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Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
How To Drive And Embrance Change | Daphne Leger | Power Lounge S2 E28
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THIS WEEK'S TOPIC:
Change is an inevitable part of life, wouldn't you say? Yet, we often view it as an unwelcome guest. We're turning this belief on its head in our latest episode with Daphne Leger, the change-embracing powerhouse and founder of Atravida. Daphne offers insights into her intriguing journey where she became addicted to change and even launched her entrepreneurial venture amidst a global pandemic. She makes a compelling case for reframing how we perceive change and innovation, providing an invaluable perspective for anyone seeking personal or professional growth.
The episode takes an exciting turn as we tackle the concept of 'micro-dosing', a unique approach of implementing small changes to spark tremendous transformation. Daphne shares actionable advice on forming new habits, overcoming resistance, and navigating through the tumultuous sea of change. You'll also find food for thought in our discussions about challenging routines and adding variety to our lives. It's about time we ditched the monotony and stimulated our brains with new experiences, wouldn't you agree?
Our dialogue with Daphne takes us further into the realm of future-thinking, design thinking, lean startup, and change management. She paints a vivid picture of how these key principles can help capitalize on change and thrive in our dynamic innovation landscape. Encouraging us to stay curious, flexible, and open to new ideas, Daphne highlights the importance of reinventing oneself. Prepare to be enlightened as we uncover the profound link between change and innovation, and how you can master the skill of embracing it. This is not just another conversation—it's a stepping stone towards a transformative perception of change.
LINKS:
Daphne's LinkedIn
Daphne's Instagram
Atrevidea
What is Desensitization?
Sponsored by: COhatch
COhatch is a new kind of shared work, social, and family space built on community. Members get access to workspace, amenities like rock walls and sports simulators, and more to live a fully integrated life that balances work, family, well-being, community, and giving back. COhatch has 31 locations open or under construction nationwide throughout Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Welcome to our weekly Power Lounge, your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn and I am the owner and Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power and connections. Join the movement at wwwtogetherindigitalcom. Let's get started. Are you uncomfortable with change? Let's learn today how to shift your thoughts and routines to create fresh, new attitude towards change With our guest, Daphne LeJae, founder of Atravida. Today we're discussing embracing change and its transformative power.
Speaker 1:Daphne is here to share her journey of becoming addicted to change, highlighting the critical link between change and innovation. She is the founder of Atravida and an innovation expert. A global nomad, she started off in France, spent many years in the United States and is now based in Mexico. She has a background in international development and MBA from Harvard Business School and extensive experience in leadership positions and startups and technology, healthcare and entertainment sectors. She has given numerous courses and workshops. She is a professor, teacher and mentor through various global entrepreneurship, innovation and executive education programs. Welcome, Daphne, we're excited to have you here with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Amy. I'm really excited to kick off this conversation.
Speaker 1:Me too. We've got some good questions for you today and, of course, we're going to open it up at the end for our live listening audience. So hopefully, if there's something we don't touch upon, please ask. We really love it when our audience engages and asks the questions, because this podcast is for you. We want to get out of each of our guests what you're looking for. So let's start off with a little bit of your experience Daphne and how your shy, lingual and global nomadic background has influenced your approach to embracing change and innovation in different cultural and professional contexts, because you just shared with us. Obviously you're in Mexico and you're about to head to Rio de Janeiro for a month. We're all having a little bit of envy right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think my relationship with change is completely influenced by the fact that I grew up with so much of it. I think it's basically a story of repeated exposure, maybe an unintentional exposure therapy, if you will. Yeah, I thought this concept relatively recently and thought, oh, I think that's what I've been up to without knowing it, because from a very early age I've been exposed to a lot of change and I think it's what led to this particular positive relationship that I have with change and what I would now even call an addiction. And yeah, I was looking a little bit into the concept of exposure therapy, which is something that's used in psychology, and they explain that it's about getting used to something through habituation. So I think, check, I was doing that. And then they talk about extinction as a way to turn down your normal negative reactions to something. That's part of what I was up to. And then they talk about emotional processing as changing the way your natural reactions to things.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what happened throughout my upbringing and then the rest of my life. It was always challenging and difficult, but it was also always rewarding, and so I started to see that change was the vehicle and the rite of passage if I wanted to keep growing. And so, yeah, I just was repeatedly exposed to it, and so I learned how to deal with it and how to turn it into something like a positive force in my life, right, yeah, and so it's exposure.