0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So are you a consultant or coach who's trying to figure out how in the world do I influence my clients to buy into change, and are you wondering what does it really take in today's complex environment? Well, you're going to find out on today's episode of the Consulting Matters podcast. And welcome to the Consulting Matters podcast. This is the show for consultants and coaches who are ready to position themselves for the clients and impact and income that they're ready for. I'm your host, betsy Jordyn. I am a business mentor and a brand messaging and positioning strategist. You can find out all the things I do to help my clients make more money through making a bigger difference on my website at wwwbetsyjordyncom.
So today, what I want to get into is not just like change, not those little incremental changes, the big systemic changes that you know your clients need to make. You see it, you can feel it, but they don't see it and they don't feel it, and they don't even know how to navigate it. So that's a really big challenge for all of us consultants and coaches, right? Well, I brought on an expert today to help us address how do you handle this? But how do you handle it in the complexity of what's going on to today. What's on the complexity of what's going on? To the complexity of what's going on today. So my guest is Seth Kahan and he is the leader of visionaryleadershipcom. That is his business, and he is an expert and not just like regular, ordinary change the big changes, systemic changes and he knows all about how to handle challenges when we're dealing with this very disruptive environment. So he's got all the information that you're going to want to know about, and then some. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, seth.
0:01:50 - Seth Kahan
Thank you. It's a real treat to be here, Betsy. I'm honored.
0:01:53 - Betsy Jordyn
So I'm so excited to talk to you about well, I don't know if I would say excited, because you know all of the complexity of today I feel is kind of heavy. But before we get into that, I want to really just set some context. So I want to talk a little bit about your background. So I know you have a lot of different types of experiences that led you to becoming the business owner and the thought leader that you are now. So could you just share a little bit about your background and how did you get to where you are now as the author of several books, this expert on innovation, change and so much more?
0:02:26 - Seth Kahan
author of several books, this expert on innovation, change and so much more. Well, I have a degree in mathematics. I love pattern recognition, so patterns are a big part of what I do. But I'm also very much a creative person. I did street theater for 10 years and I produced and created and performed, directed all of that. I love theater, I love the arts. All of that, I love theater, I love the arts.
Let's see, in 1980, I began working at the World Bank, and that was at a time when the World Bank was introducing personal computers that's how long ago that was and it was my job to teach 1,100 people how to use personal computers. That was my first big change project, because they gave me almost no resources and I had no staff. So I had to figure out how to create a social movement inside the vice presidency where I was working, and I was very successful at that. And one thing led to another, and over 13 years time I was doing large scale change at the global scale for the World Bank, and that launched my career and I left the World Bank in 2002. So that was 23 years ago and I've been out on my own and I've done many large scale change projects since then.
0:03:32 - Betsy Jordyn
So what is it about large scale change that interests you? So you have a that's a very interesting background Like so you're a true right, left brain type of person. So you've got the pattern recognition and the scientific side from the math side, but the artistic side, which I would love to talk to you more about, your performing thing, but that's not really the topic for today, but that is really interesting to me. But what is it about change and complex change? That just was appealing to you.
0:03:58 - Seth Kahan
Well, I want to make the world a better place. I mean, that's the bottom line and it's hard to do. There's a lot of moving parts. When I was at the World Bank, I developed a deep appreciation for how challenging real change is. I saw really large projects fail and I saw some succeed and I took a hard look at why that was and I was able to bring that into my consulting was going to boil it all down. I would say that really large scale change depends on engagement, support and buy in, not on the quality of the recommendation that you're making, not on the rationality or the ROI or the benefit, but it really boils down to people being involved, people choosing to support it and then people helping out when it inevitably hits bottlenecks, log jams and obstacles, because it will. So it's all about the human side in my mind.
0:04:48 - Betsy Jordyn
So when you decided to leave the World Bank, was it like, OK, I've done all I can do here. I see more opportunities in a lot of other companies. Or was there something else that drove you to make that big transition from a nine to five into your own business?
0:05:04 - Seth Kahan
So I'm not a nine to five person. So I stayed there as long as I could and I was ready to leave when they gave me a small package. They offered me a small package, they said I had. Actually my position was funded through the president's discretionary budget for the last few years. I was there and they said we can either regularize you, ie turn you into a normal staff position, or we can give you a tiny package, three months worth of salary and you're out of here. And I was ready for the latter.
But I had also, at that point, really created a significant amount of esteem in the market. In fact, I was speaking so much that I was donating the money that I was getting from my keynotes because I couldn't keep it. It was a conflict of interest with my salary, and so I felt like I was ready to have a consultancy that could support my family. And that was challenging. It wasn't easy, especially in the beginning, but I decided that I couldn't go to my grave not having tried, and so I tried, and here I am.
0:06:05 - Betsy Jordyn
So that's interesting, because you're one of those weird unicorns in a good way, where it was like, okay, I kind of feel like this is the right thing for me, and vision drove you where a lot of people wind up in consulting or coaching, kind of like. I always wanted to be my own boss, but something kind of like happened to kind of push me in that direction and you just said, okay, I'm already doing this, I'm just going to formalize it and and make it make sense in that standpoint. So that's, that's great. Is there any tips that you'd give to people who do want to make that move? Cause there's a lot of people who are listening, who are some of them are already starting their own business, but some of them are internal still and they're still thinking about making that move.
0:06:45 - Seth Kahan
Yeah.
So you need to make sure that you have the support that you need, and for me the support came in three forms. One is that my wife supported me, which was really important. I have a next door neighbor whose wife did not support him when he went out and he lasted a year. It took us probably six or seven years before my income was stable. It would go way up and way down, as you know, in consulting it does that, and she was always on my side. In fact, I remember we had a landline phone with a cord in the wall way back then in 2002. And I remember waking up saying I don't have any work. So what did she do? She brought me the phone in bed and she said call somebody now. And I did, and I got a $50,000 contract. It was kind of, you know, one of those amazing moments, but that's her reaction, shows where her you know loyalty was and her desire to see me succeed.
