The Cognition of Innovation

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There are some people that make their
work just another thing they have to do,

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and there are those that make their
work something that they want to do.

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Welcome to Working on Purpose with your
host Elise Cortes. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration from those
people who have found deeper meaning and

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personal connection to their work life.
It's beyond nine to five, it's working

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on purpose. Now Here is your
host, Elise Cortes. Thanks for tuning

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in again this week. Great to
have you. I'm your host, Elise

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Cortes, joining you from Dallas,
Texas, which is home base for me.

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This program is all about helping people
more meaningfully and productively connect with their

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work and equipping organizations to do the
same for their employees. So I bring

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on guests to have a particular perspective
or experience that I think expands this conversation,

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and I often draw on the meeting
and work research I've conducted over the

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last fifteen years, as well as
from my own experience consulting, speaking and

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developing workforces cross the globe. I'll
get to the program and justin well,

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a fifty percent discount by using the
code WOP five zero short for Working on

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Purpose fifty percent off. Last week, if you missed the show live,

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you can always catch it be recorded
podcast. We were on the air with

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Rachel Melowe. She was an entrepreneur, speaker, author and mentor. She's

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the author of The Ten Commandments of
Success Without Apology. We talked about meeting

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our own expectations of success, what
we have to give up to do success

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on our own terms, and how
we can support and empower each other as

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women. Along this journey with us
this week is doctor Erica Jacobe. She

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is the executive director of LC Global
Consulting Incorporated, and she's all about change,

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growth and innovation, consulting with offices
in New York and Munich, Germany.

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We'll be talking about her fresh research
on the cognition of innovation she just

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completed in her PhD program, among
other things. She joined it today from

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New York City, Erica. Welcome
back to working on Purpose, Tally you.

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Thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here with you

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again. It is so great,
you know, I think about I was

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doing a little bit of historical looking
as I thought about our show tonight,

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and I was remembering, of course, we started together at the university,

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well, the Field and Garage University. You were working on your PhD sos

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I. We were both at a
conference sharing what we'd come up with in

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terms of our research, and that
was so great. We were both in

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India. That was amazing. That
was twenty fourteen, by the way,

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if you can possibly believe that,
and I think it was twenty sixteen.

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You were a guest on my show
and at that time, the topic that

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we took on was do you have
what it takes to make your dreams come

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true? And you had just opened
up your second consulting firm in America and

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had Simulteos started your doctoral program like
a crazy woman. So in hindsight,

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first things first, did your dream
come true? I think it did,

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and I'm smiling while you're introducing me. It wasn't easy in all fairness,

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and I think your description sort of
covers me. At times I felt like,

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oh my gosh, this was the
worst decision ever. And I felt

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like a crazy woman many, many, many times. But I do think

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my dream has come true. And
my dream for sure includes lifelong learning,

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and I think that is one of
the key factors, at least for me

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for working on purpose, which is
what the show is all about. I

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suppose. Well. And first let
me also say something that I want to

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call out, because any listeners that
have heard me a couple of times know

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that I have an affinity for languages, and I want to call out that

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I so appreciate that you have such
an ability to speak English and German and

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I don't know what else do you
speak? What else? Oh my gosh,

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a number of other languages, but
you know, English, French,

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and Spanish, but English and German
for sure being my best languages. It's

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really wonderful. I certainly applaud that, and the show does enjoy a global

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listenership, so it's great to have
people on who can speak other languages as

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well. Yes, I love it. So I want to get into your

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research incredibly exciting stuff that you worked
on around cognition and identity and really in

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self described successful businesses. So first
as before we even get into that,

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I want to understand what in the
world made you to decide to go and

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look into this field in the first
place. It's not I wouldn't say this

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is probably an easy field to inquire
into. No, it's really not.

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And a lot of people sort of
weren't me to do this research, and

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it wasn't easy, and I had
a lot of help from really great people

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and great scholar out there, so
it was a true collaborative effort. What

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made me explore the cognition of innovation
and what successful companies may be all about.

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Of course, we need more research
and how we can link cognition and

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linguistic patterns into this is my simple
work as a consultant. Whenever I go

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into an organization, people throw certain
what I would now call identity claims towards

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me. They would say, we're
all about innovation and Eric Hales's the stat

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and the other or believe it or
not. I've been in very, very

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successful organizations, companies of fortune fifty, where people would continuously say, all

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over the globe, it's time to
leave the sinking ship. And I was

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always thinking, that's really interesting.
For as long as the people have been

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saying that in such consistency, the
company had never ever gone down with the

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same marriage. I was always wondering, whenever a company says we're so innovative,

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is it really true? And you
know? And and what if so,

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what makes it true? What's the
what's the secret sauce behind it?

