The Gap: Navigating times of change | with Kevin McNulty

Foreign. Welcome.

It's Wednesday, 14th of July. As a recording and broadcasting the show, I want to wish you a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the Shortlist. I'm Johnny Campbell. I'm your host of the Shortlist. I'm also the co founder and CEO of Social Talent. And this week we're going to be discussing the Gap. What is the Gap? Well, the Gap is about navigating times of change. I don't think it's going to be difficult for you to remember the last time you had to navigate a time of change. You're probably doing it right now and you've been doing it, no doubt, for the last 16, 17, 18 months. We all have as an entire planet. And sir, I a person's life, we're met with many, many transitions. And regardless of, you know, a significant life change being a positive thing or a negative thing, people can really struggle between their familiar old world and the unknown. And this can be true for employees in particular who are transitioning through perhaps their career cycle. They might be looking at a new job, trying to find a new role, onboarding in a new position, looking at their progression or off boarding from a team, a role, whatever that might look like. So today our guest brings with him significant insight on how best to manage these types of situations. Our guest today is Kevin McNulty, and he's a speaker, coach and author of a great book called the Gap Between Two Worlds. And it's a book that guides readers on how to turn difficult life transitions into personal growth experiences. And Kevin is joining us today live. If you're listening live on the show on LinkedIn or YouTube, or if you're listening on Apple, Spotify or whatever you listen to your podcasts, joining us live to share how leaders and individuals can strengthen their resolve and provide stability when it's perhaps lacking. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Johnny, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to have you here. And I'm excited about this topic because I think it's a topic that appeals to all of us.

Right.

We've all faced this gap. So I was wondering maybe you might open the show by redefining that for me. What is the gap as you see it? And maybe if you wouldn't mind telling us your own story of the gap that you faced, because we all face many gas, but the gap that led you to this current arc in your career and this kind of fascination with helping people get over this gap, maybe you could tell us a little bit your Own Gap and how you overcame that.

Wow. Well, listen, again, thanks for having me. It's just a pleasure to be with you and your audience and your team has been so fantastic, you know, setting this all up. You know, the, the gap really came. You know, it didn't come as, as I was thinking about writing the book. What happened is in 2000, I retired a career from the US Air Force, and I spent 20 years inside the Air Force. But prior to that, I also was a military brat. So I grew up, you know, in the same context, moving around the world. Constant change, you know, constant exiting and entering, entering into two different worlds. And so even at the age of 40, when I retired from the Air Force, I had already experienced 40 years of change. So I really thought that this change would be relatively easy for me. But as I, as I went through this process, I realized it's not. And this is what provoked the writing of the Gap. So I got out in 2000. I had decided at the end of my military career that I would go into full time speaking and coaching, and we didn't even call it coaching at the time and consulting and this sort of thing essentially have my own business. So a couple of things happened. One, we moved, my wife and I and two daughters, we moved from California to Nashville, Tennessee. And if anybody knows anything about the states, those are two entirely different worlds in and of themselves. But in any event, so my wife, who was also. Who plays music and teaches music, she was also starting her own business. So we began the process of moving to Nashville. We weren't from here, so it wasn't a place that we were really that familiar with. It was one that we had just selected. But in any case, so we, we got out, we moved here, and I was, of course, incredibly excited about this new world, if you will. And to make a long story short, as time went by, you know, we had really downsized our entire life. I say downsize, you know, when you retire from the military, you're not coming out of there with riches, so. But really downsized, because we knew that we would have to have the ability to sustain ourselves, you know, for a, for a year or so to be able to get our businesses up and running. So in any event, we downsize and we were really penny pinching and, and, and doing okay. I started doing little temp jobs here and there. I mean, literally jobs like I was a receptionist to, to also advising VPs. Remember, I was 40 years old at a tremendous career in The Air Force, 20 years when I got out my Work was primarily in human relations education. So, you know, I was really very skilled. I was at the, you know, sort of the top of the pinnacle in terms of the type of work that I did. So I had a lot of skills. In any event, I move into this transition, and over time, after, let's say, a month or so, the honeymoon period was over, I realized I needed to really dig in. But I had no concept, no concept whatsoever about, one, what it was to run your own business. Two, I didn't even know the term human resources. That wasn't even my vocabulary at the time. I didn't know what, you know, how to run a business. I found out that I really had no concept about how to live in the private sector. Now, that's an interesting concept because I've lived here in the United States, I've lived around the world, quite frankly, but you would think that I would be familiar with the private sector. But I realized it was a completely different world than what I had experienced for the last 40 years. So in any event, over the series of months, I became frustrated because, you know, I just thought people would automatically start calling my office, you know, silly enough. But in any event, my frustrations turned to concerns, and my concerns turned to. To fear. And then my fear, after about nine or 10 months into this process, maybe 11 months, my. My fear turned into a very serious bout with depression and anxiety. I mean, literally to the. To the point where I was immobile, I couldn't do anything. You know, if anybody's ever experienced depression and anxiety, it's. It's. It's pretty challenging, you know, depending on the depth of it. But in any event, and then I became physically ill because of the depression and most of the anxiety I started. My discs in, my spine started bulging, and I mean, just incredible pain in my arms. And that exacerbated, of course, my anxiety. And then my anxiety exacerbated the pain. So in any event, after about a month of that, my wife started studying up on depression and anxiety, all these sorts of things, and she started using some of the techniques that folks had recommended. And one of them was to just start journaling, start writing about your experiences. And so she really pushed me out of the house and said, kevin, you know, from this point on, I want you to go out, go to Starbucks or something and just start. Open your laptop and just start writing what you're feeling. You know, doesn't matter what it is, just start writing. And I started doing that. And the more that I wrote, the more that I began to understand. And I will also say it's very important to also know that in the early 80s, I started studying personal growth and personal development. You know, Wayne Dyer, you know Tony Robbins, you know Covey, all the greats. And by time I got out, I was you. I, I don't think anybody's actually an expert in this, but just for, for the sake of, of terminology, I was a relative expert in personal growth. So what happened is when I started journaling, I didn't realize it, but I was taking all of this knowledge and wisdom that I had understood and learned and taught about personal growth and almost started coaching myself. So I, I did this for about a month. And afterwards, I, I decided to. One day I decided to go across the street. I had the what I'd been journaling. I had it printed out, I brought it home, I gave it to Jane, my wife, and I said, here's just, you know, this is what I've been just journaling about. And she read it that day, and the next morning she got up, she said, kevin, you had been talking about for a long time to write a book, this is it right here, and essentially fell into this understanding about the two worlds that you have, your old world and your new world and the gap in between. And the book just simply discusses what that transition is like, all the difficulties and all these other sorts of things. And then as my business started taking off and I started consulting and coaching, and business people started looking at my gap and saying, you know what? This is exactly the same thing that we experience in the corporate world. The principles are the same, but it's just the ideas are different. So personal change versus organizational change, that's essentially how it came about. And I've been using this concept since Gavin.

