How to Withstand Constant Crazy Change in all its Dynamics
David Guthrie explains how organizations survive in VUCA environments, where traditional long-term plans fail. He covers psychological safety, the trim-tab analogy for small shifts that steer big change, and why leaders must model nimbleness and create space for dissent.
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To be stable or not to be stable. That is the question. Would it be fair to say that even before the pandemic, things in your industry weren't or were always changing? I mean, if it wasn't government policy, it was the economy. If it wasn't the economy, it was the competition. If it wasn't the competition, it was something going on in your workplace. Even now that we are in the midst of COVID-19 and as we round the corner with the disease, things are shifting once again. So, the only question I have is, what the voo-ka are we waiting for? And that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. I'm so glad you're here with us. This is where small business owners and operators pick up core skill sets to help them work on their business, not just in their business. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. And today, my guest is Master Facilitator and a real shift disturber, David Guthrie. And today, we are talking about how to develop greater skill and confidence to thrive in an environment of constant unpredictable changes. Stay tuned and we'll get to that in just a moment. In the meantime, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this program? I'd love to make absolutely sure that you don't miss a single episode as it's released. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and let me know what you think of today's episode? I'd love to see some comments in the comment box below. And of course, share this podcast with anybody you think could benefit from the content. You know, I remember when I was in Hawaii. I would put my feet in the warm wet sand and let the waves just lap over my feet and legs. On a warm day, it was refreshing and there was something calming about the waves lapping back and forth. But every time the waves came in, And went out again, my footing changed. After about 15 or so waves, my footing was much different than when I started. I was deeper and I was a little bit off-kilter. But it happened so slowly, I didn't even notice it from one wave to the other. But now, I have to stop. I have to reshift. I have to rebalance and reset my feet. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. If you were to look at where you are today—
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If you were to look at where you are today, COVID-19 aside, what are you doing to get ready for the next change, the next evolution of your business or event, the next chapter of your career? Again, I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. So, go ahead and put the comments in the comment box below wherever you're consuming this content. My guest today is kind of like a fireman. He gets called when there's a crisis that other people can't deal with. He is a slightly seasoned speaker. Not too much, not too little. He's got over 40 years experience. So, well-seasoned. I think well-seasoned is a good way to call it. David Guthrie is a sought-after consultant facilitator best known for his creative presentations, his playful to problems and a relentless deliverer of value to his clients. Welcome, David! It's so great to have you on the show.
It's great to be here, Marc. You know, with that introduction, I'm kind of a little bit afraid to be alive in these crazy days.
But— Well, you know, and I used the word seasoned and I thought, okay. But you know, the last thing I wanted to say was, oh, he's been assaulted. With too much seasoning. No. Yeah, it's different. It's a different world now. Before we actually delve into the topic today, could you just dig a little bit deeper into how you serve your clients?
Sure, I guess in general. And I have a broad range of clients. My expertise is process expertise as opposed to content expertise. So, I can move fairly freely amongst different environments. And primarily, it's to help people have a higher quality conversation than they would otherwise. So, to create a safe environment for people able to talk about what's really going on, explore it, and hopefully come to a joint decision that they're more likely to implement than if they just put a whole pile of ideas on a flip chart. No one's committed to do anything. So, facilitation is a broad category. But I guess in general, it's about helping people have higher quality conversations that add more value to their work. And it's typically in a corporate setting.
Sure, great. And so, I mean, these are big. These are answering really difficult questions, strategic planning, and that sort of thing.
Yes, absolutely. And sometimes, it's new product launches. It's helping. One of the words that is just driving me crazy is pivot. But a lot of organizations are trying to pivot and they'd like to get everyone to pivot together. So, in some cases, it's having a group of a couple hundred people on a call, on a Zoom call. Just hearing what's going on and understanding what they need to do to do things differently. And that staying the same isn't an option.
Nice! Yeah, yeah. I started off by playing with the word VUCA a little bit. Why don't we start off by defining what VUCA is and how it's affecting businesses?
