Transforming the Uncertainty of Change into Opportunity and Growth

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W Forcy Radio, it's employees their affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W Forcy Radio or its employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W Forcy Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, Doctor Release Cortez. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program. Lease for tuning in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Doctor las Cortez join ELI from Dallas, which is home base for me. If we've not met yet, you don't know me. I'm a management consultant, organizational logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I, at Least Cortes and Associates help companies to enliven their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meaning and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant workplace. There people are in terms of be motivated,

1:30 perform with their best, grown to their fluor of potential, and are committed to stay and help deliver on the company's mission. You can learn more about us and now we can work together at a last quartz dot com. Now let's get into today's program with us. Is Curtis Bateman, an internationally recognized presenter, content developer, change consultant, business leader, and coach. Curtis's career enabling organizations at change has taken him all over the world and today overseeing the success at Franklin Covey's entire international division. Curtis's one of the four authors of Change, How to Turn Uncertainty into opportunity, which is what we'll be talking about today. He's joined us today from Provo, Utah. Curtis, Welcome to working on Purpose. Hi, at least, great to be with you this evening. Really appreciate who you are in the world and what you've done. I want to show are those that are actually tuning in via beaute to look at this beautiful book they've created. You know, I say this a lot anybody and listen to my show quite a bit. Curtis, what I can tell you, having been through both is what you did here is actually harder than bringing a baby into the world. Just so you know, you wouldn't know better than I, but it was a lot of work, right, so I could really appreciate that. You know, I've had four books out right now and each time I think to myself, I don't know what I was thinking, but I'm glad that thing is birthed. But anyway, happy to talk with you about this. Yeah. So, so first I just wanted to kind of open the show a little bit cheeky here.

2:57 You know, change gets kind of a bad rap. People say things like nobody likes change, and I think about that that's not true. You know, if tomorrow I get delivered a brand new car in my driveway, I like that change. You know, if I get promoted at work, or somebody says you know you're about you get to go to whatever, some exotic place, I like that change. So I just want to kind of hear from your perspective this notion of people don't like change. Yeah, I love. I love the examples you gave to start with, and that the examples explain the reason for why people do and don't like change. We like change when it leads to something great for us, or it's something we've initiated.

3:38 But this lifetime of I don't like change usually comes from changes that feel imposed, pushed on us, changes we haven't chosen. So I like to say when change is imposed, change is opposed, people push back against it, and in a work context, that's often the default setting. It's happening to me. Therefore I don't like it, and I'm going to push back. Right, But given that I read your book, I knew you were to say something like that, but it's so much better when you say it. Okay, So this is also kind of interesting. What I like to do when I do the show Curtesis, because I really appreciate you, know, the written word and how you craft something. I will read different bits from your book and then I ask you to comment in. But one of the things that you say here, which I thought was quite interesting here is despite our biological programming, we yearn for the progress and results that change can bring, whether personally or in our organizations, communities, culture, societies, and even the world. Knowing that we all see change from different points of view or experiences or paradigms can help us navigate and turn our inherent uncertainty into greater opportunities. Here here, Yeah, isn't that great? That's so, you know, the biological programming is part of what gets in the way for us.

4:54 We feel like some changes introduced threat, and so we retreat into the fire or flight, and that's that's not helpful because it shuts down our thinking and our creativity. On the flip side of that, if you think about so many of the great things that happen in life, they are the result of change that's happened. And so we have these two competing forces. Are our reptilian brain saying hold on, protect me, I got I gotta make sure I'm safe here, and then lots of experiences where change has led to something better, and that doesn't stop us from the friction, right, But part of what we're trying to accomplish in the book is to help people recognize that and recognize there is a predictability to it that if we learn and understand, then we can move more towards the benefit side of the change more consistently.

5:46 You know, one thing that as a logotherapist is somebody he really tries to help people grow through their lives and their leadership and to embrace the challenges and certainly even uncertainty and such in order to become more of grown or potential. I can certainly go back and say I was I remember distinctly being fired twice, and I've gone through the wors and those things have really been tremendous catalyzing agents for me. Yeah, And both all three of those examples are change imposed, right, And that's the moment where choice gets introduced. And depending on how we learn to make choices in those circumstances and to recognize what's going on with the change process, that's what creates the transition into opportunity or into loss and to feeling like the change was just a bad thing for us.

