GA 168 | How to Leverage Change Intelligence with Barbara Trautlein

You're listening to episode 168 with Barbara Trautwlein. Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Pereira. Hey there. This is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy podcast. As always, thank you so much for, for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com, we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now today, I'm excited to welcome Barbara Trautwlein to the show. Now, Barbara is principal and founder of an organization called Change Catalyst and she's also the author of a best selling book called Change Use the Power of CQ to to Lead Change that Sticks. And during the show we talk about, as you can imagine, change management and the reason that change fails many times, whether that change is kind of a Lean program or any sort of initiative that involves people and why, you know, one of the stats out there is that around 70% of all initiatives fail. And an interesting aside, I actually asked Barbara what designates failure, how do these studies define failure? And she really gives some interesting insight to that. But during the show we get into something that she calls Change Intelligence or cq and we talk about the different styles of leadership as it pertains to invoking change and why it's so important that leaders be able to adapt. The There was just lots of things that I really approached this interview more as a listener than I did as a podcast interviewer. I was really interested and there's some things I didn't understand, so I asked some more probing questions. So hopefully you're all going to enjoy the show. I'm definitely looking forward to reading this book. There's a survey that goes along with the book that I want to take myself just to confirm some theories that I have about my own leadership style. So really good stuff. Now the show notes that's going to include links to everything that we talk about will be found over@gembapodcast.com and you'll want to look for episode 168168 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 168. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Barbara, thank you so Much for coming onto the show. Where are you calling in from?

I'm calling in from the Chicagoland area.

All right. Chicagoland area. My wife is born and raised from. She grew up in Westchester. It's just west of the city there. So I actually lived up there in Libertyville. I worked for Motorola way, way, way back in the day. So. Good place to be. A little bit hot in the summer and humid. Is the humidity bearing down on you yet?

It's pretty good so far. And actually it's funny you say that because I am right next to Libertyville and Vernon Hills, and I've also done some work with Motorola. How, however, the Westchester. I know I grew up on Long island, so I'm familiar with Westchester, New York. Better than around here. Small world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff, Good stuff. Yeah. The Motorola facility up there. Golly. Back in the day, we were building the StarTAC. Remember that? That first flip phone, it was like, literally, I think it was the first flip phone ever produced. I worked in a new product introduction area and, and we built some of the first startax there in Motorola. I learned a lot. That was some good times way back in the day.

Well, yeah, and I, I didn't move to this area until about 96. So my experience with Motorola is more in the. In the aughts, let's say the early 2000.

Yeah. All right, Good stuff. All right. Well, hey, thanks for coming on. Really excited about the. The topic today. But let's kind of. I know you listen to the show. Let's get into. Into possibly a quote that inspires you.

Sure. Well, one of my favorite quotes is that what doesn't destroy you makes you stronger. That's pretty much been a lot of my history and the history of the change leaders that I work with that are going through various changes, big and small, transformational change in their organizations.

Yeah, got it, got it, got it. All right, well, Barbara, let's kind of maybe get things going with you telling us a little bit about your background, maybe how you first got into this field of study and then what you're up to these days.

Sure, absolutely. So I got into the field of study. I pursued my doctoral degree in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan. And when I was there, it was the mid-80s and at the time, living and working in obviously around the Detroit area. And we were known as the Rust Belt. The Rust Belt, why? Because there was a very challenging economic times. We were experiencing a recession. A lot of auto, automotive plants, other facilities were shutting down or in danger of shutting down and in graduate school, I was actually part of a consulting team that was working with Midwest companies to attempt to help them retain their competitiveness. And my first job, my first consulting gig was actually in a steel mill that was in bankruptcy. And so I was, I was 25 years old and I'm working in a steel mill and it was my first day on the job. I'm introducing myself. They're all men, they're all 20 or 30 or 40 years older than me. And pretty much they'd all worked in the middle their entire careers. So I stood up and I talked about how we were going to transform them to lean, high performance, total quality, self managed teams. Went up stands a Gentleman, a steelworker, 6 foot 5, 250 pounds, stomps right to the middle of the room and says, we're steel workers and we don't listen to girls. Wow. Yeah. So I mean, just, I share that in terms of my background because, you know, why did he do that? Why did the gentleman say that? Well, of course he was afraid. Right. There was a lot of fear in the room. The mill was already in bankruptcy. It was, it was the only game in town. It was the only job most of them knew. However, I knew right from that first day in my job that there's a heck of a lot of fear and intimidation in any of us who are standing up, attempting to lead change. And so that's what really got me down my almost 30 year now path of equipping and empowering leaders, teams and organizations to lead change. That sticks.