Sure. So, the term's been around for quite a while. It actually came from the military. And the VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, as the circumstances that in the army they'd often find themselves in, in times of battle or even planning for battle. So, the last probably 10 or 15 years, it's come more into the management lexicon as a phrase to describe the environment that we're all working in. And so, volatile means it changes very, very quickly. And, you know, one example was with COVID-19, how the rules changed Very, very quickly. And so volatile, uncertain means that it's not really predictable what's going to happen, which makes it tough if you're trying to do a long-term plan when nothing is predictable. And again, I'll use the uncertainty again of COVID-19. That because things are supposed to open at a certain time, is it guaranteed that it will happen? No. So there's the uncertainty around that. But you still have to plan what you're going to do. Complex. Meaning that there's not a direct connection between, you know, you push here and this is what happens. That it's because of that, there's many unanswerable, understandable connections. So things happen that you never would have anticipated. So complexity with all the things that are intertwining and ambiguous. So things are just not clear. It could be yes, it could be no. It could be this or this. It could be this and this. And up until fairly recently, it's been, yeah, it's kind of been an interesting concept. But now, with COVID-19, we find ourselves immersed in it. And sometimes, we're so busy looking, being aware of what we're inside, we don't actually define the environment that we're stuck in and therefore unable to find a way out.
Right. Well, and of course, I alluded to with my Hawaii story is COVID-19 was like a switch went on or went off. And so, the change was so visible so quickly in so many different realms. Before COVID-19 or in spite of COVID-19, how is business operations? How is VUCA different than what we saw with COVID-19?
How is it different from?
Well, so business operations like the whole VUCA, the volatility and uncertainty and and complexity and ambiguity in regular business is different than what we saw with COVID-19?
Well, I think there's a lot of similarities. It's that the pace hasn't been quite as fast. But what I found over the last number of years, like I used to do a lot of planning where people were talking about their 5-year strategic plans. And then, they were talking about, well, there's too much going on. We have to do our 3-year strategic plans. And right now, most of the planning that's been going on pre-COVID and certainly has been exacerbated by COVID is how do we plan to— how do we build a nimble organization that responds to whatever goes on, but to not set a plan in place and then figure we're going to be able to execute it for 3 years. So that happened before COVID-19, and COVID-19 just accelerated it. So probably in the last 3 to 5 years, things— the pace of change has been picking up. Regulations, climate change, there's so many things going on that people nevertheless have to decide what they're going to do in their business. But it's just a lot tougher to do with any certainty. So, definitely VUCA has been playing its place for quite a while. As again, I mentioned, exacerbated by COVID-19.
Sure. COVID-19, because it was so immediate and the consequences were were so dire so quickly. People had to make decisions very, very quickly. However, a lot of businesses see changes but they don't— they're not aware necessarily of the changes. And so, the consequences of not having plans in place for the uncertainty that is created by change. How have companies— because you get called in usually when the fire is already in full bloom. Right? You get called in when they've realized that the change is coming. Changes come. More changes come. More changes come. It's like, oh my goodness! Hey, let's give David a call because now we can't handle it. So, what are the consequences of this, of not being ready to be nimble like this?
Well, I think there's a bunch of things. You lose opportunities. You lose people. The competition comes in and takes over if they're doing the things that you're not. So, It could be a pretty quick business decline. And sometimes, it's as much about planning how we're going to respond as distinct from what are we going to do. Because it doesn't matter how good the plans are. If you have an organization where people just get locked into that and stop thinking and stop looking outside, you kind of end up being a victim of the environment that you're in. And that's always going to be the case, going to be the tail wagging the dog. You're never going to be first into anything around that. You're always going to be behind. It's going to make it tough if you have— especially if it's a commodity, Commodity prices shrinking, all those kinds of things. You lose your competitive advantage if you don't have some sort of a plan. Plus, you have a lot of morale issues in your organization because people wonder, doesn't anyone know what's going on? They don't see a plan. They don't see a direction. And they just feel that things are going back and forth like this. So again, you lose good people.
Well, and you brought up a really good point about this idea of having a 5-year strategic plan and people kind of There are some people that this becomes, okay, this is our true north. This is our direction. Nothing's going to sway us from our path. And then, things happen in the marketplace that wasn't adapted for in the strategic plan. But yet, people are still, no, no, we said we're going to hold this path. We're going to hold this path. So, how much of building in the uncertainty and the change criteria is required?
