Managing Change from Four Perspectives: Leading with Whole Brain Thinking | #24

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Welcome to Unleash youh Impact Unlock Others. This is a leadership unscripted episode entitled Leading Change with Whole Brain Thinking.

Regular listeners will know that recently Rich and I spoke about the model of whole brain thinking and how we use it in the programs that we run and also laterally. We interviewed Ann Herrmann.

Now, Ann is the chairman and chief thought leader at Herrmann International, who at a company provide the methodology known as whole brain thinking. And Anne uses this tool with execs in the US to help them navigate this really challenging world we now live in.

Particularly in her view, using all the brain capability available in your business, which is vital for managing change. So today, as usual, I'm here with Rich. Rich, how are you today?

Hi, Dave. I'm good, thank you. Good.

What's your view on change and leading change, Rich?

Well, change is really difficult to manage.

Well, in my experience, when I think back through my career in local authority and in the public sector and working also with companies in the private sector, it's striking that not many organizations do change well. I mean, it's inevitable that people are going to be unhappy during change.

Yeah.

But I'm always surprised the degree to which a lot of organizations in difficult, challenging change don't communicate effectively and don't engage their people in a positive, proactive, empathetic way. So, yeah, change is often not done.

Very well and it's difficult. Let's be honest, we're now in a world where change is constant. It is difficult, it's quite rapid.

Yes.

You know, so this is getting harder and harder. So what I'd like to explore with you today is how do we better lead, frame and communicate change?

And we're going to use the lens of whole brain thinking to allow us to do that walking through different thinking preferences to influence how people experience change, how leaders can use it as a practical tool to communicate change in a much more balanced and inclusive way. I think your point actually is that people don't often feel included in change. They feel like it's done to them.

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So let's start off with the obvious. I guess change is inevitable, but resistance is often misunderstood.

As you said, a lot of change initiatives don't necessarily work as well as they can do, or dare I say, fail. And I think that's because resistance to change is often misunderstood or even miscalculated yes. What's your view?

Well, if I can quote Star Trek.

Please do.

There's a quote on Star Trek. I think when the Borg tried to take over the cosmos, resistance is futile was their phrase.

And I think leaders really need to be aware that when they come to introduce change, particularly big change, resistance is sometimes seen as a frustrating thing. I often see leaders get really cross with people who resist in change.

Resistance is normal and resistance is nature's way of warning us that something is going on and we need to keep ourselves safe.

So for people to have an emotional response to change which could affect their role, their salary, their job, their livelihood, all those things, it's no wonder that people will be resistant to change. So I think it's important that leaders shouldn't be surprised by resistance.

And see, that is part and parcel of how you manage that resistance in a positive way. In the context of the change, you.

Could argue it's actually quite healthy for people to resist because actually it puts a little bit of a check and balance on what you're trying to do, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

So what I want to do today is look at how whole brain thinking provides a language and a model for understanding why people resist, but also how to engage them in the conversation better. And I know you and I have used this metaphor, if you like, of the four different views of or four different lenses of change.

So we'll go into these in a lot more depth. But the forensic telescope of changed, the celestial telescope have changed, the X ray specs have changed and the safety goggles are changed.

Now we'll explain what we mean by those things in a bit. So let's talk about why change fails. You said often it fails or it doesn't maybe achieve all the things it should do.

What are the mistakes that leaders often make when we try to communicate change?

So I'll just roll back a little bit, I'll talk about communication in a minute. But I just want to frame what I'm going to say in the context of whole brain thinking.

So whole brain thinking, just to recap very quickly, is what we call left brain versus right brained thinking.

Yeah.

So left brain thinking is when we break stuff down into its component parts of very analytical, data driven, process led, that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Right brain is where we make connections, whether that's connections with ideas or people.

Yeah.

And upper brain style thinking, that's the, that's the more rational cognitive style of thinking versus the lower brain style of thinking, which is the much more intuitive grounded thinking style. So those two continuums, if you like, the upper brain, lower brain, left brain, right brain, create those four distinct styles.

So what we call the yellow thinking preference, that's the big picture, what you call the celestial telescope.

