226: Wired for Disruption—5 Agility Shifts with Henna Inam

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back. I am so excited to be here today with Henna Enam, who is the CEO of Transformational Leadership, Inc. A company that helps Fortune 500 organizations grow transformational leaders. She's a former C Suite executive who drove transformation throughout her corporate career and was raised in three continents and many countries. Originally from Pakistan, Hannah is the author of Wired for Authenticity and a new forthcoming book, wired for disruption 5 shifts in agility to Lead in the Future of Work. She's also host of the brand new Transformational Leadership podcast. Hannah, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jenny. I'm so excited to be here with you.

We are part of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches group and when I saw the newsletter that announced your book Wired for Disruption, I thought, aha, we have to chat. Part of the reason being that you said in the process of working on this book, you're disrupting yourself and you're even working on the book in an agile manner. Can you tell us a little bit about both the book itself and how you're creating it?

Yeah. So the traditional book writing process is it takes a year or more and you're working with publishers and agents and that kind of thing. And what, what I decided to do, I actually started thinking about writing a book on disruption in December of last year. And then, you know, this pandemic happened. That's quite pressy on publishing this, you know, I guess probably in December of this coming year or early next year. And then I decided, well, I have to, I mean, these tools are needed now. So I completely pivoted, to use one of your favorite words, to making the book come out earlier. So it's going to be available June 1st.

It's a lot shorter. And it has 15 accelerators, which I think will be really helpful.

Tell us about the accelerator. Can you give us a few examples?

Yeah. So the book actually talks about five shifts in agility that are really important for us for the future of work. And.

As we have all lived through these really grueling times, I know for a lot of us what we're discovering is that managing our own biology.

Learning how to manage our own stress levels, managing our well being, managing how we respond to really disruptive circumstances is the first one. When I talk about these five shifts of agility, the first one is neuro emotional agility. And that is the ability to activate neural states in our body and really pivot from being in the state of threat, which actually shuts us down. It makes us less open to be agile, less open to new ideas, less open to collaboration, to pivot finding a place to stand so that we can be more purposeful, that we can figure out very quickly what our contribution is during times of disruption. And so that, in my view, is at the core, our neuro emotional state is actually at the core of our ability to be curious. Ability to learn, the ability to collaborate with others. That's the first piece of type of agility that I talk about. The next four are learning agility, which is the ability to learn unlearn and then relearn because the environment is changing really quickly. Trust agility, which is the ability to build trust quickly in very fluid teams. Because in the future of work, we're going to be working more and more in these teams that come together to solve problems and then dissipate and then come together to solve other problems. And so being able to create trust in teams is so important and to be able to do it real quickly because we know that teams that have trust in them are actually nine times more agile than teams that don't. Stakeholder agility. So we have lots of big collective problems to solve. The one that's right in front of us right now, Jenny, is the pandemic and solving for this, both the disease and health care issues related to keeping people safe and flattening curves, but also in terms of the economic fallout, right? So there's these big issues that no one person can solve, but it requires an entire ecosystem of people to come together and solve and which requires that we learn how to work with different kinds of stakeholders. I just put myself in the shoes of CEOs that are trying to manage the current crisis, trying to figure out how to best work with keeping employees safe and Employed and at the same time managing stakeholder and shareholder needs and community needs. And how do you, how do you manage the tension of all those needs? Sometimes competing. And that is, in my view, so critical as we look at the future of work. And it's called stakeholder agility. And then the final piece is growth agility. And on that one, so many people breaks my heart that so many people find themselves unemployed at this time. Globally and the US we're hitting unemployment rates that are at record. And so the question really here is how do we grow ourselves at scale and grow other people? How do we equip ourselves to be able to become really agile and not just grow ourselves, but grow the people that are in our charge, the people that we're responsible for. And so those are the five forms of agility.

I love how you say in the book we need to develop at the speed of disruption. You also say in terms of neuro emotional agility. I love hearing about all five of the agilities. You say you're Marie Kondoing your mindset. What do you mean by that? And I'm curious what Marie Kondoing or Konmari ing you had to do yourself during these last few months.