It's a great story and thanks for sharing it, because from personal change in one's life, maybe moving to a new city, changing careers, losing a job, and lots of us can resonate with these things, maybe breaking up a marriage. There's tons of things that, you know, could be defined as the change. To find that universal red thread is really important, and I want to bring that red thread right up to date with some current events. And if you don't mind, I'm going to jump to a couple of news articles. Ask nod to share a couple of news articles with us in just a second because I think this is a really pertinent time where although we always all go through change throughout our lives, and it's constant, and there's always some part of your life probably influx or change. There's been this universal time where the changes have maybe been more, more common. So let's dig into that with this week's news.

Let's do it.

And the first news article I want to bring up, and it comes from Deloitte. Deloitte have for the last four years published a global resilience report, and they recently published their latest 2021 Resilience Report. Kevin and this is something that we both read in advance. And we're going to share a link out in the show Notes, but also live on LinkedIn and YouTube to those listening live. And I'd love those listening live to jump in, share your thoughts or comments around gaps in your life or perhaps how this story here might relate to you. But tonight we're talking about resilience in organizations. And this is probably the best year to really talk about it because 2020-2021 tested the resilience of a lot of senior leaders and their organizations. And the study focused on what they call CXOs. So it could be CEOs, CFOs, CROs, whatever letter you want to put in for X. And they surveyed a whole bunch of CXOs from different organizations to understand what the previous year, so 2020, really look for them in terms of resilience. And they've kind of teased out five key traits that resilient organizations seem to have. And they had typically many of these. And they called out preparedness, adaptability, collaborativeness, trustworthiness, and responsibleness, or accountability, if you like. And these five pieces, prepared, adaptable, collaborative, trustworthy, responsible, they resonated with me when I read this article as, yeah, these make sense as the types of things that leaders and individuals and organizations should and, and probably did display that would correlate with resilience. How, how, I guess how relevant do you think these five that were teased out by Deloitte are to your own research and your own background in this? Kevin, would these be the five or some of the five that would have jumped out at you?