So having the support of the person who's closest to you in your life. The second thing was I had a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. So having the support of the person who's closest to you in your life. The second thing was I had $100,000 in the bank, so I had money that could get me through the tough times. And living in Washington DC is like living in Alaska it's very expensive here, so it didn't last long, but it helped. It was something, and I left the World Bank on very good terms. So they were my primary client for two years. I could not have stayed with them because they didn't pay me enough to stay, but they paid me enough that I could bridge from being an employee to being a consultant. So three forms of support personal support, money and then a client that would help me make the journey.
0:08:22 - Betsy Jordyn
I think that there's something about like jumping when you kind of have a net. You know, I had the opposite scenario, because I was like in the middle of getting a divorce when I really jumped into my business, but I kind of had that vision like I don't want to go back to corporate, I want to be home for my kids, and and I did invest, though, in the right support in terms of like mentoring, and I got somebody to design like a great website for me Like I got like that kind of support from that standpoint. But I think it really is like you can't walk into the unknown with a hundred, with nothing underneath you. You have to figure out, like, what support looks like. And also, I'm sure people are thinking like, is your wife available for business development support, cause it seemed like it worked for you, so you know she might have a little side hustle going on here.
0:09:09 - Seth Kahan
She'd love that. By the way, she's always asking where's my check, Where's my check?
0:09:13 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, where's my commission on that one? So let's jump into. One of the topic areas I really want to get into with you is around change. So looking at your website, looking at what you're doing here, you talk there's a lot of different words that people use for change. I think you talk to two consultants. You're going to get three definitions for change, you know, and on your website you talk about like systemic change, talk about transformation change.
You talk about like grand challenges you know, you know like you talk about all these things, so let's all get on the same page around, like what would you say is change? And is there a difference between change and systemic change? Slash transformation, slash grand challenges, like, is there a difference or is it just all one in the same, one big process?
0:09:56 - Seth Kahan
There's a big difference between incremental change and transformational change. Incremental change is like continuous improvement. Transformational change is we want to be doing something different. Incremental change is like continuous improvement. Transformational change is we want to be doing something different. And when you get into large organizations, all transformational change has got to be systemic or it won't be sustained.
A grand challenge is a particular type of change that I coined and what it means is I didn't coin the term grand challenge, it's been around for about 80 years, but I'm using it to say a grand challenge is a big, bold goal that takes on a socially intractable problem. So, for example, Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation, measurably improving the health of America's four million nurses. Nurses are worse off than the average American in every category, except for smoking, weight, sleep, all of that stress. So the American Nurses Association and I work together for the grand challenge Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation. So that's a very particular type of change. When I was inside the World Bank, the first large scale change project I got involved with was called Information Systems Renewal and we gutted all of the different systems and turned into one big system. Otherwise for your business consultants listening, knowing the ERP or enterprise resource planning but that is not a grand challenge because you're not really taking on an intractable problem in society, but you are radically changing the organization. So if that helps, it makes sense.
0:11:19 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah. So, like you're saying, if there's like a like a shift from I'm here like this is where I have like the butterflies everywhere, like to me it's like it's not like I'm just going to become a more successful caterpillar, I'm like totally changing forms and I'm going to do something different, like that's transformation right is kind of like what I'm gathering from it, but it, um, I let me just do a follow-up, because I have a lot of lean consultants that I work with and they would say that because like lean consulting in so many ways is about like continuous improvement.
But if the organization doesn't have patterns of continuous improvement, that could be considered transformation or not.
0:11:56 - Seth Kahan
I think lean consulting is transformational, for I've worked with organizations that have gone through lean and I've had to integrate with lean consulting before and I think it is definitely a transformation, and a positive one. That's one I support.
0:12:09 - Betsy Jordyn
So, but then? But the essence of what they're trying to create is habits of continuous improvement.
0:12:15 - Seth Kahan
Right, but those habits of continuous improvement are not built into most organizations. You're right about that. So getting to lean is a transformation. Once you're in lean, then you're talking about continuous improvement.
0:12:25 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, I think that that's an important distinction, you know, is that I want to create a type of organization where it's like we can be resilient, even like if you think about from a coaching standpoint, is like helping leaders become more resilient in that way. But if the leaders just don't have the foundational skill sets, you know, if that's not there, so it's almost like where there's a break, you might create a change that makes this bigger change not necessary, you know, in the long term. But that process of getting it, that's the transformation Was that. Am I getting that right?
0:12:56 - Seth Kahan
Yeah, setting yourself up to be a lean organization is a very significant change. There's a lot that a lot of learning that has to take place, new behaviors that have to be put in place, um, you know, and people have to really get it, they have to understand it and it's it's challenging to understand. You have to understand it in the context of your business. Uh, so I worked with royal dutch shell while they were going through that. So the oil and gas business, and while many of the processes might be the same as a you car manufacturing, that, when you actually get into the details of what you're doing having robots under the sea, sea-level processing oil and gas, whatever it's very different and so you need people who can work through those elements.
0:13:36 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah. So I think that that's a really great example because it really shows like a lot of things that we do as consultants and coaches. I would say the majority of it is, if they're going to call us in, it's going to be likely for transformational type of stuff, because I think on the whole, if it's like incremental kind of change, like they probably have the capabilities you know, but when they're really dealing with that in-between place, I think that that's really where we shine. But I don't know if leaders see that all the time. But let's talk about the roles in transformational change.