6:39 So it's a really interesting circumstance because we are all experiencing change in some way, shape or form pretty constantly. Right, it's not going away, it's all around us. And so learning what to do with all of that, all the energy that gets created when it's imposed or when we choose it as part of the journey that we take people on as they read through the book. Well, and even just one of the great things. One of the reasons I keep hosting the show, as I said to you before we gone in our eight and a half years in is because I learned something. I read your books cover to cover because this is part of my catalyzing growth. So I never, for example, thought about what you write about in the book, the five common reactions to change. Would you talk to us just kind of give us introduce them those five different common reactions and then say just a couple. I know in your book you have a whole list of full on advantages and disadvantages for each one. Would you just take us through that. Yeah. Early on, as we were doing our initial work on change years ago, we realized that there were just so many reactions that people experience. But when we looked at it, we found that there were five that we're really commonly showing up. The first one is move, and again, this isn't a personality type, This isn't a label on somebody. This is just a reaction in a changing circumstance. Move either thrives on something they new or has a little bit of an attention deficit with what's going on.

8:03 They get bored easily, and so when a change is introduced, there's just this energy and enthusiasm. The risk is it may be unguided or unprepared enthusiasm. So it's got a strength and a potential weakness, and we love move. They play an important part in change. The second one is minimized. These are people that have been through changes and say, hey, I'm just going to do the least amount possible till I see what's going on till I understand better. And so they're preserving energy, they're protecting themselves in preparation for when they might need to do something. Then there's weight, and weight is saying I have seen this movie before. Changes get introduced, they don't always work. Sometimes we undo them and go back to the way things are, I'm just going to wait and see what happens. And they do that because of experience. Their experience bias leads them to that response. Then there's a resist. Resist is saying I don't like this change. I'm going to work pretty actively to fight against it. I'm at the water cooler, I'm talking about why this is a bad idea, etc. And then there's quit and quits. It's funny we hadn't identified quit or quits until I was giving a keynote one time and I had about five thousand people in the room and about ten people walked out during an activity, and I thought, wait a minute, where are you going? Yeah, you said that book. I realized they this just wasn't for them. And that's true with changes in our workplace

9:39 sometimes in our personal lives as well, where we say, hey, this change doesn't work for me, which is interesting because you're then initiating a much larger change. Or if you are quits, you quit and stay. That's what quiet quitting has been about. I'm still here, but I'm not doing anything. I'm just riding along. And so we see these reactions. They're neither right nor wrong. They just are. But as we learn to recognize them, we can learn to say, is this the right reaction or if it isn't, what's the right reaction in the circumstance to help me maximize the benefits of this change. Yeah, and what we'll talk about this later as we go, But what I appreciate is that you really distinguished in the book that there's, there's they all play a role in change and how change gets affected inside organizations, and there are you talk about ways that leaders can relate to those different types of of change, which I think is really really terrific.

10:31 So we'll talk about that later as we go, leaders and gentlemen, But I just want you to know that there's ways to be able to action this stuff through the work they've done, which I think is incredibly opening. And then, of course I couldn't resist since I have written a book called The Great Revitalization, which speaks to you, know, of course, the Great Resignation. I can't resist having you speak to this quote that I pulled from your book. You say, today we're living in a world where people are opting out the great resignation, quiet quitting, the refusal to be led by mediocrity. After all, people don't quit jobs. They quit bad leaders and dysfunctional and toxic cultures. To paraphrase John Maxwell, if you think you're leading and no one is following, you're really taking a walk. I think that's just such a lightful. Oh that's fun. You know, so often with organizational initiatives where there's change, we get senior leaders that proclaim the change.

11:24 They've been working on it in the back room for months, and they come out and they announce it, and then they just think that the change will happen. And this is where the responsibility and the burden shifts to frontline leaders. And part of the reason why so many people quit their boss because they aren't getting what they need in this circumstance. Obviously with change, and so there's real opportunity here as a leader to engage. This is the leadership idea. You know, our committee said, give me a lever long enough and the rock on which the rest of them'll move the world. And from our perspective, the leader is that fulcram of change. That frontline leaders the one that has all the leverage. They have the best relationship with their people, They can recognize their reactions, they understand what motivates them. They can engage in the dialogue on an individual basis to help people consider their reaction and then choose what the best reaction would be. So it's just a great space for leadership in a world where there's so much change, you know, and the Great Resignation, it's here and it goes there will be the next thing, And in all of those next things where it's change, leadership around change is going to make this big, big, massive contribution to people's careers and to organizations successes as they're dealing with change. You know, I really appreciate that critics because one of the things that I part of what really prompted me to write The Great Revialization is that I really came to understand a large part