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of a conversation we were sharing last week I just mentioned, before we went on and live, about our national conference. That happened last week and one of our panelists to read a press and had mentioned that I literally was just reading the quote, which is probably why it's fresh in my mind. She asked is it hard or is it new? And you're right, like exposure is really the answer. So when something feels scary or hard, maybe it's just kind of like almost like micro dosing yourself a little bit with that experience and exposure until all of a sudden it doesn't become scary as much anymore. So I'm kind of curious, like what is like? What was the turning point in your life career journey that led you to become, as you say, addicted to change? When did you become aware of this and embrace it as a transformative force in your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I wouldn't say that there was one turning point, because it was you know that repeated exposure, yeah, and I kind of my entire upbringing prepared me, but it is when I started working in innovation that I started realizing that change was a requirement basically, and you know, at a personal level, in your personal life, and then also in professional spheres and spheres, sorry and for organizations, for all of those entities ourselves and our companies, organizations to evolve, you have to go through change. And so it's actually relatively recently, maybe, the turning point where I realized I have a very particular relationship with change that's quite unique and could add value to others, because they didn't have the same exposure therapy, if you will, haven't yet gotten to that level and that dynamic with which change in their lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what is it that drew you to innovation, like throughout your career journey? Because it's such an interesting space. It's not a space where, when you're sitting in high school, college or whatever university, that you're like oh, I want to work in innovation often Like what drew you to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my path started in international development. Because of so much you know, living in different places and being exposed to so many different places, it was kind of the natural thing to go do to keep doing that and because I was fascinated and excited and comfortable with the international everything basically, yeah. So what you do in that course of study is you study the world's biggest problems. And as I studied those big problems I started to realize that what really got me excited was when those problems were turned into opportunities.
Speaker 2:And that's basically what innovation does.
Speaker 2:You know, innovation says there's a problem here and that's a good thing in the sense that there's therefore an opportunity. So when I found that that was one method, one mindset, one toolkit, if you will, I thought, ok, that's the way that I want to attack these problems. So I started in a kind of traditional international development, like the big institutions of the world doing that, and then I realized, actually, business is a really exciting way to tackle those problems and turn those into opportunities. And I found it even more like straightforward and direct and transparent, if you will, in the sense that it's about, you know, serving users, serving customers with enough value that they're willing to pay you part of that value, and I thought that's kind of honest work. If you're not generating enough value, then they won't. So I got excited about that and that's where the kind of the world of innovation opened up to me. I came across the concept and the method of design thinking and then lean startup and I just felt like light bulbs going off. So I started shifting my focus in that direction.
Speaker 1:That's so cool and now. I love that. I wrote that down and I hope the rest of you take that away too. Where there is a problem, there is an opportunity. I love that it's such a different way to look at the challenges and the changes that we often face, because I don't think it's a secret that most of us are a little resistant to change, and if we aren't resistant to change, those around us are resistant to change. So, in your opinion, what makes us? Why are we so against change when there's opportunity or possibility there?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm gonna go ahead and say we are all resistant to change and those of us that maybe think we aren't, maybe that's just because we happen to be these days in a position where we're leading it most of the time. So we're on board, yeah, but actually someone comes along and imposes a change on us. The reaction, the natural reaction, is resistance. Took me a while to figure that out. As an innovation person, I would say the first few years of my career I was. I kind of had this attitude of people that resist change are dinosaurs and we just have to find a way to go over or around them because they're gonna get left behind anyway. And I realized that was absolutely not a helpful perspective and also just untrue, because actually all of us as humans resist change. So, yeah, it requires a bit of a shift there.
Speaker 2:What I've found is the reason that we all resist change is. There's many facets. One of it, and a very often, is fear of the unknown. We tend to have a survival instinct which is very wise and wired in for strategic reasons. It's just clear of the unknown right. We crave certainty and the unknown is everything except that. So of course it causes fear and that has served us very well. It keeps us alive and when you're in a context of there might be a tiger or a lion around the corner, like that's good, that's great.
Speaker 2:Obviously, in our modern lives we apply the same fear even though there isn't a tiger or a lion around the corner, and so, therefore, that's where it becomes a little bit less rational and where maybe we have to tune down that survival instinct, because it's actually taking care of us. But that's a huge piece fear of the unknown. The second piece I would say is comfort. Very much related, but we all have a natural preference and we're wired to kind of hang out in our comfort zones. And I know comfort zone has a negative connotation to it, but really like it's taken us a while to find it, and when you find it like, I kind of want to hang out, I don't know, you're right, it's not easy to find your comfort zone.