Well, I think there's a couple of changes that I'm seeing. First of all, it's more about— I think it was Winston Churchill said that planning is useless but planning is everything. That the value is in the conversations that you have to understand the environments that you respond pretty quickly. So, there's a couple of things that I'm finding is that they're looking at that strategic plan has been more strategic intention. And you're hearing different language. So, it's what are our strategic thrusts? And so, for example, I'm working with one organization right now. They've responded very well to work from home and the whole kind of thing. And they still have the same strategic thrusts. But the way they go about delivering it has been substantially altered because of the changing environment. And one of the things that they're doing now in a larger organization where you have a board that's involved in these kinds of things, What the CEOs are trying to do is say, here's like, this is our thrust. These are the boundaries that we're staying within. These tell us what we're going to do. But also, we're not going to do the things that are outside there. However, the way we go about executing on that thrust can be different based on the changing circumstances. So, the buy-in is on the direction and the thrust and not so much on the specific plans and projects.
Hmm.
Right? So, the CEOs are saying, trust that we understand what's going on. But if we have to come back, like every week or every month to adapt to the change in circumstances, we're not going to be able to do it.
Right, right, right. For the people listening, small business operators, managers, that sort of thing, are there any indicators that the sands are shifting in their business? Like, are there any kind of telltale, well, this is something that people should see?
Oh well, I mean, there's tons of them. And those shifting sands vary from company to company, industry to industry. So, it might be what used to work no longer works. as well. That before, if you needed more sales, you just made more sales calls. And you can almost measure the connection between the increase in effort and the results. And if you find that that isn't happening, that should be a sign, right? It's not just that your salespeople or whoever's running the place aren't doing their job. It's that circumstances have changed. You find maybe that it's harder to connect with customers. It's harder to get someone to make a decision. You know, the communication is often obfuscated. You're not really sure what people are saying and not saying. And if you start to see, again, depending on the size of the organization, if some of your employees are starting to take time off, which they never used to, that should be a pretty good sign. If you come into the office and you find that the— as you come in, all of a sudden, you see scrambling at the keyboard and the spreadsheet screensaver comes up to hide the word processor in the background, That's a pretty good sign as well that things are changing. You know, some of the positive changes sometimes that if you're trying to grow your company, interest rates are a little bit lower, right? And you kind of go, yay, let's go for this. But be careful that that can be kind of scary when all of a sudden the interest rates start to come back up. So, you'll just be hearing about things that maybe don't directly impact your business but indirectly impact your customers. And that can be something like climate change. It could be something like terrorism. It could be COVID-19, that it doesn't direct me personally. But several levels out, that it's going to be affecting my customers or my suppliers and things like that. So, I think being mindful and being aware and not sticking your blinders on and head in the sand is absolutely critical.
It does seem to me then that as part of the planning aspect of being nimble is that you need several different avenues to be able to check in. on different facets of the business.
Yeah.
And so, to me now, this sounds more like, hey, this is a— to be nimble will require every level of an organization. It's not just a, oh, the CEO and the board or the board of directors are saying, okay, I need you to check this and I need you to check that. It has to be something more ordinary as having regular conversations with the people on the front lines.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in terms of that being nimble, as you were talking, I was just thinking that for folks of my age and stage, not yours because you're much younger, but this whole category of folks that came through business that was fairly predictable and you knew what was going to happen. Here are the steps that you had to take to get ahead in an organization or in a marketplace. And when that all of a sudden, that stability and predictability go down, it can create a lot of anxiety. Now, I look at my daughter, who's 21, and change— she just lives change. This, that, the other thing. She hasn't got a lot invested in one way of being or one way of doing things. And so, one of the challenges in the organization is where you have people who are already nimble. And if anything, they're concerned that things aren't nimble enough. And then there's others that are kind of going, nimble? You know, I'm going to be retiring in 15 years. I think I'd just like things to to stay the way that they were. So, and it's one of those things that's saying you must be nimble. And I see a lot of organizations do that. We have to be more nimble. And they do not give people, their employees, the understanding or the skills to actually be nimble. And there's also the whole issue of psychological safety and trust. Like they say, fail fast, fail forward, all those kinds of things.
Right.
Well, Marc Haine, he tried something that didn't work. Has anyone seen Marc lately? So then, you get all the stories in the culture about what happened when someone tried to do things. And apparently, this thing about fail fast, they really mean try stuff but prefer that you don't fail at all. So, the mixed signals in the organization keep us from being nimble.
So, we're heading now I think into the facet or the track of mindset. And I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into that. And we'll get to that right after this.