Okay, so I gotta know what happened? What'd you say?

Well, it's so funny that you say that because the angel, you know, that, you know, being from New York, right, the devil on one shoulder wanted to say, maybe that's why you are in bankruptcy.

Yeah, yeah.

But the angel on my other shoulder held my tongue and you know, back in the day, it was a pretty paternalistic environment. So the district union rep and the HR manager stood up and said, hey, you know, give the girl a break. And so we all became friends, let's say, and worked together for two years and they did a merchant bankruptcy. It was a very exciting time. It was a very exciting project. Learned a lot about again, as you can imagine, lean organizational design, high performance, teams, transformation. It was very, very exciting. Of course, it's very enriching to have that kind of, you know, be part of a team that had that kind of bottom line impact on an organization and on people's lives and the community.

Okay, so let's just kind of jump into the topic of the day, which is just really change, right? Change intelligence. Why do most change projects fail? Whether it's a lean program, you know, whatever you want to call it, why do they fail most?

Yeah. And most change projects do fail. I mean, back in the day, in the mid-80s, John Cotter and his and his colleagues at Harvard did a research study that looked at major organizational changes like lean, like total quality management, like mergers and acquisitions, like new technology implementations, and came up with the statistics that 70% of major organizational changes fail. And then when I was writing my book on change intelligence about five years ago, McKinsey Consulting, the global consulting firm, did a similar study and came out with in most statistic. So that meant that in the span of over 20 years, we barely moved the needle on our ability to design and implement change that stick. So, you know, as I always say, back in the day, we could work on one project for six months or a year. We could design it, implement and evaluate it. Now we're all dealing with our day jobs, plus, I don't know how many changes people are dealing with. All ones. A lot of people are dealing with every change that I just mentioned. And so we have a lot of experience with change. We don't have a lot of experience with change done. Right. And so why I think that is, I think there's a lot of layers to that onion. However, to me, one of the seminal root causes of that is that we do have a lot of models and methods and tools around managing change, around managing projects, around the, you know, we need communications plans and stakeholder analysis, and we need, you know, to engage our sponsors and we need to engage the business leaders and, and we need to again, have all these tracking tools and project management. So we have a lot of tools to manage change. What the missing, I believe, is us as leaders, is truly leading change individually and also collectively. To me, that's the missing. That's the gap.

One question I want to circle back to is when we talk about change projects failing, lean programs failing, how do people define failing? What's a failure?

Yeah, no, and I think, and there's a lot of debate about that. That's a really great question. And really what these studies that I mentioned, how they define failure, is by, there's some qualitative and some quantitative. So really soliciting the feedback from the senior leaders that sponsored the initiatives, asking what was the business case? Right. What was the financial goal for it? What was the. Again, whatever the metrics are, customer satisfaction Employee engagement, throughput, cycle time, whatever it is, quality improvements, what are those metrics? And then what's your assessment of how we perform versus those metrics? So again the inquiry and also the looking at the quantitative results. So again there's lots of debates about what do we mean by failure, Is it kind of overall 010 or there are shades in there. So of course there's a lot of initiatives that have achieved bottom line results and the question is, did they achieve the results to the extent that we had hoped?

Right, right. Yeah. Think about like the kind of the Eric Riesen, his Lean startup movement where they'll talk about building. This is more of a product development but like a minimally viable product mvp. Right. And then, oh, it doesn't work, people don't want to buy it. Pivot. So they don't. Yeah, that was a short term failure, but they keep going. Right. And so I always find it interesting when we just talk about failure of maybe the only failure is when you just totally quit.

And I totally resonate with that because that's one of the most exciting things to happen in the last five, 10 years is the focus on agile. Right. And the focus on failing fast. And so I totally agree with you that I do think we need to revise our definition about what failure means because of course we're insane if we create a plan. Right?