Speaker 2:So once you find it, you kind of want to reap the fruits of that, but then what comes into effect is kind of inertia. And inertia is a force, right, it's a force that keeps you there, and so it's difficult to get out of your comfort zone. It's not intuitive and it's also just like literally difficult to do. If, on top of that, the change that's being proposed or presented or appears seems like it's going to be difficult, painful, complicated, well then that's even worse. That really is pushing us beyond what we create, which is comfort. And the third and last thing I would mention, which is why we all resist change, is loss. Basically, in this way, I would say we're super rational. The other two are maybe a little bit less rational.
Speaker 2:This last one is 100% rational.
Speaker 2:We are always doing an evaluation of pros and cons or, to be a little bit more specific, gains and losses.
Speaker 2:And so whenever we do that evaluation which we might do in a split second or we might actually sit down to think through, but either way we're thinking about how much do I have to lose and how much do I have to gain, and most of the time when we see a change, we think this is going to cost me a lot and I'm not really seeing or believing or feeling the benefits of this, so it's not worth it. I don't want to go for it, and those losses could be anything. It could be any vested interests that we might have and sometimes, of course, as we know, it can go as far as job security. Like that's a huge loss. But there's a lot of other little losses that come into play. Sometimes it's just a feeling of reputation or credibility or certainty. All of that kind of are things that we might lose in this change that's being proposed. So, yeah, we don't support changes that we don't believe are going to leave us better off.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I love how we brought up some of the psychology of things of exposure earlier too, because our brains love patterns and predictability. It's like the shortcut You're like. Like you said, once you're in your comfort zone, it's hard to get out, and so when change comes along, you get that fight or flight response and it's so funny because it's like an email from a combative coworker or a boss calling you into the office or whatever. It can be so scary. Like your body, our nervous systems haven't matured enough and evolved enough for us to know that like, yeah, there's not a lion waiting to eat me at the other side of the door, but your body and your brain are responding in such a way but I hadn't really thought about that either sort of you know that more logical, rational response of like what am I seeing to lose by this change in assessing that? So that makes a lot of sense and I think that's really helpful too, and we'll get to this more.
Speaker 1:But when you're proposing change to others and they are resistant to it, knowing these things not only for yourself, but knowing that how others might respond, as you're saying, somebody who's leading innovation or change. You really want to be able to bring people along with you, but let's stick on those folks for a moment who still initially resist change. What advice would you give to those who initially resist change or find it challenging to embrace, and how can they begin to cultivate a mindset that values and harnesses the power of change in the ways that you've been able to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if you rarely experience it, it's going to be that much more uncomfortable and painful when it comes for you.
Speaker 1:And yes.
Speaker 2:I'm describing it as a boogeyman, because it kind of is right At least that's the way you're going to perceive and feel it if it's the thing that you never experience and all of a sudden kind of comes out of left feel and comes at you. So I think exposing yourself to it a little bit every day, in many little ways, can help improve your reaction to it. I love that you brought the concept of micro-ducing. I might steal that. Yeah, I think that's what it is and I'm a huge fan of thinking about how much another thing that you brought up.
Speaker 2:We've all settled into a lot of routines and a lot of patterns in our daily life and again, they serve us very well, they make us more effective, we can kind of be on autopilot. I find it fascinating what our brains can do without us actually actively thinking. It's impressive. You can drive from point A to point B and you don't even realize how you got there Exactly. Yeah, it's powerful, it is, but it has its limitations because your brain is not actually paying attention, it's not actively making connections, yeah, it's not really stimulated in those moments. So I think it's really interesting to think about the little ways that you could do that with micro-ducing, and we can talk about specific ideas around that. So that's in terms of like prior to and as you prepare.
Speaker 2:And then I think, when change comes, or when you bring about change, if you find yourself resisting change, first of all, kind of being okay with that, it means you're a human being, congratulations. And then taking a step back and analyzing and analyzing those things that we talked about, that are your reasons for resisting change. What am I afraid of? Just naming those things often diminishes them or at least helps you evaluate them. What comfort zone am I hanging out in right now? And is it one that is totally where I want to be and that's fantastic? Let's not shift that. Or is it time for me to move on from that comfort zone? And then, what are the real gains and losses?
Speaker 2:because, often our first, micro-second interpretation might be a bit limited. And that's where you get out the good old notebook and you do your pros and cons and you realize, oh wait, maybe the costs are not as huge as I thought or the gains there's more of them than I had initially considered. So that would be kind of my roadmap, if you feel that initial resistance to change.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that. That's great advice. It also made me think about I'm doing a talk later next week on a mindful approach to burnout and I think another practice in that those mindfulness tools that we have is the practice of non-judgment. There's a parable in Eastern philosophy that's about a farmer who is poor and he's struggling and one day a wild horse stumbles upon his farm and it's able to, like his son teams it and they're able to work the land. And everyone in the village is like you're so lucky, this is amazing. And he says maybe.