Yes, you know, they would be some of the five. I would certainly add a few and I'll tell you about those in a minute. But let's set the context real quick about and we'll talk organizational change. So again, the old world and the new world and the gap in between. So within that gap, though, again, maybe put up the drawing very quickly, if you don't mind. Can you put that up very quickly? Yes. Okay. So this kind of illustrates just the basics of the gap. So you see there's the old world, which we call the current state. So this is the state that you're in, or used to be in. And again, think of this in terms of an organization. And then there's the future state. And this is the new world. The thing about the new world, depending on the transition or the change, is the new world is somewhat unknown. Again, it does depend on the change itself. But inside of that gap, there's also called the foggy zone. And the foggy zone is typically populated with all the things that we just talked about, the anxiety and all these other sorts of things. It's more psychological. There are the practical aspects of, for instance, if we're going from a storefront to online sales, then there are some practical things that have to be done in order to create that new world, to move through the gap, if you will. But all of the other. The emotional things, like, you know, like disorientation, ambiguity, and all these other sorts of things, these are what typically plague people. And the difficulty in organizational change is you're not talking about a person, a personal challenge that you're having. You're talking about a wide group of people who may have many different emotions, many different concerns. And I think we'll talk about this later on when it comes to traversing the gap. So what I would say. So. So when you think about the gap and going through the foggy zone, then you look at these traits. Preparedness, adaptability, collaboration, trustworthiness, responsibility. What I would say is that prepared. I would actually move this out of that, call out of that category, and saying that that. That's one of. Being prepared is one of the pillars, if you will, that moves you into the gap. So you're prepared to be adaptable, you're prepared to be collaborative, you're prepared to be trustworthy and responsible. You see, that's the. It's establishing that culture up front. What I've seen organizations too often do is not be prepared. They're focused on the mission, they're focused on the shareholders, they're focused on, you know, they're busy, they're distracted, they're complacent. And then suddenly a big change happens, like Covid, and they go, oh, crap, I didn't see that one coming. Well, chances are there's a lot of things. Think about Borders Books. Do you remember Borders Books? You remember that they were the largest. They were second to Amazon, the largest book seller in this country, maybe even in the world. And they closed, they shut down because they did not see the new world. Soon enough, Amazon consumed. But by the way, Barnes and Noble, who was second to Borders, succeeded. Why? They, they, they immediately jumped in and started making the change and had the ability to do that. So the three that I would add are proactiveness, to be proactive, to communicate. You know, the communicating is one of the greatest traits. And it does go on to talk about some of these things in the article. And then the last one is what I call being revisionary. I mean, imagine any company moving into the COVID environment. They have to think about the new world. They have to re. Envision what that new world is like. You've heard this term being thrown out there all the time. Reimagine. Well, you could say it that way as well. But the idea is getting a clarity about where you're going and then be able to bring your people along to, to take on that new world. To, to. And so all of these other things. I'd like to just say one other thing about this notion that again, I do agree with the article, but one of the things again that I've noticed and it's fairly noticeable I think around the world and that is that many companies are move. Are working so hard to attract and retain great employees that they're going through a lot of measures that are almost moving them into this sort of a nanny state. So in other words, more and more employees are relying on their supervisors, their managers and the company to make them happy, to make them resilient, to, you know, to, to, you know, to motivate them. And again, it's not, it's not that employees are sitting around saying, you know, yeah, make, motivate me. But it becomes part of the culture when the company works so hard to do that. And what I suggest organizations do is if you really want to make your organization resilient, create a culture of interdependency and as it says here, and collaboration. In other words, if I work for you, Johnny, and you had to make this major change based on Covid or anything else, if I relied on you to do everything for me in terms of my psyche, my well being, my engagement, my, my performance and all these other sorts of things, when time comes to make a major change, guess what I'm going to do? Take a wild guess.

You're going to come to me and say, what do I do?

Wrecked. That's exactly right. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And so the idea is that in some formal fashions, organizations need to get their employees on board. And we'll talk about trust later and Build that relationship so that when Johnny comes to me and says, kevin, we're about to make some big changes, man, I need you on board. I'm like, I'm with you. I'm on board. Johnny, what do I need to do? You know? Or let's talk about it. Or I'm engaged. I jump in and help make it happen.

Let me jump into Article 2 in this week's news because I think it focuses a bit more on the how do you do it?

Right?

And this comes from Forbes, and it's A Leader's Guide to Managing Employee Uncertainty by Kurt Steinhorst. And we'll again put a link in the show notes and post it out live here. This one here, this is about, I guess, the principle of uncertainty. And I really loved a line near the start of this which kind of summarized it really, really well for me. Right. So talks about uncertainty avoidance, right? And it contrasts two different types of folks. So it talks about people with high uncertainty avoidance, so they will avoid uncertainty as much as possible. And it says those folks will see what is different as dangerous. And then it says people with low uncertainty avoidance see what is different as next. I think it's a really important difference, right, in terms of the mindset and psychology. And the article goes on further to say that it's not something you're born with necessarily. It's something that you may have developed from the culture or environment you've grown up with. So therefore it is changeable. But I think that resonates with me, as I'm probably somebody who sees different as next. I just get on with it. I'm married to someone who sees different as dangerous and gets high anxiety and fear about what could be. I just accept that things are about to change and just, just make decisions and move on. You know, I'll go into the article's recommendations from a leadership point of view in just a second, but talk to me about that. Uncertainty avoidance and the differences. Are they the kind of. Would you use that kind of, that kind of language? Do you think that that captures it.

