Tim: Nick, what brought you into this field of work? What excites you about working in this ever-evolving world of change?

Nick: I would say the first thing that got me into this work is a bad work experience. I had a couple of bosses a long time ago who, from my point of view then, didn't understand how to lead, didn't understand how to manage an organization, and I'd say from the now 20 or so years of experience that I have in this specific sector, looking back on that, I was somewhat right, but not fully right.

For me, what I had realized then, but I didn't have the words for it, was I was really interested in adaptive problems or people issues or interpersonal dynamics, as opposed to the technical, what's the work an organization is doing. That was the original jumping-off point.

Then, I've worked in five or six different types of firms that have done different types of change and landed at Kotter, mainly because I think it's the best of both worlds of the adaptive and technical challenges.

If I'm being honest, I get to work with John Kotter on a weekly basis. You can't give up that opportunity. So it's been really a great kind of five, six years that I've been here so far.

Tim: I've been in the HR space and around the HR space for quite some time now, and change hits us. We're adapting new technology. We are shifting how we work and where we work; we're now planning for the future of work. It's around us, but I can speak from experience, and I think I could speak on behalf of a lot of HR professionals that we have these great strategic plans.

We're looking to the year, two years, and everything gets derailed. And now we're in reactive mode. And it's easy to think about how we could be more proactive, but how can we actually be more proactive and not so reactive to this ever-changing world? Is there even such a thing?

Nick: I've got a provocative answer first, which is, it's not only not possible, but it's not useful. So I'll go into that in a second.

The other one is, yes, it probably is. It is possible, or at least possible to live in the present as opposed to just the long-term future. The way that we are thinking now about change is different from how it's been in the last couple of decades of research, where you just said it changes in the present, always happening; it's always on. You don't really know where it's coming from, whether it's coming from a political shift or whether it's coming from a market shift.

So, our view now is actually, instead of looking super far into the future that we might not be able to fully predict, how can we create more adaptable organizations in the present so that when those changes do come at us, we know how to sense them better, react more quickly, and, in the small senses, get ahead of that curve, if possible?

For us, there are three ways that you would start doing that, which we can get into later. But the three things, just to put them on the table now, are adaptable systems. So your actual organization is adaptable. There's the culture, which is the makeup of all of the beliefs and behaviors and how we work. And then there are the individual capabilities, mindsets, and skill sets.

So, systems, culture, and individuals are the three pieces that, for us, make up an adaptable organization that can get you to sense what's happening outside to be able to react, whether it's proactively or at least in the correct way.

Then maybe just jump in on the strategic plan. I think the biggest issue we see with strategic plans is they're so long-term, and they're done for maybe a five-year period or three-year period if you're lucky, and actually the world is going to be so different in three years that it's almost irrelevant what your plan is.

What's more important is the assumptions that you plan; however, in that plan, are you going to judge those if they're changing, and how do we pivot when that happens?

Tim: I completely agree. The first thing that my mind went to when we think about those plans is that we think about even in our, maybe even in our homes, we make a meal plan maybe for a week.

Then when we go into our, put our business hat on, we have to come up with these grandiose plans for one year, two years, five years, and 10 years. I don't know what I'm having for dinner on Friday. But yet I have to know what my business is going to do and the revenue that's going to come in and the people that we need to hire.

I completely hear adaptive organizations, right? I believe in order to prepare for the future work, we have to set that foundation. Because again, like you said, we don't know what's going to happen.

It sounds easy to say, but I think it's going to be hard. to create systems, a culture, and specifically individuals. So where do we start? How do we do this?

Nick: I had that exact question a few weeks ago from the head of innovation at that global organization. I think they've got 50,000 people around the world or some such. So, it is definitely one of the big organizations out there. And he asked me the same question: Where should we start?

We had already done a couple of sessions with some of his team. We'd already done some thinking with folks on the ground in his organization to figure out how they might start to become a more adaptable organization. And he was triple PhD in X, Y, Z things, right? So very educated. My answer was we could have a theoretical conversation on where to start.

That might be curious intellectually, and it might lead to a couple of insights. But if it's not grounded in where your organization actually is and in the practical next couple of steps, the theoretical almost becomes irrelevant. So we can talk about that enough so you get a sense of how to actually institute change.

