4D Human Being Podcast | Live and Lead with Impact

Change 2: Leading Change Without Losing People

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Resistance isn’t the problem. It’s the signal.

Philippa and Penelope from 4D Human Being are back — and if change is on your radar right now, you don’t want to miss this one. 

Two people who’ve sat inside enough organisations to know that most change fails not because the strategy was wrong, but because the humans weren’t brought along.

People don’t resist change. They resist being unclear, unsupported, and unconvinced.

The Switch Model nails it in three parts: 

  • Give people clear direction (Rider)
  • Speak to how they feel (Elephant)
  • Make the new way easier than the old way (Path)

Simple framework, genuinely useful — and Philippa and Penelope pull it apart in a way that actually sticks.

The conversation gets particularly good when they hit the leadership blind spot nobody wants to admit: you’re being watched more than you’re being heard. What you do and what you praise moves people faster than any slide deck. 

Three tools they leave you with that actually work:

  • Three Things for clarity when you do not have every answer
  • Vision people can picture and buy into
  • The Three Es: Experience, Emotion, Expectation, so everyone knows what is happening, how to hold it, and what to do next

Warm, sharp, and to the point. Whether you’re leading change, living through it, or quietly resisting it yourself — this conversation will shift something for you.

Less push. More possibility.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, my name's Philip Walla. My name is Penelope Waller, and we are two of the directors at 4D Human Being. And welcome to the 4D Human Being podcast. What's it all about, Pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships, it's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life, and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills, anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings, 4D Human Being are here to help. We're gonna take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are gonna help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you. Well, good morning. Good and Morgan, bonjour. Come stay. What did I learn in uh Turkey? I learned Oh yes! Tejek kuredim. Very good, fair. Thank you. I think that's right. Please do writing correctly. Thank you. I think that was thankful. That's thank you, yes, exactly. So here we are on a quite sunny day in an otherwise endlessly wet February. Yes, good week last week though. Very good week last week, yeah, busy, loved Istanbul. Istanbul. Oh my goodness, the Hagia Sophia. Very interesting. So interesting. East meets west, and the stories, I mean, just incredible. Well, it sort of made me think, Phil, in a way, this the human stories. Yeah. The human stories continue over time. Yeah, that's right. It's the rolling, rolling, isn't it? And and actually, there's a couple of things that came up for me there. One is that that really bringing to life that connection, that humanity, that that whether it's historic or in our everyday, that we can, I think we see it in some of the way that we communicate. We lose connection, we dehumanize, it becomes a kind of story that how to describe it, it's like abstract, sort of yeah, like objective, conceptual. We're looking at it, we can see pictures of Justinian or you know Teodora in the in the Haggia Sophia, and and they're just they're just object, they're just pictures. Yeah. And then and we had a guide that really brought it to life, and it was amazing. It was amazing, and it's and it's such a good reminder that if you're listening to stories or someone gossips to you in the kitchen, there's a person. Yeah, there's a person. Remember that. And the second thing that really came up for me was really check in on what brings you joy, yeah, and what nourishes you. Because I walked out of the hag, we walked out of the Hagia Sophia, and I just I couldn't stop saying to you, I feel so nourished. I feel like I've just had the most delicious banquet because it was so incredible, I just loved it, and to really recognise, and it doesn't have to be you know a history or a trip to museum, um, and it probably isn't when you're 15, but but to recognise what brings you joy, even if it's that, you know, that Krispy Kreme donut, other donuts are available, but but to really recognise because it's finding those things that are also accessible. I mean, if you're you know only interested in travelling on a jet and you don't have a jet, you'll you know you're you'll be frustrated, frustrated all your life. But finding those things that bring us joy and doing more of them in in the simplest way, I mean, it is it sounds so obvious, but we're so caught in the doing, doing, doing. And I can't stop thinking about that before that we did. Well, the other thing that was interesting about it as well was this this gentleman that that took us around, and there was loads of guides outside of Angus Sophia sort of pitching for work and trying to get tourists to come in, and you know, he came up to us, he pitched us, and we were like, oh, I have you, oh I have you to thank for that because I was like, let's let's let's just do it. Yeah, and of course, it was it was what his intention was behind it. Now, I'm sure, I'm sure obviously he's you know he's there to earn a living and and that's what he does, but he you could tell he absolutely loved it. He loves that building, he loves the history, he loves sharing it with people, he loves sort of making meaning out of it. Yeah, and that for me made the big difference. I didn't feel like I walked out of that tour thinking, well, you know, someone's just done. Yeah, I've got a bit of mystery, I've got a super. It was like, oh, I've just been engaged with somebody who absolutely loves this stuff. That's right, that's right, that's that's absolutely right. Oh goodness, absolutely, you know, to come back to and I really felt that in the work we were doing out there. Can you be anchored in what is happening now with these people and give it your all? Because that's why this is so why this is so precious and interesting and important, yeah. Because it's it's all you have, yeah. If you're not doing that, it's the John Lennon quote, you know, life is what happens, you know, when you're busy doing other things. Like you, because you're you're looking forward all the time. It's particularly relevant, of course, for