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Welcome back! I am speaking with the master shift disturber, David Guthrie. I love the whole idea. You know, it's the master of the pot The pronunciation is very important. Yeah, I suppose so. So, we're talking a little bit about now. We're delving into this idea of being ready for mindset. It's one thing to turn around and post a mission statement or a vision statement on a wall. But it's entirely different to live it. When people say, okay, it is time for us to become more nimble. We have to become more nimble in our business. Do people understand what's required to be nimble?
Intellectually, perhaps. But that doesn't translate into actually doing things. So, and I think there's so many words out there. You hear the word and 20 different people hear the same word and interpret it in 20 different ways. And I think nimble is one of those things. What does nimble mean? Does it mean fast? Does it mean sloppy? Does it mean, can we let go of accountability and all those other sorts of things? So, They've heard the word. I don't think they necessarily understand what it means, nor do they necessarily have the skills, the opportunity to practice being nimble.
And so, the next question when somebody turns around and says, we have to figure this out somehow, then the next thing is, well, how do we learn how to become nimble and the tools required?
Yeah, and I think a lot of it is giving examples. So, before and after. So, take a problem that came up in the organization, historic one perhaps that everyone knows about, and say, so, this is what we did back then. What would it look like differently if we were to be nimble about it? And sometimes, people can figure that out on their own. You don't have to tell them. But to see a before and after so they can see how is nimble different from what I've been doing all along. So, people have a felt sense of that. I think, and then giving examples of other organizations I would like. And again, we have lots from COVID-19 where a manufacturer of something totally different now starts manufacturing PPE. I've done just total shifts about because like there's Bucky Fuller used the term, the trim tab factor when talking about organizational change. And as I understand the way he described it, you have a very large ocean-going vessel. And then, there's a rudder that changes direction. There's a lot of pressure on that rudder. There's a lot of momentum going in one direction. And then, there's something called a trim tab that, as I understand it, reduces the pressure around the rudder that allows it to change, right? And then, the whole ship changes. And the whole notion is how many people do you need to get to do things differently? And if you're talking about nimble, if you only get that 5% that changes to allow the 20% of the rudder to change, You can lose a market opportunity. It doesn't take long to use that. So, you don't have a lot of time to persuade people to be nimble if it's a major organizational shift. It's tough.
And to anybody who's ever tried to do a new system to do expense reporting with their sales force, or anybody who puts a new process into place where you might have people who've been in a job for 10 or 12 years and You try to initiate this. Well, something happens to that trim tab because it's actually like putting up a brick wall in front of the boat and expecting the boat to move forward. What are some of the steps that you think leaders need to take when they're developing these systems in order to reduce the static and reduce the friction of new initiatives?
Well, first of all, they have to model the kind of behavior they want to see in the organization. and be incredibly consistent about that. Because— and it doesn't matter how open a leader is in their organization. People are very aware of who's in a position to do them good and to do them harm. And they key on those. And that tends to be the senior leaders. So, if the senior leaders are saying that we have to be nimble, and the first time one of their managers comes and suggests something, and before even listening, that CEO or senior leader is putting up all kinds of barriers. No, we can't do this because. That's what people tell others. Those are the stories in the organization. We went to Marc with this great idea and he just shut us right down without even listening. So, I don't think you can expect your organization to be more nimble than you are as a senior leader. And that means sometimes you have to trust your people. You have to make sure you've got good people. And it requires holding your breath sometimes. You know, the mistakes that you don't allow in an organization quite often send a very strong cultural message about what's acceptable around here and what's not.
And what the penalties are, right? I mean, that's the other part of it is if somebody comes up with an idea and gets shot down. And the penalty of getting shot down and how it happens again is when is the next time this person will ever bring you an idea?
or anyone else that happened to witness that, right? Because those stories abound. So, it very quickly— you think COVID-19 spreads quickly. Just see what happens when someone operates differently than they say. Just like when a company has its corporate values and there's another unspoken set of values.
Yeah.
That's quite different. Just like personally, I think I talked about the trim tab and change. One of the The biggest impediments to organizational change at any level is for an individual whose primary driving value is comfort. So, you can have organizational values that say courage, communication, all these other kinds of things. But if there's an unspoken value of comfort, and you use the example of changing systems, that one comes up. I'm not comfortable doing this. So, there's resistance, right? And how do you get people Being comfortable with being uncomfortable, I think, is the challenge, right? And just shove that value aside and focus on what's important for the organization to thrive and for your customers to be happy.
