Empowering Changemakers to Embrace New Approaches | Heather Hiscox | 598

And welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today my guest is Heather Hiscox. She is the founder and CEO of Pause for Change, an organization that helps changemakers address difficult challenges using the PAUSE framework. To gain certainty about which solutions will create the greatest impact while using fewer resources and less time. She's also the co-creator of, of The Possibility Project, an online conversion series about growing community of disruptive changemakers. She speaks at conferences and events about shifting status quo practices in social impact organizations and has launched several ventures that benefit the social impact sector. She lives in Tucson with her partner, and two children. There we go. So how'd we get— not to Tucson, but how did, how did we— what was the path we took to be leading Pause for Change and the PAUSE framework?

It really was born out of my own frustration working in the social, social sector and seeing the tremendous amount of waste and weak impact that we were creating with the best of intentions, with these ideals and best practices and ways that we traditionally address problems in social spaces— the nonprofit, local government, philanthropy, and just seeing them fall short repeatedly and getting really frustrated and saying, why are, why are we working differently? What else is out there? What is going on with our problem-solving strategies right now? What can we do differently to create change? And so I really was kind of working to address that, that issue, those questions, and it just kept evolving with my learning of saying, oh, we can do better, and here's what that looks like, and here's more, and here's more, and here's more. So it's continually evolving.

So stay there for a moment because I've worked with lots and lots of people where you ask sort of the origin story, right? And it's some version of what you said, which, well, geez, I was suffering from this or I had this problem or I couldn't get over this or I had a toxic, whatever it is. They wrote the book that they wanted to read that wasn't available for them to read at the time. So they wrote it, right? It's something along those lines. So, you know, then you extrapolate that then you write the book and now you're really serving a community of folks that you really, really can empathize with their pain points because you were on the other side of the table.

Absolutely. And that's why I wrote the book, No Más Status Quo, because I, that's the number one feedback people give me when I do public speaking. When they read the book, they say, oh yes, like I've seen the same thing. I love and hate the sector. I love and hate the way that we do this work. And I now have language that I didn't have. I feel validated. I feel seen and heard. Yes. And how do— what do we do differently? What are the really specific concrete action steps that we can take? And what are all those stories of inspiration that really show us what's possible? That's made all the difference. So it honestly was the book and work that I wish I had more than a decade ago.

What you just said there was, I've had the language to describe this thing. Oftentimes, you know something's resonating when you say, A, you know, people say something along the lines of, wow, I thought it was just me, right? I didn't know there was a word for that, or other people were experiencing that. And wow, now we've got some common language and now we have a way to address it. Now we have a way to work on it. Now we have a way I can share one, the angst or whatever it is that I've got with others in a nonjudgmental way that defines it in a way that people go, well, of course you do according to that model. How could you not, right?

Yes. And it's— I joke that it's like The Matrix, you know, made that scene of the pill. Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Really shifts people's thinking to the point where they can't go back to how they used to work because it doesn't make any sense. You know, why would we build solutions without talking to people that'll be most impacted by them? Duh. You know, why do we let all leaders make decisions when some of them are deeply removed from those same stakeholders inside and outside the organization, why do we just build solutions in a vacuum for months and years without actually testing the embedded assumptions? Duh. Right.

I love what you said about unsee, because one of the things that I believe that, you know, great thought leadership, once you expose the idea to the right population, they can never see the world as they did before. Right? Because it's like, oh, that's so glaringly obvious now. There's a word for that. Now the word might be psychological safety, it might be agility, it might be whatever. Like, yeah, I can't ever imagine not thinking about things that way before. Like, it's, that makes perfect sense. So move to the, that's sort of the origin of the ideas and the thought leadership and, and the problems that it solves. Talk about sort of the things that you've tested until you landed where you are today from a business model standpoint. 'Cause just to have, just because you have great ideas and actually does something, it doesn't mean that that in and of itself is a viable business.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, it's, it's been a lot of experimentation over the last 13 years. I've started 5 businesses in the last 13 years, so just so much experience of what works and what doesn't. How do I listen to my customer? You know, one of some of the biggest lessons that I've learned are it's all about relationships. That's keys to success, successful business and everything is relationships. I've seen so many other entrepreneurs and businesses close the deal, move on, close the deal, move on.