anxiety and stress. You're constantly looking for that moment when you can stop. And and right here, right now, are you with and in and intentional and connected because that I mean, even as I'm saying it, that's what that week, those few days felt like in Istanbul, and that is living. Yeah, 100% not waiting for the other thing. Okay, we started on a big one. We're back in we're back in we're back in the UK and we've had we've had a small break in the clouds, haven't we? Yeah, I mean, we don't mean that metaphorically, we mean that literally, and of course it's been it's wet all over Europe, isn't it? Although somebody said, talk about look on the positive side. No, this was Matt, this was Matt said this. Was this Matt said this? This is our colleague Matt said that the the winter of 19 to 20, 2019 to 20, was very, very wet, terrible. I don't I never remember whether, but apparently it was terrible. And that and that summer, of course, that first COVID spring and summer, we had a really hot one. So if the pattern continues, get your flip-flops out, everyone. It was a scorching spring, if you want to. Yeah, so yeah, so we're optimistic, further. We're optimistic. Okay, so we are on episode two of change. We're up episode two of change. Now, this is a rich episode, I have to say. When I was prepping it, I was like, we've kind of put quite a lot into this one. Um, but they do, but it does all fit together. So this is probably, if you're only gonna listen to one of these, this is probably all gonna send. Ooh, we're don't do a don't easily. But if you are only wanting to share or listen to one, this is probably the one because this is the sort of this is the meat in the pie. Let's call it that. She loves an analogy. You love an analogy or a metaphor, don't you? The filling in the donut set of donuts. Um, partly because we met somebody, well we know the leader, one of the leaders we worked with uh in Istanbul, doesn't eat much sugar and has the most amazing skin, just saying, just throwing that one in. Anyway, donuts. So, okay, so today we're gonna look at. I said this to a friend of mine who really likes sugar. She said, no, it's probably just genetic. And I was like, no, I'm sure it's the sugar. I mean, I think we can super segue there. Talk about being attached to the beliefs that keep us safe and mean we don't have to change. I mean, that is resilience. You know, the first episode in this series was called Resilience, resilience in change. And of course, we also have to talk about in this one resistance to change, which we also have in spades. So, in this episode, we're gonna talk about the uh Dan and Chip Heath's Switch model, which is one of the best books on change. If you haven't read it, go get it. Um, so we're gonna give you our kind of top line on that and how you can apply it super, super easily. We're gonna look at modelling behaviour as a leader. It's all very well having a theory, but what are you doing as a leader? And then I just I just want I just want other people to do it. Exactly. How many times do you hear that? I just wish my people. Yeah, the problem with my team is, and I just wish they would, actually, turn the mirror back. You know, one of the ones I love is why won't they take accountability? And you do have to ask the question am I letting you know, am I micromanaging? Am I like so we're going to look at the switch model, the easiest path to change. I think they've come out with the best model. Secondly, modelling behaviours as a leader. How are you both embodying the changes that you want to see and rewarding those changes? And then thirdly, our sweet spot pen, communication, communication, communication. I mean, we've spoken about and we've spoken about this so many times with change and crisis. You have to communicate on a daily basis, and you have to both communicate very, very clearly, and you also have to communicate the vision. So there's a lot in this episode. So we'll do, we'll kind of do top lines because they are also topics that we can find elsewhere, like story visioning and things. So pen, the switch model. Given to give me the switch model a little clap. I I absolutely love this book. Yeah, I'll I'll tell you what one or two of the things that really kind of stuck out for me and why why it's so amazing. So the switch model. So the Heath brothers have this model around change and what happens through change, how we're motivated through change, and what we need to think about through change. And they use um three three pieces. And the terminology they they give this, I will explain it, but the terminology they give is the rider, the elephant, and the path. So in your head, have a picture of somebody sticky, isn't it? Oh, it's so sticky, maybe you sitting on a massive elephant on a path going forward somewhere. Got it. So that's your image, right? I'm sort of quite 19th century with a parasite. I can imagine you've got lots of embroidery on your elephant. I can imagine. So you are the rider. Yep. And in in the Heath Brothers model, the rider is, let's call it in our were in our sort of terminology at 4D, it's the intellect. So it's the rational facts, explanation, communication, uh, around what we're doing, what the change is. So this might be the strategy, it might be the things that we're doing. It's information, information, information. And really, really useful. Like you've got to have some clear facts, some clear ideas, strategy, vision, all of those things when you're when you're moving through change, which we all have, you know, that's where the focus tends to go. Let's build the operating plan and the operating flow change. All of that, all of that. Great, great, great, great. Really useful, particularly because you're the rider, so you need that information in order to move through change, and you probably need to. Where am I going? Yeah, where am I going? And you need to understand it to communicate to others through change. Great. And when you understand what the elephant is, you'll realise the limitations of all that lovely information. The problem with a map is if if there's a donut shop, you're going off track. Well, and herein lies the elephant, Phil. So the rider is the intellect, the rational, the information. The elephant is the emotional self, our emotional dimension in our language. So, exactly as Philippa said, let's imagine that the rider has sort of, you know, told the elephant, so we're going to be going down this path, it'll take us about half an hour, and