Yeah, yeah. And so, we've talked about kind of like ideas coming from down and coming up. But we have just as much static with ideas coming from above, coming down to different levels. I have seen issues in businesses where a supervisor went to an employee and said, we have to do it like this. Well, why do we have to do it like this? I don't know. They tell us that's what they want and that's what we have to do.
Yeah.
And so, being able to find out what are these contact points. And so, how can leaders communicate more effectively so that they get rid of that so they can start looking at these people as being their trim tabs?
You know, I think the word context comes to mind for me in so many aspects of communication that sort of address one of your previous comments, more so the most recent one, that when people resist, they'll resist doing things that appears that they don't agree with if they think it's a stupid idea, if it hasn't been thought out. If I present a case to you for something, here's the reason why you have to do it. You may not like it, but at least you understand it and don't think I'm just being wacky. And I think sometimes leaders in their efforts to get things done quickly to meet deadlines or whatever, they leave out just sort of the 1 or 2 sentences or paragraphs that set context that make it so much easier for people to understand and say, I get it. At least I understand why. And they're more likely to do what needs to be done then. So, I think that context, clarity, communication, like all the C words sort of leading through the 7 C's becomes really important. But to be intentional about your communication is important.
And part of that is when the direction is given is you get people to tell you back to make sure that they understand it as well. I think that's one step that people don't take. They'll just say, I want this and this and this and this. Okay? Okay. And then they go off and people have their own little bubble of perception of what that all meant.
Well, and one of the reasons they do that is because they don't want to look stupid by asking the question, which is probably a really good question to ask. That's the nice thing that I can ask as an outsider. You know, the naive question someone else might be fearing the rolling of the eyes. And I don't expect, nor do my clients expect me To know as much as they do. And it's sometimes those naive questions. But, you know, if— it's funny that I don't have time to ask you, hey, Marc, what did you really mean by that? But if I get it wrong, somehow I find the time to fix it.
Right.
But, you know, there's so much value lost in that. Like, I'd much rather ask the question. And if someone— like, I'll do this with my daughter. I'll ask her a question to clarify something. It's just roll her eyes and say, oh, that's so stupid. I said, you know what? Whatever you think is fine. I just know that the pain of asking you again what you need done is much less than the pain of what's going to come my way if I do it wrong. So, that's a price I'm willing to pay. A lot of people in organizations are not because they don't— there's this concern about how they're going to be judged and what the consequences are going to be. of asking that question. And in fact, I'll give you one quick example. Working with a bank back east, it was at a retreat somewhere down in the States. And the CEO was overheard to remark, you know, I wonder what would happen if we did this? Well, all these like really keen people thought, oh, he wants this done. So, went ahead and spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating something and going to present this like, look what we've got. And the CEO is just like, what the have you done? Right? Because no one wanted to say, is that something you'd like us to look into? So, I mean, it's all those dynamics that come into play. But it's the ability to step back, laugh at them, and then decide to do something differently going ahead. That's so important.
This is so good. Hey David, I'm sure that this is going to resonate with a bunch of people as they consume this content. How can people get in touch with you if they want to reach out and seek your help?
Well, you've got my number and they've got yours, Marc. So, I suggest they just call you. But as another option, my address is david, as you see below, @davidguthrow, which would be my name, .com. So, david@davidguthrow.com. I'm also on Facebook. Which is just more for fun. But I'm also on LinkedIn. So, my LinkedIn account has a lot of contact information and what I do.
Nice! Thank you so much. We started delving into mindset and the leader's requirement to understand that change is going to be happening and that they're going to have to adapt to their shifting sands. For somebody who doesn't know that they're not in a proper mindset. What are some of the— how can they test themselves to find out? Because it's one thing to say, yeah, yeah, no, I can go with the flow, no problem. I have no problem adapting to stuff. But really, those are just words.