So you talk a lot on your website and in the work you do is really geared towards the visionary leader and how they're supposed to be leading the organization. Can we get really really clear on what the leader of change should be doing? And then considering the consultants and coaches is more like the catalyst of change. What should they be doing? Like? How does this partnership work? Who does what and what actually creates the transformational change? You mentioned something about empowerment and I forgot the rest of what you said and I want to go back to what you said before, because you started painting this picture and I just want to go back to that too.
0:14:39 - Seth Kahan
So for most of the work that I have done in the past, I have been a consultant and an advisor right. So it's been my job to coach the leader and to be involved in the execution of the change and then to troubleshoot, to float around in the different elements of change and provide support, maybe to architect the change. To talk about what's the communication strategy, what's the engagement strategy, how is it going to roll out, what processes is it going to hit first and how do we deal with trouble when it arises Things like that? But just recently I'm winding up four years as the leader of a national change initiative. I was called in by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute because they wanted to eliminate the stigma around mental health and substance use disorders on a national scale, and I gave them a year of pro bono time because I think it's a very good cause. And then they asked me if I wanted to lead the initiative and I had never done that before and I said yes. I said yes for personal reasons because my mother developed schizophrenia when I was 10 years old and I have suffered from anxiety myself since my 40s and so I feel, like you know, I'm a high operating anxious person. I went through this horrific experience with my family of origin and I want to see everybody who wants to get treated for mental health or substance use disorders get that treatment, and I don't want the stigma to stand in the way. So I said yes. So now here I am, four years, and I was the leader. So I was working, interfacing with the executive directors of both American Psychiatric and American Psychological Association, with NAMI, national Alliance for the Mental I always forget what NAMI stands for National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, I think you know the Carter Center, the vice president of mental health, all of these organizations, and so I had a chance to see firsthand the difference between advising and leading. So I had a chance to see firsthand the difference between advising and leading.
The leaders need to understand and be able to go to all different levels, because you never know where their leadership is needed. They don't have to understand the nitty gritty details of every role, but they have to be willing to learn them when they're called to, all right, so they can't just kind of float up in the rarefied air and make their, make their decisions. They have to be excellent. Excellent at decisions. They have to be excellent at communication. They have to oversee communication. They have to represent the change in a variety of situations. So these are things that leaders have to do and, of course, they have to allocate the resources that are required for the change to be successful. But advisors don't. But advisors do need to understand the dynamics.
How does something like this roll out? What is that? What's the operational plan? What kind of like like? For example, something that you need to know when you're leading large scale change is communications, training and support. Those three things together generally will take up 3% of your budget. It's a very small amount, but it's also non-negotiable. So if you have a hundred million dollar change program, you're looking at $3 million for all three of them communications, training and support. If you fail to communicate, nobody knows what to do. If you fail to train, they don't know how to do it, and support means that you're there to hold their hand when they're trying to do the right thing and it's not quite working. You must have those three things in place. So that's something that an advisor would need to know. The leader doesn't initially need to know that they need to act on it, but they don't. The advisor kind of brings that into the situation and there's a million other things like that, and if that helps, I don't know.
0:17:54 - Betsy Jordyn
So what was it like for you to step into that leadership role after advising for a while? Was it a I really love this type of position. Or is it like, oh, I'm a fish out of water, like what? What was that like for you?
0:18:08 - Seth Kahan
I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. So I was. I was highly motivated, I believed in the cause and that's so this, this will be. I think it was my seventh grand challenge. So I've done them in all different sectors finance, nursing, medical, ultrasound, earth and space science, and so on.
This was in the mental health space. I'm not a subject matter expert in any of those, I'm a process expert. But I had a lot of personal experience in the mental health space because of what my family went through, but it was a data point of one. So I didn't understand the environment and I was eager to make a difference. And so were the leaders of the other organizations I was contacting and in fact, many of them I already knew from previous work that I had done. So I was able to call them up, you know, and say, hey, arthur, this is Seth. You know you really need to get involved in this. Let me tell you why. And I love that. And we got up and running extremely fast. I mean I came on staff in February of 22. By April of 22, we had 30 leaders of major mental health organizations aligned and ready to meet as our steering team. So just two months.
0:19:15 - Betsy Jordyn
So I'm starting to hear something underneath. What you're saying is like you work with associations, so by definition, the association itself is like more of an influence type of entity rather than like a governing entity like within a singular organization when you're talking about these grand challenges. So it seems like your influence skills to begin with, if you were helping people take on these grand challenges, must have been pretty high to begin with, even before you stepped into the leadership role. Is that accurate? I think that's accurate.
0:19:45 - Seth Kahan
I've worked with over 100 associations. Now I also work in the private sector, so I did two change initiatives at Royal Dutch Shell. I've worked with Prudential Retirement and many smaller companies, and I also work in the government. I've worked with the Peace Corps. For example, I worked with the director of the Peace Corps under W when he was the president of the United States, Gadi Vasquez, and I did several change initiatives with his team. And I've worked in other parts of the government as well. But the associations form the bulk of my except for my World Bank experience. That was altogether a different thing. That was 13 years of my life, so that carried a lot of weight as well.
0:20:20 - Betsy Jordyn
But it seems like you're still fulfilling your mission in a much bigger way around. I want to make the world a better place Like that's what drives you to be a change agent is still there, because it seems like, maybe on a conscious or subconscious level, like the majority of the work you're picking is something that you're like I'm igniting an important change that I want to see in society or in the world in some sort of way.
0:20:42 - Seth Kahan
I have always wanted to do that and I've leaned heavily in that direction. When I first started, when I left my job in 2002, my marketing plan was you pay me and I'll do the work, because I needed money.
0:20:56 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, that's what a lot of us have.
0:20:59 - Seth Kahan
But what I did was that I would lean in that direction every chance I got. So if there was an opportunity to do something it might be pro bono or it might not pay as much, but it was making the world a better place I would take it, and then I would market myself as someone who is in that space, and then the end result of that is for the last seven or eight years of my life, that's all the work that I do now.