Speaker 1:Well then, while one day the son's riding the horse, horse throws him off, he falls to the ground, breaks his leg, everybody in the village is like that's such a terrible thing that happened to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, this horse should have never came and you're so unfortunate. And he said maybe, but then a war broke out and people were coming around looking to recruit young, able bodied men and his son didn't get set off to war because of his leg and his family was like, oh, we're so lucky, this happened. And he says maybe. And he just goes to show you that, like we're saying, our brains want to kind of automatically categorize everything before we've been able to see the final outcome as good or bad, and the fact of the matter is is you really don't know and you really shouldn't judge until everything else plays out, because you never know what comes of it. So, as you're speaking, I do think non-judgment is another great mindfulness practice on how to approach and look at change when it comes into your life and maybe it's something you've not even prepared yourself for, or a situation where you've kind of set up a little microdosing opportunity to create that change yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Take ownership and take the reins.
Speaker 1:And then I would love to hear because we all relate so well to stories and it's always good to kind of hear times in which we've had instances, and specifically from your career, where embracing change and innovation has helped to lead through a breakthrough or significant positive impact on a project or initiative that you were involved in.
Speaker 2:Sure, I think maybe I'll talk about one on the personal side and then one on the professional side, OK so, on the personal side, three years ago I was pretty comfortable in my corporate job.
Speaker 2:After being in the startup world, I had shifted to corporate world. I was in an innovation job, an amazing, huge company here in Mexico, and kind of had made it and had arrived. And then the pandemic hit and it became pretty clear that I was going to be able to kind of bunker down and hang out there if I wanted to. And so you know, that has its appeal, obviously, but I decided that it wasn't the right step for me at that point in my career. So I decided to do something that I think most people would say I did at the worst possible time.
Speaker 2:I decided to make the leap and left my job to launch my company right in the middle of the pandemic. And so that was basically taking everything that was stable, known, comfortable, all those good things, and saying, yep, that's, that's fantastic. I'm going to, you know, put it all aside and go towards everything that is unstable, unknown, unpredictable and risky and definitely uncomfortable. And so obviously there was a lot of you know, a little bit of angst and worry around it. Huge change, huge shift. It ended up being the best professional decision I have ever made, and I'm three years out, so I think it's a pretty good time to be able to go back, and I have zero regrets about that decision and its timing, even though it was kind of crazy to do it right then. So that's, I think that's the biggest change, because it was really kind of going from one scenario to as much of the opposite as I could and of being a really positive experience for me.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Congrats, thank you. On the professional side, obviously there's been change in every single project that I've ever worked on, because that's literally, you know, the requirement for anything Right Innovation. But I'll talk about one that's, you know, specific. I was in a healthcare clinic here in Mexico City and we were working on a project to look for improvements and efficiencies potentially in our processes and in our customer, which in this case is patient experience, and we had we had a process of medical attention that basically had been set up so that the patients had to come in for their consultation, the doctor would potentially tell them that they need a treatment like a surgery or something serious like that. They would come back to do some medical exams to see if they were candidates for the surgery and then they would come back for the results and the pre-op kind of instructions and confirmation and then come back for the surgery. So it was a lot of back and forth for our patients and so patients would kind of drop off along the journey, just like any funnel or, you know, any pipeline like that.
Speaker 2:Everyone makes it all the way through because it was just too much and the logistics of moving around in a city like Mexico City is a big deal. And so if you're coming from super far away and you're taking public transportation, or you're an elderly person who needs a family member to accompany you, it could literally be a you know, a deal breaker in terms of continuing with your treatment. And so we, we analyze that process and we realized we could absolutely get rid of a whole visit in that you know five visit sequence, by kind of streamlining and designing our process for the 80% of the cases, not the 20% exceptions that sometimes happened. And, of course, the first reaction from everyone involved was no, that can't be done. We've always done it this way. It works this way. There's a reason for it. I don't remember what it is, but there's a reason.