Yeah.

And then we, we realize we need to pivot because the world has changed, our customers expectations are changed. So I totally with you, I'm totally, I'm totally with that philosophy.

Awesome, awesome. So it sounds like what you've really discovered or through your experience is that in the end this is a mantra that we believe in strongly, that is all about people. Right. And the process is important, but when it comes down to change, it's human beings working with one another. So talk a little bit more about just the people side of it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with you about that also that I believe that all the tools of Lean, all the tools of managing change and managing projects, they're absolutely necessary, they're foundational, they're fundamental and at the same time in some ways they're baseline skills. Right. You know, sometimes I say the hard stuff is easy and the soft stuff is hard. It's not easy to learn the tools of Lean and Six Sigma, total quality and you know, whatever process improvement we're looking at. Right. And at the same time I believe these skills, what really, really makes the difference is building our change Intelligence, frankly, is our skills around leading change so often what is the most common topic, I believe in the change management literature at least it's overcoming resistance to change. Right. I think people get to a point in their careers and they sit back and they really look at what accounted for the success or if not the failure, the sub optimization of our projects. A lot of times it's because it's the people side of change. It's really did people get it and want it and they can do it. So often what I see is that what looks like in other resistance in others is really an opportunity for us as change leaders to do something differently. So really we can get that consistent engagement from the business leaders, we can get that adoption and engagement from the end users, the people are partnering. We can really get that consistent contribution from the teams that we're leading that are often cross functional and don't report to us full time. So it really is about having those baseline lean process skills and then augmenting that with how we're leading the change.

You mentioned change intelligence. Let's dig into that. What is change intelligence?

Well, change intelligence and I also say cq. So change intelligence, change quotient. Just like your iq, you've heard of eq, Emotional intelligence. This is your cq. And I believe it's a critical competency for leaders. Today. We get so much training on communication and conflict management and coaching as leaders. And I say leaders at all levels. It doesn't matter if you're tenure, title or role. Right. I believe we're all leaders. So change intelligence is the awareness of our style of leading change and the ability to adapt our style to be optimally effective leading across people and situations. So there's two parts. First of all, it's our awareness of what's our style as a leader. When we lead change, what do we really bring to the table that really sets us apart and makes us effective? It doesn't have to be totally unique to us and yet it's something that really has contributed to the success of the projects that we've led or played a significant role in. So that's the first part is the awareness of it and then the second part is our ability to adapt. So you know the old adage that you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You know, if you have one style, you're going to be effective in certain situations with certain people, in certain types of changes, certain stages, and you're going to be less effective, you know, at other times. And so the opportunity is that, you know, when we look at leading change or Anything. What can we control? We can only control ourselves, our mindsets, and our behaviors. We wish we could, you know, sometimes control others, but sometimes we feel as change leaders. At least myself and I know the change leaders I've coached that we start off with great intentions. We know that our project is going to make a significant improvement to the organization. We really know, we're really committed to it. And a lot of times what happens is that we start feeling like we're pushing the string. We feel like we're getting resistance. And sometimes it can feel like we're doing something to others or against them, or even in spite of others. And this gives us an opportunity when we build our change intelligence to really, again, we can't. When we feel like we're pushing against in spite to others, doing something to others, to turn the mirror back on ourselves, which is the only thing we can really control. And ask, what can I do differently? What can I do differently? And if you're aware that there's other styles out there, if you're aware that there's other behaviors, you can engage in other tools in your tool bag. When you have more options, you have more power. So more options, you have more power. Yep.

Can you talk about maybe some. Some of the different styles out there? I mean, if the house is burning down, you know, I'm not gonna have a nice conversation with my wife and kids, I'm gonna take charge and I'm gonna get us out of the house. Right. Versus we want to go, you know, on a big vacation or whatever. So let's set some communication. Where do you guys want to go? Right. So there's two different. Those are two radically different styles of leadership, if you will. What are you seeing within the change world on the different styles that might be used?