But really the most important question is how would you start? How would you take the first step, right? How would you start building some proof points that change is possible? Because, like you said, it's so daunting when you think five years out or you think about what am I going to eat for dinner next Tuesday. I also don't know.

So it's, how can we figure out that we can confidently make a step forward? We can see that there are results based on that step. And then give ourselves a pause to reflect on what we would do next, right? And then start planning out, not necessarily left to right but start planning out within those three buckets what would good look like in a couple of months that we can start to make progress on, and once you demonstrate to key stakeholders and to the organization that change could actually happen.

Then you get to step back, and you get the luxury of kind of having earned stepping back and saying, Great, let's plan out one, maybe two years, and then do some right-to-left planning on how we would get there.

Tim: I'm thinking in the context of HR, and I've recorded with some great folks recently, and we talk about HR needing to have that influence at the leadership table. Because otherwise it's just another administrative department, and I would love to see HR as part of that conversation, part of that strategic conversation, part of that change conversation to say, Hey, where do we need to go in the next couple of months?

Because now I've been a part of organizations that don't know what, where it's going to go. We see maybe revenues declining. We see innovation slow down. And so there's a knee-jerk reaction. Okay. We need to lay people off. Because we need to get more money for the shareholders or whatever it looks like.

Make our numbers. And so how do you coach somebody to just say, Take a pause, go for a walk around the block, take a breath, take a minute before that knee-jerk reaction, and avoid something that you might regret?

Nick: If I'm talking to that business leader, it would be how to help them understand that they are in survival mode.

Ideally, we've worked with them a little bit to explain our thinking and research around survive and thrive. The quick version is. Survive is similar to fight or flight. It can be really helpful in some moments, but it is a knee-jerk reaction to solve an immediate issue, but it doesn't help you think broader.

Thrive is the creative flow, excitement, and opportunity-seeking channel. And if you can activate that, or at least activate it more, then you, and that's usually by going on a walk, relaxing your physical body, and taking a step to a beat to think. Then you can get people thinking around.

Beyond just this quarter, what would I absolutely need to have in place for next quarter as well? And how can I create a story for shareholders, the board, etc.? Now that lets them see that if I make a short-term decision, it's not in anyone's medium-term or long-term interest.

So, there's some rethinking about what good looks like and when. If I'm talking to an HR leader who I would completely agree with, HR has leaped and bounded over the decades, right from personnel to HR to kind of people and culture.

Even as you think about the names of how we've identified it, I think it has come more and more into a strategic place, which is really positive for me. It's also that a leader has a chance to continue to help business leaders realize that most of them have come up the ranks through technical capabilities and competence, not usually through management or leadership competencies, for better or worse.

HR is one of those places where you can really elevate and help others understand the importance of people leadership and what you can do if you unleash the true potential of your organization.

Most folks in legacy organizations that are working towards shareholder numbers are usually typically top-down in terms of how they lead, and if you can create pockets of what if we unleashed 20 people in some secure department to try something new and different, and even if they fail, it's something to learn.

They usually don't fail. They usually come up with really innovative and interesting ideas and can actually put them into practice. That's where HR I've actually seen can really play a difference in proving out the value of people.

Tim: I think you're validating a conversation I had recently with Luke Mahoney on the show. He's all about the people experience and redefining HR again as a people experience department. So getting away from the computer, if you're designing a policy, a process going down to that shop floor, going into that virtual space, the frontline worker, and talking to them as they are a customer. Unpacking insights.

I think that is a brilliant way of thinking rather than that reaction because it's hard. I've been there; I've been in organizations where it's complete reaction, and because we maybe haven't changed quick enough or fast enough.

So we're talking about future work, as in like the next month, the next two months. And I know it's hard to talk about, two years down the road, and maybe we won't even go there because I don't know what that's going to hold.

As you said, like we have to create that adaptable organization now from an HR perspective, I think HR has an opportunity to really create an adaptive organization specifically through the culture and specifically through that individual.

Now, I think of the eight-step process of change, and starting with that sense of urgency, how do you create that sense of urgency aside from going on to maybe your Slack channel or running into the building that's on fire, and how do we create that without creating a sense of panic but a sense of yes, that's what I want to do? That's where we need to go.

Nick: I love that you just said, Panic me not living in the moment was I was already answering in my head, and then I was listening hopefully enough to hear the panic word. I want to go into that for a second; that, to me, relates a lot to survival and thriving. The panic is to survive; you've got my attention, but I'm scared, and I'm in panic mode.