Speaker 2:And so let's just keep going right I'm being positious that the reason was sometimes something can happen where for a few patients it really would have been better if they had come back that other time, et cetera. And so, anyway, we ended up pushing forward on a change that got rid of that entire visit and you know it went against everything we've talked about Most people's like comfort and stability and certainty about a process that had been working for years. It ended up being a huge positive change for our patients, definitely, and led to more patients getting treated, but also for our staff in the end. Even at the beginning, they're like I don't like this, you're moving things that you shouldn't touch, et cetera. In the end it was, oh, that's a little bit less work, that's a little bit more efficient on our side as well. So, yeah, just a concrete example of kind of in the end of win-win, where at first you had people saying you can't do that, you can't change that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm sure a lot of us face that day in and day out, at work, with clients, with co -workers. It's when they choose, you know they would rather forego the awkward, despite what the outcome could be. So once we're kind of bought into the idea of making a change, like you were in that instance how did you start to and how can we at work or at home even I'm sure this applies everywhere in life but how can we start to bring others along when we kind of know, like, why are we adverse to change and this is the way we've always done it? What are some strategies and ways we can start to break down those barriers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I love about this is that it starts with the understanding of yourself, because others are also other humans like you, and so once you get how you're wired, you're going to be much closer to understanding how other people are reacting and are wired. I think the biggest thing for this that people lose sight of is that organizations change when humans change, and since it's about humans, it's about empathy, right? And so we started this whole conversation talking about, like myself as a human, what's going on, et cetera, and yet most leaders and most organizations, when they switch to thinking about that entity, they forget it. It's just full of humans, and so all of the same principles apply, so it's not rocket science. I recommend that you think about the fact that you're going to have to move a sea of humans in order to have any change happen at an organizational level.
Speaker 2:There's some really basic intuitive tools that are subutilized, like a stakeholder map, right, which is literally you just map out the different people that are involved or impacted or influencing your change in some way, and what I want to add to that map because sometimes it feels a little bit superficial is that you figure out their perception of gains and losses and therefore their posture on this change.
Speaker 2:So that's where you really add in that empathy piece and you consider, from their perspective, what are the pros of changing, what are the costs of changing, what are the pros of not changing, what are the cons of not changing, and you really figure out how they're perceiving the equation and then you can think about a plan of action. Right, and the plan of action usually comes down to one of two things Either you need to shift their perception because they haven't realized all the gains, or they're over indexing the losses and it's actually not going to be that bad, for example. Or you realize, oh, there's more losses than I thought there, this is going to be more difficult than I had accounted for, and so I need to shift that actual equation for them to get on board. For me, it really helps me to think about three kind of guiding questions when I think about leading change. The first one is how can I make this worth their while?
Speaker 1:I don't want to impose it.
Speaker 2:I don't want them to do me a favor. That might work once, twice, but you can't just keep using that as your change mechanism. So it needs to be something where they say I've done my pros and cons list and I'm on board for myself.
Speaker 2:Because, people move because it makes sense for them to move. The second thing is how can I make it easier? Because we talked about sometimes it's just it's not that they don't believe in the change, but the path to get there just seems so complicated and so painful that that's why they're not on board. And then the third question is how do I address their concerns? And that comes again from a place of a lot of empathy of they have concerns. Those are valid. It doesn't actually matter if they're factually accurate or not. They are concerns that a human is worried about and is making them unable to move forward and act, and so I have to address them in some way. So those kind of guiding questions help me really add back in that human element, even when we're trying to move an organization.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. I think there's a lot of folks out there that have this amazing skill set of being visionaries and painting pictures of the future but then often lose people because when it comes to actually putting it into motion, people don't want to move along because they don't see everything in between and they don't feel like the person who's painting the picture has taken that into consideration. So, with what you just outlined, anyone who's trying to lead a company through change, or household even through change I mean by really kind of getting in there and understanding what are the potential losses but what are their potential gains how much different is that conversation going to be when you sit down and approach it, not just from the big picture standpoint but from those nitty gritty details and addressing their concerns in advance. They're going to know that you care about having them along for this process, and I love the idea of stakeholder mapping. I noted that as well. So that's, that is great advice, and I hope some folks are listening. I don't I'm guessing it's not the folks that are the visionary type, leaders that are really great at painting the picture and then being like, oh, good luck, figure it all out, but you know, maybe you can suddenly share it with a boss or two that could need it, or bring it up in conversation, because that's some great advice.
Speaker 1:Co-hatch is a new kind of shared work, social and family space built on community. Members get access to workspace amenities like rock walls and sports simulators and more to live a fully integrated life that balances work, family, well-being, community and giving back. Co-hatch has 31 locations open or under construction nationwide, throughout Ohio, indiana, florida, pennsylvania, north Carolina, georgia and Tennessee. Visit wwwcohatchcom for more information. So you know, I'm sure that there's been a situation or two either that you've experienced, or some of us who are listening, who are here listening today, have experienced. What do you do, daphne, when people just flat out refuse to change?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean honestly, if you manage change with the steps that we've been talking about you can convert most people over to the right side, the side of the change.