Right? Absolutely. Well, I say that there are three main styles of leading change, that we lead change from the heart, which is, like you said, let's have a conversation. Right. Some people, when they lead change, what they do is they really focus on the people that they're leading through changes. So that's what's on their radar screen. So they're very communicative, they're collaborative, they like to build teams, they like to involve people. It's a strength based model. Obviously, that's a strength. Right. However, any strength overdone, not so much a strength anymore. So to your point, sometimes since people are so much on the radar screen, the high heart change leader, as I say, can neglect to move forward as quickly as they need. Right. With a sense of Urgency to achieve the goal. Right? The second style of leading change never loses focus on the goal. They lead from the head. They are the visionaries, the strategists. They love to look forward. They love to look outside their organization. They're probably early lean adopters because they really get it and they love to bring it back to the organization. What can they drop out? Sometimes they're so in their zeal to move forward to this exciting future vision. Right. Sometimes they look around and they look behind and they realize they're on board and the train is leaving the station, but nobody else is with them. Right? So they can drop out the people. Also, sometimes the train leaves the station and then the train gets derailed because they haven't given people the path, the plan, the process to get from here to there. That's the third style of leading change. Leading change from the hands. Folks who love to figure out how to get from here to there, very tactical, Love to figure out the process, the plans, the details, how to get from here to there. So those are three main styles of leading change. And we need all three. We need all three. We tend to have a strength in one, sometimes two. Some people all three. But just like we have, we each have a head, heart, and most of us have two hands. We have all those in our tool bag. We can do all three. It's sometimes that we don't develop those capabilities to the extent that we might. And when we really need them under the stress of change, sometimes we can forget them.

So, okay, so engage the heart, enlighten the head and equip the hands. Can you just to help me go back to enlighten the head and equip the hands? What's the difference between those two again?

Oh, that's great. So the head focuses on the purpose of the change. They get excited by the vision and the goal, the big picture, right. The hands loves to figure out to get from here to there. So they tend to be more tactical. Right. So it's different between strategy and tactics. Right. It's distinction between purpose and process.

I'm totally a tactical guy.

Okay, okay, got it, got it. And again, and I love that you just said that, Ron, because. So I have a global database now. There's an assessment. You can take 20 simple questions 15 minute online, and it gives you a report about what is my primary style, what's my blended style? Right? Because we're really a blend of all. So there's seven different styles, actually. And so the beauty of this is, is that what we often See, is that the folks in the C suite, right? The tops of organizations, as you can imagine, they tend to be higher head. Right. Because that's their jobs. Right. Vision strategy, how can we move forward to brighter visions? A lot of folks that work on lean initiatives that are in the trenches, that are making this happen are very hands oriented, they're very tactical. And so just right there often opens up a vista for communication because it shows how everyone's trying to do the right thing. They're leveraging their strengths. They're just talking across purposes. Right. So it helps us understand, you know, if I'm that hands person, right, that the tactical person, the process person, how might I need to tailor my message to get across to that high head business leader or executive? Right. I might need to be more. Bottom line, I might need to focus more on how this is going to help them and the business achieve the overall objectives and more on the what and the why. Right. And less on the how. Right. So it really. So it helps empower individuals. Right. When we have this information. And also it gives us insights into why we're getting traction with some people in groups and why there's disconnects.

Yeah, I know. I think every time we do these podcasts, I'm listening, I'm focused on doing a podcast, but I'm also thinking about my own company, Gamba Academy, and I'm like, wait, how are we set up? And I, and I think about me and my two business partners, Kevin Meyer and John Miller, and it would be interesting for us to all take this survey, but I almost venture to say, and I don't want to say who's who, but I believe one of us is strongly, you know, strategic, looking forward, one of us is kind of, you know, more the head and then I'm definitely the tactical, let's get her done kind of thing. So perhaps it's a good assessment to look at within your organization and, and how your leadership team is set up. And if you're all one side or one style, I don't know, I don't know. I don't want to say that's good or bad, but it could be interesting, let's just say.

Right, and that's a brilliant insight that you had, Ron, because that's one of the best ways to use the tool is when you have an executive team, right. That is leading the organization in many different projects and also when you're kicking off a project team, Right. To see what you have in your tool bag already. Right. Because this, for example, at One point, I did this initiative in an organization with an intact team. And when we looked at the results, a high head woman like your colleague looked at her high hands colleague like yourself and said, now I know why you drive me crazy.