12:56 because of getting to host the show and having a conversation every week with some you had a perspective on I think how things were going and during COVID times and how the world was changing. I know what I really came to understand is the world had profoundly fundamentally changed in just a couple of years time, and the workplaces and something has been radically altered. And I think that's why so many leaders are very frustrated and perplexed by that they didn't recognize the speed of the change. And then if we look in what's going on now with artificial intelligence and GBT and all those other things, even increasing the speed of change. And so of course the work you're doing, or you and your team are doing, and your capacity to equip leaders to be able to better effect change to me seems like it's it's critical, it's crucial. Yeah, I mean, you just listed a body of evidence that said, hey, change isn't going away. So how can we learn to be better at it, to become proficient at it, and to start to create benefit on purpose rather than endure a circumstance or moment in time. Yeah, so now sinking enduring and such, and how do we actually get through this. One of the other things that you have in your book which I really would love for you to speak to is you talk you talk us through I think it's like four different quadrants here. But when you talk about when leaders have high empathy and high curiosity, they can actually better connect. And so you say, you know, you can see past your biases and preferences and are open to other ways of seeing the world. And other options or ideas, and so empathy and curiosity fuel each other to create connection, which seems, you know,

14:26 in your capacity as a leader to be able to help your people navigate change seems like the perfect optimal combination. Yeah, that's right, And this is based on the underlying premise of the book. The change is a people business. It's not a process or a checklist business. It's a people business. So if I'm going to be good at the people business of change and leading people, that's where this balance of empathy and curiosity come in. My bias might be to minimize you know, I'm a human being as a leader as well, so my bias might be there. I don't want to paint everybody with my brush. I want to understand their circumstance, to understand it with empathy, and then to figure out what's going on in the change for them, and why does it matter and what does it really mean for them.

15:18 What's interesting is the same change in an organization will affect ten people on a team all differently. Yes, it's a storm, it's been activated, but each one of their boats looks a little different, and so how they weather that storm really requires leadership. Empathy and curiosity to make a difference and to lead the people through the change. Beautiful. Well, on that note, let's let our listeners and viewers kind of cheo on that as we take our first break. I'm your host, doctor Earlie's Cortez. We've been on the air with Curtis Bateman. He is the co author of Change, How to Turn Uncertainty into Opportunity. We've been talking a bit about some of the key principles of the book. After the break, we're going to get into their actual change model. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise.

16:52 Send an email to Elise A. L i se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now to working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us. Before we get back to the program, I do want to announce to you that I've launched with an organization called Joily, the Purpose and Joy Tour. This is a collaboration with Joily. They're an organization that teaches mindful practices to build a happy, healthy, resilient world. And my Firmilis court Has and associates that activates meaning and purpose in company culture and leadership to increase fulfillment, performance and retention. Together, we're going to various cities across the United States. We started in Dallas in March. We're finishing Virginia Beach in October to find our tribe to build a community of people who seek to elevate their lives and businesses by cultivating meaning, purpose and joy. You can find a list of cities, states, and planned events at Gusto dashnow dot com. If you're now destroying the program. My guest is Curtis Bateman. He is an internationally recognized presenter, content developer, change consultant, business leader, and coach who today oversees the success of Franklin Covey's entire international division. I'm your host doctor at least Cortez. So for this next bit here, Curtis, I wanted if you could. I know there's you've written entire chapters on each of the zones of your change model, but I just wanted to give our listens and viewers of flavor here. So would you take us through. I have some comments that I wanted to echo for each of the of the zones, but will you kick us off? Yeah? Maybe if I just give us an overview, it will segue into some of the zone discussions. So for the

18:27 listeners, if you if you imagine two axis right, the up and down axis. The vertical axis is results. The higher we go, the better the results, and be left to right access or a zonal as time and so as change happens over time, there's this very predictable pattern that takes place. So we start in the zone of status quo. This is pre change. This is usually a space where we're thinking, I get a little bit of a break from the last change. Often we're looking to refresh or rejuvenate or just take a break. Now we talk about that may not be the best idea, but that's what's going on. We're producing a consistent level of results and the next change gets introduced, which kicks us into the second zone.