Yeah.

The left upper is the blue thinking star. Very analytical, data driven. That's the forensic telescope as we call it. The right is the people perspective, the red, that's the X ray specs.

So that's where we're empathetic, intuitive, fairly emotionally driven in our thinking style. And then the lower left is what we call this engaging the safety goal because that's the green style of thinking.

So that's the part of thinking that keeps us safe, manages risk, manages quality, manages process.

So going back to change and what happens to us during change, if you think about left brain thinking, that's the blue and the green, that's the very data driven, process led style of thinking.

I think what happens often when we go through change, when we experience change, we're going through change because there's a stressor in the system, there's a need to change, a drive to change. Yeah. So that might be the market has changed, the economy has changed or something.

So there's an imperative for the business to change but that introduces stress into the system. And when people get stressed usually what happens is they get quite left brained, focused in their thinking.

So often the focus in businesses during change is, you know, saving money, what's the data, what's the evidence and how we're going to get this over the line and putting in processes in place and plans in place place to make sure that happens.

And those things are all well and good but it's a very one sided way of approaching change when you think actually there are four different thinking styles. So the other two thinking styles, the yellow and the red, the celestial telescope and the X ray specs.

In my experience that side of change sometimes gets overlooked because people are stressed and become very left brained.

No, I agree. Yeah, I agree.

So that impacts people's approach to change. Then go back to your original question. Impacts also the way they start to communicate change as well.

Yeah, you know, so if you go very left brained in terms of your thinking style, you'll often engage with people on just, you know, these are the facts, this is the evidence, this is, you know, this is the reason sort of economically why we're doing this and this is the plan which they need to know. But actually what you're not engaging with in that is the More red style of thinking.

So that's the empathetic sort of intuitive, emotional sort of side of things. And also you're probably not engaging with the celestial telescope. That's the more innovative big picture star stuff.

You get very sort of tunnel vision approach.

Yeah. And the problem with that, if you miss out that. Right.

Brain stuff, because like you say, people need to make connections with ideas and concepts, but also with the emotional side of change. If you don't give them the context, guess what's going to happen? They're going to start making it up. Because human beings need context.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So. And often the context they create is like negative context. Oh, this is all just about losing jobs or this is.

Yeah.

And that's the danger. So you get all these sort of stories revolving around a business that actually we think, where did that come from?

Well, that's because you didn't communicate the context effectively enough. Yeah, yeah, you thought you did, but you came from a very analytical, data driven point of view.

And the communication then, and the engagement with the people during change, from the leadership perspective becomes very transactional.

Yeah.

And you know, that's why people become disengaged or cheesed off because actually they just, you know, it feels very inhuman, impersonal, you know, and actually change is personal because if you're changing people's role, people's salary, people are being made redundant. So. Because the change is impacting some deeply personal stuff.

Yeah.

It's no wonder that people are going to respond emotionally to the change.

Yeah, absolutely.

As I said, it's impacting their livelihood, their house, their rent, their mortgage, their family, all of those sorts of stuff. It's deeply personal.

Yeah. And you make a good point about, you know, change often comes with pressure.

So if you think back to the first podcast, when we talked about whole brain thinking, when we talked about everyone has a preference for how they process information. So just for argument's sake, my preference is analytical thinking. Yeah. And.

But usually not always, but usually when we under pressure, we go stronger into our strongest preference. So if I become even more analytical under pressure and I'm then trying to communicate change to my team, guess what I'm going to do?

I'm probably going to rely more on data, more on technical information, more on that type of stuff. Evidence.

Yes.

Than actually thinking this is going to affect my team emotionally. Almost. What I need to do is the opposite. I need to understand their emotional response to this.

I need to make sure I communicate the big picture as well, because otherwise they'll probably Create their own context rather than sort of stay with my preference.

Yes, yeah. And the other thing often that gets crowded out during change is if you think of the celestial telescope type thinking.

So that is also about big picture and the context and the why and all that sort of stuff. But that's also about innovation and creativity.

Absolutely.