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And so my first masters was in
cognitive linguistics from the Ludwig Maximilians University in

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Munich, Germany, and so I
married my two fields for an interdisciplinary research

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study on the cognitive linguistic patterns in
what I would now call emergent identity claims

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we are innovative, it's time to
leave the thinking ship. We are moving

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forward always, so whenever the words
we are are involved, That's what I

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was interested in, and what is
the cognition behind that? And how does

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the sense of who we are actually
emerge in an organization, and how does

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it get fostered and sustained in an
organization? Oh, you know that I

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find this helplessly yummy on all fronts
because you know that, in addition to

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my research into meaning and work,
I also looked at how our work informs

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our sense of self or our identity. So I'm very interested and definitely want

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to dive into this. And so
next, if you would, now with

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that kind of a backdrop of where
this came from, help us get into

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your research. Can you summarize it
a bit? What exactly did you look

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at in your study and how did
you go about your study? I was

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capable. You know, one of
my mentors and committee dissertation committee members,

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doctor Mike Manning, gave me access
to their research data. They have been

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working with the Center of Values Based
Leadership from the Benedictine University. They had

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been doing a long term research project
that discovered the relationship between values and culture

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and success. So they had a
huge archive of data that dealt with these

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questions and they had done their own
research around this. So Mike Manning gave

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me access to some of that and
we looked into the self described organizations,

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self described successful organizations, and so
I got the data anonymized, and then

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I just really looked for the magic
formulas for my research. We are in

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various different shapes of forms, you
know, it's not always we are.

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It could be it is time to
leave the thinking ships. And so I

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did a whole lot of thinking in
preparation for this research as to how people

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could voice their reference to their own
company. And I had come up with

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five categories. One was who we
are if it pertains to that subject,

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what we do, how we do, what we do, how we know

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we belong because I thought that also
cater to the sense of who we are

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and what we can be in the
future. So I had come up with

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these categories in preparation for this research, and then I looked I had closed

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these in grammatical formulas so that also
a computer program could search this after my

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research, and then I had just
isolated those phrases and then I would run

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all of these phrases. I think
all in all it was like fifty thousand

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words that I looked at. Well, I know, I know it was

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tough, and there were many times
when I really really wanted to give up

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because I thought it's too much,
it's not manageable. But I'm glad I

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went through with the whole project.
So around fifty thousand words that I looked

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at and I analyzed them with the
typical cognitive linguistic lens. What we do

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is a couple of things. We
look at how much thought diversity versus thought

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homogeneity is there. We do know
that groups of any size, as it

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could be nations, it could be
teams, it could be you know,

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a couple, a romantic couple,
that groups of any sizes have what we

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call a shared memory, a shared
semantic memory. They used the same words,

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they often made the same grammatical mistakes, or they have their own linguals,

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so to speak, and that tells
us something about the thought homogeneity and

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the thought diversity within that group.
So my first question was, like,

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in these self described successful organizations,
how much how much shared semantic memory do

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we have because some of these organizations
were extremely geographically dispersed, And is that

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really also true this assumption? Is
it true for companies that at times have

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four hundred and forty thousand employees all
over the world, And does this assumption

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that we have in cognitive linguistics.
Does it still hold true? And the

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answer, at least based on my
research, is yes. They all the

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companies I looked into had that shared
semantic memory. They would use very often

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the same vocabulary, although they were
geographically dispersed, very often not even very

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much in touch with the headquarters.
For example, they would use the same

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vocabulary to describe their identity, the
sense of who we are. And I

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thought this was breathtaking to start out
with, but then I also found a

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certain dynamic behind the whole thing.
But I might want to pause here to

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give me a little bit of a
breather to digest the whole thing. Yes,

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thank you for that, because I
do want to hear a little bit

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about some of your surprises in AHAs
And wow, I didn't think of that.

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I would see that kind of stuff. That's always wonderful as a researcher

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to be delighted like that. So
those five categories in terms of your actual

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results, are your results that there
are these five categories? Or how would

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you summarize your actual results? The
five categories something I went in with,

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right, so that would sort of
be a circular Yes, I did find

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them, but we all know we
all know that when you're looking for something,

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you will also find them, right, yes, right, so,

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yes, that was confirmed. But
I was much more interested in how would

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I find them in which proportion?
Leaning to so, I was very very

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surprised that the self described successful organizations
would hardly ever talk about who we are.

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They would always almost always talk about
how we do what we do.