Right.

No, how do we create optimal value? And what's interesting about my framework is I use it for my business. I think about what are my uncertainties? Who do I need to go engage with? Who do I learn from? How do I do those empathetic conversations? It's like the Lean Startup methodology. It's the lean Lean Canvas, the Business Model Canvas. How do I rapidly iterate? How do I identify, okay, I could create this tweak, I could adjust my language, I could provide this offer, but what are those assumptions? How do I test those assumptions before I launch, before I grow? And I think that's what a lot of entrepreneurs are missing are some of those key listening skills. How do I listen empathetically? How do I listen actively? And then how do I respond and how do I test before I build?. And so I, it's that whole joke of like, you eat your own dog food. I eat heaps of my own dog food where I'm just on this learning journey and very iterative. And that's what I expect of my clients as well.

So that testing piece, I agree with you, but I think there, people live on a continuum of, you know, perfectionists to sort of the more creative, right? So the perfectionist won't put anything out to anyone, meaning in an email, in a letter, in a whatever, until it's perfect, until it's to the 11th decimal, until it's whatever. And I think there are some pros to that, but like anything else, there are some cons to that. And I think you're sort of, you know, minimum viable lean startup, whatever. You got to get your stuff out there. And the way I always think about it is it's really cheap to be stupid early. It's expensive to be stupid later. And sometimes people are inadvertently stupid later because, you know, they're, they're building in a vacuum in isolation. They're going and going and going and toiling for months, even if it's not hard cost, but they're not taking into account the soft cost. And then they unleash the idea thinking it's the greatest thing ever and thud. And then you get the feedback and you're like, geez, wouldn't that feedback have been valuable 8 months ago when you could have done something with it? So how do you, how do you balance that out or encourage folks to be a little bit more lean, if you will.

Well, I say, you know, I say the same thing. Do you want the hot mess now or later? Because it's going to come back and bite you. It doesn't disappear. Like, it exists. It's going to come back. You will find it. And I use, you know, a lot of case studies and examples. And, you know, my work with local government, the typical way that a lot of people will create new change is through, like, City of Hayward, for example. They wanted to create a program focused on hoarding. Right. So they wanted to say like, how do we— hoarding?

Oh, hoarding. Okay.

Yeah. Individuals that had hoarding disorders. And the typical way that they would build a program, any type of new program, is they would say, all right, we have 10 months, we have about $100,000, we're going to create a 20-person task force and address this challenge. And the team that I got to work with was a team of 4 people. We spent about $6,500 in their actual costs of paying staff. And in about 4 to 6 weeks, we learned that they should not copy this best practice program, which we uncovered was actually not working, that no one knew, even though this program had won awards on a conference stage, even though it had been featured by local political leaders. When they worked with us, they said, don't tell anyone, but it's actually not working. And the team was shocked. And so when I had those two examples of traditional ways of working and the reality of new problem-solving skills, it's a no-brainer. Leaders see the difference. They see the retention and rejuvenation in their team members. They see that collective joint effort. The results, they don't have to wait months and years to see the results. They can see it in hours and weeks. And so the proof's really in the pudding of really taking those risks of learning in different ways, asking different questions. And you get totally different results because you're using a different entire method.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps. As well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So in terms of business models, tell me a little bit about like who's paying you to do what, right? So I get the market, I get the sort of the problem case, if you will. When it comes down to it, what types of organizations are paying you for what sorts of interventions and what's the outcome? What's the benefit?