Such a beautiful question. This idea of really shifting your mindset. That whole piece is so important when disruptions happen because as you know, being part of human is having a mindset that we've developed over time. And oftentimes we're not even aware of what our mindset is. Right. So for example, in these last, in the ways that we grew up, right. What we were rewarded for is to find the right answer. To think that there was a right and a wrong answer in any problem and that our job was to find it. And then in school it was like if you found the right answer, then you got an A. And that's been the mindset that most of us who've gone through schooling and even early careers have sort of learned to adopt. And in this world of disruption, what happens is we're in a really complex and unpredictable and ambiguous world where there is no best practice to go find. There is no, not necessarily even any experts that can, we can turn to, to help solve our problems. And that's when we have to sort of shift our mindset and unlearn. And as you said, Marie Kondoing this notion that, you know, you thank, right, like you thank the things that have the mindsets that have served you and then you also recognize that, you know, in this particular situation, this no longer Serves me. And so you get into a much more agile approach, which is, what can I learn from what's happening now in this moment? What is the person in front of me saying? How might I be listening to them? In a way that is, you know, I could talk a lot about in the book, this whole notion of confirmation bias. A lot of the ways that we listen to people is basically to confirm what we already know, rather than being willing to shift our own mindset and listening to learn. And so this whole notion of in this particular disruptive environment, and frankly, in a lot of disruptions, things are changing so fast. And what the best leaders do is they very quickly figure out, what can I learn from here? How can I do experiments here? And I need to make decisions without necessarily having all the data. I can't wait for all the data. And what is really important, particularly in this disruption, is we know how important leadership is. It's costing us in lives of people, because particularly when things are disrupting, leaders are able to shape what's emerging and create in the moment through their actions and through their ability to learn, unlearn, relearn. And that's what's really important.

You have a really interesting Venn diagram of your own pivot portfolio, as I would call it. Having lived in so many countries growing up, your first book, Wired for Authenticity, and this new one, Wired for Disruption, I'm almost picturing these three interlocking circles where you, in a way, are wired for disruption, having moved so many times and had to adjust to new environments, and then even, how do we lead during this time when, as you said, and I totally agree, no one knows the answer, that authenticity is actually a meta skill, as well as something like learning how to learn, that authenticity is crucial now more than ever. And we're really seeing who in the public eye is willing to be authentic and humble and admit what they don't know, and then those that are flailing a little bit. So I'm wondering if you can speak to any aspect of that or how these three circles of your own life and perspective come into play.

I am originally from Pakistan, and we left when I was about 11, and between the ages of 11 and 20, we lived in Africa, in Tanzania, for three years. I learned how to speak Swahili, went to international schools, learned how to speak Swahili, then we moved to the Philippines. I did my high school in the Philippines and then moved to Thailand and learned how to speak Thai, and then we landed in Texas, and then I learned how to speak Texan. And so, yeah, I mean, I think so much of my growing up was really about learning a new language, a new culture, making new friends every two years. And so it became real sort of part of my developmental mindset, if you will, to learn how to pivot, to learn how to be agile, because we had to be. I think the reason why I wrote my first book, and I talk about it a little bit in the first book, Wired for Authenticity, is in learning how to be really agile. I think I lost a big part of myself. Like I didn't really know who I was and what was important to me because I was so quick to learn to how to, you know, learn how to fit in in whatever culture I was. And so I got to this, like, early midlife crisis when I was in my 40s where I was really successful for 20 years in my corporate career, but then sort of almost hit a motivation wall around, who am I? What do I really want in my life? What matters? Because I was always kind of every two years it was a new assignment and a new division and a new challenge. And that was really exciting until the little midlife crisis. And I really started to want to figure out who am I and what's important and what's purposeful for me and how can I be. How can I have a legacy that's really meaningful to me and is not just about achievement? And that's the reason, frankly, why I quit my corporate career and did some deep soul searching and then eventually wrote this book, Wired for Authenticity, because I wanted, and I deeply want, for all of us to figure out what it is that brings us alive, each one of us, so that we can be much more purposeful in the work that we're doing, so that the work becomes an expression of who we are. And, you know, that's such an antidote to being burnt out. And so many of us are so burnt out that when we find that sense of purpose, it really lights us up. And it lights up, you know, the people around us because we, we commit and we devote ourselves to something that is bigger than us.