we'll be in, you know, wherever we're going to be. And then the elephant starts moving, but then sees a donut shaft down to the left. Yeah. It's like, oh, I think I'll think I'll just take this time. Or it's the donut shop I always go to. On the route I always go to, and you're trying to get me. Yeah, or it's um it's worried that it's gonna get home home late for to look after its uh to look after its family, so it starts getting distracted and a bit kind of a bit testy and a bit frustrated. Okay, just as an example, the emotional self is is building up. If the elephant and the rider are in a kind of tre a ride-off, if you like, a power off. A donut off as to who's who's going to have the most influence on where the rider and the elephant is going. I think I know. I think we know. I think we know. With all the lovely information the rider's got, if the elephant decides it's going left down to the donut shop, they are both going left down to the donut shop. Like my dogs with a rabbit in the woods. It's over. All that training. It's over. And that's why I I like I like that kind of that visualization, that analogy so much, because the rider is important and the rider feels important. The rider feels like it's in control. It's got the knowledge, hasn't it? It's and it's it's holding the reins or the ears or whatever it's doing, and it's you know, it's moving forward. Not the ears, not the ears, maybe not, or the trunk. Actually, I don't even think we're allowed to ride elephants anymore, but anyway, the analogy. It's an analogy. Yeah, but of course, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're in control because we've got all the information and we've shared that, so that makes sense. So we're all moving forward, but the emotional self, the elephant, is much more likely to be influenced to move forward, and that might be in a different direction than the rider anticipated if the rider hasn't also kind of taken care of the emotion. So, a really good example in the book that was so sticky for me was they gave the example of somebody they were trying to initiate a change programme where they were trying to significantly reduce the number of suppliers in an organization. It was a sort of a I think it was a manufacturing or distribution organization, so they had lots of sort of manual workers and they they needed to buy a lot of gloves, you know, work gloves. And they had something like 200 different suppliers of gloves across the globe, and they kept showing spreadsheets about the different pricing of the gloves and the fact that they were buying such small volumes from some and others, and you know, all of that. But so many times went over it, reformatted the data, but couldn't get anybody engaged with it, couldn't get a decision, couldn't get consolidation of these suppliers. And eventually, I can't remember who it was in the book, but somebody somebody came up with the idea of getting one glove with the price tag on from each and every supplier around the globe, and they just came into the boardroom and dumped all the gloves onto the table and said, This is how many suppliers we have got with all these different prices. And of course, the board members were absolutely stunned because they'd been emotionally engaged in something rather than being just giving the information, and things started to move a lot quicker. So that's an example of getting kind of sticky emotional engagement versus just keep giving the information. So that's the rider and the elephant. The third element of change is the path, and this bit I absolutely love because, of course, now we've taken care of all the information, we've understood that we need to influence people emotionally because that is often our limbic system, is often what drives us in terms of uh making decisions and taking action. So we need to take care of that as well. Great. And we sort of think job done. What we often fail to recognise is that one of the biggest influences to change is how easy the path is to do it. So the path is the third element, and we would talk about this at 4D in terms of the environment around us. So an example that I would give at 4D would be run a training programme, let's say, we're in a room, people are on their laptops and um distracted. Well, they're not with us, obviously, but but there's a good reason for that. A few good reasons for that. But let's say they're they're they're on their laptops and they're doing emails when they ideally they would be sort of sharing and uh collaborating with their team members. What could I do? I could tell them the rules again. There's no there's no laptops in here. So that's the rider. Information, facts, this is what's happening. Five minutes go by, people are back on their laptops. I could go to the rider, I could say, you know, it's really upsetting. The elephant. The elephant, sorry, go to the elephant. So it's you know it's really upsetting, you know. I think other people are getting frustrated that we're not. So I'm going to appeal to our emotions. Can we all together? Could we all come on, it's the nicest thing to do. All of that kind of thing. So I'm gonna appeal to the emotions. That might work better. Or even there's cake at the break for those who aren't on laptops. Exactly. So some kind of incentive that might work better. A few people might then start going back onto their laptops after 10 minutes. The path, what do I do with the path? I remove all the tables in the room so no one has got a space to put their laptop on. Cellotave up the plug sockets. Cellotave up on the plug sockets, and nobody is on a laptop. Yeah. And I'm not saying because it's too inconvenient on your laptop. It's too inconvenient, it's too inconvenient on your lap. And we so often neglect to take care of the path in change so that we can help the new behaviour to be the easier behavior rather than try to convince people in the old setup, can you just now change how you're gonna behave? So the path is all about taking care of the processes in place to make it easier for people to uh adopt that new behavior. So you've got rider, intellectual, elephant, emotion, the path is the environment, the processes. That's the model that they use, and you need to take care of all three. So I love how tangible, workable, and achievable this model is. And I'm gonna give a quick example of something that we do now in our personal lives that absolutely fits this model. So we we have two PT sessions together a week now. Now, we have