0:21:20 - Betsy Jordyn
That's amazing. So can you paint a picture for me about your influence skills? Like, so there's a lot of people who want to lead the types of change efforts that you have, but they don't have the influence skills. They don't know how to get the buy-in, like you. It sounds like you were able to get like those mental health agencies all on board. Talk to me about your influence skills. Where did they come from? How do you develop them? How do you get people to buy in for a change that maybe you see, or the client that you're working with sees, but everybody else doesn't see?
0:21:52 - Seth Kahan
So some of that came from my family of origin. So you know, they say when you go through a trauma it gives you certain skills, right that you go through that. Actually, it's like what's that old thing about shamanism? First the demons tear you apart and then they become your allies. Attacks she was hallucinating, you know and they would come without warning.
So I kind of developed this ESP, like how do I know when something's about to happen in my house? And it was intuitive, it was not an intellectual feat, right. So it was like oh my gut, whatever. And one of the things that that has allowed me to do is that when I'm talking to someone, I can generally tell where they are Like are they telling me the truth? Are they involved, are they giving lip service, are they checked out?
And when I facilitate and facilitation plays a huge role in what I do, and sometimes I mean I've facilitated groups as large as 1500 people as well as very small groups I can read the room really well because I can feel the energy of the room. My street theater helped with that. I did a lot of improvisational theater and so I developed a real gut level feeling, for how do I stay in sync with other dancers. When does the poetry start? That kind of stuff, and I could kind of feel it out Is the audience with me?
I spent a lot of time figuring out how to get the audience engaged in the performance, which is a very challenging thing to do. But I had to read the audience, I had to see what was going to get them and, by the way, the thing that I discovered that really gets an audience involved is when they identify with the performance. When they see performing as part of their identity, they will take action on the stage. But if they do not, if they consider themselves an audience member, then they won't. And so I learned how there were different gateways that I could take them through to get them to that point. So those, those all then showed up for me when I was at the World Bank as really helpful skills in a room. But I've also, you know I've taken classes in active listening my whole life. I did crisis intervention for a couple of years, that's all about active listening, you know, and so there's a.
There's been a lot of investment in reading people, and so there's been a lot of investment in reading people. And then I developed protocols and they're all laid out in my books Getting Change Right and Getting Innovation Right. I reveal it all, but what? At the very beginning, and so we're going out and doing a lot of listening. That's the beginning. There's a lot of research that shows people won't change until they've been heard. So we're literally conducting a been-heard campaign. And the other thing is that there's very useful information in the listening, especially from skeptics, cynics, people who are apathetic, even people who are hostile. They reveal a lot of information, but in order to get them to divulge that information, they have to feel like you're genuinely interested in what they have to say, not just trying to turn their objection around so that you can feed them your propaganda, and so those are all elements.
I was in sales for a really long time. I love sales, I think sales is really cool, so all of these things kind of honed my skills in terms of you know, how do we get someone engaged, how do we get support, how do we get buy-in. I'll just add one little anecdote. One of the projects that really launched my career at the World Bank was knowledge management, and the idea was there is that what people know is more important than the money we have in the vault, right? So how do we get people to share what they know?
And that project went from zero to $60 million a year in two years. It was disorienting. It went so fast. And towards the end after we were robust as an initiative so not in the early days, not when we were in our infant stage trying to walk, but we were robust. We held a meeting that we laughingly called the enemies of knowledge management and we literally invited the people who wanted to take us down into a regular meeting and we had them share with us why they wanted to take us down. Because we were strong enough to take it at that point and we learned so much from them that I will never forget that and I think it's in Getting Change Right where I go through how we did that and what we learned, and I created some processes from it. So letting the people who are against you in when you're robust enough to take it can be extremely valuable in a change initiative.
0:26:17 - Betsy Jordyn
There's a lot of things that you and I have in common. That is beyond the fact that we both went to Indiana University, because I feel like that that's the key to what I would do. I just framed it up differently, like when I was an OD consultant. That is how I got an executive team on board. It's like I would listen to every single person, understand the stake. I didn't forget what anybody said and I knew how to find that through line between what everybody said and when I was like giving feedback or something along those lines, like I could still remember who said what and I'd point out. So everybody saw themselves in that change because I deeply listened to them and I just that's excellent.
Yeah, saw themselves in that change because I deeply listened to them and I just and I'm in the middle of like I'm in the middle of a program where I'm teaching consultants and coaches and how to strategically position themselves for greater impact and really just redoing the discovery meeting, and I call it like pivoting the client from wants to needs, and the only way that you're going to be able to do that is by first doing what I call framing and empathy. It's like you really need to listen so that you could have the permission to influence. It all begins with that, and you were really pointing out like oh yeah, that was my coping strategy as a child is getting into everybody's heads. I get into everybody's heads and I have to anticipate what's going to happen, because I don don't like blindsides and it actually became a superpower.
So I wonder if there is something about like us who are change agents, you know, like the people who really do want to see the world at a better place. Like it's like you know we become like these wounded healers and you know like we have this deep compassion for broken systems and we have deep compassion for people. You know, and I know that that's this is like a business podcast, like we're not psychologists here. But I do wonder if there's something in the fact that, if we do care about systemic change, we do care about making the world a better place, like this is an opportunity for us to, almost like, redeem our past and turn it into something good. I think so.
0:28:12 - Seth Kahan
I think you've hit on a lot, and I think compassion is really important. One of the weaknesses that I see from a lot of change teams when I get called into an organization, is that they demonize the people who are against the change. And I don't right. It's like I know this is another human being doing the best to make the best of their world. This is their best, what you're seeing, and so I want to understand it. I don't want to demonize it. I don't want to frame it as they're against me. Take me into your world, help me see it through your eyes, and I'll use questions like that, you know, so that I can see. And so much gold comes out of that, you know. And so I think compassion has its place in change in a big way compassion goes for yourself.