That is such a beautiful way to put it, that pursuing that thing that lights you up is the antidote to burnout. I've never heard it said that way. I really love that. And thank you for sharing your story too. I've also never considered that the underbelly or the flip side of someone who's very agile might be that you're almost over accommodating. I certainly can relate once you were telling that story, but that's so interesting to think, okay, if you're so good at being agile and adapting and adjusting to whatever environment you're in, I can imagine that it'd be hard to know who you are and not have that groundedness and that stability or that space to really grow your own roots, if you will, if you're being sort of uprooted. So I thank you for sharing that. And I love. I love seeing how you've pivoted in your career and taken all your business background. And I love that your grandma said when you were 6, you could be a philosopher someday. So you have this philosopher business mind that now you're shifting and seeing you write this new book in such an agile way and also launch your podcast with which just launched in March. I mean, that alone must be an interesting project in terms of putting your voice and your heart out there even more than before.

It is. You know, you really. What I love about it is that I love to learn. And so we have these really great folks that are, you know, experts in what they do. And I get to learn from them and we get to talk and. Yeah, and then I get to share. Right. Like, we get to share the wisdom of this beautiful ecosystem of people we have today that are trying to be a force for good in times of disruption. And that's really what my wanting to do in this time. When the pandemic happened, I sat myself down, back to the whole authenticity piece and said, all right, at the end of this time, because I know that there will be some. Some period of time when this will be over.

How do I want to look back at this time and say, what did I contribute? Who did I become? What did I learn?

So I asked myself those series of questions and I sat myself down and I said, okay, here are the things that are really important to me, and this is where my focus is going to be. I think that has been so useful for me because it's kept me focused on. On being purposeful, which is one of the things one of the accelerators I write about in the book, because there's a lot from a neuro emotional perspective around if we can focus ourselves on being a force for good, whatever that means to us, whatever that means to us, our mind then can focus on being a contribution in times of disruption, which actually helps us be more agile because then we quickly get into, well, what. What can I create here? How can I be useful to the people that matter? And that actually helps us be agile. We're no longer in that part of the brain that is fight, flight or freeze. We're now in the part of the brain which Dr. Richard Boyats, he's written this amazing book and I've had him on my podcast called Helping People Change. We're in this part of the brain that is called the empathic neural network that I write about in my book. And that empathic neural network is a much more agile network in the brain and it actually helps us be more collaborative, more curious. It also helps us actually make decisions that are more ethical. And so how do we pivot ourselves into that part of us which is already, by the way, it's part of our neurobiology. Right. And how do we help people learn how to make that pivot? That's a big part of that first form of agility. That is neuro emotional agility.

That's what I love about even the title and the message is that we're wired for this. And you say that in the introduction. We are already wired to be agile. We are wired for disruption. And I love how you're helping people tap into that. It's fascinating to even hear about the empathic neural network and how that helps us be more collaborative, curious and ethical. Another part of the introduction that I find absolutely fascinating is your comment that career ladders will be replaced by skill marketplaces. I've been asked to do several LinkedIn lives during this pandemic that are focused primarily on job seekers. And I've been saying you may need to take on more project based work even in pivot. I talk about think of your career like a smartphone, not a ladder. You're downloading apps for different skills, interests, experiences. And right now certainly we are all going through an OS upgrade of our entire operating system. Can you speak to this notion? Because I've said the career ladder is out, even though the word career is kind of no longer relevant at this point. Can you speak to this idea of a skill marketplace and how you think that learning agility and growth agility, kind of what the difference with those two is, but also how we need to shift in terms of how we even think about our careers or pivot portfolios?

Yeah, I love that we're going through this operating system. What you just said about the operating system download. Yes, we totally are.

So a lot of us back to learning and unlearning. We think of our work as ladders and obviously that's not going to be the case. What we are seeing is a lot of companies and businesses are going to discover very quickly that they need to be very agile in their business model. So the folks that there's been a lot of folks that have been laid off, there's a lot of folks that have been furloughed and even the folks I feel that are inside of organizations, if they are being agile and my recommendation to them would be to start to do the both the inner work, right? To figure out what really lights you up, because that's going to be important. The reason why that's important is because we're going to be in a place where we will need to pivot very quickly and learn new skills. And when those skills, that learning of new skills is grounded in motivation. So it's both skill plus will. So when it's grounded in the things that motivate us, then it's going to be much easier to continue to learn in that area, right? To continue to pivot ourselves versus being burned out because we've got all of these changes that are happening or new skills that we have to acquire and they're not grounded in who we are, what lights us up and what motivates us. The work is both figuring out what motivates you and what's your inner sense of purpose. So if you love to teach, then you know, and you know that about yourself, then you know, it's so much easier to sort of say, okay, what are all the areas in which that, you know, that passion for teaching can come alive? And I'm going to go learn about different ways to do that in terms of skills. Kind of comes back to both kind of having the sense of will plus the notion of skill. Coming back to your question around gig work. So more and more what we're finding is that companies have seen how teams can come together and they're going to want to create really agile teams of people that come together to solve issues and problems. I call that fluid teams in the book. And this notion that we need people to basically take, you know, come in and learn new skills to participate on a team and then.