Exactly.

And she said, because I get all these great ideas. I'm this visionary. I come in and I listen to podcasts, right? And I come to your office and I have this great idea. And she said, and you're a killjoy.

Yeah.

And she said, because. And now I see, though, because now I see that I am talking about the exciting what and why of the change. And you can't even hear me until I talk about that there's some realistic how that there's a. How that there's some time in the, you know, in our schedule that there's some budget that we can fit it in with all the other projects that we're doing. So now I see why you drive me crazy. And then she said, and also you lead with no. And that's not the way to get through to me. She said, we're. We could. And we all realize that they could be a fabulous, strong partnership, right? Because the high head is going to be that optimistic visionary, right, that gets excited about the future. The high hands is that realistic. Let's see if we can really do it. And then once we agree to it, I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to get her done. We, which the high head person loves because they love to stay in the idea space versus the execution space, right? So it can be a fabulous partnership. If you don't, what happens is a lot of times we can A, negatively judge other styles, right, who look at things differently and B, not communicate with them and effectively communicate instead in a way that unintentionally causes resistance in others. Unintentionally. So it's about the impact versus the intention. And so it's a great opportunity for teams to really give and receive feedback in a way that's much less defensive and also be able to. It points to actions. It's a very simple model. You just get it. And I imagine that most people are pretty accurate in assessing themselves and their colleagues, right? You don't even need the assessment. And though when you see the results, it really points to actions you could take. Right? It's simple, but it's actual actions you can take both in your relationship with each other as well as, hey, we don't have heart on our team, right? We got a lot of head, we got a lot of hands. Right. We need more heart. We need to be able to engage our clients in a certain way. Right. And so it helps you figure out. All right, well, if that's the case, what can we do to put things on our radar screen that we might unintentionally neglect, undervalue or downplay? So wow, love it.

So is this assessment of how do you take it? Where do you go?

Yeah, well, people of course can reach out to me through changecatalyst.com and also there's a free assessment that comes with each copy of my book, Change Intelligence.

Okay, well I gotta take it. So you got me thinking now. All right, I mean, I guess you have maybe a database then of the results of different people that have taken the CQ test. Is there anything that jumps out that's interesting?

Yeah, absolutely. So a couple things. One is I do have a global database of change leaders around the world. And one of the most fascinating things to me is that there's no global significant differences. I just find that extremely fascinating when we talk about all the differences that we have ethnically, culturally around the world. And it's interesting because just like research into organizational culture, it's really the organizations that there's significant differences between. Right. How the Motorola's vs the Ciscos vs the GMs of the world lead change, which I think is very fascinating. And also though one of the most actionable. Of course I think how those changes get enacted, how those styles get enacted. For example, I worked in US Japanese joint ventures to set up lean teams and things like that. Clearly the definition of the Japanese team concept is much different than the American concept. I think that how those behaviors had hard hands get enacted is different. But it's just interesting to me that overall the prevalence are there's no significant differences. What there is significant differences between and I think this is very actionable for you and your audience potentially is that as I mentioned at the C suite and the executive ranks, director and above, we do tend to see a significantly higher percentage of head oriented leadership. So the vision and the strategy, big picture future at the front lines, which is very interesting, most people think it's going to be hands because again that's executional. That's when we're getting it done, making it happen. In fact, it's hard. It's hard. Most leaders on the front line of organizations. So by that I mean of course, you know, supervisors, frontline managers are high heart oriented change leaders. And I see that even in the steel mills and automotive plants and refineries. I work with. And why is that? I believe it's because at that level, you're moving from a doer to a delegator. And, and you know that to get things done and to lead change and ask people to do this hard stuff differently, you need to engage, you need to collaborate, you need to listen, right? So I just think that's fascinating. I think that's also one of the biggest reasons that we have disconnects up and down organizations when we attempt to lead change. I often coach senior leaders. You know, why is that TV show Undercover Boss so popular? Right? Because a CEO and executive masquerades as a frontline employee for a couple weeks and realizes how hard it is for good people to follow through with these changes. And so it's, you know, one CEO said to me, he's like, barbara, it's like we're all monkeys in the tree. I'm the top monkey, right? And I look down and see the smiling faces of the monkeys below me. And they look up and what do they see? And he patted his butt. Because we know that the higher up you go in organizations, the harder it is to get any feedback at all, let alone real time, actionable feedback. Feedback. And so I always say that it's really incumbent upon leaders at all levels, frontline, you know, middle management, to give that feedback upward in terms of, you know, having that leadership courage in terms of what is really going on in the organization there, you know, there are barriers potentially preventing good people from behaving consistently with the change. Or maybe we did a one off training, but they need more coaching, et cetera. And also, as I coach executives, it's that it's really important for them to really customize and tailor the message for the different groups and individuals going through the change. So often they communicate. Their tendency is to communicate in one size fits all language. In a business sense, that's exciting and inspiring for them. And does it really address the needs and concerns of people throughout the organization? So to me, that's some of the most interesting findings that I see time and time again. And it is actionable and insightful for folks leading change.