0:28:56 - Betsy Jordyn
Like a lot of the clients that I work with, I could tell you like nine out of 10 intro calls I get are consultants who are in some sort of crossroads and they're having all of this like resistance, like it's like yeah, I want to move forward and like, but I'm afraid what about? Like my money and this and that, and it's like okay. First off, we have to have compassion over why you're even having those feelings, because you're walking into the unknown. Our brains naturally hate the fear, you know we, we hate the unknown. You know you're on this heroic journey so you need to be nice to yourself.
And I wonder if there's something about like how do I become a better change leader? Is I become more compassionate with my own experiences of resistance? You know, when I'm trying to grow and I'm trying to move into new levels, if I can become more compassionate with myself, maybe when I'm externalizing it and I'm helping with stakeholders, and I hear the person is like just know, like that person probably has a fear of the unknown. You know resistance is a mass expression of, you know, self-esteem, vulnerability, loss of control. Like it's a mass expression and it's like well, if you can give that person more control by helping them feel heard. You know, like that's what wins them over.
Like in my experience when I have like the squawky one I always think about in my mind, like it's like I have the parking lot is always like my best friend in every single meeting I ever facilitate with a group and it's like I'll just put it on the parking lot or I put it on the flip chart and if I can stop and attend to that person, it's like so what I'm hearing you say is this, and they're like yes, and then I write it on the flip chart. It's like, well, we need to incorporate this. Well, now, I just want them over Now. They're super excited about the change because they felt heard. And I wonder sometimes, like when we look at resistance of change, we look at it as like we have to overcome it, we have to squash it, you know, rather than we need to invite it and bring them along, because there's a reason why and they might have data about the organization that we're not even looking at.
0:30:46 - Seth Kahan
Absolutely, and I love what you said about self-compassion. I think that all compassion starts as self-compassion, and the more work you do on yourself and the more love you can give yourself, especially in the areas where you judge yourself, the better of a change worker you're going to be. Not easy but it's important.
0:31:05 - Betsy Jordyn
So I just I'm going to pose this to you because you know people do want to learn influence skills. You know, like that is a big thing that if you're a consultant or coach, like I, want to learn influence skills. But it seems like that, like looking at it as a skill, as a tactic, rather than something at a deeper heart level that we're talking about, like beginning with a sense of like I want to create allies as we go on a journey, or just a different perspective, like can we paint a different picture? Can you paint for the audience a different picture of influence skills? And taking it away from this image of like I need to figure out ways to get people to buy into what I want them to do, to more of an elevated definition of influence skills. I don't know if I could make you do that on the spot, but that's what I would love for you to do.
0:31:51 - Seth Kahan
You want to take allies along with you on the journey. That's a great metaphor. Right there, you know we're going on a journey, we're going into the new, the future. One of the things that I will often tell people is those of you who choose to become advocates for the change we're doing are going to be the leaders of tomorrow in this organization, because you're going to understand this in a way that no one else is. You're getting deep knowledge. This is like graduate school in 2.0 of this organization, and so if you want to be a vice president, if you want to be the CEO, if you want to be a manager, if you want to, you know, whatever your position is, this is one of the best ways that you can get there, and so taking people along on the journey is a wonderful metaphor.
I am always trying to ask myself the question how can I authentically respond to this person? So if somebody says this isn't going to work and let me tell you why I'm listening because I want to know why, and then I want to engage with them. If I discover that I cannot access in myself the reason why, I'll give myself permission and I'll just say you know, intuitively I'm not quite with you, but I'm not able to articulate why. Yet Give me a couple of days and let me come back and we have another conversation. Or, if I can access it, then I engage with them and the engagement is like a true debate, and so it has to be safe to debate. They have to feel like I'm not attacking them. They have to feel like I'm really, really there representing my side. And sometimes they don't want to debate, sometimes they don't care about me, they just want to tell me what they're saying.
So I'm still sifting around for gems. You know I might not get them on my side, but I want to see what, what. So there's all of that, and I've learned that you can get people partially on your side. I've had people in big, big organizations who say I'll support this part of the change but not that part. Or I've had people say I still don't like what you're doing, but I respect you and I don't think this is an imperialist move on the vice president's part. I don't think you're just looking to take our money. I think you're genuinely trying to do something good for the organization, even though I don't agree with it, and that is better than someone trying to shoot you down.
0:33:56 - Betsy Jordyn
At least they're talking. I would rather have somebody expressing their displeasure than the superficial compliance. I'm pretending I'm buying into it, but I'm going to tank you behind the scenes. It's like opening up the dialogue is a lot better. So let me pose a different type of change and let me ask you how you'd handle it. So one of the things that I have gotten obsessed of lately I've been, you know, I went on sabbatical and I got reconnected to all my OD roots and it's like I got reconnected to like the theory X versus theory Y and I had this like clarity that we have organizations that talk a lot. Are you familiar with the theory X versus the theory Y?
0:34:34 - Seth Kahan
It's been a long time, but yes.
0:34:36 - Betsy Jordyn
You Are you familiar with the Theory X versus the Theory Y? It's been a long time but, yes, you know, like the Theory X is like we believe, like that's a management model, that like people are lazy and they need to be controlled, and then you have this opposing perspective. That's like Theory Y, like people actually do care, like they'll do good work if they have the right conditions. You know, actually you can see our country. It's like fighting out these two different perspectives.
But I started really seeing that like as an OD consultant I was super naive, thinking like everybody wanted to operate in the theory why? But really every organization I was in was like really theory X, like it's a very solid, rigid, like I know, like I have these flashbacks when I was at Disney that like my first, my first like culture mentor, you know, told me like the best way to stand out at Disney is to fit it. You know, like there's no like a rich. You know like we're going to have diversity but look like everybody else, like you know. So all of a sudden it's like I was an OD part, I was an OD team and I was part of the HR team.