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Another finding that blew me away,
really and I might want to say something

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upfront so that people can understand my
own assumption that I had. In cognitive

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linguistics, which is of course very
closely related to anything that goes on in

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your brain and your psyche and so
on, we have a certain definition of

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the word success. It is that
you can that you can construe and co

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construe the future to your own desire, so that you can really construe a

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desired future. For that very reason, I was very interested in how often

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it was a quantitative study as well, how often people would talk about the

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future of this company, you know, And as a consultant, I very

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very often go into organizations and it's
all about tomorrow. You know, what,

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what are we going to do tomorrow? What? And let's do this,

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and let's do that, and so
I was relatively certain that I would

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find predominantly the sense of what we
can be in the future, that people

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would talk about that, and they
in our companies, they practically did not

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talk about that. That was my
first finding that blew me away. And

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that also confirmed in a way my
own research set up, because if you

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don't find what you expected, then
I think you know that you said the

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research up fairly well, you know, yeah, I was really surprised about

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that. And instead what those companies
were doing, they were talking about what

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we're doing now and how we're doing
things, not the future, got it,

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Not the future. And then there
were other true surprises that I didn't

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expect at all, given I mean
with my background in linguistics and cognitive linguistics,

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I did expect those companies to have
a shared semantic memory. What I

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didn't expect was that it was so
clear, and that there was also a

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certain cognitive type behind each and every
company. So for each and every company,

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I could really almost come up with
the cognitive DNA, the way they

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think across members, across levels,
and a surprising imogeneity in those companies around

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the way they think about their company
and about how they do the things that

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they do, So that surprised me. And another thing that surprised me was

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also that we do have certain cognitive
linguistic patterns that we find, shall we

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say, healthier than others. For
example, that we normally wouldn't use the

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word no too often. Right,
But there was one company that consistently described

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themselves via negated sentences. They would
always describe what they don't do, and

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that surprised me. But it was
so consistent across their own organization that it

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was just their type of conversing with
each other. It was just their their

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style of thinking around their company,
and it obviously didn't do them any harm.

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So one could summarize that by saying, maybe those culture brandings are overrated.

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It doesn't really matter so much what
people think about their own organization.

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It's much more the homogeneity around it
that that stays consistent. Wow, And

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with that, I want to delve
more into what you talked about their Erica,

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but let's go ahead and take a
quick break here. I'm Alice Cortez,

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your host. We are on an
air with Erica Jacobe. She is

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a freshly minted PhD. She is
the executive director of LC Global Consulting,

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Inc. Which is a change,
growth and innovation consulting firm with offices in

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New York and Munich, Germany.
We've been talking a bit about what got

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her into her research and some of
her actual results. After the break,

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we're to talk about some of the
applications within organizations and what she's learned there.

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Stay with us, we'll be right
back. Alise Cortes is a speaker

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00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:22.920
and engagement and development catalyst. She
designs and delivers professional development, leadership and

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00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:26.960
engagement workshops and can bring her expertise
to your organization. She will help ignite

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00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:33.440
meaningful development within your workforce that will
increase employee engagement, performance and retention.

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00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:37.720
To learn more or to invite Elise
to speak to your organization, please visit

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00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:42.160
her at www dot Elise Coortes dot
com. She would welcome the opportunity to

215
00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:53.480
help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise

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00:18:53.519 --> 00:19:00.000
Cortes. To reach our program today, send an email to a lease Alisa

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00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:07.000
see at a least Coortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose for

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00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:10.519
just joining us. My guest is
doctor Erica Jacobi. She's the executive director

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of LC Global Consulting, Inc.
Which is a change growth and innovation consulting

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firm with offices in New York City
and Munich, Germany. Before the break,

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we were talking about your some of
the findings that you found, Erica,

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and I want to give you a
chance to add anything else that you

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would like to presence for us around
finds. Then I want to make one

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comment on some of the things you've
been saying. Okay, you want to

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make a comment afterwards, okay,
yes, So I think I've been stressing

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the thought imaginity quite a bit in
the last outline before the break, but

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there was not only thought imagineity there. There was also diversity. There,

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quite a considerable diversity thought diversity.
And what I thought was really interesting is

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that that diversity did not always originate
at the top level. Much of the

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homogeneity originated from the level, from
the top management levels. That spontaneity,

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the diversity in their thinking around their
own identity and in their cognitive types,

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that was much more driven by,
shall we say, the lower levels of

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the organization. And I thought that
was quite breathtaking. I was fascinated by

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it. And another tendency that I
saw that that really blew my mind away,

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was that there were certain tendencies in
the top management across all companies that

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almost overdid things. They were so
certain of how to almost brand their companies,

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and they always knew how to sort
of position their companies. And surprisingly

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so in the lower levels. I
don't like the word, but you know,

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just for lack of a better one, in the other levels of the

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organization, it was a true soul
searching. They weren't sure of how to

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brand their company. It was really
almost stream of consciousness. They almost made

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their identity up in the moment.
And it was even more surprising that then