They'Ll move on to a different team or they might actually even be working on several teams. Very similar to the consulting model where you're working on various project teams at any given point in time. I think it will really change how organizations are structured to do the work from traditional rigid structures to more team like organic structures that come together and dissipate.

I love hearing your description of fluid teams and I'm so with you on that. That in a way, as scary as it can be, if someone's not adjusted to that yet, because even the other day somebody was telling me this was for a potential client saying they really want to give people a roadmap for career development within the organization. And I'm thinking to myself, that does not exist. You know, that really is a relic of even the last 10 years. Even the last 10 years it's been getting disbanded. But certainly, let's say even just for the next two, in my mind, it would be almost impossible to give people some kind of career map or career ladder. And instead, if we could adapt and have everyone develop this disruption mindset and understand what it means to have fluid teams. Even Google does something really innovative with bungee assignments. Like you bungee into a role if someone goes out on leave and then you could bungee back out to where you came from. There's going to be so beautiful. Yeah, there's going to be so many creative, fluid formations like this. And by the way, I still work with Google to this day over nine years after leaving. Even that is fluid. Even the fact that I gave my two weeks notice back in 2011 has, has still led to this ongoing fluid relationship that changes and evolves from year to year. It's just not under this very distinct category of full time employee or part time employee.

I actually think you're right. I think many of us, if we have this mindset that I need to have some structure, right, and be told where am I going to go next, it gives a sense of safety, right? And particularly for those that have family responsibilities or paycheck that they're counting on, that they somehow believe that tell me what my life will be like in 10 years.

Makes them feel safe. And I totally get it. And I would say, Jenny, that there is a sense of if we can switch our mindset to, hey, this is like a financial portfolio, right? And that I don't just invest in one stock.

When I have a financial portfolio, right, I have all of these different stocks. And how about if I were to take my portfolio of work and invest it in all kinds of different diversified areas around whether it could be different skill sets that I wanted to acquire or it could be different kinds of experiences, right, that I want to get because I want to learn about X or I want to get a new experience around working with customers and that together when I build all of that portfolio of experiences, that it's actually going to make me a much more agile leader, it'll make me more adaptive, it'll make me more valuable to myself and potential employers. And frankly, I'll have a lot More fun for me, I think, as I step back and look at my own life post corporate America, what I would say is it's scary. And I will give you that because you're, you know, walking, always walking, unchartered territory. But what's fun about it is that.

You get to decide something really empowering about knowing that, of investing in ourselves. And that's a big message of your book too. And I would think a huge part of being agile and wired for disruption is what you said, what we started with at the beginning, of being willing to disrupt yourself, but also being willing to invest in yourself. Because investing in those skills and stakeholder relationships and all the five plus types of agility, that's with us forever. So when we equip ourselves to be relevant in today's skill marketplaces.

Those investments don't go away. Although we do have to keep up our skills and often acquire new skills and adapt as we go. Wonder, how could you encourage people, what does it mean to disrupt yourself? Or at least what does it mean to you? And how do we disrupt ourselves when the very nature of so many of us is to kind of get comfortable? And I would think that if we knew what our blind spots were, we would disrupt ourselves already. You know what I mean? How do we see those blind spots and then disrupt ourselves if we're currently on a certain track?

Find a way to have safety, because it's very hard to disrupt yourself and it's scary unless you have something that helps you feel safe. In the book, I talk about a couple of practices and tools. The first practice, one of the accelerators that I talk about, is called a purpose accelerator. And that purpose accelerator is really connecting and grounding yourself. It's like an. It's sort of like your North Star in terms of figuring out, you know, who are you and why are you here?