So also not that was like in the HR girls, but the but this is part of the challenge that we're trying to create these people-centered organizations, these human-centric organizations, these welcoming workplaces, when we're in a society that really just pushes the hierarchy. So how do you make the change within an organization when it's so deeply embedded into just like this is how we do, like it's not even just in an organization, it's how organizations function. So how do you make that kind of shift? You know where you get people to explore different biases around how I choose to lead, which is different than I'm going to choose to support this initiative that's going to change the worldwide image of mental health into something like less of a stigma. You know like this is like more personal, like I've got to change. You know how do you make that happen.
0:36:33 - Seth Kahan
Well, so there's. It feels to me like there's two pieces to that answer. So first, the first piece is that the organization has to want to change. So when we say the organization, we're talking about the leaders, we're talking about the people who control the budget, we're talking about the influencers. And it has to be in sync with where the world's going. So, for example, digitization and AI is where the world's going right now. So if somebody is saying we've got to change our culture so that we can take advantage of the digital world and AI, then that makes sense, because that's what's going on in the world.
So a lot of times when I get brought in to consider a large engagement, I'm also checking the organization out and I'm trying to determine if they've got what it takes to change, because I don't want to take on an assignment where I'm going to be fighting them tooth and nail. I want to take on an assignment where we're going to win. So there are many organizations that don't want to change Right. When Shell first brought me in to do an initiative called Smart Fields, where they were putting technology down underground to map oil and gas fields, I actually went to RiceVike no-transcript. The second thing I would say is that, excuse me, in many organizations the majority of people are very interested in being compliant and they want to go back to work. I learned about this from an excellent gender bias class that I took. It was developed by the American Geophysical Union and they are now delivering it to other organizations because it's so good and it's got the data to stand behind it.
When we looked at gender bias so in particular bias against women in the organization, what we learned was that over 90% of the staff of any organization simply want to know what does compliance mean? What kind of behaviors do you expect from me. And then they want to go back to the work they were doing. They don't want to do the deep dive into why is this a problem, what's the history of this, what's the toll it's taking on the women of our organization? I mean, you have a little bit of that information but they're really not that interested. And then there's about seven or eight percent that want that information, but they still don't want to go down the rabbit hole. They still don't want to know the horrors of what gender discrimination does, the havoc that it causes in people's lives, the lives that are destroyed as a result of it. They don't want to know. That it's too much. You can tell me the dynamics, you can help me fill in the blanks. And there's about two or 3% who are willing to go down the rabbit hole and those are the ones who are really going to lead the initiative. They're the ones who are going to understand it from the inside and out, and those numbers are okay, 90%. Just tell me what the new behavior is you want me to do.
Same thing is true in a large scale change. So when we put to do. Same thing is true in a large scale change. So when we put fiber optics down underground in oil and gas fields, the vast majority of Shell people just said how's my job changed, train me on it. And now let me go back to work. But there was a small segment that said I want to understand why we're putting this stuff down underground. What's the impact, what are the objectives, what's the ROI on this? And then there was about 2% that said I want to see how this stuff works. I want to understand it so that if something goes wrong, we know what to do in response. So that changed my expectations on how you know how, how invested people are in a particular change, because most of the change work I do is about making the world a better place, and the truth is is that most people just want to show up at work, do a good job, get kudos, go home to their families. That's the average person and that's OK.
0:40:22 - Betsy Jordyn
But what I really appreciate are what you're saying here. I think that it sounds like a simple thing, but it seems like to me it's a deeper truth. Is it's maybe, instead of worrying about how I'm influencing people, is that you can't make someone buy into a change that they don't necessarily want to buy into? Like it's using your discernment to figure out, like who's actually ready and you know, and if you're going into an organization, it's like do I have critical mass? Because I want this to be successful and I don't want to be banging my head up against the wall. So, like really begin with discernment and then look at discernment. It's like to what degree am I really looking for this, these behaviors to change, or how much motivation needs to change in order to make it happen? And then when you get like those true believers, like well, unleash them. You know that, but it's like everybody's not going to be in the same place.
It just seems like there's a lot of discernment around this.
Like before I take the gig or before I even embark on the change, I just make sure there's readiness, where I'm not going to be banging my head up against the wall.
Second, is I'm going to assess the different people and let their responses be where they are and I think this still goes back to what we said before is like, just be respectful and compassionate about people Like you can't create a people-centered organization with an approach that's not genuinely respectful of the people who are going to do the changing. So it just seems like it goes back to what we had said before of that. Okay, let's get on our third topic, which is really about today. You know we might be jumping into some world where people are like oh, it's not that bad, it's really great. From my perspective, the world seems a little crazy. What do you think? How do you size up the disruption that's happening today and the impact on all of this type of systemic change, when it feels like the headwinds against it is, you know, like whatever things are not politically correct to want DEI, and you know so I'm going to let you go wherever you want to go with this question.
0:42:23 - Seth Kahan
Yeah. So I think you know, if I am running Tylenol, it's one thing right, because now I have a major crisis on my hands. But if I am running, you know, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, I'm in a completely different world. I might have members who have research being cut and I need to deal with that, but I don't really have to police the actual running of my organization, my organization. I have come to see so many CEOs who understand the value of diversity and are unwilling to give it up and are now asking the question so do we need to name this something else so we can continue to get the value out of it that we've always gotten out of it, and that's certainly heartwarming in this environment. So you really have to know, kind of like, where are you on this scale? How close is it hitting you? It's one thing to be in a full-blown crisis. It's another thing to be operating in a very uncertain environment. There's been a lot of research that's been done on dips in the economy and how. That's the time to invest in change. That's the time to invest in marketing, because the deck's getting reshuffled and you can move up right.