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they used the same vocabulary around it. But there was a tendency in all

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organizations to level extreme tendencies, mostly
by the top management, where it was

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an overbranding, an overbranded pattern,
shall we say, those would be leveled

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out, they would be really interpreted, they would be softened. And I

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thought was really for me one of
these signs of the cognition of innovation,

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that if we have extreme tendencies in
any organization, that in a healthy organization,

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these will be leveled out by other
parts of the organization in the same

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way if we have a consistent way
of describing and feeling and living and practicing

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our identity by around eighty percent in
a healthy organization, I think this much

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we can say at least for this
research, there would also be totally new

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ways of describing the very same phenomenon. And by that I really mean important

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words like what does it mean to
be successful in this company? So we

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would have different representations for what that
would mean. So we had an overall

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homogeneity around what it means to be
successful here, But then there would be

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new tendencies and that's where the innovation
can start. So it is this almost

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crazy, almost wild dynamic of difficult
to replicate for sure, dynamic of yes,

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we need this sense of identity and
that's where we need homogeneity. And

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then we also need this dynamic of
new things to emerge, and that needs

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to be possible. And in my
eyes, the strongest reading that I had

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from the from the findings is really
that in a healthy organization, whatever wild

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tendencies, overdone tendencies of balanced tendencies
there are in an organization. In a

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healthy organization, at least, that's
what I would like to probe into for

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my next research, these will be
balanced out. So those were my pretty

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surprising findings. I would say,
how delicious. I'm so glad that I

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get to be here to catch this
and share it with our listeners across the

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globe. I'm very, very interested
and wanted to ask a couple of questions

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here and forgive me the first one's
probably going to sound very very germane and

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basic. Two, But I don't
have a background and cognitive linguistics like you

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do. I am noticing that when
you talk about how you're paying attention to

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this language of how they talk about, how they innovate and start of the

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thinking that comes behind that. What
I'm present to is within the work that

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I've been doing in management consulting is
we talk a lot about the declative power

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of language. That when the way
in which we use language is so important

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and can empower us or disempower us, can limit us, can give us

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to, can send us into possibility. And I'm very present to the power

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of that those language structures that you're
talking about with in organizations. Can you

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comment on that? Yes, number
one, I would say you are saying

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it much more eloquently than I ever. That's wonderful. Yeah, I would

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say, I would confirm that,
and I would say that much of the

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research would confirm that too. And
it's not the big wuha, it's not

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around positive thinking. It's just really
how almost our brain is wired. And

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I think, I don't want to
overcomplicate things, but it is almost a

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way of how our brain and therefore
organizations and people how we learn, and

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that happens through language very often.
So our brain whenever we look at any

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phenomenon, it could be a cheer, it could be the word success,

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which is really multi layered. Nobody
really knows what success is, right,

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So the way our brain works is
we look at an object or a thing,

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a phenomenon and attached meaning to it, that meaning will of persons,

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where human beings come by a language. And then we would also say there

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has been a decade long, century
long research around this, that there is

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language that can enable future possibilities better
than other language. I would say,

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and we have so much research around
what we call, for example, generative

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metaphors, where companies also use metaphors
to create future worlds. I know of

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one company that for example, modeled
their organization designed via looking at how a

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city is modeled and so on,
and that's how they use that language around

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that metaphor to shape their organization design, which is very powerful. With that

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said, it's unfortunately my research is
not that easier didn't lend itself to these

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findings quite so readily. One I
found, for sure, language that I

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would usually pin down as not so
helpful, but it worked for them.

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It was an extraordinarily successful company,
so it worked for them. And I

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even developed the thought further because I
was so struck by the idea that they

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would use all this relatively negative language. And I really found out that each

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and every company had their cognitive around
matters of growth. For example, so

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one company would have a conservative,
preservative cognitive type around the way they grew,

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so they would always say we're not
doing this and this and this,

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but we're doing that. And that
was consistent throughout the entire organization. They

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would always construe their identity in respect
to their growth strategies or even subconscious or

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unconscious growth strategies, with we will
never ever do this and that, but

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we will always do something else.
So in their company it didn't play out

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negatively at all. And so it's
almost at least in my research, if

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it goes along well with your identity, with your growth type, with your

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cognition. Then it just goes along
well, wonderful, wonderful. Okay,

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So that leads me to the next
question that I want to pose before we

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go onto our next break. Here
we've been talking a bit about where this

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research came from and some of the
interesting findings that you found. Let's now

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apply it. So people that are
listening to the show who care about innovation,

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care about culture leaders, how what
can they take from what you've shared?

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What does it mean in terms of
being a consultant or being a business

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leader what you've learned. Yeah,
thanks for that question, because I think

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it's a very important question. None
of us want to do research that just

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stays in the in the drawers or
in the business of our computers. Right.