Speaker 2:One more trick that I find is powerful is presenting things as an experiment and as a trial, so like I'm not asking you to adopt this thing forever because it is now the way things will be and there is no going back, but would you be willing to try this for one week or one month, and then we can evaluate the results together and decide?
Speaker 2:Most people are going to be willing to go for that, because then they say, okay, fine, you'll see it's not going to work or whatever, but I'll try it and we'll see. And so then you've got an opportunity to kind of test out the change together, and that could bring a few of the last stragglers on board. But if they really still won't budge, I mean, yeah, there can be a time, of course, when it makes sense to say this is either our new identity or a new way of work, or whatever it is. Are you in or are you out? And it's true that some changes make some people decide that they want out. And, as harsh as it sounds, I'm going to say something here.
Speaker 2:I think that's natural selection and it's okay. I often talk about how change is the path to our evolution personal, organizational, professional, et cetera and so some people might say I don't really want to evolve beyond this, I'm staying here. And so then you have to say, okay, you hang out here, we've got to keep evolving. I think that can happen.
Speaker 1:I wholeheartedly agree with that. As hard and as harsh as you said it can sound Sometimes, honestly, it's the best way to keep everyone else moving forward as well, because sometimes when you insist upon, are you enforced change upon somebody who's really not on board for it. It's only going to be it's not going to be painful for just them, it's going to continue to be painful for you because they're going to make it difficult every step of the way if they're not bought in even to some degree. And I love the test and learn theory. I used to use that a lot with my clients and we were proposing something new, something scary. Oh, how about we just do it as a test and learn? So then we at least had some data and metrics to make them more comfortable and make feel like they're making a more rational decision, even with something that was kind of new or out of the blue.
Speaker 2:I love that Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That was definitely one of my strategies with difficult clients, all right, so we've talked about it a lot. The idea of change is hard, but it can be made easier by breaking it down into small steps. Can you help to elaborate? We talked about microdosing earlier. Could you elaborate on some more specific examples of how small shifts in our daily routines can lead to transformation, based on your experience and observations?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll take this back to the personal unit of analysis that we've been using ourselves. I think it's about stimulating your mind, getting out of its comfort zone, which is basically all of our routines and all of our habits are that delicious comfort zone that we've set up for ourselves, and so anything you can do to shake that up is going to be helpful. It really stimulates your mind to pay attention, make new connections, which is basically the base of any innovation that you'll ever be able to drive or push through. So I think it's about practice. It's about practicing how you react to new experiences and to change, and I want to give examples that are incredibly simple and easy that you can do today, and, of course, you could invent more elaborate things, but a few examples the music that we listen to.
Speaker 2:I think these days we're all super proud of our playlists that we've put together and they've been curated, and we know every single song and in what order they're coming. Even Our brains, it turns out, when they listen to music, are actually predicting what comes next. It's like a game that the brain plays. Well, it knows exactly what comes next on your playlist, and so it's not really getting stimulated. What about listening to music from other cultures and other languages and other styles that aren't your usual default and go to Similar food.
Speaker 1:Literally.
Speaker 2:I love this concept, which is only in English comfort food. It says everything in the name. We love having things that it's like. I know exactly how this is going to taste. It's going to remind me. There's this nostalgia element to it there will be no surprises here which is fantastic. It's great to have your favorites. What about trying food from other cultures? These days, you can have access to places that you will never travel to, but you can eat food from there, incredibly stimulating, not only for your taste buds but for your mind.
Speaker 2:Another thing is the paths and the routes that we take. We all tend to take the same path to get from A to B, because we found this one path and that's the one we take. Again, you're on autopilot for sure. You're not even paying attention anymore. What about taking a different route? I challenge myself with this all the time. I have a dog, and so I walk him around my neighborhood. I've been in this particular neighborhood, mexico City, for a year now. I still find little streets by my house that I hadn't walked down yet. It's amazing. Of course, anytime you do that, your brain just starts saying oh, what's that cafe? Oh, look at this tree. Oh, this is a strange plant that I've never. It's incredibly stimulating to be trying and doing something new in a very small way.
Speaker 2:The last one that I'll mention is the way that we work. We tend to all be pretty routine and habit focused in our work. We do things a certain way, just mixing that up a little bit. The meeting doesn't have to last an hour. We don't all have to be sitting around a table. The space that I work in could get shifted around. I have a pretty good home office set up and even so, I tend to go at least once a week to a different cafe just to get me out of that zone. So yeah, these are tiny little ways, but it is exposing you and practicing and helping you see that there are gains, not just losses, when we switch up the things that we're so comfortable with. So that would be what I would invite people to play around with.