Love it. Wow. Could talk all day. I do want to just kind of wrap this part of the show up with maybe just, I don't know, summarizing. You know, people are listening to this right now. It's kind of been a fire hose. We've thrown a lot at them here in the last 30 minutes. But what are some actionable things that folks can do? Perhaps leaders of people, wherever they are in the organization that they can take from what you're saying here, some strategies?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And just a few things just to keep in mind is that again, what is change intelligence? It's the awareness of our own style and the ability to adapt our style. It really does start with us because that's all we can control. Just the idea that when you feel like you're encountering resistance in others, that it's the opportunity to turn the mirror back on yourself and see, what can I do differently? And remembering we all have those tools in our toolbag already, are we really explaining the what and the why of the change to people? Are we really helping the hands, equipping the hands in terms of being able to do it? Have we really given them tools and the training and remove barriers? And are we really building trust and building teams that people feel comfortable to us really talking about what those concerns are? Do they really felt heard and listened to and that their input was incorporated a lot of times in leading change? You know, the golden rule, right? Do unto others as you want to be done onto. We talked about the platinum rule, do unto others as they want to be done on. So when you're looking, seeing resistance in others again, if they're working really hard, but their efforts are misplaced, perhaps you need to add more ahead. You need to help clarify the target of the change. If they're paralyzed like a deer in the headlights, they're unstuck, they can't get into effective action. Perhaps you need to add more hands. The plan, the process, the tools, the training, the coaching. And if there's fear, there's fear, there's confusion, there's disengagement, there's anger, there's resentment. Those emotional aspects of change, maybe that's when you need to take a step back and you really need to unearth people's concerns and build on their hopes and have those kind of conversations where you can, you know, as I always say, relationships get results.

Yeah. Love it. Love it. All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into the reflection section. Barbara. So this first question we've asked for, gosh, 160 some episodes now, so is we spend a lot of time and it's very, I think, relates very well to your topic here. It's respect for people. And sometimes it can be a little bit hard to define what that means versus, say, continuous improvement, which is, you know, we can put our hands and touch that, but we can't touch respect for people. So I'm curious, what does it mean to you to respect people?

Yeah, that's a really wonderful question. You know, it's interesting because I just, you know, sometimes I love the expression eat your own dog food. Right. So I go to conferences and try to keep up with, you know, get coaching myself and that sort of thing. And I read a. I heard a really fascinating study that was done in terms of again, just like the high failure rate of change. Why do we have such a high disengagement level, right. In organizations today? And it is shocking about the. The number of people who feel disengaged at work every day. And the speaker had a great insight that I totally resonated with that companies that focus on how can we get higher engagement are just the ones that don't. Because it's the wrong question. It's the wrong question. The question is really, how do we, to your point, demonstrate respect and really treat people right and do the right thing by people every single day? It's not about increasing some amorphous concept called engagement. Right. It is being that engaging leader every single day. So I think that that's really the key. I think it's that really, are we, how are we being as a leader and are we really being a leader versus kind of a technical manager? Are we being a people leader of people versus a technical manager?

What's the best advice you've ever received?