done gym in the past, and then we sort of lapsed and we're very busy, uh, we have you know other responsibilities, we've got the business, and we do other sports. We do yoga and dance and walking and and I was thinking, I really think we should do some strength work. And it's it's not that we haven't been down this path before, but actually, when I look at this model, that's why we're continuing to do these sessions. Why? Because we know that it's it's good for us, you know. We can look at sort of people in our network or who are older and actually the risks if you don't have muscle strength. We travel a lot, we need to put suitcases up on lockers above our heads. Like we like we know the rationale of strength training, that we're putting that piece in that's different from cardio and kind of general fitness. So we so the rider knows that's a good idea. Definitely should do this at least twice a week. Emotionally, it's less easy, isn't it? So why does it work? Well, firstly, because we're doing it together and we enjoy each other's company. Secondly, it's a small g it's a small gym, it's sort of it's it's not threatening emotionally or sort of it doesn't put us in an emotional state that's uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, it's super comfortable, super easy, chatty, relaxed, our age group. Thirdly, the guy there is super funny. Like we have su he's our age, we have such a laugh with him. We've met his wife and one of his kids, because they come to emotionally, it just works for us. We have an absolute who I am absolutely honest when I say I look forward to those sessions, and I just wouldn't have thought I would say that about going to do strength training. It's hard work, right? We've been it's hard work, we're doing such a laugh. And the path, because we really like the hot yoga that we do, and it's I I found a this new gym that's open and it's en route. So we put the sessions in right before two yoga classes. The path is so easy because it's we we have to already doing it. We have to pass it, we literally have to pass it on our way. It's like a James Clear habit stack, and because and that's when we have the sessions, and because of those three factors, uh and it's absolute time with the switch. Well, it's almost impossible not to do it, it's almost impossible not to do it because you then you'd have to go past there going, Oh why aren't I going anywhere? And also I want to go and say hello to Mark at the gym because he's so funny, and yeah, it's just now it's now it's bedded in. And I have to say, Phil, in terms of behaviour, I mean, like I say, I I have I have ever joined a gym for a period of time, but that's quite a hefty behavioural shift for me. And it's further for you, it's further. It's further for you to come, exactly. So and also, you know, it's my house is en route, so you can also drop the dog off. Like there's lots of pieces in the path that are super, super new. You were determined, Phil. I was determined. But look, switch, thanks, thanks, Dan and Chip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it really, really works. So that's that is the switch model. So you can take a moment now and think about something in your personal life, and you can absolutely stack this. Stack being the operative word for James Clear's atomic habits. It's got a really nice map over with uh with James Clear, particularly the past to make it satisfying. To make it as easy as possible to stack habits. So he's really sitting in a couple of these pieces around change. He's sitting in that habit stacking that path. And the other thing that James Clear talks to, which is the other part of the emotional, is as well as that emotional motivation, you can also motivate through identity. Not just, well, this is who we are, and that's talking to values, that's talking to your to who you are. Much more emotional than than um the than the rational. But also, what the switch model and James Clear would say is not only appeal to who you are, look, come on, this is who we are. We're you know, we're we're energetic women of a certain age, you know, this is who we are, it's who you want to become, and this has been proved very, very successful with um leaders and CEOs. Of course, you can motivate with money, there's a limit to that, and we've got an example of around that. But if you motivate through the leader that you want to be, andor the leader that you want to become, that is incredibly powerful, and that is the elephant, much, much less much. Totally, totally. So, all of these are important, definitely. We like I said before, in the workplace, and I'm talking to everybody here, not just people who are heading up transformation departments. This is this is for everybody because change is constant. I mean, I can't think of a single client we have that's not going through change pretty pretty regularly. So the the that intellectual, that rider piece is often taken care of. The big watch out for for me on that rider piece is are you communicating it clearly enough? And are you communicating it in terms of a vision and where we're gonna be? So those two pieces, which we're gonna come on to the communication, but I would often, not always, but often pretty much trust that we've kind of taken care of the facts, the information, the operating model, because it's what we tend to do. The big watch out on the rider is the communication of it. The elephant will also come on to in terms of communication. This often gets missed out all together, yeah, because we either don't think to include it, or the emotions that come up with change are challenging and difficult, so we kind of try and park them. So we often don't appeal to other people's emotions through change, we're we're just we're desperately trying to hold on to the facts and figures and motivate with information. So we'll talk about that in terms of the communication. The third piece is probably my favourite, the path is probably my number one favourite because we can do all the work in the world, all the great communication, all of the inspiring uh emotionally. If it's still easier to do the things we used to do in the past, we will still do the things in the past. So changing processes in terms of form filling, IT systems, the how the meetings are set up, all of those things that are around us are much more influential to our behaviours than we than we think. So they're super tangible. And they're super tangible. So that would that would for me that would be the