Well, Kevin, I think it does. I think it captures one of the aspects of resistance. And of course, as you well know, when we talk about change and transition, we, you know, and especially. Well, it doesn't matter, but if you put it in an organizational context, it's a little bit easier that again, imagine the gap, and imagine that the leadership has sat around a conference table and talked about the big changes that are about to happen in the organization, but they've kept it as A very close held secret because they don't want to, you know, they don't want to get it out there until they're prepared. So they may do this for a month or two or three. And then they say, okay, we're going to get this out there to the company, to the organization and tell them we're about to make all these changes. Once that word goes out, what happens is that most people will do some sort of a calculation in their head. And the calculation is simple. What does this mean to me? What does this mean to my life, my job, my position and all these other sorts of things. And so this is where the immediate, you know that this is where immediately that there's a certain group that, you know, get into this sort of, you know, uncertainty avoidance scenario. But there are also others who, they have maybe a lower level of resistance. So they're not avoiding the uncertainty, the ambiguity, moving into the gap. They're just going, okay, you know, let's, let's see what this is all about. And then there's others who, when you say we're changing, they immediately go, hey, I'm all about change. I'm with you. So again, imagine that when this group of leaders have moved into the gap and let's say, let's just say for the sake of argument, they've been talking about it two months. When they release this information to the organization, to all the other people, they're still here. And so the idea is that all of the leaders must go back backwards using this metaphor and understand what are, you know, who, who is, who's on board, who's resistant and who is going to try to dig their feet in all together and say, I'm not going there. And so I say that uncertainty avoidance is, it's obviously, it's a very real thing. As a matter of fact, that concept that you were talking about, really, there's an old, ancient Chinese symbol that suggests that when you look at the symbol, it means, on the one hand, you know, it means change, but it means danger ahead. But in the same breath it also means opportunity ahead. So it's sign of, it's sort of that same concept. And they're talking about the psyche. So I would, I would agree with uncertainty avoidance. I just suggest that that's one of the many forms of resistance that you would find in your organization or in your family or whatever the case might be.

The article points to four tips, Kevin, of how leaders can lead through uncertainty. Summarize them quickly. One is to model calmness and clarity you know, they use the phrase keep calm and carry on. I'd say it's more than the World War II slogan. Right. It's still the best advice for leaders during crisis. So that being calm. Two, Cultivate curiosity. So it's saying, you know, after being in survival mode for so long, make sure, give, give people a bold project just beyond their reach. And yes, no better way to kind of generate much needed momentum than having a clear focus. Three, being more human centric. Add humor, empathy in terms communication, your language and for prioritizing time and space to focus, get people together, let them, you know, disconnect or do focused work as well. So these are kind of four tips that this author gives and I think they're, you know, none of the four tips are, are bad at all and they're good tips. But what would your advice be to, to leaders? Just to focus on those folks for, for the moment. If you're likely to continue to need to lead your team through change and uncertainty, through gaps, are you going to have people on your team who are in the middle of the gap? There could be new members of the team, people looking for moving on to new jobs from your team or downsizing, whatever, whatever is causing the workplace gap as such, or dealing with change in the way you do things. Your point around business models, what has been your learnings over the last number of years as to how leaders can best deal with these types of situations? What kind of, what kind of behaviors should they model? What kind of things can they do that work?