I might get a leap into action, but it might be the wrong action, or I might burn myself out in two weeks, and you know, have to take sick leave. The urgency or the excitement is the thrive channel of how you would build urgency in a way that motivates people as opposed to shutting them down and slacking, which I love and we use internally at Kotter; many of my clients do that. That is not the way to build urgency.

What's really the thing that starts a fire in people's bellies is face-to-face interactions, conversations, the human element of work. And I think that's something that is really interesting about the future of work: we tend to think it's going to be more tech-enabled. And yet what really drives us and motivates us as human beings is connection.

So, how do we make sure that connection is maintained, even if it's digitally enabled? for example, the difference between a Slack message. And calling someone on Slack for, I think they're called huddles or something, right, to be able to say, Hey, see my face here, my voice, I observed my body language and my excitement for two minutes just as I tell you some news that just happened, right? And then let that trickle go out into the organization, which can actually be, especially in larger organizations, a lot further.

Then just a slack text message, even if you're reaching more eyeballs with the text message. You're actually reaching more hearts with the video and the face-to-face

Tim: I love that reaching more hearts, and I'm a huge fan of face-to-face or just picking up a phone, whatever platform it is. I'd much rather see somebody's face and, or just at a minimum, hear a voice on the other end, because you send off a message into the abyss and you think it's going to land, and then you get feedback on that message about how it didn't land, and then you think, I should have had AI maybe rewrite the message with some smiley face emojis or whatever it is, but that human element.

I feel like I'm with you here, Nick, in that when we create an adaptive organization, we are going from that place of survival. I'm in survival mode, being able to take a pause. Have you ever seen it done successfully in an organization? Maybe you're sitting around a table where someone just said, Hey, we're in survival mode. We all need to just take a pause, go get some water, go for a walk, or does that just meet with resistance?

Nick: Two weeks ago, I facilitated an offsite with an arm's length body in a European country, and they're working on a big transport project, and it was both the government agency and then the arm's length body. So, it's basically the executive team of the arm's length body who ostensibly reports to this other group, as their board of directors.

Halfway through the meeting, the two heads of both sides clearly weren't getting along. They were getting a little hot, running a little hot, as you might say. I literally stood up and said, I think we all need three deep breaths. I want everyone to stand up, stake out your limbs just for a second, and sit back down.

Then I've got two questions for you. I would not do that with every group. I'd done that because I had already demonstrated some sort of credibility beforehand. Otherwise, it would be shrugged off as nonsense. So you need some sort of credibility to be able to do that.

Then I think just unpacking what I was trying to do and what ended up being successful in this instance was breaking the pattern enough so that we can reset when we come back, helping them realize that we're going to reset in two minutes with two questions that they already know are great. I'm not doing this nonsense forever. It's just literally stand up and take off. However, I actually want to do that and sit back down. We're right back into the conversation, but they're actually not because you've given them two reflective questions.

Then you get to figure out how quickly you want to let them get back into the other conversation. So that kind of physical intervention of stopping, doing something with your body, pausing the conversation, and refocusing it on the dynamics in the room, as opposed to the content. I find work a lot. There is the credibility that you need walking in the room. So that's the second follow-on question: How do you build that credibility?

Tim: I've got a lot of questions in that. I know we're deviating away from the topic of today about change in the future of work, specifically for HR, but I can imagine this as a great tool because I've been around that exec table in my career, and it's heated, and people aren't getting along.

The words being used, they're not direct or not an attack, but it is heated. And so I'm just even putting my HR hat on for a moment about being able to do. I have that confidence to stand up and say, without slamming your fist on the table, Okay, we need to take a pause here.

Nick: Can I offer any event that is helpful? There's also the power of a question as opposed to an assertion. So instead of saying, This is what I'm observing, and this is what we should do, you can say, Are other people feeling X, or am I sensing this? Am I off? So, you intervene without intervening, and if they're somewhat cognizant of how they're behaving, they will immediately go into the, That person's right. I should take a beat, and you usually get a thanks after the meeting. You don't usually get it in the meeting but usually get it after the meeting.

Tim: In the meeting in private, not in front of everyone. I love that. And it's tapping into that curiosity rather than that assertion.