Well, I think there's a number of different ways, Marc. Some are more complex and expensive to do than others. But some top of mind that come to mind. Well, have a coach. That actually, a lot of coaching is done like one-on-one. But I think like a friend of mine, for example, is coaching an organization where she sits in on their meetings every week. And so, can give the CEO feedback based on what she's observed in terms of how he responds to things. So, if you can see someone in action, that's great. So, a one-to-one coach, a coach that's looking at you in the organization. If you have someone that you truly trust and believe trusts you and the organization to ask for feedback, there are tools that you can gather information in a way that people aren't going to feel judged. Like, there's one called Thought Exchange that I use quite a bit. And it might be something like, put out a question to the group. What are some of the things that you think I could do differently to better live our values? Or something like that, whatever the issue. And everyone piles in totally anonymously, and you get all this information that you can sort through that's unfiltered, you know, as unbiased as you can. Because it's, you know, I, I think we've all heard perhaps ad infinitum the phrase, it's tough to speak truth to power. But part of it's exactly about doing that. I mean, there's, there's other groups, networking groups and things like that, like Tech McKay Forums, things like that. You probably have some of these going yourself, Marc, some some groups where you can get some feedback. But the key is to somehow figure out how to get in a position where you can have an unguarded conversation. And what I mean by that is I've talked to a couple of CEOs around this issue and said, so my hypothesis is that the higher up you get in an organization, the fewer people with whom you can have a truly unguarded conversation, meaning that there's no fear of judgment, of consequence, and things like that. And so, a couple of folks that I talked about this said, you're absolutely right. Like, there's some things that I like. I really love my team. But there's some things I just don't feel comfortable talking to them about. We have our peer groups. And there's again, there's some things because even though we're collaborating, there's still a little bit of competition. And for most people, when you go home, your spouse or significant other, partner, dog, doesn't particularly want to give you that opportunity for unguarded conversation. And so, the 2 pieces that are unguarded and then conversation. So, I find that if I say something out loud to you, I hear it differently and perceive it differently than if I just think it to myself or write it down. So, I think a very simple but complex to execute answer to your question is Find people with whom you can have an unguarded conversation. There was a model that was developed quite a few years ago called the Johari Window. And that was by Joe Selman and Harry Selman, very creative name. But the notion was there's a 2x2 matrix because everything in life can be described in a 2x2 matrix. There's things that you know about yourself. that others know about you. There's things that you know about yourself that others don't know about you. And on the flip side, there's things that others know about you that you know about you. But there's things that others know about you that you don't know about you. And that's really where the learning block is. Things that other people see about you that in a respectful way, you can have that conversation. So, you can discover those things then decide what, if anything, you want to do about it. But you're going into making your decisions better informed than you would otherwise.
Sure. And this is resonating so much because this is where bringing people from the outside into your organization really helps out. Because again, we've said this time and time again on this show, you also being inside the bottle can't read the label. And so, sometimes people who are close to the problem actually hinder it moving forward because of their perceptions, their biases, their values, and so on. The value of bringing somebody in like yourself. So, you mentioned that you can help create those unguarded conversations. Is there an inherent trust with people who are hired like yourself when you go into an organization? Do you just end up assuming that you're trustworthy? Or is there something that owners and operators need to do before they take that step?
There's a huge it depends answer to that, Marc. Because it depends on how I'm brought in. Like sometimes, the person that brings me in to figure out what the problem is actually is the problem. And in a case like that, there's like, you're the CEO's guy. Well, why should we trust you any more than you trust him? Right. And I think you can position it for sure. But this is who we're bringing in and this is why. And being totally transparent about this. Sometimes what I'll do is actually send out before I meet a group face-to-face. I think I used to do that. I would send a short video of me to say, this is who I am and this is kind of what's going to happen. So, they get a sense of me and the chemistry before I actually show up. That actually helps a lot. And the more that I've heard that there's suspicion in the organization, the more I want to be crystal clear about what's going to happen and what's not going to happen so that people don't come in all defensive. So, you know, and another way to do that is if you were the CEO, we might even have a conversation like this. And, you know, so Marc, why are you bringing me in? And have that kind of a conversation and make that available to the staff. It's kind of hard to— anything you write could be written by who knows whom. It's not coming from the heart. We can't fake this when people can see us, can see our eyes and things like that. So it just kind of says that from a transparency perspective, I think that'll happen. But trust, I mean, it can take a long time to build and be gone like that.
Sure.
But I'd say one of the measures of a good client relationship for me is when someone will just call up to ask a question, right?
Or though—
and it'll be something that may not even be of a business nature, but there's that trust. You know, in financial services, wealth management, they talk about being the trusted advisor. And I like to come across that my interests are much more the interests of the company than just making money myself doing the work. And people sense that.