Right.

We all have a limited amount of time here. And if we know what our North Star is, you know, what is the difference that we make for others that really energizes us and inspires us? That is a place of psychological safety. And along with that, it's, it's, you know, understanding your strengths.

It'S having people around you that support you, that are safe, where you can be vulnerable with them. They could be friends or colleagues. It's creating that environment for the colleagues that you work with. So that's the first piece. The other practice that I talk about in the book is a practice of. I'm a huge fan of mindfulness and practitioner for 14 years this practice of being in the present moment because a lot of what our fear and anxiety is actually about some imagined future that is not yet here. Because for most of us, if we just come back to this present moment and we notice right now, I am okay, and I have the choice about whether I believe all of these fearful thoughts and anxious thoughts about the future, or if I focus on what I can create in this moment, in this conversation with this individual, how can I show up as my best self now and create from there? Because in disruptions, because things are changing so rapidly, the impact of leadership, the impact of each individual is so disproportionate. And the only way to create that impact is from this present moment. Like, how do we want to create this relationship, Jenny, that you and I are having, right? This conversation that hopefully is serving other people. So this notion of being present and being self compassionate when things become hard, those are real practices that really ground us, that help us bring ourselves back to being our most agile selves.

I love that. I love that. And that notion of being present. Conversations like this one, relationships like this one that are unfolding, that's something I have found during this pandemic, that it really highlights for all of us the true nature of reality, which is that we can't control the future, we can't predict the future. Of course, it's much more heightened now than it was previously, but that's. That's how things are. Even when we think we're safe from disruption, anything can happen at any time. And yeah, it's just been interesting to stay present. And for me, I still feel like I'm in a somewhat liminal state or goo state, as my friend Penny and I call it a goo state of what am I becoming? I think all of us are being shaped by this in such powerful ways and we don't even know yet. And for me, that process still feels like an unfolding that I don't think I'll do the same work or in the same way or be the same person that I was before this started.

That's beautifully said. I don't think any one of us will, and I hope actually none of us will be the same person. Right. Because this is such a monumental experiment in some ways. It will change us and it will shape us. And I hope that for all of us, that it will shape us into being kinder and more forgiving of ourselves and, and others and more connected and recognize hopefully what really matters and more authentic, more agile.

I'd like to close with a quote that you shared in the intro to the new book by Tim O'Reilly. He says, Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried. Hannah, it's been so delightful to chat with you, learn more about you, hear about your body of work, your incredible background. Where can people find you if they're excited to learn more and would like to keep in touch?

Thank you, Jenny. It's been a real pleasure having this completely unfiltered conversation with you. Would love to connect with your listeners. They can find me on LinkedIn and just connect with me there or come to my website. It's at www.transformleaders.tv. and I would love to do some LinkedIn lives, so if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, that'd be great. And I'd love to do a LinkedIn live with you, Jenny.

Yes, that would be so fun. Count me in. I will be closely following your book progress. And let's not forget to mention your podcast, Transformational Leadership. It's so good. I already was loving the episode with Kristin Neff. You're such a natural. I couldn't believe when I looked through the archives, I couldn't believe you had only just started in March. It's as if you've been podcasting for years.

Thank you so much. I am. I think what is true is that I'm generally a very curious person, and, you know, I learned so much from everybody, and that's. I mean, I think we're both having fun, so that's what makes a great podcast experience.

And don't you think that coaching has so much in common with podcasting because it involves deep listening and powerful questions?

Yes. Yes. I totally get that.

That's how I.

Which is why I love coaching. Right. Is that you just get to see what a person, who a person is and listen with such appreciation.

Absolutely. I didn't realize I have a journalism background from my earliest days, which is all about curiosity, asking questions, uncovering information, and then coaching. I realized, oh, being a journalist helps with coaching. Oh, okay. Now coaching helps with podcasting, so. So it's interesting you talk about meta skills, but it's true. It's just such a delight, and I'm so grateful to get to know somebody like you and at least just do it publicly. It's basically just making friends in public and letting people in on the conversation as if we're all having coffee together. That's what I love about it.

Beautiful. I love that metaphor.

Well, I look forward to our LinkedIn Live. I'll make sure to let listeners know if they wanna join us for that too. And Hannah, thank you again. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.