19:15 As a change is introduced, we find that there's a negative result or a negative impact on our results. Those might be financial results, they might be engagement results, opportunity cost, whatever the case is, there's an impact on results. And as results decrease or decline, we're in what we call the zone of disruption, and we stay in that zone while we're trying to figure out what is it that's changing, why is the change happening, and most importantly, what does it mean to me as an individual? What's the impact. As we get those questions answered and get clear, we hit a point called the point of decision. This is where individ visual choice gives us the ability to opt into the change or not. As we opt into the change, then we're in the business of really starting to do the work of the change. We call this the zone of adoption, and frankly, this is where most changes fail to reach their intended outcome. Seventy percent of organizational changes fail to reach their intended outcome, and it's in this space because it's difficult. We're trying to figure out new or better or different ways of doing things, implement a new piece of technology. And as we work through that, there's some really key leadership things that will help a team through it and some individual things, so the zone of adoption, and hopefully as we work through the zone of adoption, we get back to a level of result that

20:48 matches our pre change. A lot of people in organizations stop here. They celebrate who we're back to where we started, but that really misses where the opportunity part of the book, in the promise in the book comes in, and that is, as we started to work through the change, what did we discover that we didn't know? What did we learn, what did we innovate? And then the question is how do we enter this fourth zone where we can amplify all of that, where we can add to it and create more fuel so that we end up higher and further to the right than we anticipated. And that's where the return on investment of our effort, our energy, our passion shows up and leads us to better things from the change.

21:33 Well, if we've lived lots of experiences where we haven't made it to that fourth zone. Then that goes back to your very first question. At least, why do people think change is such a bad thing. Well, they've had lots of bad experiences where it's only been the dip part of that which is all cost, rather than getting into the benefit part of the change, which is the upper right side of the change model. Oh that was so nicely said. Partis that was beautiful? Oh can that hole the dip really makes the big difference. And listeners and viewers, when you read that part of the book, it will really give you some strength to be able to understand just what you have there in terms of an opportunity when it comes to change. So beautiful, Curtiss, if I can, I wanted there's a couple of pieces that each of those most of those zones that I wanted to talk about that kind of struck me. So in the zone of the status quo, I thought it was interesting, and listeners mirrors imagined. You know, this is the zone where what we experienced before a change happens, and this is where we conduct our business as usually. You say, even if it's busy and sutressful, it's still familiar. But you say, in the zone of the status quo leaders prepare their teams for future change as they scan for trends, patterns and plans. They ask for brothers perspectives, and they act to get better organized. And so it's like the getting ready piece.

22:45 And in other words, to me, what that really spoke to Curtis was that in today's world, every organization has to continually evolve through change. And so in that status quo realm, what I kind of got present too was Okay, let's get ready for the next one. Yeah, And getting ready is trying to understand and identify what changes might becoming. That's part of getting ready. That's why we talk about scan for trends, pattern and plans, and so one piece is the scanning. The next piece is how do we actually build some change muscle, develop the skills that we're going to need. So the more we can do to figure out what potential changes there are, then we can invest some of our energy in being prepared. From a skill perspective. What does that do for us, Well, we feel far less surprised when the change is introduced, and we feel like we have some capability to be more in control rather than completely ambushed and out of control when a change gets introduced. So one of the things that I was thinking about when you were just uttering those words criticises from the psychological Danage point my PhDs in human development, and so I said, a lot of positive psychology, existential psychology, things like that is the notion of human agency, the power of human agency, our capacity to make things happen, including our response and of course, Victor Frankel response able between stimulus and response. We have a choice.

24:11 So I'm very interested in the notion of and I appreciate very much the way that you are your coach leaders throughout the course of the book, to be able to help meet people where they are in relation to change, to be able to activate their capacity to increase the real there's what I would say, there's sense of agency. Yeah. So to two comments related to this, The first one is I like to talk about it as to act or to be acted upon? Right, the same same idea from Victor Frankel. Am I going to act? Or Am I going to allow the changing circumstance to just fully act on me? And we want to be actors. The more we can do that, the more we find that we feel less threatened by it and more in control. Even if we're not one hundred percent in control, any steps we can take give us the ability to act more and react or be acted upon less, and I think that's an important thing.