piece that I would probably focus on. Yeah, it makes me think of really simple examples, like a company we worked with years ago. It was a small company, and their desks were around the edge of uh their kind of dis it was like a design company, and their desks were around the edge and they all faced the wall, which I guess gave them lots of wall space for their screens and their, you know, sort of pitting up documents and things. But they wanted more interaction. I mean, it was just such a simple thing to put the desks in the middle in a big square and have everybody facing each other. So, you know, the way that you the way that you arrange an office is going to change how much interaction and commun and informal communication you have. There are really simple things that you can do when you have your meetings. Uh, one of the things on emotion before we move on to leadership modelling and rewarding is of course you can you can also map into that the four drives from Daniel Pink and the what one of the big ones in change. Yes, of course, you can motivate through um acquiring and achieving, you can motivate through um bond and secure, which is connection and relationship. We're all in this together. Uh the first one, of course, would be about you know, if we do this, you'll you'll get X, Y, and Z. You'll get to XYZ. Yeah, so that's that's acquire and achieve. Then you've got bond and relate, and then you've got learn and grow. It's gonna be a great opportunity for us. There's so much that we can learn, we're gonna have all these new systems, or there's opportunities to do new courses, you're gonna have a new role, new opportunities. So you can motivate through those three drives. If you if none of them are gonna uh are working, one of the big emotional drivers, of course, is the third fourth one, which works in a very different way, which is secure and defend, as uh he I think he calls it um secure, which is we're motivated, which of course we are more motivated through loss. So if we don't do this, people are gonna lose their jobs, or so we want security and safety, and we are very much motivated by our aversion to loss. So hold that in your back pocket, it's a little bit uh more hard line, I always think. You know, if we don't, then these are the consequences, but incredibly useful. Yeah, okay. So modelling and rewarding. I mean, we don't need to do a huge amount on this because it I think you know it does what it says on the tin. Like, just can you hold that mirror up? If you want people to be sharing ideas more, if you want doors open policy, if you want more communication, if you want more fun in your team, if you want more energy, I mean, whatever it is that you want, are you doing it? I mean, there's there's a piece there was a piece of research. I I remember, I think it was when I was doing my psychology masters, there was a piece of research around healthy eating within teams, and they analyzed all the different different things that they that might work. A leader simply by pace placing an apple on his or her desk had more influence over what people at than the company sending out, you know, healthy eating bulletins and you know, t telling people sort of ideas as to cook healthily. Pop an apple on your desk. I mean, what our brains are doing in terms of how we're being influenced by the environment is extraordinary. I'm just gonna touch on this because it just feels so important, but it and it's in this day and age where leaders at every level are not just on a platform within their own organizations, they are on a global platform, like the amount of visibility now through social media and the responsibility that that brings, you know. We often hear leaders saying, I need my people to take more accountability, more responsibility, and when we flip that as a leader, how much responsibility are you taking? Because you are you are the rip you are creating the ripple effect for how younger people now coming up see leadership, and that I'm sort of taking a breath there because it's such a big thing. It's shaping, it's shaping how people will feel about becoming an adult and becoming a leader. So, whatever you're modelling is having a huge, huge impact on the next generation. And we we, you know, in terms of how we would look at this at 4D, we would go back to our 4D2C model. So we would think about how are you showing up physically, how are you showing up emotionally, how are you showing up intellectually and the language that you're choosing and how are you showing up intentionally? And if you think about this, you know, through let's say through a period of change, literally, what are people seeing when they dial into a team meeting? What kind of emotive language are you using? Um, are you using language that's full of possibility and vision, or are you using language that's full of sort of difficulty and obstacles? So all of these things are impacting other people. And you may not think that they are role modelling, but they are. People are pick picking up tiny little signals in every moment. Well, exactly. And if you think about a really obvious one, I mean I think this is such right from our personal lives in those micro moments, right up to something, you know, huge, like trying to do a you know, global or um organizational change. The frustration you can feel as a leader when people aren't adopting it and aren't stepping into or behaving in the way, you know, I want more positivity, I want people to feel energized, I want them to feel motivated, I want my children or my friends or whatever to be more positive in their life or to be, you know, get up and go, or to be more collaborative. And of course we get frustrated when they don't, and what happens? We start getting annoyed, and then we start communicating in the I why aren't you? I just need you to. Who isn't? We become very task-focused and we become our emotion and our emotional modelling becomes frustration, and the things it's like the it's the joke, isn't it? When you're in a house and you're like, I don't want any shouting in the house, you know. Well, that was my really good example for you. Yeah, yeah, and and and of course, we're shouting up the stairs. You're shouting up the stairs. Stop shouting, and and and and you know, if you can catch that in yourself, yeah, that your frustration becomes you're emotionally modelling the opposite of what you want, and you have gone to task and agenda, and you've got you're going to the rider when you're when