And you know, making connections with concepts and ideas. And often during change, things like innovation can get shut down because people feel stressed.

You know, that's what happens to us when we become stressed. Our ability to be creative and innovative gets compressed, if you like.

So leaders need to be aware that during change, if you become very left brained, there's two thinking styles actually that would be very powerful if you're to engage those effectively.

The right brain stuff.

The right brain stuff, absolutely.

Let's just dive into these four lenses of change there. And let's start with the analytical view.

I know Ann says when you do a whole brain walk around, she always recommends you start with the analytical view. So let's start with that which we call the forensic telescope. You and I call that the forensic telescope.

So if someone's trying to communicate change from that perspective, what are the needs, what are they trying to get across and what are they using to get their message across?

So this style of thinking is all about the facts, all about the data, all about the figures. So, you know, you'll understand the business case for the change.

You know, you'll probably understand the money side and the data and all that sort of stuff. So your communication could sound very cold.

Yeah, that's the danger, isn't it?

That is the danger with this. So it might sound like if you just communicate just from that perspective actually that you're ignoring the emotional component of change.

And people might feel actually that you're not taking their emotional stuff seriously. It can feel quite cold and, you know, almost inhuman at the extreme.

Well, most people listen to this who've maybe tried to introduce some change in their home life.

Yes, yeah.

And thought, well, I know how to get the family on board. I'll just give them all the logical reasons why we should do it. How often does that actually work?

Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, Rich, if you have a leader who is leading communicating change with their forensic telescope.

Yes.

What fears might be underpinning that style of communication from that person's point of view?

So somebody with a very strong blue thinking preference because it's very data driven and analytical. They're the sort of people that probably won't like ambiguity.

No.

Okay.

So the Reason they engage with the data and the information and the money side of things, actually, because that potentially gives them a sense of certainty in the context of all of this swirling change. So one of their fears were they won't like ambiguity. And they tend to be afraid of engaging with the emotional stuff just in.

Case it gets messy or just.

Yes, yes, exactly. Just in case it gets messy. But also just to be aware it goes the other way as well.

So when leaders are communicating change to people in their team or in the organization, so people in the team of the organization with a strong blue thinking preference. So they will be the sort of people that don't like the ambiguity and will push the emotional stuff away.

So perhaps they will want to know the business case and understand the context and for you to do what you can to create some clarity in the situation. You can't create. Often you can't create certainty, but as a leader, you can give some clarity.

Yeah, you know, so somebody from this perspective, if they're thinking about, you know, what's the business case, what can we tell them that's really clear that we do know? You know, actually this, this is a really useful thinking style to drive through that sense of ambiguity and uncertainty.

Yeah, I think you're right. We should. If we're communicating change from this perspective, we need to provide some form of rationale.

Yes.

We need to use data to do that, and we need to break down the case for change to a certain extent. I guess the danger is we go too far into that without having done the other parts of the communication process.

So the flip side of the coin is these are the people that ironically don't like the ambiguity and tend to push away the emotional stuff, so rest on their data and their numbers to give them a sense of safety in the context of change.

So we'll get to the emotional side of it in a bit. But before we do, let's dive into the celestial telescope, which is the big picture view and the rationale for change from that perspective.

So a leader trying to communicate change from that perspective, what are their needs?

So these are the sort of people, if you've got a very strong yellow thinking preference, they will probably fear loss of freedom and a sense of being confined.

Yeah, because there's lots going on that they now don't have control over, and that might impinge on them as a person in their role, you know, being creative or innovative, you know, the ability to brainstorm and, you know, just contribute ideas to what's going on. So, you know, if an Organization becomes very left brained and doesn't engage with this thinking style.

You know, there's a real danger that people will feel that loss of freedom and being confined, I'm guessing.

Also though, my point about them creating their own context if we don't give them the context. So what's the vision here? Yeah, where's, what's the future focus?

Why are we doing this in the context of the world that we live in if we don't create that story enough?

Yes, yeah.

They will tell you they will potentially create another story. It might not be the story you want them to create.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's the danger.

Yeah, it is. And communicating the why very clearly in terms of helping people to see the connections needed to say.