Speaker 1:I love it. Those are fun. I hope you all feel inspired to do something a little different this weekend. I love those ideas. Those are great. We did get a quick question in from one of our live listeners and it's kind of close to the topic we had just had, talking about bringing people along for change and the idea of the test and learn. So Chris is asking what suggestions do you have when your audiences are extremely data driven, which a lot of the ones that we're working with we now are? Sometimes providing the data is helpful, but I've also had that backfire, as in people get it even more entrenched in the status quo.
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I do think that the test and learn is a way, as you were mentioning, to get data. It's for those people who say I actually, you know, even data driven people have their moments of being completely irrational and non-data driven.
Speaker 2:So they might say I don't think this is gonna work. I just I have a feeling. And so the point with those data driven people is how about we get some data on that? Let's run a test and then we'll have results, and then we can talk about the results. Right, obviously, they can go one of two ways. Either the results confirm and then you say, hi, data driven person.
Speaker 2:I now have data, so it's a little bit less debatable, let's move forward. Or it doesn't, and the test shows that it wasn't the expected results, and then obviously you're in a bit of a sticky spot. But you need to be flexible and adaptable and say, okay, good thing, we did that test. We saw that parts A and B of this need to shift and let's you know, do an iteration, run another test, et cetera. So either way, it's gonna be positive, I think, for the change that you're pushing forward. But I think that data driven people and we're talking about them as if they're species they're still humans and a lot of the decisions are emotional when it comes to change, because we talked about all the reasons that people resist change. Very little of it is data driven. It's mostly emotions. So even if you are data driven, or your people or your organization are data driven, don't underestimate the emotional piece. I think it's the biggest thing that's driving people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I definitely agree Emotions it's hard. We are humans. At the end of the day, we are not the robots that are now doing a lot of the work for us. But I agree and I think too, what I've learned in past experiences with clients is understanding what is their goal and motivation and also what are the KPIs that they care about. Because I think sometimes as marketers specifically I'm speaking to marketers we tend to focus on specific KPIs and so that's the data we choose to present. But oftentimes, if we haven't collected the information and insights as to what the client is actually looking for as a desired outcome from this test, then, yeah, you might be presenting the data that doesn't really matter, isn't really relevant to them either statistically or emotionally. Right, because, yeah, they're being driven from the top down to hit certain benchmarks. If you're not aware of what those are and you're not collecting that kind of information and data when you are running your tests, then, yeah, you're kind of setting yourself up to fail a little bit. But, like Chris said, that was helpful.
Speaker 1:Feel free to add more to the chat if you need more thoughts or ideas, but let's move on to the next question and please keep them coming. We've always got time for questions. We love them. Let's see, where were we? Given your expertise in technology, healthcare and entertainment startups? How do you see the innovation landscape evolving for those of you who are interested in this space, and how can individuals and businesses start to adapt and stay ahead, because innovation kind of just gets thrown around a lot, doesn't it? But where is it going and how can we keep it a part of our process?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is one of those words these days that's completely overused and means everything and nothing, one of the things I start with for sure. I think that it's interesting because, as individuals and businesses that are full of individuals, I think we've come to the point where there is no one technical skill right now that you can learn. At this point, that's gonna future-proof you and keep you innovative and at the vanguard. I mean, there's not a technical skill, but at this point, the skill I think is learning to adapt over and over again, that's like the master skill that's gonna get you through whatever the future throws at you.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think you have to be able to reinvent yourself, to innovate on yourself as a person to stay relevant. And then I think the exact same logic applies at a professional and at an organization level. So organizations that are willing to question some of the fundamentals in little and big ways and reinvent themselves from inside before someone external says you've been left behind. I think that's where the future of innovation is at this point.
Speaker 1:I love it, yeah, staying curious and flexible versus in your comfort zone and flexible and rigid and just kind of in that rut and routine. And it's funny, because you're here, people would say that I just feel so stuck. It's like, well, yeah, because you're not introducing any opportunity for change in your life and your work. So, yeah, your brain is hungering for those opportunities, like you said, to kind of play those new games and experience those new things. I love it, that's great. What are some of the key principles or approaches that you emphasize as a mentor and a teacher in global entrepreneurship and executive education programs to help future leaders navigate and capitalize on change?
Speaker 2:There's a few tools in my toolkit that I find what I like is that they're both inspiring and super practical. That's like my winning combo. So the first one I would say is the future thinking as a method You've probably heard.