what you really want is better relationships or people to be working together in a more collaborative way. So we we absolutely hijack ourselves through the emotional dimension through change and just keep coming back to it. We're all human, we all do it, but just stop and hold the mirror up. You're gonna be much better off taking at half an hour, an hour, or a day out to realign yourself and to get yourself regulated to go back in because you're just wasting your time because you're telling people to be and do in a certain way that you're not modelling. Yeah, and then of course the other side of that is what are you then rewarding? Yeah. So you're modelling, you know, uh the behaviour of great communication, collaboration, taking your 10 minutes every day to walk the floor and check in on people, but you're rewarding Bob, who nobody likes, who's getting the who's getting the numbers? Um, it's always oh poor Bob. We hammer, we hammer that guy. But what are you rewarding? And even if you need to reward both, because you want to reward um the you know, success and target hitting, then reward both. Although, you know, we would argue it's problematic. I mean, how many times do we have those conversations, Penelope, where where people say to us, yeah, it's all very well, they say this to us, but what I see rewarded is this. That's right. I I it's we have that conversation all. And I think we're going to talk more about incentives on on some future podcasts, and it really speaks both to the role modelling and also to the path, in as much as you know, you want people to behave in a different way, but your incentives, both in terms of literal incentives, you know, whether that's money or whatever it might be, but also cultural incentives, are encouraging people to behave in the opposite way, and then you're frustrated that that they don't change. So incentives is a really, really big one to kind of explicitly and implicitly get people on the path to change that you want to see them on, and it starts with you, it starts with how you resign too and there's a and and again just to sort of touch in on the sort of wider issue that it feels again really important that this isn't just about you know doing business well, and that there's a wider piece to this, there's a sort of very human piece to this that we are encouraging and developing, and as leaders, we have a responsibility around this, around how humanity gets shaped, you know, who we become. I mean, it's huge, isn't it? Like if we're constantly rewarded for you know putting the knife in or pulling the rug from somebody else and getting our paycheck or whatever it is or our bonus and sort of screw everyone else, if that's the constant reward, that's that's that's what we're shaping as people. So, so model the behavior, turn the mirror about yourself. Are you modelling and are you rewarding? Finally, communication, not a subject unclose to our hearts, Phil. Oh, it's just uh absolutely so I want to I want to say two things. It's the number one, it's the number one problem reason for failure, yeah. Yeah, I mean we and we've said this so many times on things like you know, your plane's cancelled and you don't hear anything. I mean, it drives everybody insane. Yeah, overcommunicate, even if you've got nothing to say, keep communicating, and and yeah, the people sort of worry, oh well, I don't want to say the wrong thing, or I haven't got anything to say. Just stay in connection. Say something, say something. Um, because people will fill the hole. And this leads me to two things I want to say on this. I'm gonna pass to you for sort of um some more thoughts and some tools. One is ambiguity is the death of change. If you leave that vagueness, they they will fit the the hole will be filled with whatever it might be filled with fear, anxiety, or people's own idea of what should be happening, like ambiguity, and that's also around talking to the rider, which you're gonna come to. If it's a bit ambiguous, you know, if someone said to us, if somebody said to us, or if I'd said to you, Penn, I just think we need to do some strength training. Let's make sure that happens. Nothing. Nothing now, just disappears into the ether. Like when, where, what time, with who? Like, it's too vague. You know, the idea of I want everyone to be more collaborative. Especially, especially if someone doesn't particularly want to be want to be. And also, what does collaborative mean to Bob versus David? You know, or you know, Sandra. You know, for Bob, that means oh, people want me to stand up and you know be sort of play silly games in a workshop. Ah, I don't want to be more collaborative. Whereas, you know, for for Sandra over there, being more collaborative means she gets to spend more time with two colleagues that she really likes. Yeah, let's do that. Like it means different things to different people. So, unless you're specific, and say, Well, when I say collaborative, what I want you to do is at least twice a week to have a 45-minute session with at least one colleague and share whatever it is. But you've got to be specific. There's it's no good telling people though. This is the problem with the strategy and the sort of flow charts and the sort of consultancy change strategies, is they get they get left at the point of everyone's gonna be more collaborative, we're gonna have you know, we're gonna have hubs where everyone we're gonna get together and share ideas, and you're just like it's an it, you've got you're about three levels away from on a watching. I can actually engage what I can actually engage with, and then Tuesday morning we're gonna meet in this room, and these are the things we're gonna talk about, and these are the outcomes that we want. Like you've got to get specific. And the other thing to add into ambiguity is if early on, I love this, this was in the switch model as well, and early on, and again, this is about the rider, which is interesting. If you leave too many decisions to other people, nothing is going to happen because they they've got no incentive to make those decisions, and also they don't really quite know what decisions should be taken. So you can't leave it's an interesting one because we want freedom and autonomy, but at the certain beginning of a change process, we need that pathway to be able to do that. We need enough scaffolding, clear, we need enough scaffolding. So you don't want to leave too many decisions to people early on, leave really easy decisions to people