Oh yeah, actually I can see the rationale for that rather than making it up for themselves.

Yes. And of course at this point it's not everyone agreeing because they may not agree.

No, no, no, no, indeed. Yeah.

But if you've got a good story, you've got to communicate that story. Yeah. Okay, so tips there. Make sure we frame the bigger picture properly.

Make sure you cover the future benefits and the new opportunities that this change is going to bring. So now Rich, let's go into the, what we call the X ray specs view of change. This is the people view, this is the emotional view.

So somebody, a leader, communicating from this perspective what are the needs they're trying to get across here.

Okay, so this is engaging with the emotional stuff in the context of change. So as you said, engaging with the messiness. Yes.

Of people's response to being fearful about how that's going to impact them personally, both in their role or, and wider than that in their personal life.

So I guess there's two dangers here, is actually there's the danger that if you have a leader with a natural red, you know, X ray specs type thinking preference is the danger here that their emotions can dominate and cloud their version of reality. So they get, they get all bound up with their team's emotional response because they're very empathetic.

And the danger then is the emotional response then can just drive all the decision making, which could be disastrous.

And it's also the antithesis of the cold leadership.

Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

So this is about finding a balance between the analytical view, the people focused view.

Yeah.

Without, as you said, heating up too much.

Yeah.

And, but if this is done well, if, if you engage with your team with empathy and compassion actually, even though you're implementing a change which people might profoundly disagree with or might really impact them quite deeply on a. On a personal level.

You know, because you're changing stuff that, you know, affects their life, they're much more likely to go through the change and to engage with the change in a more healthy way than actually if you just simply disregard their emotional response and get very frustrated with the emotional resistance, which is natural in the context of change.

And change should be inclusive. It should be a shared journey, shouldn't it?

Yes. Yeah, it should. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. So your point about Right, let's be really careful about taking an empathetic view.

Don't have to agree with other people's view, but you need to understand why they have their view.

Yes. Yeah.

We need to invite feedback from them.

Yes.

We may have to talk about feelings. Now, I know some leaders don't like that, but human nature as it is, they're going to be there whether you talk about them or not.

Yeah. I think the other thing just to say here that there is a difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy.

Yes.

Okay. So empathy is the ability to, if you like to walk in the other person's shoes and understand their perspective.

Sympathy is actually where you almost like walk into their emotional world and you cry with them.

Yeah.

And there's much less boundary with that sort of. With that sort of engagement.

So in my view, although you do want leaders to be sympathetic, actually in the context of change, you're going to have to make some very difficult decisions that's going to impact people emotionally. So an empathetic approach as opposed to getting caught up with people's emotional drama.

The sympathy approach, I think, is a really important distinction in terms of what we're talking about here.

Because the danger is if you get caught up in people's emotional stuff, that's going to cloud your ability to make objective decisions and judgments in the context of change.

And as with anything, it's about balance, isn't it?

It is about balance.

A good leader, no matter what your preference is for how you process information, you've got to balance that analytical view and that emotional view people view. Exactly. And finding that balance isn't easy. Let's be honest. It's not easy.

Yeah. And that's why we call it whole brain thinking.

Exactly.

Because it's about balancing each of these four perspectives in the context of change.

And the degree of the balance in terms of the thinking style that you engage will change situation to situation, conversation to conversation, and actually it might even change inside a conversation.

Yeah, of course, we have one perspective. We haven't talked about, which is the, what we call the safety goggles perspective. This is about the safekeeping basically.

Change needs structure, it needs some kind of sequencing, it needs some kind of process, it needs obviously some practical actions. So a leader communicating change from that perspective, what do they usually need and what do they usually fear?

So a green thinking preference, strong green thinking preference, somebody's got that, they usually are going to fear the lack of security and unpredictability.

So if you think this is about the safety goals, so this is about keeping people safe, processing stuff, managing risk, managing quality, all that sort of stuff.

So if that starts to get blown out of the water in the context of change and you inject a huge amount of uncertainty in the context of change, that's going to drive some deep fears with somebody with that very strong thinking perspective.