25:10 The second idea is, you know, people often think this is another Franklin Covey idea. We talk about the circle of influence. What is it that I can influence and what is it that I'm concerned about? And so often with change at work, people push everything in the circle of concern. I'm really concerned about it, but I can't do anything about it, And we're trying to pull closer to us the things that we can do, and we find that when we start to take actions, then we feel less threatened and more in control, and it changes our whole paradigm about the change. We move through the zone of disruption quicker, and we engage in the zone of adoption faster, and it's just really a cool thing. But it doesn't always come easily, which is why we spend so much time in the book coaching leaders how to help people will get there. It doesn't always feel like it's accessible for individual contributors, and we want leaders, first level leaders to understand how to help their people realize that's accessible rather than out of reach. Yeah, beautifully articulated, and it really does situate beautifully the true opportunity to impact and help people navigate change, which I just really that's I think, I really think that you work. The work that you're doing is well, I'm a fan ash you can tell, and it's just so fundamental. So and as I said, I just it's just got to get warners, ladies and gentlemen. We're just going to have more change, So let's get ourselves equipped for this. And the other thing that I wanted to point out here in

26:41 the point of decision part of things, which I thought was really interesting and I think this could help our listeners viewers too, from the vantage point of trying to be more empathetic for the person experience in the change are being put the change is put upon You're right. The power of decision is the doorway between the zone of disruption and the zone of adoption. It's where your team's thinking shifts from you're doing this to me to what I get, what's going, what's going, what's going to change? I understand the why and the value of it. I understand what it means to me, and I choose to be part of the change. We labored over that sentence because there's so much we want them to fit in there. But that's really it. Here's what's interesting for a leader. You might find some people are ready to move through that doorway quickly and others at a different pace. And this is what makes leadership so interesting. As you're trying to learn how to influence five, eight, ten, fifteen people that are all moving through this journey at separate times, and you want to give them what they need to move through the doorway themselves. You can't push them through. That is an old style of leadership. With change, I will force you through the doorway and we'll just hit the more button, will work harder and do it. But what that does is it decreases engagement. And if we're really going to throw drive with change and create the opportunity, we need to help people move through that doorway by their own choice so that the engagement and the ownership goes up. And then as a leader, we have a lot more momentum as we move into

28:14 the zone of adoption and not raised me. What I want to talk about next, which is from a person who really mean, what I really traffic in, curtis, really is motivation. That's really the work that I tend to do around meaning and purpose. That's what we're getting to is motivation, and it's what increases the engagement, performance and the desire to actually want to stay in an organization. So I got really excited when you talk about in the in the zone of adoption, you write the highest level of engagements labeled excitement. Yes, what a concept, which is an emotional outcome of being fully committed to the change. Leaders working to move their team members from cooperation to excitement focus on values, specifically connecting the dots between what the team member of values and the successful implementation of the change or set. Another way, the team member feels they are engaged in meaningful work. They see what they're doing as their contribution to the desired future vision. And to me, the work that I do, curtis that right there, that what I just read for me was like so exciting because it really that's where your work and my work come together beautifully. Yeah, that's great, that's great. Wouldn't it be great to have I mean, if you've led a team, if any of our listeners have led a team. How exciting is it when you get a whole team that they're at the level of engagement we title excitement. I mean the energy, the passion, the motivation, and the results are just spectacular. And this paragraph talks about, Okay, how do we do that connecting to their values, making sure they feel like they're doing meaningful work and

29:48 that it's in an environment of trust where they can go explore the possibilities of the change, knowing that it probably won't work right the first time. And so as a leaders, that's what we're endeavoring to set up as we move through disruption. We give information for decision making, and we help people choose to be part of the change so that they move up that engagement scale towards creative excitement. And as they do, it's just remarkable what happens. The size of that dip in disruption and adoption starts to shrink, and the speed with which we move through it accelerates, and so the cost of the change really diminishes and we start to get into the benefits of the change even faster.