early on, and then that can open up as you've as your change strategy has advanced. But early on, you want to be much more directive. Yeah, yeah, totally. So, so in terms of the communication, there's a few things we'd say about this. I mean, usually I'd say there are three things. There might be four on this occasion. So the first thing to say is do some. Do some communication. Do you think that should be our strapline? I think that should be our exactly our business philosophy. I know it sounds really stupid, but honestly, that is, I think that is the one thing that comes out in the research. In fact, in the research, it often doesn't say we got a lot of communication, but it wasn't clear. It just says we didn't get any communication. It's not like being organisationally ghosted, isn't it? I mean, have a pop, have a go. Like, even if you feel like a question, anything, just anything, yeah. Step in, anything. So that's the number one part. You've you've been you've been in that situation before. Oh my goodness, I really, somebody, somebody say something, somebody say something, anyway, yeah. So that's that's the first thing to say. And if you feel like I haven't got enough information, it's unclear, or I don't agree with what they're saying, that is even more the moment to step in and communicate. Well, you've got so much because if you've got ambiguity, your people have got the next layer of ambiguity. And we're gonna give you one or two tools in particular that are gonna be useful for that. So so step in, ladies and gentlemen. Second thing to say on the clarity piece, again, even if it feels ambiguous, even if it feels uncertain, even if not everything is decided, if you can give clarity, you're gonna really help people. And the three things tool here is really great. So we use it a lot at 4D. Um, so even if you don't have much information, there's three things I want you to know about the change that's coming up. Number one, number two, number three. You won't have all the answers, it doesn't matter. Well, there are three things you need to do. Yeah, it doesn't matter that you don't have everything, people's brains will feel like there's more solidity because of the language that you can. It's another, it's it's another block in the building, isn't it? And it's a really good way to kind of bolster up the rider because it's it's short and concise and clear, even if it's not complete. Yeah, and it's left hemisphere communication, it's got that nice three bullet points, three things, or the left brain goes, Oh, this is all this is this feels like logic, this feels very tangible, exactly. Yeah. The next one to think about is vision, and there's lots of models we could use around visioning, so story vision that we use. We you can use past, present, future, anything that is giving some kind of idea to people as to what this could look like. So, again, that doesn't always feel easy to us as leaders because we we might not know what it's gonna look like. Um, but it's okay that we don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, and it's very useful to give people something around what it could look like. Yeah, so you can step into it. Do you know what's making me think of? Um I wonder if people know this, but interestingly, in theatre and television, you'd think the process is you cast the piece, you get your actors together, you rehearse it, and then you finally go into the theatre or into the studio to film. But there's a piece in that process that I don't think is often spoken about, which is day two or three, really early on in a rehearsal process, the designers come in with a miniature and show you the set. It's really early. Um, because they need the actors to know the space that they're eventually going to be in, and then of course, you you mark with just tape in your rehearsal space where everything is, but you've seen it, you've seen a visual of what space you're ultimately going to be in. It would be really weird to not have that, and not just this is the shape of it, these are the colours, the texture, the design. It's a miniature of exactly what you're gonna be in, and that is a great example of here is the vision that you that you you are now gonna practice inhabiting because in three weeks' time it's gonna be a reality. Exactly. Great, it's a great metaphor, it feels real, it feels real. It feels real, yeah. Yeah, and so when you're rehearsing, you're you're you know, if you're doing Romeo and Juliet, you're in a sports hall rehearsing. When you point up to you know Juliet on a ladder, health and safety, you you know what that might look like. You're imagining the balcony, you can see it. Yeah, and this might be as simple as regularly communicating the vision of the change of the organisation, it might be a bit more granular than that, it might be um you know how we're all gonna what we're all gonna be doing next week. It's something that people can hold on to, is how I like to think about it. It's a really good example recently in the Winter Olympics, where Britain doesn't historically do well. We're not a sort of winter sports country because we're definitely not a summer nation. Yeah, I don't know. If there was a sort of a rainy Olympics, I think it'd be fine. But anyway, but anyway, so we're a tea drinking Olympic. Exactly. What the winter sports governing body in in the UK, which might have been set up at the time, decided, it was about, I think it was just after Sochi, so sort of 10-12 years ago, they set a vision of we're gonna be in the top five medal achievers by 2030. Now, that still seems very ambitious based on how we're currently operating, but people have got an idea what what we're going for, and that's very different to the kind of the idea, the vision being so we're gonna we're gonna spend some funds, we're gonna try and find some some talent. Yeah, now that's great. But that's not an idea of where we're gonna be and how it's gonna feel. So that's the second, that's the next thing. The last thing which we love, we call it the three E's, and it is a way to kind of encapsulate everything. So if you're someone who needs to communicate through change, think about doing it using the three E's, which are experience, emotion, expectation. So, what do we mean by that? So, e the experience is this is what's going on at the moment. It might be a shared experience, it might be an update on what's happened through the change. So that's your that's your rider, that's your information. The emotion