Yeah, yeah. And they sense— I think people can sense inauthenticity as well through it all. So, if you're just there to do a job, it's like, he's just there to check boxes.
Yeah, yeah.
I'd like to talk a little bit about what it's like to bring people together in some of these distrusting organizations as people want to move forward. And we'll get to that right after this.
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Hi and welcome back, David. We're talking about— we got onto the subject of mindset and trust within organizations. I know that having done strategic workshops myself, I've done it with communities and so on. One of the challenges that we have in getting people together is that we've done this before. We've done workshops before. We've sat in a room and we've had a facilitator. And what good has it done? It's like, why are we going to waste our time doing another session? How do you overcome that kind of poison in this session of long-term employers who have been trying this over and over again?
I generally walk away from those, Marc, and I refer them to someone, a fellow colleague or consultant who I don't like. No. Okay, maybe not entirely true. So, you know, so I think part of it is acknowledge what's gone on before. Like, I remember I was working with a utility back in Ontario, and like every couple of years they'd have someone come in and they get this great report. Nothing was Nothing happened. So, they were incredibly cynical, understandably so. So, I think part of it is to acknowledge that, is to say, so my understanding is for the last 5 years, you'd have someone come in that made a list of things that needed to be done and nothing happened. And if I was you, I'd be wondering, is it going to be the same again this year? Well, I would certainly hope not. And here's what we're going to do to make sure it's different. But then, if you didn't like the way it went, what are you prepared to do to make sure that you get value out of this? Because we're doing this for all of us, not just for me, not just for the organization, not just for shareholders, but all of us. So, you can decide if you want to participate in this and be a sail or be an anchor unintentionally perhaps and hold us back. But it's like, what are you going to do to make sure the same thing doesn't happen again? Right? And I think being clear about that, like if it's in the ether, if it's out there, name it, label it because it's going to have an influence. if you don't, right? So, I'd rather know about those kinds of things. Okay, so given that, given that, what's the best we could do today? And put the ownership back on the group to say, well, maybe we can do this. And usually, I find they end up doing a whole lot more than they thought they could because they're now aligned on wanting to do something together.
And I think you just used the magic word, I think. And that's alignment. This idea of being in alignment with what are your goals and objectives for the business, for yourself, for your teams. And then, the employees, once they understand what that looks like, you create that alignment. Now, people are ready to move forward a little bit. Is there a difference? Like, I've seen a lot of strategic plans and strategic plans typically are very black and white. How does one analyze when they sit down to do a strategic plan to know if what they're doing is going to be flexible enough to face the onslaught of changes that are going to happen over the time?
Well, I think the first thing is to acknowledge that could be the case. And then, to actually have a separate conversation. What could happen to pull us off? Like sometimes, a couple of clients I've talked about what's on their radar. And what are some of the things that are in close that you have to be worrying about? What are some things that you want to keep an eye on? And periodically check to see if they're coming closer in. So, part of it is I think identifying the things that could cause it to go off track. There are so many different—
Scenarios.
Approaches to strategic planning. Yeah, like there's a book called Strategy Bites Back that has all these different strategies. So, I think first is to be aware that it could happen. And how do you mitigate the risk of that happening and having a conversation about that? Because if the output is just to have the plan, that's not going to be near as effective as how are we actually going to ensure that the plan takes place. And this is why there's the phrase dynamic planning is coming up. Then, instead of having— one of my clients I'm working with right now at their strategic summit is going to be, how do we need to change our planning process so it's more dynamic? Because typically, it's we do a 3-year plan. Every year, we review the plan. We update it. We talk about progress and I have a list of things that we don't have money to do. And it's the same thing year over year after year. And there's not enough real-time feedback, right? So, for example, simple. Should it be a rolling 3-year plan or should it be a 3-year plan and every 3rd year, we start from scratch? Right. But seeing, I think the question is, what kind of plan are we going to need to be successful and design backwards from that? So, let's build the kind of plan we need knowing what it is for that plan, knowing what we need that plan to do for us. So for some, the purpose of the strategic plan is get the board off their back. You know, we just have to say it's a strategic plan, but, you know, we're a government organization, just have to keep doing the same things. Why go through the sham? Let's just, you know, get a ticket off and then, then do our work. For others, it's actually to provide guidance. And for many, as you know, it's to take the strategic plan. So now let's, let's take a look at that. Let's see, what are these things we can operationalize? And then, what's the budget? Get the budget approval and then you start executing. But sometimes, the planning is too late or it's got the wrong people involved in it. So, you start planning for the next calendar year in November. Well, it's too late, right? So, I mean, there's so many different factors. I'm walking all over the place. But there's no simple answer.