It's a great question. You know, maybe another way to look at that is think of another metaphor of a leader who is leading a group, a team or a group of people through a, you know, rocky canyon cliffs or something like this. And it's pitch dark and they have to get across from 1 point A to point B and it's pitch dark. And so no one can see anything. No one actually knows where they're going. They don't know which, which way to go. But it's the leaders or the, the leader or the leader's responsibility to get these folks across there. You know, what kind of, you know, what sort of traits would help this leader get this team to move. For starters, you know, if you're in pitch, you've ever been in pitch dark, it's even if you're in a room that you're familiar with, it's just, you know, death defying. I mean, you just, you don't know which way to go. You don't know if you're how, how close you are to the wall. And so, so then you, you have to start with ideas like trust, building trust, you know, instilling trust and trustworthiness into your, into your people, into your organization, so that they trust your leadership, they trust the vision that you have, and they begin to follow you. The other thing is that in times of change, transparency and communication are hallmarks. You, you know, it's probably the one place, Johnny, that I find organizations, let's just say not doing well enough is that they want to protect the employees from themselves or they don't want to. They don't want some sort of a catastrophe to take place, people to freak out and flee or do whatever the case might be, which I get that. And I think also in that article they talked about sort of this clear and calm demeanor. I think emotional intelligence is very, very important. But you have to be able to also describe to, to the people. I mean, think of COVID The panic that took place amongst so many organizations. And I get it. I mean, I panicked, you know, to, to some degree because we, we had no clue, none of us, where this was all going. And so now, again, the leadership ex. They. They. They certainly want to display that level of calmness and emotional intelligence. But on the other hand, they also want to convey the, the sense of urgency that needs to take place here. So I would say, you know, certainly, you know, trust is the biggest one. But again, you don't start, you, you don't. And sometimes this happens that leaders, they, they realize that there's no trust there once they've hit this change. And they're like, wow, you know, people don't trust me. Well, that's sort of like being married for 20 or 30 years and then your spouse comes up to you and says, listen, I, you know, I, I don't like you anymore. I've. We. We just, you know, this is a disaster and, and I don't trust you. And so I'm leaving. And then over the next, you know, what does the other spouse do? They, they try to repair what's been going wrong for 20 years and about, you know, two weeks. They try to hurry up and build trust and build relationships and all these sorts of things. And this is just a classic mistake that organizations make. And they do it for good reasons because they're busy and sometimes complacent and just, and sometimes distracted. And they're all sort of, you know, operating around this, this, you know, the tyranny of the urgent. And so, And Covey describes this A lot. Stephen Covey describes this a lot about understanding what is important and what is urgent. And that oftentimes those things that are most important get pushed to the background like building trust and relationships and then suddenly it becomes urgent in the time of change. So I say establish these things before the change takes takes place and then when the change begins to take place. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Here's where we're going. Here's what it means to you. Here's how long we think it's going to take. We want you all on board and to help us think as well, we need you as bad as you need us to make this organization run well in a Covid environment. Now think about that. That messaging that's going on, it's not hey, hey, hey everybody. Or as they say intensely, hey y', all, we're going this way. And you all just follow me. And then, and then they're like, hey, where's everybody at? Rather, this concept of I need you, I need you as a team, as an employee, no matter where you are, to help us get through this. All of our lives dependent on. You see the difference between the communication and the transparency going on, some vulnerability going on. It's a powerful way to operate.

Is that probably came home to roost for so many of us last year. I remember myself and our leadership team at the end of February and beginning of March last year and the decisions we had to make.

Yeah.

The steps we took and hopefully, you know, time has proven that they were the right steps for us. And you know, whilst I perhaps didn't go in with a roadmap, the, the elements you're, you're speaking about there, trust, transparency, you know, we were transparent in, in saying we didn't know what would happen because it would be foolish to say you did. Correct. No, but we, we did say we had a plan and we explained the logic of the plan. We rolled out the decision making framework we were going to use. You know, what was the framework for job losses? What was the framework for, you know, what would be the trigger to signal further cuts or changes. We were transparent and then kept the team up to date as to those metrics. And I think that's as good as you can get. But we had a clear plan. We had no idea if the plan was going to work. But we got as many people involved in building the plan and we worked on it and we adjusted it. I think that's what you just got to do. You know, your analogy of being in the dark is by all right, you Know, it's like, I got this. But, you know, don't worry, I'm not going to blindly stick to the same plan. If we get signals that it's wrong, I'm going to ask for constant input, but I'm going to take ownership for this. But you got to, you got to have my back and we got to work together. I think that point's so valid. Does that lead, in your experience, to. To a situation where people who are perhaps panicking have the anxiety, who are flapping around, who are more of the. The type of person who sees change as dangerous, does that help them become more centered? You know, is it a straightforward thing that I act like this? Your team will all come in, come in and align, and it'll all be fine. Is that how it actually works? Is it as simple as that, you think, Kevin?

No, I'll be honest with you, Johnny. I think you just really very well articulated how to carry a group of people, be it small or large, through the gap. And the first thing that you defined was the. Was a framework and clarity. Now, again, imagine moving from the old world to the new world. You're moving this way, or is it the other way, this way to the new world? And you're inside the thick of the gap. It's really dark inside there. You see, the concept is, with the foggy zone, is that because of the variety of notions from anxiety to Covid, we don't know exactly what's happening with it. You can't see through that foggy zone. And the more challenging the change, the more anxiety that is produced and emotions that are produced makes that foggy zone darker. And the concept is that you, as a leader, you're moving everybody into this dark place. And to your point, people become disoriented and they're like, wow, I don't know. I'm not really. Even though you've been communicating, I'm just not sure you know why. Partly because you're not sure, but your transparency, you're going back to these people saying, yes, it's true, we are not completely sure where we're going. You know, we want your ideas, your thoughts. And when people get on board, you, you begin to then work these things out. And what happens is the more you move through the gap, the. That's when the fog starts dropping. So even psychologically, to your point, that as you describe, you know, you know where we're going, sort of the vision or the idea or the framework or whatever the case might be, the more people can see the new world. And this is what gives people motivation. It's like they see hope. And hope is a powerful, powerful motivator against fear.