is put some emotion in there, even if it's tough. I know we're all really feeling the challenge at the moment. I know how tough this has been for us. I'm so impressed with how people have been supporting each other or whatever it might be. Or I'm really excited. I know how excited we are, exactly. So it could be either of those, but you're putting some emotion into the mix, yeah. And then the third one is the expectation, which is sort of often missing. Uh so as we communicate through change, we can often assume that people know what they then need to go and do, um, or we can think, oh, I don't really know, so I'm not gonna say anything. We need some tangibility. So my expectation is that you will go away and communicate to your teams, or you come back with one idea how we're gonna make this smooth, whatever it is. So experience. And emotion expectation can capture a lot of the communication you need. And that clarity around expectation of what you need to do to take your part in getting to this vision is so important because once you've got that, you're gonna deal with a lot of problems around change. One of which is us versus them. Oh, they're all talking about, oh yeah, they've all had a meeting. Yeah, apparently this is what they're deciding. So it's us versus them is a problem because you've already put yourself outside of the change initiative, it's somebody else's. And the other problem with it, of course, is just is that again, we've spoken to it, is that lack of clarity that you come out of, you know, you've had the town hall or the meeting or whatever, and everyone you've been told what's happening, and you come out and you're like, even if you're sort of mildly okay with it, sort of sh shoulder shrug, and anyway, should we get a coffee? Like you're detached from it because you don't got my to do list. Yeah, I've got my to-do list. I'm going to carry on doing what I was doing before I went into that meeting because there's not nothing can change because I don't have any clarity about what should change. And again, we go back to what we said earlier that granularity of you know, we're changing how we do refreshments and snacks in the building now. From now on, you are not going to use the microwaves and the whatever, the fridges or whatever. We're gonna have we're having these hubs, we've got temporary ones set up, you can only use those. You've got to put something in that people go, oh, so they're on their way to the other, you know, old kitchen and they stop in their tracks because they know that's all that's not what we do. Like it's that tangible, otherwise, shruggy, shruggy shoulders, on we go as we ever have done, and you wonder why it doesn't work. Yeah, exactly. So shruggy shruggy shoulders is a very sort of English expression. But yeah, but you know, it it really speaks to that elephant, doesn't it? No, don't because if we it's nothing to do with me, mate. Nothing to do with if we've got lack of clarity to the rider, emotionally we're disengaged, and the path I can't even see the path. Like it's just or it's certainly not easier than the old easier, it's certainly not easier than the old path. I'm gonna shrug my shoulders because I've got absolutely nothing that I remember to do with it. I remember when I was back in corporate Phil, I was in finance. I remember moving from Excel to an IT system. I mean, I know lots of organisations, particularly in finance, have done this. You are gonna grip tight to those Excel spreadsheets until they literally turn Excel off on your. But there you go, it's a good one on the path, isn't it? It's exactly that. You know, there's nothing like for me, there's nothing like on my app updates when they say this version of the app will expire in three days. That is when I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna so true. The path to not doing it is definitely worse. I still want I want B the CI player, like you know, so yeah, absolutely. Okay, good, good. I've got to go and change an outfit, I've got to take my boy out for a little walkie. Actually, it's not it's not it's not raining, it's not too bad, is it? Remind me of the first communication. So, because we've got the three. Do some. Oh, yeah, do some, and then we've got we've got three things. That's my favourite one. Three things to the rider. So there are three things you need to do, yeah. Yeah, then we've got something around visioning, could be a simple story, vision repeating. Yeah, this is what is the last one. Last one is the it the last one can do a pretty much all of it for you. The three E's, experience, exp emotion, and expectation. Yeah, that's bringing it together in in messaging, yeah. Great. So woo, we covered a lot. That's uh 40 40 plus minutes. So um enjoy your change. Go go get it. Treat it like a treat it like a you know, a game, a challenge. That you're not gonna it's an influencing game, isn't it? Yes, exactly. It's an influencing game that your change initiative is no longer going to feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain. You're gonna feel more like you're just tipping uh you know the boulder down the other side and you're gonna help it to go. You've shaped the path to for it for it to go where you need it to go. So that actually should be much easier for you. And change can be really exciting. It can. You love a classical reference, don't you, Phil? Yeah, I love a little classical. Well, you know, it was Ben, it's all there, isn't it? I mean it's all the Greeks and the Romans, they did it all. Exactly. They worked out how to change. We're only regurgitating, we're only reshaping, really. So true. Yeah, think of it as reshaping. Well, thank you, and we've got some we've got more to come on change in future episodes, so uh look out for that. And um yes, and in the meantime, time to change into the wellies. Don't go changing. Oh no, do go changing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human Being Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools, and tips because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become. And I I love that phrase pen. I do too. And please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human Being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings online, in person, conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on-demand platform for your whole organization, and we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools, and tips. So do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.