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I've been thinking about this one long
and hard, and of course we

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need more research. But I think
we have very strong indicators that, of

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course we have tendencies in the Western
business culture to overbrand our culture, to

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overbrand our identity. But I really
didn't find any of those over branded patterns

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or sentences to even only fly around
the organization, so those would really go

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last. Instead. I think this
free sense making of things. This leaving

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room for attaching new meaning to old
words. I think that is so important.

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And while I don't want people to
go out there and overbrand that,

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I do think it's important to sort
of establish the sense of home. We

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know who we are, we know
what we do in this company, and

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we do know how we do certain
things. But it cannot be this relentlessly

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repeated slogan. It should be based
on this sense making that people can only

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have if they live and practice these
things. That's what we know about language.

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It will only come out that way
if people have a lived memory behind

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it, a practice memory behind it. So it is something that comes from

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the shared practices and it doesn't come
from branding. So I want to be

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a little bit careful what I'm saying
here, but just to be a little

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bit poignant, I would say,
maybe not down the culture initiatives a little

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bit. Don't overbrand your identity,
don't overbrand your branding and your culture initiatives.

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For true innovation to take place,
I think we need the freedom to

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really, on the one hand,
feel at home, have a shared sense

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of how we do things. But
then there needs to be this free floating

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let's attach again, meaning new meaning
to old things. And if we look

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at things like agile team collaboration,
one thing that I could tell people maybe

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is, of course it's based on
giving each other daily feedback. But then

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let's look at each other whether we
have really understood the differentiations a lot,

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because sometimes when we give each other
feedback, we just go like, oh,

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I understand what you were trying to
say, and then we take it

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from there. But I think for
true, for truly new things to emerge,

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it's important to really establish mechanisms where
you can say, oh, hey,

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we want to reframe this a little
bit together as a team. Because

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other than that, I think even
in an agile team, things can become

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the same old, same old really
quickly. Okay, perfect with that.

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Hold on, let's take another quick
break because I want to come back and

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ask more about that. I Emily
score tes your homes. We're on the

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air with doctor Erica Jacobi, who
is the executive director of LC Global Consulting,

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Inc. A change growth and innovation
consulting firm with offices in New York

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City in Munich, Germany. We've
been talking about her research for findings and

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00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:15.920
how they can be applied within organizations
to improve innovation. Stay with us,

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00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:21.920
welcome write back. Alice Cortes is
a speaker and engagement and development catalyst.

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00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:27.559
She designs and delivers professional development,
leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her

365
00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:31.720
expertise to your organization. She will
help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that

366
00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:37.720
will increase employee engagement, performance and
retention. To learn more or to invite

367
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:43.039
Elise to speak to your organization,
please visit her at www dot Elise Coortes

368
00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:46.920
dot com. She would welcome the
opportunity to help get your employees working on

369
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:59.240
purpose. This is working on Purpose
with Elise Cortes. To reach our program

370
00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:05.440
today, send an email to a
lease Alise at a lease Coortes dot com.

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00:34:05.559 --> 00:34:09.480
Now back to working on purpose.
If you're just tuning in, My

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guest is doctor Erica Jacobi. She's
a newly meanted PhD. By the way,

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She's the executive director of LC Global
Consulting, Inc. Which is a

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change, growth in innovation consulting firm
with offices in New York City and Munich,

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00:34:21.239 --> 00:34:24.159
Germany. I want to also thank
my sponsor, Recover Mattress. They

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00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:30.519
are a hybrid mattress designed to improve
sleep from a muscle recovery for active lifestyles.

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00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.199
They helped make the show possible.
Thank you to them. So before

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the break, Erica, we were
talking a bit about some of your findings

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and how companies can start to use
what you found to improve their innovation.

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And one of the things that I
really was riveted onto is what you had

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said earlier on in the show about
that the innovation wasn't necessarily driven from the

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higher up leadership, but rather some
of the more individual contributor team members.

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And I got this idea of you
know, really letting them play, letting

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them just letting them loose, if
you will. Can you comment a bit

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on that of how that showed it
for you in your research? Yeah,

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I mean I would have. I
would absolutely agree with you, and I

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think in my dissertation, which is
going to be published very very soon,

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I sort of threw the parallel to
sort of saying like identity is almost acquired,

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like in the way we acquire a
first language. It's like, yes,

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the parents give the role model,
and they will just be who they

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are and they will speak the way
they speak. And that's how any child

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up a first language, just by
being in the same environment and so on,

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and then at one point, I
think for really being able to freely

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construe desired future states. Again,
that is the definition of success in many

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kinds of linguistic literatures. That's when
we almost need to say, okay,