By the way, you remind me, I'm.

Sure I've answered your question, but no.

No, I think you have.

Right.

And I think the short answer is yes, actually, if you do the right things as a leader, you can center folks and bring them with you. Not always at the same pace and not always the same degree, but there are some very tangible things you can do. It reminds me of several colleagues who recently had babies kids for the first time. They're new parents and I have four boys. And it reminded me that the advice I always give to new parents, as someone who has been there, done that with four times, is have a plan. Doesn't matter a damn what plan it is. Like, I'm not going to advocate for this person's book or this kind of parenting advice, but you know what, pick one because it will ground you because you'll feel like you're making progress against something. Like all the plans are generally the same. There's some nuances and difference about how you should do, you know, cope with an infant. But if you have a plan, you can at least course correct against it and you have a fate that somebody else has learned this and is giving you this advice and you can begin to see, well, do we find ourselves aligning this or aligned this planner. I'm having a slightly different version of it, but have a plan. It's madness to have no plan and to just see how it goes. You will be panicked, you will be kind of crazy in this zone where you do need app plan. And when we're talking about this topic more, it's getting me to think. Kevin, I'm interested in your ideas on this. A big thing here is a requirement to think more long term. Because if you're going to both as a leader, help your team, but as an individual, get past, as one of the articles says, you'll see it as a thunderstorm. It's coming, but it will pass. If you start to have that foresight, that more long term thinking, you can get through this. And we have a comment from Alison Daly who's said the tyranny of the urgent.

Brilliant.

So true in recruiting along with organizational change. I think you're right. It reminds me of another tangent, Kevin. I'm working with a customer at the moment who are growing like crazy. The recruiting team is so busy, insanely busy, they are only focused on the urgent. The urgent is hire what's right in front of you. And they're not building the processes that, the scale, the stuff in the background to fix attrition, to look at internal mobility, to make sure they retain the people they hire. None of that's getting focused. That's important stuff. But it ain't urgent. And they're only doing the urgent. And I can just. They're not going to make their way out of this in the long run because they will hit their short term urgent goals. But as an organization, they're just going to be constantly behind the eight ball because I work with other companies who got through that. It does require foresight and more long term thinking, doesn't it? Both as an individual, as a leader, to, to kind of see your way past the gap.

There is no question about it. The, you know, I mean, again, you, you nailed it. You know, frankly, you should have just like consumed this whole show because you're just nailing it left and right. Johnny, about the whole concept behind the gap. So, you know, vision is one of the, you know, you know, forethought for vision. All of these things are very, very important to the concept because again, whether it be your own vision. Well, let me put it this way. In the book I talk about this dream that I had. It's a real dream, very, very briefly. And the dream was I was driving down this sort of desert highway and, and I was, I was headed to Las Vegas and there were these signs along the way telling me Las Vegas X number of miles or whatever, whatever. And so then suddenly in this dream, I ended up out of the car and standing in the middle of the desert. And when I looked around 360, I could see nothing. There was no mountains, there were no plants, no trees, nothing. Just pure dirt, like Death Valley. And I remember standing there going, I don't even have a clue which way to go. I mean, there's nothing. Even if I saw a mountain over there, I'd probably just walk in that direction because there's. That's something, something to head towards, you know. But in this case, it was blank everywhere. And I just thought, how do you make a decision of which way to go? And so in the dream then this, this, I guess you could say angel or something appeared and they, and, and this angel who, it turns out it was my wife who said, kevin, go that way. And I remember questioning this, this person, this entity saying, you know, what's that way? It looks the same as the other ways, you know, trust me, Las Vegas is that way. So I started walking and I Continue to walk. And again, to make a long story short, one evening I was sitting, resting, and this person who had been talking to me all along was there. And I looked up and I saw this very faint, faint light in the sky, way off in the distance. So faint I really had no idea what could be. And I kept looking at it, and this person said to me, yes, that's Las Vegas. And I said, how do you know? I mean, honestly, trust me, it is Las Vegas. Keep walking that way. And so again. So then the story got to the point where I got close enough that I couldn't see Las Vegas. But it was apparent the closer I got, the clearer it became. It still didn't look like, like Las Vegas, but it became clear that was Las Vegas. And the concept became that the more I walked, the clearer it became. And this is what leaders are trying to do is they're trying to. Now let me just jump back to the sort of the one illustration about the, about the clouds. I think it's, you know, it's a, it's, it's a worthy illustration that I've used it. I mean, many of us used it. Hey, it's just, it's just a dark pier. There's just a thunderstorm going over, and it will, it will pass. And of course, that's, that's a true principle, if you will. But there's another one out there as well that I would add for your listeners to take into consideration, and that is the notion of the bison or the buffalo. It was always known by the Native Americans here in America that, that cows, when the storms come and cows run away from the storm, they head away in the opposite direction, but buffalo do exactly the opposite. They turn around and face the storm and, and push through it, and therefore get through the storm quicker. So, so it's a different sort of a messaging that you might be giving yourself or your employees that, yes, this is, this is a storm and it's going to pass over us, but we're going to turn around and we're going to face it, and we're going to. Again, you can hear the different type of messaging that we're going to be proactive here. We're not just going to, you know, bury our heads and just wait for it to go over. No, we're going to take it on. There's another quick saying that they say, you know, if, if, if you find yourself in hell, you know, don't just stand there. Keep moving. Do something. You see, and, and this is really the concept you know, and many, many, there's so many great stories about people and organizations who did this in the COVID environment. They did not stand around and just wait for the storm to go. They took it on like, like your organization. By the way, Johnny, I think what.