Speaker 2:you can't predict the future, but you can analyze current signals and trends and project kind of scenarios out and then plan how do we move towards the scenarios that we're liking the most, the most desirable ones. So you can. Basically, what we say is you can design the future. So I think that's a really interesting exercise to do at an individual, but especially at an organization level, and if you haven't done that, then you don't really know what you're preparing for or what world you're hoping to move towards. So that's one toolkit. The second one is design thinking, which I mentioned a little bit before, but basically the idea that your users and your customers are constantly evolving and what they needed and what worked for them five years ago can very quickly become obsolete.
Speaker 2:So it is crucial to be user centered and check back in with them constantly to understand their needs and their problems and transform those into opportunities, as we were talking about, and so the design thinking method is just a really nice way of running that process and that method constantly with your customers. Another one is lean startup super related, but just the idea of, like, the biggest risk with new ideas is not doing anything with them, and most people think the biggest risk is doing something with them. I would say it's the opposite. Those ideas that we were just like, ooh, that's scary, let's just never look at it again.
Speaker 2:So I think we need to have cultures and processes that explore and test new ideas constantly, and it's amazing how quickly and cheaply and easily you can test an idea out to determine whether you want to keep going with it or not, and that's the test and learn idea that we were talking about before, and then the last toolkit we've been actually talking about in this entire conversation, but now we can put a label on it, which is change management, and those are the processes and the tools, of course, but it's also that human element that very often, even in change management, gets a little bit left behind. So I think it's about co-creating the change and communicating and supporting the change all along the process.
Speaker 1:No, those are great. I love that. I wrote all of those down and then I want to go back and refresh by thinking on some of them, because I think we say and talk about them a lot, but putting them into practice is like a part of our business strategy ongoing. As we're coming to end of year, I think it's a great time to sort of bring those topics back to mind so that we can introduce them to our companies, our clients. What have you? That's excellent.
Speaker 1:Oh, I remember the other thing I was going to say. It was Agile. I think it's so interesting. Agile has been introduced into so many environments and it is one of those things where it's taken a decade at least. I'm sure I feel like I remember when Agile was so new and now it's like all the rage, but really it's how we all should be working all the time. But it's considered this little niche and it's growing and I would like to see it continue too. But again, it's a great way to constantly be evolving and integrating change into your actual process, versus just saying change will happen when it has to happen, versus, like you were saying, where you're kind of future forecasting and then thinking through your desired outcome. I love that, like yeah, it's hard not to just get off these conversations and start working on things.
Speaker 1:I'm like ah, so many ideas. I love this. Thank you, Daphne All right. Well, we've got time for questions. If we have any others, otherwise, I'm going to just ask this last question that we have.
Speaker 2:Oh, we can't hear you anymore.
Speaker 1:That's because I accidentally tapped mute. I got all excited on my scrolling. I was just saying that I've got one last question to ask and if we don't have any other questions, we'll wrap it for the day. Otherwise, feel free to either put it in chat or come off of mute. Looking ahead, daphne what excites you the most about the future of innovation and how individuals and organizations can continue to adopt and thrive in our world? That's ever changing Because guess what, guys? It's just not going to stop. It's going to keep changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a given, that's a guarantee. Yep, in fact, I think that the most interesting thing within that is the pace of change is faster than it's ever been before, and that is a fact. In case you've been feeling it and you weren't sure, yes, that is a fact. I think it's exciting and terrifying, but it creates a context in which everyone now pretty much gets that change is no longer optional. So, yeah, for me, the image that I have is it's the ocean, the waves are coming. You can either ride them or you can do the washing machine feeling when you get crushed by them.
Speaker 2:But for me, it's exciting that this is a time for all of us to learn to ride the waves of change, so that we're not just surviving it, which I think is the feeling that sometimes people have when change comes at them, but actually embracing, driving and unlocking it. And so I'm on a mission these days to help people become change masters and really feel like it's a powerful force for good in their personal and professional and organizational lives. So I think it's an exciting time. It's scary and that's a good sign.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah, if it's scary, that means something's improving, that there's a chance for things to get better. Daphne, thank you so much. This has been really helpful, inspirational, but also informative and actionable, which we love and we appreciate. So thankful and grateful for the work that you're doing and excited that so many of you tuned in to listen to their live listening audience and our YouTube audience. This has been fantastic, thank you. Thanks, amy, it's been epic.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's a pleasure to talk Same same. All right, everyone. I hope you go into this weekend getting ready to embrace some change. We'll be back with you next week as we talk about designing your life and career versus just letting it live out and kind of dovetails off of this a little bit nicely. So I hope you join us next week as well. Until then, keep asking, keep giving and keep growing everyone. See you next week. Thank you all, Bye, Bye, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