Yeah, it's— I work with nonprofit organizations, local governments, and philanthropic foundations all across the US. And what they typically bring me in to do, or it kind of falls in two buckets. The first is, this is not working. You know, community members are not showing up for our programs, donors are not lining up to make gifts, we're not getting traction. There's something that's broken within the organization. We want to read—

they already know that, right? So they're coming to you because something What, what used to always work isn't. We keep doing the same thing and getting worse outcomes. So there, there's a already a metric in place that says, yeah, this is not good. Yeah.

There's a painful res— results or painful symptom, right? This isn't working. Or the other way is there's an opportunity. What if we, what might be possible if, and so it's not the, you know, could we build it because they can build a lot of stuff, but should we build it? Is this even worth our time, resources, money, all of that? And so we get to use the framework to really answer those two different questions. Can we resuscitate and reimagine? Should we build? Not could we build? And usually I work with—

Well, let me just interrupt you there. But so just out of curiosity, there's those that, uh-oh, something's broken, let's fix it. My house got robbed. I guess I should get a burglar, you know, an alarm system or whatever. And then others that are more strategic, forward-thinking, et cetera, et cetera, saying it's not quite broken, but I wonder what the, I wonder if, dot, dot, dot. What's the breakdown of what percentage come to you with the broken thing versus the, I think there's a better way thing?

I think it's about 50/50. It really is. It really does fall, and there is a spectrum, but it should be some element of internal or external organizational dynamics that are at play. Yeah, yeah. And I typically work with leaders within those organizations. Within city government, I usually work with the assistant city manager, city manager directly. I usually work with like a director, CEO of a nonprofit, and I usually work with like a director or like a board member of a nonprofit like Philanthropy. So it, yeah, it really varies, but they're the people that are deeply embedded in the solutions. You know, they're really driven to have a different option, different outcome.

Got it. Got it. And what— tell me a little bit about— because this is the area of the business that most people struggle the most, most thought leaders struggle the most, is sales, marketing, business development, that side of the house. So clearly you've, you've got a good market, you've got good content, you've got good thought leadership. What is, what is it that you're doing or not doing on the marketing side that's working for you?

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting after doing this for so many years, I mean, it's a very high percentage now of word of mouth is how my business comes to me, is these leaders talk to each other and they say, oh, I've got this thing that's not working, or we want to explore this opportunity. And word of mouth has been fantastic. I also, you know, have a presence on LinkedIn posting and sharing with people some of those outcomes and strategies I'm using. And then with the online talk show that I host, Possibility Project, It's all aligned around and under the same umbrella of meeting frustrated changemakers where they are, right? Okay, you're not alone. You want something new? Read the book. You want to bring me in and I can help you? Bring me in. And there's this talk show where it's many, many people from all around the globe that are also frustrated. They're also wanting to ask these big, bold questions and really stretch what's possible. And so I find that it kind of falls into those different buckets of reaching people where they are on their journey. Are they at this early awareness? Are they ready to take action? Maybe if they tried something and it didn't work and now I'm sort of the plan B. There's a whole variety of ways that people come to me, but I find that the referrals are a huge portion of my business, which is great.

Yeah. No, and I think the, the referral issue is, you know, it's, it, there's a flywheel effect or a compounding effect where, like you said, you've been doing this for a number of years. So even though you might not know exactly where the next 5 deals will come from, the data shows you that they're gonna come from people I've worked with before. Can't tell you which ones at what time, but it's quasi-predictable as a, as an out, as sort of as a benefit of longevity, if you will.

Yes. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs forget that piece. They don't do the, they don't invest in relationship building. And I'm still very connected to clients that I work with a decade ago. Yeah, they can come to me. So I really, I really care. I care deeply about the outcomes of my teams, my team members, my leaders, the organization. And people often don't ask. I think we, we forget to ask for testimonials. We forget to ask for that feedback. We forget to debrief really intentionally with our clients to find our own growth opportunities. And where are those places where we're excelling and where are the places where we need, we need to shift? And often you don't ask for that feedback. And then when it's good stuff, we don't promote it and gather it. And when it's bad stuff, we just kind of gloss over it.