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now you can use your language and
do with it whatever you want to do,

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right, And that's where the innovation
and the success and the new future

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desired states can can emerge and and
come into being. And I thought this

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was quite a nice parallel, and
I would second your thought. It is

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about Yes, of course there are
boundaries, and I think boundaries are equally

401
00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:37.079
important for innovation and success. But
the rest we need to trust people that

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00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:42.960
they will just get it right,
so to speak. Right they if they

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00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:46.760
play with things, it'll it'll be
all right. They will probably not say

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00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:52.719
anything bad against the culture or so. I think it's a big creedle for

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00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:59.280
we don't need to be quite so
concerned in a in a vibrant organization,

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things will be all right. I
just had a wonderful, marvelous another delicious

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thought. I want to try to
sound really quick and see if this also

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jies with what you came up with
and what you know about cognitive linguistics.

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When I'm out speaking to audiences,
especially around passion and purpose and identity,

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I talk to them about how they
have their own life story, that they

411
00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:25.519
themselves are the author and therefore they're
also the editor. They can change the

412
00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:30.360
way that they see themselves and therefore
their identity based on how they talk about

413
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:34.920
their life stories. Are we talking
the same sort of thing? Absolutely?

414
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:38.800
Okay, That's why I thought it
was. So. You know, when

415
00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:43.199
we look at research, we always
want to know the findings from the end,

416
00:37:43.320 --> 00:37:46.119
but I think there were some findings
in between, and for me,

417
00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:52.239
one of the greatest findings of all
was that they all, and I'm talking

418
00:37:52.480 --> 00:37:58.840
every single person that I looked at, they all had the stream of consciousness

419
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:04.800
whenever and remember I didn't even look
at other things of the interview. And

420
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.960
also we need to remember that these
things happen rather unconsciously. The interviews were

421
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:15.760
conducted around a totally different topic,
so whenever they were talking about who they

422
00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:22.320
are as a company, that's when
they would go into this almost insane stream

423
00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:27.159
of consciousness, which made the research
and the analysis really really difficult. For

424
00:38:27.239 --> 00:38:31.760
me. And you know, of
course I had co coders and it was

425
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:36.440
reviewed and by other people, and
some other cognitive linguists said like, oh

426
00:38:36.519 --> 00:38:39.960
my gosh, you know, the
grammar goes off. They're almost totally off

427
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:45.840
here. How can we analyze this
that I was thinking, this is the

428
00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:52.599
greatest finding. They do not draw
upon slogans that you know, they they

429
00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:58.960
are not preaching to the choir,
they're not chanting their values. They have

430
00:38:59.079 --> 00:39:07.960
to construe what it means to be
us in the moment. That's how unconsciously

431
00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:12.519
they're operating in the way we are
and in the way we do things.

432
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:21.039
And for that to come out eighty
percent the same in an organization that I

433
00:39:21.159 --> 00:39:24.800
found really breathtaking. And of course
I would also almost like to develop this

434
00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:30.719
into a you know, towards an
assessment tool and things like this. But

435
00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:34.440
it is that stream of consciousness where
I thought like, this is something that

436
00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:38.119
happens in the moment, and that's
what I found so breathtaking around this.

437
00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:43.559
So I don't know whether you see
the connection to what you said, but

438
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:46.880
I do. I do, And
I also want to acknowledge just again how

439
00:39:46.960 --> 00:39:51.719
lovely it is to see somebody living
in passion and purpose and the work that

440
00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:54.239
they do. It's lovely to behold. It's enticing, it's enchanting. Who

441
00:39:54.280 --> 00:39:58.159
doesn't want to be around stuff like
this? When someone's turned on about what

442
00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:00.519
they're up to in life, it's
just great. So so glad you're here

443
00:40:00.519 --> 00:40:05.079
with me and we're sharing what you've
been up to with the listeners. Same

444
00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:08.480
here, So let's take it again
back. So when when I'm think that

445
00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:14.159
I'm an organization, I met with
a fantastic leader today in Dallas and really

446
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:19.639
respecting and admire his work in leadership. If if we were going to introduce

447
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:22.119
and I suppose we are in ismo, but introduced this research to some various

448
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:27.280
leaders across the globe, how can
they take what you learned to help improve

449
00:40:27.320 --> 00:40:34.599
their organization and help improve innovation within
the organization. Again, I don't think

450
00:40:34.679 --> 00:40:39.320
we are ready to have ready made
answers, but yes, but what I

451
00:40:39.320 --> 00:40:49.079
would hope is almost Peter sange One
said about his really groundbreaking work. Not

452
00:40:49.159 --> 00:40:53.239
that I want to compare myself to
him, but he once said in one

453
00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:59.639
of his books around his concept of
the learning organization, I do hope this

454
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:04.480
does not become the next fad right, Yes, far from it, of

455
00:41:04.519 --> 00:41:08.239
course, with my research, but
I do hope that nobody would ever take

456
00:41:08.280 --> 00:41:10.800
this and sort of say like,
Okay, now we do X, Y

457
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:15.320
Z right. So it's not that
easy, and I find that a blessing.