30:32 So it's a really inspirational space and one that hopefully leaders aspire to especially when it comes to change, and that's why we spend so much time in the book exploring this as a leader. There are tools in the book. There are Captain's corners that talk about how to have the right conversations trying to help leaders realize they can make a difference here and if they do, the outcomes will be remarkable in everybody's career at that moment. Yes, and so for me, Curtis, I mean, I'm really part of what I'm out to do in the world is is create basically workplace destinations where people actually really are coming. This is where they want to come to realize their potential and contribute instead of work occurring as that ad four letter word that it is for so many people and so strong leaders who know how to navigate and make change something that people can get through and even grow through. It is really incredibly exciting to me. Yeah, And our goal is to help people move from reacting to change to developing some change skills, to eventually apply in those skills in a way that they reach change competency. And I think that leads to high levels of excitement, high levels of capability, and all of them.

31:49 That's what's needed. To be fit for purpose in the workplace because change isn't going away now, it's just going to get faster and more complex. So with that in my lyudical surgeon, viewers, let us take our next break here and so you can kind of chew on that as well. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez. We've been on the air with Curtis Bateman, who is the co author of Change How to Turn Uncertainty into Opportunity. We've been getting more into the details of their actual model. Here after the break, we're going to finish the program really helping you understand how you can move your people through engagement, compliance, cooperation and excitement. Stay what's people be? Right back? Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees Working on Purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to a lease a

33:22 l I se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanks for daying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I mentioned in the last break about the Purpose and Enjoy tour that we're embarking on here at. The two latest books that will be part of the events of that tour experience that I wrote are The Great Rebalization, How Activating Meeting and Purpose can radically enliven your business, which helps leaders to learn how to build elevating and high performing cultures and leadership through meeting and Purpose. The other latest book is called Coloring Life, How Loss invites us to live more vibrant lives tells people navigating laws transformed to growth and vitality. You can find them both on Amazon if you're just now joining us. My guest is Curtis Bateman.

34:07 He's an internationally recognized presenter, content developer, a change consultant, business leader and coach which today oversees the success of Franklin Covey's entire international division. I'm your host, Doctor Lee's Cortez. So for this last segment here artists, I really wanted to focus on helping or kind of sort of give some mini coaching here through the program to our listeners and viewers. Before we do that, though, before we talk about these these levels of engagement, I do want to talk a little bit about what you describe in the book the zone of innovation. And what I like about what you get there is you know, you're focused on the leadership, focus on the zone of innovation, and one of the things that I think is important is connecting to the current change, and there's other things you list there, but also inviting a sense of directed curiosity. I think that is so powerful. I have not seen too much out there in the notion of how can we actually evoke a sense of curiosity and people? So can you just say a little bit more about the zone of innovation? Yeah, this is such an important I think missing skill in the workplace, this idea of curiosity. And so as you go through the zone and I keep looking for writing and material and I'm just not finding it. As as you go through the zone of adoption, you start to learn new ways of doing things. And the point of the zone of innovation, this last zone is to say, what if we learned and how could we amplify that? And so we talk about tell others about your change journey and see what questions they ask you. They're bound to ask you something

35:38 that stimulates creativity, or share the story of the change journey with others. And in the sharing of the story, you're going to find that as a storyteller, you'll discover things that you might want to further explore. And these are ideas that we're trying to use to encourage people to get curious about what else could this change lead to? What other benefit could it create? And that's where innovation starts to yield a remarkably better outcome as it comes to change, and where all of the benefit gets created, this ongoing benefit that comes from the change moving that curve as far up into the right as possible before it settles back into a new status quo at some point in the future.

36:25 And that's what we're looking for. So build some change muscle muscle, figure it out, get curious, tell stories about it, and explore what's possible. In that fourth and final zone, the zone of innovation sounds great to me. I'm in, I'm in. You've got you got one convert for sure here. All right, So now let's get into this notion here you you talk about the three levels of engagement, compliance, cooperation, and excitement, and so if you could, critics, if you could just start by talking for those that are in the first you know, what is the compliance level of engagement and how can leaders help people address or meet them where they are to either move them from compliance during the level or maybe what else you would actually recommend. Yeah, yep, So obviously somebody might come up with five other definitions of engagement. We just tried to create three groupings here.