So, so if as a leader you have a strong green thinking perspective, it's possible that you become very focused on micromanaging, very focused on the process, you know, trying to contain the risk and actually close down, particularly the yellow thinking style.

Well, you can squeeze the life out of the change if you're not careful.

Yes, yeah, exactly right, yeah.

So you become, it's almost like an obsession with managing every little risk and then the fear response also then drives that micromanagement type leadership behavior.

So we need a rollout plan, we need to outline the steps in that rollout plan. We need to explain particularly what's being done to mitigate or reduce risk.

But what we don't want to do is squeeze the life out of it because as you said, I mean, I've seen that happen where I've been involved myself when I was employed going through change programs where risk was overly managed.

Yes, yes.

And then basically it did, it just literally the change never happened in the end because it got almost stifled at the beginning part of the process. So let's just recap on those four perspectives. So we've got the forensic telescope, which is the analytical view of change.

We've got the celestial telescope, which is the big picture view of change. We've got the X ray specs, which is the people orientated view of change, the emotional view if you like.

And we've got the safety goggles view of change, which is actually how do we take the whole thing forward?

Yes.

What process are we going to use, etc. So in your experience, have you got any examples of where this has been done?

Well, where this has been done not so well without obviously naming names. But yeah.

So I think if I Think back to remember, there was a particular change that I was involved with, driven through central government, had a profound impact on the organization I was working with at the time. And actually, fundamentally, most people in our organization didn't agree with the change and didn't agree with how it was being done.

And it caused a huge amount of emotional response and resistance to that. And my manager at the time obviously was quite heavily involved in that change at a very senior level.

But one of the things I think he did well, actually in the context of that change was there was all this huge amount of uncertainty and he didn't know all the answers to that. So he's very honest about that. He told us what he could. He was transparent on the stuff that he knew, but he also gave us.

He also gave us the opportunity in team meetings to talk about the change and to express how we felt about it. And he was prepared to engage with that stuff. So he gave us the forum and the opportunity to process our anger, I suppose.

Yeah, it could easily be.

Well, yeah, because we were angry because a lot of us didn't agree with the change that was going on.

So I thought actually in the main, he struck a really good balance between being transparent and telling us what we could and giving us the opportunity to sort of talk our stuff through. Because whatever we did, we're going to have to do this change. This was change that's being done to us.

Yes, Mandated change.

Yeah. There was very little actually that was in our control. We had to do this.

I'm guessing he didn't have all the answers to your questions either.

No, he didn't.

No. But what he was doing, it goes back to my point about making it a shared journey where it's inclusive. He was including you early in the.

Discussions and in my experience, actually when I was talking to other people in the organization, he was being more transparent than other leaders and managers.

Now, you've got to be careful when you're being transparent and honest with people because sometimes in my experience, leaders and managers over share because they're worried about the emotional response of their team and, you know, so it's almost like they're colluding with the other people.

See, you've got to be careful where you're coming from in terms of what you share and what you choose to share, because you can easily cross the line with that. But I thought in the main he got the balance of that fight. Right.

So I think when we plan to communicate change, let's just say we have a change we want to drive through our business. And most businesses that are listening to this will have change that they need to drive through their businesses.

Let's look at whole brain thinking as a really good tool to plan the communication that we need to do, let alone do the communication. So if we're planning it, let's start with analytical thinking. I would include things like what's the bottom line?

What are the facts or the evidence behind why we're changing. Is there anything else that you'd include in that that you would plan to communicate?

Well, people want to know what's the logic behind the decision? What's the business case? They probably want to know what are the goals, the objectives for the change. You know, so this is all about the rationale.

Yeah.

So all of those things, the bottom line, the facts, the financial consequences, the logic behind it, particularly the goals and objectives of the change. Make sure you plan to communicate all of that stuff. Yeah, right. Let's put our celestial goggles on or a celestial telescope on. What do we.

Do you think we should communicate from that perspective or plan to communicate?

Yeah, I guess in some ways you've covered the why when you think about the business case from the, from the blue perspective.

Well, analytically you have.

Yeah, analytically. But this, this is more the big picture.