But even that testimonial piece, I think one, there's something about testimonials that give people the warm and fuzzy, like they interact with someone and they go, I wanna hire that person. And then at some point, you know, they're thinking about, thinking about like, mm, I kind of need some validation. So when they read the testimonial, they go, oh, look at all those amazing things that other people like me or people that I admire or people with similar issues to me have said about them. That makes me feel good because I need validation that I'm not, you know, risking money and time and energy and, and effort. And then the other piece of testimonials I think is, is really important, but the, the onus or the burden is on the thought leader is to ask for them and to make that a process, right? You wouldn't ever not deliver an invoice or deliver a deliverable. There needs to be a point in the engagement where you say, this is the optimal point for me to ask that person. They've already tasted something good, they've experienced the benefit of working with me. It's appropriate for me to ask because they're not going to just most of the time, like 90%, give you a testimonial. You have to sort of prod a bit.

Absolutely. I mean, I have a very clear email that I send that gives prompts and you kind of need that to get going. It's like when someone comes to you and says, write a recommendation letter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like something to a prospective employer. You're like, I don't even know where to get started. You can't just say like, they're a nice person, right? You have to be really detailed and explicit about their skills. And assets.

Someone like that would say, and I'm looking for something that covers these 5 bullet points, wink wink, right?

Exactly. Exactly. It's like, what was it like preparing for the event? What was the day of facilitation and experience? What were the outcomes and result that I, that you see? And I think that also, you know, we don't even know the ripple effect of what we create often.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's validating and it's nourishing. We do this work to make a difference. We do this work to make change. So if we don't ask for that, it's sort of like the circle is incomplete. We're not really understanding this, what we create. And I think also part of the entrepreneurial journey is figuring out who you should repel and who you should attract. And we do that through our messaging and through lots of experimentation. We have to learn, you know, like those are not my people. They want to run from my messaging because it's intimidating or it's threatening or they're not ready. Great. Don't waste my time. Or the people that are like, oh, okay. Oh, excellent. Come here. Let's keep talking. Let's go.

I think that's great because I think for many entrepreneurs early on, everybody's a customer, right? Or everybody could be a client 'cause they need the business. But eventually you mature enough to go, A, I could really crush it for that person because they, they're like 50 other people I've worked with. B, I think I could probably help them, but mm, there's no guarantee. But then there's that other one of like, am I leasing a problem? Do I even want to help this person? They've given me some signals along the way and we're not even engaged that they're going to be high maintenance. I'm not going to be able to please them. They're going to be a pain in the butt, whatever, whatever. And I think there's, there's maturity that comes along with saying, I, you know, I don't think I'm for you. Right. And then the confidence that comes with I am absolutely for you.

Yes. Oh, 100%. And you know, I love in my network, I can refer those people to other places, right? I don't just leave them high and dry. I can say, and you should look at these other options. So that makes me feel like I'm also contributing to their journey instead of just saying no.

Right. You always be part of the, the problem, the potential problem child to a competitor you hate, right? That's—

I don't do that.

Okay. Well, this has been awesome. I appreciate your time, Heather. Any, any, uh, final words of wisdom to people on, on their way to where you are?

Yeah, I think it's, you know, really just trust your gut. Find, find that clarity. What's that clarity around your message, around your customer, around, you know, packaging and knowing that it's always going to evolve. I think that's so important is to have that clarity, but know, know that those, those tests exist, those ways that you can experiment exist. You can try different things and collect those data points. That really will shift your business.

No, I love, love that because it's very rare that a thought leader's making a bet the house decision. We're usually making small bets that we could learn from as opposed to this is it, that's gonna work or I'm shutting the doors or something, right? Like it's, so everything is a, is a little bit of a risk and an investment and a, and a, and a small bet that leads to incremental change. It's not exponential in one, one turn of the dial.

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Cool.

Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on board today and best of luck to you. Thank you, Heather.

Thank you.

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