Well, that's what an environment of uncertainty is. We are in one of those right now. It's not an economic depression. It might turn into one soon, but it's not right now.
But yet there's so much uncertainty that many people are hesitating, and this is the time to seize the day. I mean, if you look at the rate at which AI is developing, we know that right at this very moment, the winners and losers of AI are being identified, because those who are getting on board now are going to be riding that exponential wave and those who are waiting are going to be getting left behind by that exponential wave, and so this is the time to act. What does action mean? Well, you could talk to an AI expert about that, and I happen to know some, and there's some very good stuff going on out there. But what I'm saying is that, in this time where there's a lot of crosswinds, a lot of uncertainty, that this is a time when you can make significant progress unless you're under attack yourself. If you're running the CDC, if you're running Tylenol, then you have a very different playbook.
0:44:22 - Betsy Jordyn
Or like the place that Disney has been in lately, like they're in the crosshairs, like there's some companies that are in the cross here where you're not. It's not going to be good. It's not gonna be good either way.
0:44:34 - Seth Kahan
All the major media outlets, all the major news magazines or channels, all of the large universities, large law firms. They're all in the crosshairs right now and and they have to decide who they want to be. And you know it's really challenging. It's easy to say, but people are going to look back at this in 10 years and they're going to judge you by the character that you display right now. And I would like to understand the Disney story. I don't understand it just because I haven't dug into it and I don't know how much of it's visible yet.
But what just happened with Jimmy Kimmel? Clearly there was a reversing, of course, and I'd like to know what those dynamics were. To me, it's even too early to tell whether that's good. I didn't like that. They pulled him off. I hated that. But I don't know where the action to put him back on is coming from, and so I'm skeptical. I'm waiting to see who's going to pull back the curtain and so that we can see if they're taking a stand. That could be a very good thing for them. I don't know if they are.
0:45:34 - Betsy Jordyn
I think, with the Disney scenario. So this is where it's like I feel like that there's multiple dynamics, Like my perspective is is like I like the goals don't change, it's just the path to achieving those goals. Like just have like a million more obstacles in the way. Likeney still has their goals. Like they still want to do a merger. Like part of the reason why they pulled it, pulled kim on the first place, is they had a merger on the table and and they needed fcc. But disney responded to the customer. So like this, like the customers pitched a fit and staged a boycott and the stock price went, you know and so but it really tests disney's and I think that that's really the point is like what does this mean? Because Disney might. This one's really close to home.
Because of my Disney background, I love Disney so much. Like it was like seeing the crosshairs of Disney, like that one was. That was emotionally hard for me, because I wanted to see which way my leaders would go, Because I remember these leaders to be about like protect the brand at all costs, like protect the magic. And I think why Disney became a bigger issue than maybe other companies might've been in the same boat is Disney puts out movies like Andor, you know, or TV series like Andor in Star Wars and Marvel and all the other heroes journey cartoons that are out there. So it's like it's an archetype breach to not be on the side of, like you know, freedom. Like it's just, it doesn't make sense, you know, but other companies could, could weather that storm.
I think this was an archetypal thing, you know, and and I think that that's that's where it's like you have to go back to your core values. Like that's what I would if I were still consulting today and I was talking to leaders. I would still say, like I get it and it's challenging, but hold on to your core values, because when this passes and it will what's going to be left is your reputation, you know, and it really is time. Like, investing in the business is one thing, but protecting your core values, like that's what Jim Collins taught us with the build to last, is preserve the core, stimulate progress, but protect the core, Protect the values.
0:47:31 - Seth Kahan
Yeah, I like your term archetypal breach. Yeah, I agree with you on that.
0:47:37 - Betsy Jordyn
What would you say to a consultant or coach who wants to work with a leader who's super skittish about investing in the change that they need right now? How would you equip that person? Like I'm going to channel, like all my consultants and coaches are listening and they're like, oh God, like I want to do the kind of work you're doing, but how do I convince leaders to do this when they're super skittish with the economy and everything be up and down, seth, what would you tell me?
0:48:05 - Seth Kahan
So it's one thing to share an assessment that you have, but I don't believe in convincing leaders. I believe in you know you being honest with them. You tell them like this is how I see it, this is where my compass is with this, but again, they've got to want it, so then I would get into inquiry. So what is it you want? What is it that you're trying to do here? You know how important is career advancement to you, because the time this time is going to come and go and, like you said, your reputation is going to be judged by the actions that you took here. Maybe career advancement is not important. Maybe you're about to retire, maybe you don't care. How important are demonstrating your values. How important is it to you that you radiate to your subordinates the kind of life that you would like them to live? I work with a gentleman who was who's the? What's his name? He's at the American Academy of Medical Colleges. He's the. What's the honorific title that you give someone after they leave? As a CEO or the executive director?
Like a professor yeah he's the executive director emeritus and he's very involved in fighting the stigma around mental health and substance use disorders. It's a personal passion of his, and he has demonstrated it through so many actions. And I asked him once why is this so important to you? And he said well, I've suffered from anxiety and depression my whole life. I have this huge list of achievements and I never shared it. I have this huge list of achievements and I never shared it, and so I can't imagine how many of my subordinates did not get treatment because they looked at me as an example, and it's now time for me to make that up.
I'm going to make that up now and it's like so that's something that's running this gentleman's in his got to be in his late seventies. You know this is his legacy and he wants to make sure that he delivers on that. That's what's important to him, and so we're going to be able to turn that into behavior. We can turn that into action, but if somebody's not driven by something like that, you may just have to face it. I've worked with so many managers and leaders who are not driven by noble purposes and goals, who are not interested in legacy. They're looking at the next quarter. That's where their focus is, and you're not going to be able to make someone do something like that.