You'Re saying resonates massively. We've got Kathy Iverson, who's listening live, who's commented removing obstacles for the team during change is challenge, a challenge. And she thinks that's where you see resistance and that's part of the uncertainty. And it reminds me of two of our kind of learning colleagues on the socialtown platform, Jason and Linda, who we had on the show at the beginning of the year, who commissioned a really great piece on leadership with remote teams for us. And both Jason, Linda speak of a cultivation mindset or a growth mindset, if you like. And that's, you know, you're a big believer in this. And it's, you know, to Cathy's point, it's, it's an acknowledgement that everybody, you know, wants to achieve something, wants to develop, wants to grow, and no one wants to be caught in the desert stuck. So whilst we may have to use the analogy of one of those articles we spoke about earlier, you may have two different mindsets or extremes, which is the person who just has fear of what's next of change, and the person who sees change is what is next. That may be reality. I think the challenge is when businesses see blockers and we use that phrase in business, who's the blocker? And I think to Kathy's point is no one wants to be a blocker, right? And the obstacle is their brain, perhaps their, their, their fear. And you've got to, because fear is an obstacle you need to remove. So is not having the right technology, so is not having the right training, right? But fear is an obstacle. And a leader's job in that growth or cultivation mindset is to remove obstacles and to, to, to also give them the, the water, if you like, to, to grow the, the, the ingredients they need to grow. And everybody wants to grow. Nobody wants to be stuck in the foggy zone, right. And to see it as someone's problem that they're stuck there or they want to be there or they are a blocker. I think that is, that itself is just symptomatic of a lack of growth mindset because you see people as blockers as opposed to saying that's somebody who's in the fog. They don't want to be in the fog. What's blocking them and how can I remove that? I think that's the kind of mindset that's required both from a leader, but the individual. You know, no one sits there going, I love being in the fog. The gap is brilliant, Kevin. I've been in the gap so many times in my life. I love being in it. We all hate the gap. It's horrible. We hate the thunderstorm.

Right.

And I love your. Again, to use one of your analogies, I love the bison versus the, the cattle analogy. You know, do you run away from it? It'll still pass, but will take longer. Or do you run into it? I think that's smart. It's kind of. Let's embrace this. You're going to be scared regardless. But also, who around me can help me do that? Give me the tools, the confidence, the support to get through the gap.

That's exactly right, Kevin. And you well know that. Excuse me interrupting there.

No go, please.

You well know that when you take this proactive stance, that is to head into the storm. You know, everybody's busy now. Now we're not hunkered down waiting for the storm to go over. When we don't know. Once you start heading into that storm, everybody's. Everybody rallies together. You know, you're pulling me and I'm pushing you and, and all of these. So it's a different mindset altogether, Kevin.

I can't believe we got to the end of the show already. We're at time. It's flown. We could chat about this for ages. We could keep going, telling stories about gaps, getting more input. Thanks to all our live listeners as well, who contributed their comments and. And questions. Two last questions for you. One, if any of our listeners or audience want to know more about the book, where can they find it? What's it called? Give us a quick reminder.

Well, I appreciate that, Johnny. They can just go to Amazon and search on the Gap Between Two Worlds.