458
00:41:16.199 --> 00:41:25.480
What I would hope for leaders to
take away is that is maybe an

459
00:41:25.599 --> 00:41:35.400
affirmation of the capability to stay within
uncertainty. If that needs sense, it

460
00:41:34.920 --> 00:41:44.639
all does beautifully. So you know, we have so many leadership concepts nowadays.

461
00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:50.159
The question really is how do we
live in a very very uncertain world

462
00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:53.000
where we have many threats? In
the business world, we have so many

463
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:59.400
threats that we don't even have that
and I think that is the number one

464
00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:04.840
leader ship capability that we need for
leaders to develop, that they can stay

465
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:10.880
within an absolute uncertain space and make
sense of that. And the only news

466
00:42:10.960 --> 00:42:16.280
I have is, guess what you
can in a healthy organization. You can

467
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:22.559
trust your people, You can trust
your you will have established everything it takes

468
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:29.880
for these people to to operate in
the best way they know around their company.

469
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:35.519
Again, almost like with children and
great parents, that at one point

470
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:38.840
we do know what it takes to
be successful in this company, and then

471
00:42:38.920 --> 00:42:44.000
they can go out and play,
as you said, and do things on

472
00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:49.480
their own. And a leader of
such an organization can rest assured that they

473
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:54.280
will have done everything it takes to
sort of give them that sense of belonging.

474
00:42:55.559 --> 00:43:00.639
There was one other finding that I
would like to point out. It's

475
00:43:00.679 --> 00:43:06.360
a little bit early days, but
all of them, to an extraordinarily high

476
00:43:06.400 --> 00:43:14.199
percentage, we were almost talking like
four times across companies per identity claim,

477
00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:20.079
which is right seriously doubled and triple
check my own findings. Those people were

478
00:43:20.440 --> 00:43:25.920
attaching their sense of who we are
and how we do things to spatial categorizations.

479
00:43:27.639 --> 00:43:31.840
And from what we think we know
around cognitive linguistics is that we can

480
00:43:31.880 --> 00:43:37.599
almost draw a mindmap in their from
their brains. They are really while they

481
00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:45.360
were doing their their their sense making, while they were in that stream of

482
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:50.960
consciousness, you could have almost seen
how they were walking around in the company.

483
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.679
That means they were there and they
felt so great about this that they

484
00:43:55.880 --> 00:43:59.599
just went like, huh, how
do we do things here? You know,

485
00:43:59.639 --> 00:44:02.679
they did even feel stressed out of
having to, you know, to

486
00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:08.639
chant certain slowans quite to the country. I also found that a good twenty

487
00:44:08.719 --> 00:44:14.360
percent they were totally contradicting each other. You know, one person would say,

488
00:44:14.679 --> 00:44:17.920
we always do things like this and
another would say the exact opposite,

489
00:44:20.239 --> 00:44:24.639
and that is healthy. And I
think that can help leaders as well,

490
00:44:24.719 --> 00:44:32.760
to sort of stay in that uncertainty
space and almost roll with it and and

491
00:44:34.039 --> 00:44:43.639
rest assured that as long as we
have this dynamic diversity, that's what keeps

492
00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:47.480
the organization healthy. I you know, I need to still do the next

493
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:53.880
research, which would be research on
companies that are stuck. But what I

494
00:44:53.920 --> 00:45:00.880
would expect is really the opposite.
I would almost expect very branded language or

495
00:45:01.239 --> 00:45:07.599
or you know that people have much
more thought, so much inanity or whatever

496
00:45:07.639 --> 00:45:14.440
else. It remains to be seen. But I am relatively certain that for

497
00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:21.800
companies to be that successful we're talking
of extraordinary success, extraordinary success here with

498
00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:28.960
these case companies, we need that
dynamic. So I don't know whether this

499
00:45:29.079 --> 00:45:32.400
is helpful. I know there are
easier answers around leadership, but I don't

500
00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:37.320
believe in them any longer. Well, a couple of things to that,

501
00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:38.719
A couple of things to that.
At first, I want to get what

502
00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:44.039
chuk. What I got out of
that was the importance of diversity and enrolling

503
00:45:44.199 --> 00:45:51.760
or inviting diversity and encouraging people from
various diverse perspectives and experiences to contribute their

504
00:45:51.880 --> 00:45:53.800
their thought and their their perspective,
is what I got out of that.