0:50:11 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, you're hitting like. My biggest hard lesson from sabbatical that I had to come face to face is like I'm a rose colored idealist and I have to become a clear eyed. Like, in order to to really lead change, you have to become clear eyed and not have these rosy expectations like that. You know everybody would want this If I I believe for years that I thought like, well, if I just like package this just the right way, like these leaders, of course, like they would never make these decisions if they knew it was harming the employees. And then it's like now, years later, it's like oh, they made these decisions and they knew darn well what they were doing. Like they didn't care decisions and they knew darn well what they were doing. Like they didn't care. And it's like, wow, my heart, my heart hurts, like that sucks, you know.
But I think that that kind of like is the the loop around. You know, with this whole thing, it's like you know, as you think about like transformational change, it really is going into the unknown. You have to really test to see if people are there and you have to respect their choices. You know on whether or not they want to go. You know and you journey with them if they do want to go, and that's what influence is about. It's like some of it's just discernment.
0:51:14 - Seth Kahan
I think of it as equanimity, and I think it is a superpower. You know, when things are flying around you and everybody's buckling, you want to be able to see clearly, and that's what you're describing is that kind of equanimity, so you're not getting swayed by what you might want, you're not getting swayed by lip service. You're actually able to assess what's going on, and I think being able to do that is very valuable and it's something that people come to respect very quickly. I've been in so many meetings where I've said the thing that nobody was willing to say, and I try and say it with love in my heart, but it's still gotta be said, you know.
And then afterwards, people will thank you for it. Oh my God, nobody was willing to say that, but you were, and it's like for me, it's like well, it was plain as day, partly because I'm not in your system, I'm coming in as an outsider and I can see it.
0:52:08 - Betsy Jordyn
But it's that you know. Yeah, that's the hard part of our work is like speaking truth in a two. Speaking truth to power Like that's to me, that's big part of influence is you have to be willing to go there. But, you know, in a more balanced way.
0:52:18 - Seth Kahan
And the power bounces back to you that they're not going to hear it. You got to be able to hear that, right? That's what you were just talking about. Okay, so this person's not going to go there, they're going to make the decision that's going to hurt the organization and there's nothing I can do about it.
0:52:31 - Betsy Jordyn
So then, so then, how do I handle that? And it's not me Like I personalized it, like I was. Definitely I had this horrible client situation where, like the leaders were making like the worst, like it was so bad, there were suicides in the workplace. I'm not going to get into it because that was like pretty traumatic. But I, what was really upsetting because, like for me, I carried all of these stories, you know, and the leaders didn't care, and I was part of like a global community of consultants and I was talking to them like I'm devastated and they're like, why do you care? You know you got your paycheck and I'm like, what do you mean? Why do I care? Like this is horrible.
And I think that that's where the caring has to come into some sort of like I don't think I should go over there where it's like why do you care? Like that was, you know, too much of an extreme, I was too much over this other extreme, but it's like caring in the middle, like I care. But I'm not taking this on. This is not my like. Fixing this is not my monkeys and it's not my circus. This is your monkey, this is your circus. You have to fix it. I'm just here to hold up the mirror. And if you don't like what you're seeing, it's not that I didn't say it right, it's just you didn't like the mirror.
0:53:33 - Seth Kahan
It's kind of like emerging from the war with your heart intact. That's the goal, you know. It's like you're going to go into battle, you're going to do your very best, but you're not going to sacrifice your own heart your own heart.
0:53:48 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, okay, so we talked about a lot of different things as it relates to the journey into a consulting business, ownership and, in your case, thought leadership. We talked about what transformation is and how it's really just a complete shift from the past and to doing something new. We talked about influence, the role of consultants, the role of leaders in change, and we talked about today. Is there anything else that you want to tell me about just transformational change, systemic change or about what you do, and I'm just not asking you the right question?
0:54:15 - Seth Kahan
I guess I would just like to end with an encouraging note that if you want to change the world for the better, that you can make that your business. I have I'm making a very good living at it and it took me a long time to get here, but it was a steady path for me because I always wanted to do it and so I just pushed and pushed in that direction anytime I had the opportunity. And I think I want to say to all the solopreneurs out there, all the people who are living that life it's a hard life that you can turn it into a life where you are making a positive difference in your world and it's the most rewarding thing there is you are making a positive difference in your world and it's the most rewarding thing there is.
0:54:49 - Betsy Jordyn
I love that and I know you have a couple of books that are on your website that people can buy. Is there other? Can you give us a little bit of like how people connect with you, what they can purchase and your website address? If you can give us some of that information, that would be great too.
0:55:03 - Seth Kahan
Sure. So my website is visionaryleadershipcom. No-transcript. I'm working on the fifth right now about grand challenges.
0:55:35 - Betsy Jordyn
What's the book that you said about? You know, like the lessons on leading change. Can you point?
0:55:40 - Seth Kahan
out that Getting Change Right. Okay, that's the one, yep.
0:55:44 - Betsy Jordyn
That sounds to be like the book that people really should go towards. It sounds like Is that accurate?
0:55:49 - Seth Kahan
Yeah, From this conversation definitely.
0:55:52 - Betsy Jordyn
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you all for listening. My take on what we talked about today is just, it really does go back to basics. Influence is a challenging kind of experience for any consultant or coach at every time, but it seems like the winning strategy, no matter what, is to lead with curiosity, lead with compassion and listening deeply to what's going on and try to bring people along as allies is more important, and it's also to me. In my world, it's about strategic positioning as well, like making sure that you are positioning yourself to create that business and to create that relationship with your clients to make that type of impact. So if that is something that you need help with, like, feel free to look at my services on my website at wwwbetsyjordyncom. Jordyn's with a Y. I always have to remind everybody because there's a different Betsy Jordyn who's out there with an A, who gets all my emails and, you know, all my website traffic. So, anyway, so that is it for.