Ah, that's a wonderful question too. Again, I think it's the best advice I've ever received is to be my authentic self. To be my authentic self. That there is, you know, again, when we look at all the processes and the tactics and the tools that we have, anybody can learn them, anybody can use them, right? They're really baseline. What each of us brings to the table is our uniqueness as a leader. And again, I believe we're all leaders. And you know, in terms of being a consultant, there's 7 billion people in the world. I can serve them all if I'm myself. And I'm bringing my uniqueness and my gifts and, you know, my unique passion to my engagements. Just like any leader listening does at work every day. That's when we're really going to be able to make the difference that we were meant to make.

What are you most proud of as it relates to your professional journey?

I'm most proud every time I see a leader that I work with that gets inspired, that has, you know, that sees a path forward, that when they've been frustrated, they know they want to make a difference. They know they can make A difference. And yet there was just something missing. And when they see that, ugh, I see now, I see by leading in this new way. Right. That I really have actionable information, insights that I can use. That's what I get really excited by. When leaders get it and then teams come together and get it, and then that makes a positive difference for the organization and for their careers.

So if you could jump into a time machine and go back and spend, I don't know, 10 minutes with that 25 year old young lady right before she stepped in front of that room full of big steelworkers and give her some advice, not just for that particular day, but just for the rest of her career, what would you say?

Also a great, really fabulous question. I would say that one thing I've learned over and over again is, and this gets back to the beginning of our conversation, is that there really is no failure. Right. It looks like a failure in the short term. And as the Dalai Lama said, when you lose, don't lose the lesson. And so, so many things that look like a setback or something that I didn't want to have happen, really, over time, all that came together. I'd been spending 25 years helping organizations lead change and help develop leadership capacity in organizations. And I put that together five years ago to come up with the idea of change intelligence. And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I just had successes and if the people I work with were always successful. And so again, I think that seeing, you know, teasing out lessons from every experience and just having the, you know, confidence and the reflective ability to do that, which I didn't do consistently, I think is the, is what I would have told myself, beautiful.

And tell her, don't be scared, you can do it.

That's always the case. That's right. What doesn't destroy us makes us stronger.

That's it. That's it.

Very good. And again. And that's, you know, another thing is you can tell by the speed at which I talk, and I'm from New York and all that good stuff, I can go pretty fast. And one expression I love is that leaders that are more reflective are more effective. Effective is effective. And it's hard to do given the fast pace of the world we live in. And yet it's so, so, so important.

Yeah, exactly. Talk a little bit about your book.

Thank you for asking. Yes, my book, it's called Change Intelligence. Use the Power of CQ to Lead Change that sticks. And if you go to my website, which is changecatalyst.com you can read more about it and you can even download two free chapters and it's available. Print, book, ebook, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, wherever fine books are sold.

Well, I'm going to buy it because I got to get this survey.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

So I guess the best way for folks to reach you is your website, I guess. Are you on LinkedIn and all the rest of it as well?

I sure am. LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype. Absolutely.

Okay, well, we'll link to all of your. All your links there in our show notes. So the show notes for this episode will be GembaPodcast.com and it'll be episode 168. 168. So just go there and all of the links for Barbara's stuff will be in there. So, Barbara, thank you so much. Are you ever out to any kind of Lean Conferences or anything like that?

Absolutely. I go to lots of lean. Lots of Lean conferences and in, you know, again, many different fields, so. Because any, you know, that's. That's one thing we can count on is that almost every profession these days is very interested in not only just, you know, managing change in projects, but leading it as well. So I speak very frequently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we are, we're big partners with the AME Conference, which is going to be in Boston this year. And we haven't even really started promoting that yet, but it's coming up. It's a big one. I know there's some listeners who have pinged us already about the discount code for signing up to go to the Boston show. You can, you can get a discount. It is Gemba 10 is the coupon code. So for those that are listening that want to sign up. Sorry, we haven't announced that yet, but yeah, Barbara, if you've not been to the AME Conference, highly recommend it. It's. It's gonna be in Boston. I don't know the exact dates. I should have been more prepared before I started running in my mouth. But it's several months from now. But it's the big one for the Lean world, so it's a great one. Well, anyhow, hopefully we get to meet up face to face one day. Barbara, I really enjoyed chatting with you and appreciate you taking the time to visit with us.

Thanks so much, Ron.

All right, you take care.

You too.

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