505
00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:58.320
Another thing that I got that you
said earlier too, that I think is

506
00:45:58.360 --> 00:46:00.079
really interesting. Well, we'll be
before I say that just a second.

507
00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:05.719
Let me also say that I also
appreciate that you are not giving pat answers

508
00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:08.119
like companies should go do this,
I recommend that they take this action,

509
00:46:08.199 --> 00:46:13.840
this behavior, which would be very
very prescriptive. And I appreciate that you're

510
00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:19.480
actually help making us think. And
I think that's really an important distinction between

511
00:46:19.880 --> 00:46:22.320
what we often hear in terms of
what's out there and what you're doing for

512
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:25.519
us today. And I really applaud
that, Eric. I think you it's

513
00:46:25.559 --> 00:46:30.719
important for us to think for ourselves. And then the other thing that I

514
00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:34.639
wanted to call out a little bit
was you said something about reframing before,

515
00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:39.440
and I can certainly imagine that in
a conversation in an organization where maybe they're

516
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:43.199
talking about something and maybe they are
stuck and they keep saying the same things

517
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:45.280
over and over again, and I
wonder what would happen is if somebody even

518
00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:51.159
just said, can we reframe that
for just a moment. Yeah, I

519
00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:57.119
mean, I'm just really trying to
put my thoughts into the more applicable cloughts

520
00:46:57.119 --> 00:47:01.880
into a for example, block articles
or or webcasts or whatever else podcasts.

521
00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:07.639
And I was also really thinking reframing
is a great art because I would even

522
00:47:07.719 --> 00:47:13.079
buy by now. I would even
urge all of us, all of us.

523
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:15.760
I mean, we walk around in
the business world, we walk around

524
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:21.480
in our daily lives, all of
us to question certain words. Diversity is

525
00:47:21.519 --> 00:47:24.840
one of them. I always think
when we talk about diversity, we sort

526
00:47:24.840 --> 00:47:29.480
of say, yeah, we appreciate
diversity as long as you think my way.

527
00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:34.440
And I mean I think we all
have me included those you know,

528
00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:39.079
hot buttons where we could explode the
minute we hear certain things. And that's

529
00:47:39.480 --> 00:47:44.800
in my work with teams and organizations
and leaders. That's where I always urge

530
00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:49.599
people to now as the time,
you know, when you sense this almost

531
00:47:49.719 --> 00:47:53.800
anger. We've all been there,
right, this anger around certain ideas,

532
00:47:55.039 --> 00:47:59.280
this this oh my gosh, how
could you even only say that? That's

533
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:06.079
the time that that those emotions which
we all want to suppress in meetings and

534
00:48:06.239 --> 00:48:13.159
in organizations and so on. I
always think and urge leaders to to sort

535
00:48:13.159 --> 00:48:16.920
of take that as your guideline to
say, okay, whatever was said here

536
00:48:17.039 --> 00:48:24.199
is probably really really important. So
anger is a good signpost. Laughter another

537
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:30.239
one, silence another one. Whenever
we find ourselves in meetings and people,

538
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:38.320
you know, someone one of my
work with the company. We we once

539
00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:44.559
said, you know, just brainstorming
what could we develop for the future.

540
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:50.960
And then someone said, well what
about if this company won the Nobel Prize?

541
00:48:51.400 --> 00:48:55.519
And everybody started started laughing, and
I said, pause, what for?

542
00:48:57.800 --> 00:49:01.159
So that's that whenever there is after, whenever there is anger that we

543
00:49:01.239 --> 00:49:06.639
want to suppress, whenever there is
silence. I think those are good fine

544
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:14.360
posts that we're we're trying to gloss
over differences. That is a fantastic way

545
00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:17.320
to finish the show. What an
incredibly powerful point to finish with doctor Erica

546
00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:22.599
Jacoby. It is so great to
have you back on the show and listeners.

547
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:24.199
If you want to learn more about
the work that Erica and her team

548
00:49:24.280 --> 00:49:28.800
do, or check out her research
or engage with her about her research contactor,

549
00:49:28.880 --> 00:49:35.800
you can visit her website. It's
lcdash globalashus dot com. Join us.

550
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:39.280
Next week we have yet another delightful
conversation about this topic of meaningful and

551
00:49:39.280 --> 00:49:42.920
productive work. And remember that work
is at least one third of our life,

552
00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:47.480
so let's work on purpose. Well, we hope you've enjoyed this week's

553
00:49:47.519 --> 00:49:52.079
program. Be sure to tune in
to Working on Purpose, featuring your host

554
00:49:52.159 --> 00:49:58.519
Alis Cortes, each week on the
Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week,

555
00:49:58.760 --> 00:50:00.079
find your life's purpose at work