Sure.
I guess that the thing to be aware of.
This has been such a unique topic that we haven't covered before because we've talked about pivoting and we've talked about strategic plans and so on. But what we've really been able to focus on here is the fact that change is imminent no matter which way you deal with it. And my angst, I think, in the business world is all these people with band-aids. They want to do something quick. They want to do it cheap. Let's just get it knocked off. And like you said, working in municipal governments, I was shocked to see binders and binders and binders of strategic plans that got commissioned. They worked with consultants. They worked with the communities. And then, that binder sat on a shelf. And somewhere along the way, somebody lost the wind in the sails to make it happen or to push it forward. And so, that's always a little bit of a challenge. David, as we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we're talking about? Cautionaries, that sort of thing? that people should be aware of when they're thinking about, how do I make myself more flexible? How do I move myself and be ready for the next change that's going to happen?
I guess there's a couple of things. If you truly want to be more flexible, I think you have to practice being flexible. And so, a couple of ways to do that, like I've recommended some of my executive clients, go to a part of town that you're not familiar with. Go to new haunts. Like, you know, don't go down to places where you're likely to get mugged like at 2 o'clock in the morning. But go to someplace where it just doesn't feel like your place. And there's like lots of different neighborhoods in Vancouver and multicultural like crazy. There's all kinds of places you can go to that are not your places, that are not your people. Well, be aware of how you respond when you're in a different environment. That's great learning there. Another way is, and I recommend this to all of my clients is take improv training because it's a skill that you can build. It's like a muscle that whatever happens, you don't know for sure what you're going to do, but you've built confidence that somehow you're going to be able to do something. Like I talk about it, taking that kind of training to become response-able as to responsible. So, your confidence is in your ability to be response-able. So, those are 2 things I'd suggest. Go someplace where you're uncomfortable. Just push yourself out of your comfort zone. Like, don't go skydiving without a parachute. We're not extreme like that. But something that— and each time, do something where you're a little bit less comfortable so you get comfortable with being comfortable. And then, practice the skills and the mindset. There actually are skills in improv. Like, you hear about whenever someone's says something, yes, and rather than yes, but. Those kinds of things that are powerful. So, those 2 things alone would make a huge difference in being more nimble, more better to respond to all the change that we're in the midst of and quite frankly, can't get out of.
Yes, yes. And again, part of the challenge with it is you have all the different levels of the hierarchy needs to be adapting some of these philosophies. So, it's not just good enough for the CEO to go out and start doing stuff. He's got to bring people along for the ride, right? And again, at the end of the day, we can't do it all by ourselves.
No, and that's— I think that's sort of the notion of the heroic leader. I think a lot of people would like one. But most ones, I think they place a lot of pressure on themselves thinking that they have to have all the answers. And Collaborating with others, reaching out. There's a book that recently came out from one of the founders of Thought Exchange called Scaling Conversations. Like, I'd have bigger conversations, how to engage more people and just to stop the practice of not asking people for their input if you think you're not going to like what they're going to say. Like, that's crazy. Hear the dissent, create the spaces for that, hear more voices. Ultimately, you have to decide what you're going to do. But you're better informed when you do it. It's not done out of ignorance.
Yeah, and it's a great way to get those blinders off. David, this has been so amazing. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you? We will of course put it in the show notes. But if you just one more time.
Sure, it's david@davidgouthro.com. And that's probably the best way. But also, my website is No surprise, www.davidgothrow.com and LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn as well. And Facebook if you just want to see what I think about when I'm walking my dog in Lighthouse Park in the morning. Nice!
Thank you so much. This has been amazing, David. Thank you. I want to acknowledge you so much for the generosity of your time and your spirit today and making it humorous as you went along.
My pleasure. Thanks for the invite, Marc. I really appreciate that.
Why don't you let me know if this was of value? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below. It's the one that's marked meetme.so/MarcHaine. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this feed. It'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you content that will help you work on your business, not just in your business. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.