37:16 Compliance means somebody's doing it out of sheer obligation. Cooperation obviously is a step up where there is some effort to do it together. And then excitement is where we've really activated somebody to get creative. When it comes to leading change, there are probably five specific leadership skills that probably merit their own book vision, communication, alignment, engagement, and accountability, and engagement is one of those. As a leader, if we can really become proficient at engaging people in the change, we move them from compliance, to cooperation to excitement, and that's where we unleash this creativity, either right in the zone of adoption or by the time we get into the zone of innovation. And when we do that, just remarkable things happen. And of course that's what we're going for, right we we've said that a couple of times. That's what we're going for. We can map these levels of engagement to our five reactions.

38:27 You can see it there. I often use a thing, it's just like a political persuasion map. Who's against the change, who's persuadable, and who's for the change? Right, I'm just trying to take a tool and look at how I map my people. Not that they stay there, but when I put them there, I say, and what would it take to move them towards excitement, to move them from resistance to excitement, to remove them from being against the change to being for the change. And that's a leader's job to get into the mindset of their individual to their concerns, to their capability and move them along that journey. And there are lots of their tools or ideas or discussion topics in the book that address that. All found in the captain's corners that are salt and peppered throughout the whole book. Right, they're sprinkled throughout the whole book, giving leaders some resources to work on that.

39:23 Yeah, and very I thought, there's just there's so much great meat. And I also really appreciate how well the book is organized too. Curtis is just really the graphs are wonderful. It's easy to follow, us, easy to read. It's just really well done, really good work. Thank you. At a special shout out to our designer Lauren Ball in California, who helped us with that, because we tried to take it from a book to an experience, and I think we've captured some of that feeling as you go through the book. It's a tool, it's a resource, it's visual. So thank you. I'm glad glad that landed well. Yeah, well, I can appreciate that. And my books are continuing to evolve too as I grow as an author. So when I see something that I think is really well done and compelling, of course, I'm like, oh, that's amazing. What if I could do something like that? All right, Well, so if you could just I think it would help our listeners and viewers, if you could just say a little bit about in each of those three levels of engagement and kind of what a leader can do to be able to address that particular level. Can you start, which is of course with a compliance on what what can leaders do to address people in this level? Yeah, yep. So there's a pretty consistent leadership skill that we talk about across all of these, but it starts in compliance. We generally, as leaders tend to that may be overstated, but we often as leaders already have a predetermined reason why somebody is behaving the way they are, and listening to understand why they're in that space is really an important leadership skill. So we talk

40:54 pretty consistently about actively listening to people rather and telling them why they're in that space. This is why you're feeling this way, this is why you're engaged in this level, trying to actively understand and listen to what's going on when they're in that space. Now, that will play out in compliance, cooperation, and excitement, but actively listening and not judging based on our own biases is one of the things that will help move people at each level. Another thing that happens for individuals is they want to be validated in their concerns.

41:35 They really want you to express that you've heard them, and especially at compliance, which is the lowest level of engagement, they want you to hear their worries. That doesn't mean you have to linger on them. It doesn't even mean as a leader you have to resolve all of It means they need to be heard and they need to know that you've heard them. Then as we move further along the scale, you know, we start to get into allowing people to have their own ideas, and not that they don't, but for those ideas to be verbalized and contributed to the change so they're part of making things better. That's what moves engagement along the spectrum is I have a voice and I can make a difference. And as people step deeper and deeper into that dialogue, they feel like, oh, my voice is heard, I am making a difference, and that moves them along the engagement spectrum. So it's not always that there's a radically different skill for compliance, cooperation, or excitement, but it's the idea of I'm listening to you, I'm validating and understanding what your concerns are the ones that I need to address I will, and you have a voice, your ideas matter, they're part of the solution.

42:53 And so that's all part of helping them feel like they're a valued member of the team rather than a judged member of the team. Yes, yes, who has been maybe told you're lazy, you don't want to you're you're not a team player, or whatever it is. Right, So, one of the things that I really want to call out here, which I think is just natural, is the water that you swim in, Curtis, is that you know, you're exemplifying, you know, an incredible level of emotional intelligence. And I do work with leaders to be able to help them develop that. And so for some people who just heard you say what you said, they might be just getting the willies over here, like wow, that sounds like a lot of work and to listen to that, to this level of complaints. So I just wanted to acknowledge one how beautifully that you do it, and too, I wanted to be able to also get present for the listeners and viewers who are like that sounds like I'd rather put my eyeballs out to do than to listen on that level. You know, it's so interesting. We have a lot of people in today's workplace that through education or training, actually had a specialized skill they were interested in. So take a software developer. I don't know that most software developers went to school with the aspiration of leading a team and they suddenly suddenly find themselves in that role and so they feel just like you described a lease. Here's what I would say to everybody on that. You know what, people care far more about your intent than your technique. Yes, your technique is not nearly as important as the fact that you care and your intent is to help them be successful.

