons why people feel anxious and we're not going to get into this conversation today, but there's a lot of anxiety and people are always asking us, why are people so anxious? Why are people burned out? And a lot of times sort of older demographic folks will say it's the millennials or the Gen Zs are just not as resilient. We teach about resiliency and we say, no, no, That's not true. They're not as strong. They don't have as thick a skin or whatever it is. You know, there are reasons that are not being talked about that we sense, and one of them is just the pressure that I think collectively everybody feels to continually be producing and spending. You know, where we don't— in fact, producing on the level is really more consuming more, but then having to pay for it. If you can imagine the anxiety that you feel, and maybe this has happened to you in your life, I think everybody's had the experience at some point of spending more than they could afford for something and then feeling this sort of anxiousness in your body, in your brain, and everywhere. You know, how do I now figure out how to pay for this thing? It's in the ether space. It's a part of how we sense what it means to be alive today, is that you, you have to be on all the time. Being on all the time on some level means being productive, even though we know that that's not the case. And being productive means that somehow or another, you're producing enough to survive, to stay ahead of it. That would produce anxiety for anybody. I think so. I think it's really understandable in that regard. And certainly given, as you say, where technology may displace and replace, there's even more sort of understandable anxiety about where's that going to leave human beings and that divide between the people that have been able and are able to continue to sort of consume more and produce more and therefore be ahead of the curve. And those that couldn't, can't possibly consume enough and produce enough, and that they are somehow— the divide is wider and they're falling below the line of what matters is really disturbing, to say the least.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah. I'm not sure we're leaving anybody with

Leaving on a high note.

Yeah. Well, we're leaving. I think it's something we have to consider because the one thing that we all have that nobody can take from us, it's a birthright, is that choice to determine what— how we feel, how we think about things, and ultimately what that means to us. You know, the Nelson Mandela example, I think, is a great one because, you know, everybody knows he was imprisoned for like 27 years in a tiny little cell. And then is released and becomes a leader of a magnitude that is rarely seen in the history of humanity. Remarkable. And yet, the 27 years that he was in prison, though he was a prisoner, he maintained his— the one basic freedom that we all have that no one can ever take from us, and that's the ability to think. And so his thoughts and ultimately how he was able to manage his thoughts over an agonizingly, excruciatingly long period of imprisonment, physical imprisonment, meant that he was able to, at that point in time, leave and lead. That to me is a profound lesson that despite everything that you and I have talked about and even that sort of, where's this all leading? Where's this all heading? I mean, ultimately, we are in charge of the— and have control of the one most important thing in our lives, and that is our process for thinking. So I have no doubt that with right thinking, we will find our equilibrium even in the midst of what is this sea of change, of constant change. Do you agree with that?

Yeah. I mean, I think humans have figured it out before, and I think we will figure it out again. Hopefully.

Yeah. It's the most— I think it's the one thing Darwin said that's, you know, everybody thinks he said that it's survival of the fittest, you know, but that's not actually what he said. It's not the fittest that survives. It's not the most intelligent of the species that survive. It's the most adaptable to changes in the environment. That's what determines our ability to survive and to thrive. So, you know, with that, I've so enjoyed the conversation, Nellie, and there'll be full show notes with more information about you, your work, and the organization, as well as how you support organizations that are in the midst of that change. I love so much of what you shared today. It's got me thinking. It's got me thinking about what I want to— about a number of different things, including that question, what is the value of humans? And I think that is going to be a question that is ongoing, and I'm going to noodle on that more than just a little bit from here. So Nelly, thank you again for your insights and your outside views today.

Thank you for having me on the show, and let me know when you have the answers to the value of human beings. I'd love to discuss that too. Thank you so much, Adam. All right.

To be continued. I just so love that conversation with Nelly. Man, we started out talking about EDM and ended up with the conversation being about the value of humans, like going forward in the next 10, 20, 50, 100 years, what will the value of human beings be? What is the role of employees? What will the role of employees look like in organizations given everything that's happening in the AI tech universe? We talked about CEOs and their sort of the power and the influence that CEOs have that maybe Many of them don't even realize. I love that through line. We talked about change and really sort of flipping the script on the way that many change management processes go. Many times it's a plan, it's organizing a set of sort of KPIs and outcomes and then executing on those things. And what Nellie was sharing with us was that often it is That those great plans, the best-laid plans go nowhere because the execution is lacking or never takes place at all or fails. So lacking. And that she and her organization and her philosophy, they flip the script and they start with execution. And that is not to be wasteful, but simply to learn, to understand how you learn from the feedback that you get, the things that work, the things that don't work, the things that you learn could be done differently. sort of a continuous feedback loop as opposed to a binary structure where there's success and there's failure and everybody's trying to stay on the side of success and avoid the side of failure. So loved that conversation, loved what she shared, some tremendous, really valuable insights. So I really recommend looking into the work that Nellie does further. And obviously there's full show notes with more information about that. We'd love to hear from you. If you love this episode as much as I did, please share it with friends, family members, colleagues. Let us know your feedback. You can go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment. If you loved the episode also and you wouldn't mind providing that rating, the 5 stars or whatever stars make sense for you on the platform that you consumed this podcast, that would be terrific as well. We appreciate it. This community has grown in large part because of participation from people like yourself that took a moment of their day, of their night, and just shared that feedback or provided that information that allows the algorithm to serve more people and to help us at the same time. So we thank you for it. We're grateful for it. And if you'd like to track your own resilience, get a snapshot in time, in this moment in time, how resilient you are feeling and what that looks like mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually speaking even, then you can go to rankmyresilience.com, rankmyresilience.com, and 3 minutes or less later, you will have those answers for yourself. Totally confidential, completely without charge. Something we love to do, happy to support, and hope that you'll take advantage of. For now anyway, I would just say thank you again for being a part of this community. Thank you. And ciao for now.

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