The Gap Between Two Worlds, available on Amazon or any good bookstore. And then my last question to you, and we ask every guest who comes on the show, is to leave us with their piece of advice for our shortlist. And I'm going to hand it back to you. What advice would you give to our audience beyond what you've already given so generously, Kevin, either from your own experience or that's been handed down to you over the years?

Well, that's a tough one. You know, it's. It. I think. I think my advice would be, if I could put these in the right words, is that. And you kind of talked About. A little bit here just now about the mindset, what I've learned over the years of the work that I do, you know, and I sit or I sit across, you know, do a lot of coaching. I sit with a lot of people, you know, talking about their struggles. And the one. The biggest impediment, hands down, that I see with individuals, leaders, whatever the case might be, is ego. Ego, as we all well know, ego. We all have an ego. We have to have an ego. Our ego protects us in some ways. But what too many people are allowing is their ego to be in front of them. And so every time they walk into a room or walk into a situation, the first thing you encounter is their ego. Unchecked ego. And the reason why I say this is because you see the ego, you know, and I. And by the way, I. I learned this from experience when I got out of the Air Force, you know, I was the top of my game. I really was. And I thought I was all that. And then when I got in the. In the. In the. In the private sector, I realized people couldn't give a rat's ass who I was or how many stripes or whatever I had. And I quickly understood that my ego was holding me back. And the problem with the ego is it does not allow you to be humble. It does not allow you to be transparent. It does not allow you to be vulnerable. And all of these are so important to, as you said, the growth mindset. So I would suggest to people, whether it's in times of change or whether it's about leadership or whatever the case might be, to begin to explore your own ego and how much of that is. Is shaping you, is protecting you from things that you don't need to be protected. So if I'm in a big time of change and I'm really, really stifled and hurt and depressed and anxious, if you're my best friend, Johnny, maybe I wouldn't have done this 20 years ago, but now I would call you up and say, johnny, I'm a bad spot, man. I need your help. I couldn't do that with a big ego. So. So that's my advice framed as such.

Brain device.

Kevin.

It's something I'm still learning. The older I get, Kevin, more experienced I get, the more my ego shrinks. And I'm proud of that because it was too, too goddamn big in my 20s and 30s. And you see your place in the world and you see what others have done and go, it's okay. You know, from humility, you. You have more learning. So much more learning than traditional ego. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us for sharing your insights. We've got lots of comments from lots of users saying thank you. Always insightful, thanks, great engaging session. So we really, really appreciate you spending your time with us here today. I wish you a really good day.

Kevin thank you Johnny. It's an honor and really it's my privilege.

Thank you and thank you for listening. The Shortness is a weekly show. You can find us live every Wednesday at 4pm UK time. That's 11am in the East Coast, 8am in the West coast of the US broadcasting live on LinkedIn on Johnny Campbell my own profile. Or you can find us on YouTube SocialTalent, where we take your comments, opinions live and bring them into the show. Or you can listen to the podcast which is available Wednesday evenings or Thursday mornings on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find out more about the show by going to socialtalent.com the shortlist and please come back next week where we're going to be joined by two speakers talking about pathways to employment. I'm really excited about this show next week as it's reached the heart of what we try and do here in Social Talent. But also I know many of you who are listeners working in the TA and recruiting and talent industry is how to basically create pathways to employment. And that's going to be our topic next week is how do we create opportunity for the most marginalized in society? I am joined by Siobhan Sweeney from the Open Doors Initiative here in Ireland and Richard Bradley who runs Kelly Services in the UK and Ireland. And we're going to be talking about how the Open Doors Initiative in Ireland has helped marginalize individuals from a number of communities, from communities of those who are disabled, from the immigrant and refugee community, and from the traveling community in Ireland to find opportunities and also to hear how Open Doors are helping with them. But also we'll be talking about a new initiative that we're working on with Open Doors and also with Kelly Services and others to try and create real, genuine opportunities for individuals who are out of work, who are marginalized, to turn them into recruiters and sourcers and give them real employment and opportunities that we're going to be kicking off next week on our show. So join us for your support to hear more about how you can hire some fantastic recruiters and sourcers that will be coming out of that opportunity over the coming weeks. But do check out all of our show lists on SocialTown.com the shortest subscribe to the show and I want to give a shout out. And thanks to our team who helped put together this show live and also the podcast and they are our producers Niall Yousson and Shannon Lawless and also our researcher who is David Didi who helped put the show together and make it a fantastic, well oiled, machine that I just turn up for every single week. So huge thanks to the team in producing a great show and again thanks to our guest today for bringing some great insights, hopefully to you, the audience. And again thanks to you for joining us. We'll see you next week and hopefully you'll take that advice, put ego aside, bring more humility and have much more of a growth mindset.