44:23 Beautiful curtis just beautiful, beautiful opening right there. They can just you just open the door nessy for someone to walk through. So well, then if that was you're working on the compliance level here, help us now address those in the cooperative level if you would. Yeah, yep. So again, these skills stack and they're additive. It may be that you just move into a more sophisticated version of those skills with the discussion. The great news about cooperation is there is this working together and that's a great next step. Apps For some people, that's as far as they'll get. So I don't know that we should view that as a negative space, we should celebrate that as a positive space. And if they are cooperative, we want to make sure that they're connected to the team and the team's successes and so they feel like they're a valued member of that team. And one of the things that separates cooperation from creative excitement is failure. When we're cooperating, there could still be this concern about, well, what if we're trying something with the change and it doesn't work. And as a leader, if we can make it safe for people to realize, let's be really smart, let's do our very best work, and if it doesn't work in the zone of adoption, then let's quickly figure out why and adjust and give people permission to experiment and to grow

45:55 and to learn. And that's going to lead to better outcomes, and it will move people from cooperation to excitement because they realize there's a chance to discover and do new things here. I suppose the other thing that happens all along the path here is in the zone of adoption, leaders need to clear obstacles out of the way. I talk about sifting through the obstacles as hurdles, quicksand and brick walls, which are the hurdles that a team can jump over. Right, they're in the way, but we can get past them, which are the quicksand we tend to get bogged down and get stuck, but if we work together, we can get through it. And the others are brick walls. We hit them and there's no way over, under, or around it. And as a leader, if you can identify which kind of obstacle you're facing and then give people the support, the resource, or take it away to somebody else to get rid of brick walls, then we get all of the speed limiters out of the zone of adoption and we allow them to move at pace, to move at pace, to test, to try to learn, to get creative and to be part of a winning team.

47:01 And when that happens, the team moves towards that excitement stage. That just sounds so good to me. Right, I mean, that's where that's where work is such a great jam part of life. Right, this is where you know that team victory. We did this together, We did something we didn't think we could do together, and we're now bigger for it. That is just so exciting to me. So I really appreciate how you can so beautifully articulate this opportunity, Curtis, and this thing, this show goes by so fast. We've already gone through. We're getting to the end of this thing. If this show is listening by people around the world, and they generally tune in because they care about creating that workplace where people actually do want to come to work do their best. They are led by inspirational leaders who bring them to their greatness, and we do business that betters the world.

47:44 What would you like to be listeners and viewers with. Yeah. The foundational idea through all of this is the change model. It's an easy, predictable pattern. All change follows it. If you'll learn it, and if you'll start to look for it in your work, you'll see where in specific zones, and then you'll discover that there are actions you can take, choices you can make as an individual or as a leader. So use it in your personal life with your teenagers, with your family, where you volunteer at work. The change models of predictable pattern and as you become familiar, can really make a difference in how you lead and find success for change. Beautiful way to close, Curtis, I'm very, very happy that our paths across that you and your beautiful books have informed me about change. And I then get to a show with my listeners and viewers. Thank you very much for being on Working in Purpose. You've been amazing. Thank you all. It's nice to be here. Listeners, viewers. We want to learn more about Curtis Bateman, the work he and the team do at Franklin Covey or this book.

48:43 One place to startist just go to the website Franklin Covey dot com. You can get all kinds of resources there. Another thing you can do is you can actually go to LinkedIn and find Curtis Bateman there and he has many articles that he puts out on LinkedIn as well, so he's a tremendous resource. So Curtis is c U R TIS and then Bateman b A T E M A N. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it be recorded podcast. We were on the air with Doug Lenok and Chuck Wackendorff. Wackendorffer of Think to Perform talking about their latest book called Don't Wait for someone Else to Fix It. Eight Essentials to enhance your leadership impact at work, home, and anywhere else that needs you. Next week, we'll be on there with Bill Eggers and Don Kettle talking about their book Bridge Builders, how government can transcend boundaries to solve big problems. See you there. Remember that work as an integral and important part of our lives and can be one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.