Versus, it's getting heated in here. We need to take a minute versus, Hey, this is what I'm feeling. Is anyone else feeling this? Very different tone, very different language, and very different words you're using, and they land differently. Thinking of this in the context of Kate, we're planning for the future work.

Now, HR is at the table. It's getting heated. We need to adapt AI. No, we don't. We need to go back to the office. No, we're going to stay hybrid and remote. I can imagine there's a lot of those conversations happening right now, and they'll continue until who knows when.

So it comes down to, I think, a couple of things, and as you said, I'm taking this from you: that adaptive organization, the systems, the culture, and the individuals. I've talked on previous episodes about culture quite a bit, but not so much about the individual, because I feel like there's some opportunity here to provide some value for that HR professional or that business leader about that ability to change it.

Selfishly, I'm seeking this by myself because I'm in that survival mode or thrive mode. Like I'm bouncing around that today, but we need to lay that foundation so we can prepare for that future. How do we do that?

Nick: So shameless plug in the pandemic, we realized the best way to reach more people is our motto and our mission: millions leading billions benefiting. Because for us, we are really founded on how we can use our research for good in the world of work and how we can get it to access and touch as many people as possible. So with the pandemic, we realized we could no longer serve clients the same way. How can we get our information out there?

So we created a certification change program, which there are a couple of different ways to access it, but basically it is. A suite of courses that help people understand our methodology and what we do and how we would do it so that they can use it within their organization.

And it's geared exactly at the individual. So yeah, you can go in through HR and find a way to systematize it for everyone. But it's also something that can be just off the shelf. How can I understand how to improve my adaptability? My personal adaptability and ability to change.

So, training is one; that's one clear angle. I think that will always be something that remains in the HR wheelhouse. Training in a bubble or isolation or by itself, I think we would all also agree, is usually not successful in terms of really getting that change in the organization, but we would say you need at least the capability.

So, create the capability there. The culture and the systems is where you create the environment. For people to be able to use that capability, because the last thing you want is to tell people through trainings or upskills that they should be more empowered and run projects in a different way and then not change your systems to allow them to do that and not change your culture where perhaps it's just as good to fail and learn as it is to be successful, but you've been training.

So there's some sort of synergy that needs to happen with all three. And I think HR is probably, within your sphere of control, training within your sphere of influence is definitely culture. Some of the systems are within your control and influence as well.

I think that's where HR can get really curious about who in the business owns a bit of the culture and a bit of the systems to collaborate with them, because actually.

If HR can make the case, which is very easy to do, that adaptable organizations outperform. Our research from the early nineties was that they outperformed by five times in a variety of metrics. So it is like astronomical.

Then we said to ourselves, a couple of six or so months ago, we can't keep citing research from the nineties. We went back to John's original research. We looked up all of the same companies. We tracked them over time to figure out where they were. Some of them had been acquired. Some of them were still in business. The comparison, the same comparison group, eight times as successful.

So, the business cases are out there. The question is, are organizations, businesses, and leaders confident enough to take the leap? Because there's some short-term friction to making change, which we all experience when our kids say, I don't want broccoli for dinner, but you know what's going to get them to grow strong and mighty.

Tim: There's some polarization out there right now about remote work and hybrid work back to the office. I could see this idea of this model more than it's not just an idea; we need this adaptable model. We need to change. So if an organization is remote and says, We all need to come back to the office.

They can adapt to change. If a company says we are fully in the office, we are going to go hybrid or remote. I'm picking on this one piece because it's on top of my mind. I just read an article about it. My bias leans one way. And so how do you then check that bias? In order to say, okay, this organization is adapting, it's changing, and it will then grow and succeed.

Or am I thinking about it a little backwards here? Because I have my biases, and selfishly, I want to be remote or hybrid, which I am, the companies that I support as a contractor, which is great, but I see the opposite happening.

So, checking that bias, right? If the organization is adapting to whatever model that they're seeking, does that mean that they're eight times more effective?

Nick: I would first say it's important to figure out the why behind the change first, and that's for building a sense of urgency through any sort of change or transformation effort. And I think in-office, hybrid, or remote work is the same. It's the, why are we doing this? And in conversations that I've been in at the top of the house of an organization, some of those whys aren't great.

Sometimes you see it being weaponized as a way to basically help people make a choice to leave the organization or, to your point, help reduce your headcount without actually reducing headcount so that it looks better for shareholders.

Sometimes it's for what I would consider more, I'm going to use the word righteous, even though that's not, I've been reading Jonathan Haidt recently on kind of righteous reasons where you would say, actually, it's because we think connection and in-person conversations lead to more effective outcomes, business decisions, and quality of life well-being; just being around people and not being isolated can be helpful.

So, if you explain some of those reasons to folks and help them figure out how they would then implement that reason themselves, it is incredibly different from setting an edict down from the C-suite around we're in the office, Monday through Wednesday, for example.

I've seen organizations do something similar to that, that we've helped them do of what's our why, what's our reason for wanting to do this with input from some parts of the organization. And then letting four or five different teams across the organization figure out how to implement that.

We're going to do a three-month pilot with five different teams, figure out what works for you, make it happen, test the results, and then come back to us to see what we would scale. And one of the things that usually comes up is people then using being in office for certain types of meetings and conversations.

Because if you just say Monday to Wednesday, you're in the office, what ends up happening is everyone's on Teams calls in the office, and they're not actually talking to each other. So, you get what you create. And if you create a sense of empowerment and curiosity and willingness to be flexible, then you can eventually get to the right setup.

Tim: The famous book, Start With Why, by Simon Sinek. And I think it's, maybe it's on my bookshelf. I think other leaders need to just pick that up because we need to focus on that. Why are we doing this change?

The leadership team says we need to be in person. Why? And my background is operations management, process improvement, and getting to root causes. And it's a simple technique of five whys. We've lost connection. Why? We've lost this. Why? Just keep going down, and you will eventually hit the foundation of why you feel like you need to change. Maybe going back, I know we're unpacking this remote hybrid example.

But I think it's relevant because, again, reading an article today, it's like, Oh, and if you don't want to come back, it's okay if you leave. It's a tactic, or maybe if you don't want to adapt AI, don't worry about it. Don't worry about coming back in. Oh yeah, I was going to take my job. It's actually no; your job's now going to shift. And we're going to tap into that, your creative brain, less of your administrative brain.

Even that shift is scary. And we need to ask ourselves why, because if we're going to prepare for the future of work and just operate in that reaction mode, we'll make some really bad changes and changes that are going to have an impact on lives and the lives of employees. And if you are in that shareholder mindset, you're going to affect those shareholders.

I could pick your brain for another hour, I think. And because I'm curious about this topic, this idea of adaptability. And I think it's something that some people have inherently in them, but I also think it's something that is learned. You have to learn to be adaptable when somebody is resistant to change or get to their, Oh, change.

It's scary.

What would you say to somebody who knows the organization needs to change? We need to ask those five whys. We need to bring Nick in to facilitate a session, but I'm struggling with it. What would you say to that? You're that HR leader, business leader, because we have to change to adapt to the future work.

Nick: My first response would be, you are not resistant to change. You just have a different threshold for saying yes. And that's okay. And I think we assume that the only threshold should be a yes. An immediate, if the boss says we're doing this, everyone says jump, you say how high. We know that when you say that out loud, that isn't how we want to operate or how we should be operating.

But it's still built into a lot of the ways that we roll out changes. Even just in the concept of a rollout. Versus the co-creation is meaningfully different. So we often use another model from the tech world, actually Roger's Law of Diffusion, if you've come across that, which is how a technology gets diffused within an organization.

And he posits that there are five different types of groups and personas, and you all are looking; each group is looking for a different reason to get on board. I won't go through all of them, but just the difference of what you said, you've got on the left side of the curve, you've got innovators who just want to challenge.

So if you say, We're going to do X, and it's going to be scary, they say, Awesome, I'm in. They're ahead of the curve, right? Then you've got people; this is usually like your early adopters who are looking for proof. They're looking for validation that it works at least in a small pilot. They're not going to get on board until they actually see that it can be successful.

And that's completely normal and fine, and organizations should be made up of a diverse set of these personas. Because if you have everyone jumping to get on the bandwagon with the cool new technology, what ends up happening? The technology disappears, and your business goes out of business because you were relying on it, or you're all caught up in all of the adoption issues because you've squandered the platform.

So someone asking why, or someone saying, I'm not ready yet, is actually not a bad sign. It just means whoever's leading that change hasn't thought through what different personas are going to need to be able to understand if they want to take the leap or not. And then once they are able to have that emotional and logical conversation with themselves, then you're right.

They don't always decide to come along, right? They can exit the organization or decide not to participate in a change. But usually we don't even give people that chance because we just assume everyone is going to go through a quick, logical, or, oh, that makes sense. I'm in.

Tim: So I'm doing a lot of introspection right now. So I appreciate that. I think it's had an opportunity to study a little bit in the U.S. And the professor, we were talking about change, and he said, You've got a couple options. And I've now since adapted that model of change or change.

If you're in a crisis, if you're facing headwinds in an organization, you can just suck it up and change yourself. Which is just to say, okay, this is as good as it's going to be. That's no fun. You can try and change your mindset and the mindset of others, which I think is what you're talking about, or you can just change your organization and just say, I'm out of here.

There are three very basic and very broad changes, but I think that's where it starts: doing that introspection and almost coaching yourself and almost asking that five Y technique internally.

If we externally ask, Why are we doing this? That has an opportunity for people to get defensive. And as you said, I'm taking your words as opportunities to say, Oh, tell me more about this. What's coming up for you and driving this decision, right? It's approaching what the words we use, the language we use, and it matters so much.

So, I appreciate that because I think we have to look internally, and what is our own appetite for change? Because otherwise, the CEO says this is the direction we're going, and if it's always met with headwinds. You got to do some introspection work there.

Nick: Yeah, very much. What you're just talking about reminds me a lot of some of the readings I've been doing recently around negotiation and how to get people to actually hear each other.

Usually, if you think about common system one and system two, usually we're all reacting in system one, which is our automatic kind of, I think I hear, I already know what you've said, even though you haven't finished it, and I've made up my mind around what I'm going to say, even though you haven't stopped talking.

How do you break through to system two to actually get people to pause and think rationally and emotionally? And it very much is. I think going back to the pauses we were talking about in the boardroom, how do you get that CEO to recognize that actually them being introspective, them thinking about what they could do differently, and them thinking about how they can empower the organization maybe to solve the problem also is a big piece of the pie?

There's a really great framework, which is, you can read the book, or you can just hear the title, which is who. Not how so it's finding the right people to solve the problem and letting them figure out how we'll do it and how they'll bring the answer back as opposed to thinking the CEO, for example, has to figure all the details out or the messaging out. It really is a here's the problem. We're solving who should be solving it; go get him.

Tim: Who, not how, and as an HR professional listening to this, and even for myself, there's so much dumped on our plates, and saying, Can you solve this? Can you come up with a process for this? Can you write communications for this? And it's, yeah, filter it through that who, not how.

Through that mindset of, okay, let's take a pause. The power of that pause. When we think about adapting technology, we think about the future of work; just take a pause. We can't plan for that year ahead, but maybe after you're listening to this, shut all your electronics down, put your feet up on your table, and lean back. For those who are listening, I'm leaning back in my chair and just staring off into the distance and just dreaming a little bit because I think we've lost sight of that.

Nick, I've learned so much in this conversation. I'm sure people are going to say, Tell me more, and I know Kotter's got his eight-step process or eight-step change model.

How do people reach you? If people want to know more about change, about the work of Dr. Kotter and your team, how do people reach you? Nick: Online. I'm sure we can put this in the, in the kind of bio or the letters there. We obviously have a website, kotterinc.com. So from there, there's a contact us form. That gets pushed to whoever, whatever region you're reaching out to.

I happen to be lucky enough to live in Barcelona. I lead our media region. So if you happen to be on my side of the world or in the CET time zone, you'll probably get in touch with me. LinkedIn is also another way to just reach out to us to schedule a quick 15-minute chat based on curiosity.

I probably have two or three 15-minute chats with people a week, just to get a sense of what they're working on, share some insights, and, in a way, we both go with more energy. And I think one thing that people often say to us once they finally reach out is, I've been thinking about reaching out for years or months or however long, and I just got the courage to ask Kotter if I could have a quick chat.

We are, I think, very approachable and curious people. So I love to chat with business leaders to understand what they're really going through. So we can either help through working together or suggesting the 10 books and frameworks that they might use to bring their changes to fruition.

Tim: Amazing. Nick. A pleasure having you on the Future Work podcast.