Yeah.

So actually, from a big picture perspective, you know, why are we doing this? So people can actually start to make the connections.

Okay, yeah, I can see why we're, why we're doing that and how that fits in with the bigger picture. So they get a clear sense of where you're going and the vision associated with what you're trying to do.

And it also helps them to put themselves in the context of that change so they can see how the change is going to affect their future.

Well, I think that's a big one, actually. Yeah. How is this change going to affect their future?

Yes.

You may not be able to fully answer that.

No, no.

But they're going to be asking themselves that question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the other thing you can do in the context of this sort of yellow thinking, the celestial thinking style is actually where you can.

What can you do to engage the ideas, the creativity and the sort of, the innovative sort of ideas and concepts of the people in your team? You know, you as a leader don't need to know all the answers and frankly, you won't have all the answers.

So giving people the opportunity to contribute to the bigger picture.

Well, this is one of my, as you know, strongest thinking styles.

So questions I'd be Asking myself and have done in the past when I've been involved in changes, how much freedom do I have to roll this out or is it just being done to me and I've got no freedom whatsoever which would constrain me or how else might this change constrain me? Because I'm one of those people that I don't want to be micromanaged.

So I will probably get on board with change if I'm given a good rationale, but I don't want to be constrained by it and I want to know how I can help influence and roll out the change. So those are really good things in terms of planning, communication around it to make sure that you've covered those things off.

Okay, let's go into the people focused side. So we're going to put our X ray specs on now to plan the communication there.

What sort of things do you think we should be including in that part of the plan?

So this is where you have to engage with. I think it's a good phrase, actually what you referred to as is the messy stuff.

Yeah.

But this is the personal stuff.

Actually engaging relationally with the team, with the people in your organization, to understand the emotional impact on them, on their family, and giving people the opportunity to talk about that and to feel listened to. I think also because this is the people focused style of thinking is to think beyond the team, maybe even beyond the organization.

Think about the customers, stakeholders, how are they going to be impacted? What are you doing to engage with them, how you communicating with them?

So it's thinking about the people perspective from a very holistic point of view and then thinking, how are you going to engage with them? How are you going to help them feel like they're being listened to?

When it goes back to a previous conversation we had about thinking of changes not as a linear process, but as an ecosystem with all of these people, all these interconnections in it. So I think you're absolutely right. Yes, you should be focusing on the team dynamics and how it affects team dynamics.

You should be focusing on the individuals in the team and how they get affected. But should you be thinking about stakeholders? Of course you should. Should you be thinking about customers? Of course you should.

They're all, they're all impacted by the change.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So going back to the.

The joke at the very top of the podcast that the danger, the blue thinking style, the analytical thinking style is, is you have the resistance is futile type mentality. You know, this is the reason. Just get on with it.

Get on with it.

Get on with it. Actually, the relational approach is actually resistance is normal and natural. And let me understand why you're resisting this change.

And also who's going to listen to my concerns when I've got them? Because it might be. I haven't got a concern straight away, I've got to process all of that.

But a week down the line, a month down the line, there might be all sorts of concerns I've got. So this isn't just a communication at the beginning, it's a constant communication, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

To make sure that you understand people's evolving emotional response to the change.

Yeah, that's really good, actually. I like that. Because people's emotional reactions to the change will change over the course of the change.

Yeah, well. And we know from sort of previous studies on some of this stuff that their reaction might get worse before it gets better as well.

You know, as you said, they might be at the beginning, they might at the beginning actually quite welcome it until the reality of it kicks in. But then you can get some quite extreme, as you said, anger, frustration, withdrawal, emotional withdrawal.

So expect the unexpected and treat the resistance. And the emotional response is normal and natural and a little bit uncertain.

So finally, in terms of planning our communication around change, we need to put our safety goggles on and communicate.

So I've talked about what are the timelines of the change, what are the specifics of the change, but what else would you include in that sort of safety goggle part of the communication? What else would you include?

So I guess what you need to get across, actually, if you've done this before, you know, what's your track record for this type of change?

Absolutely, yeah.

Because if you can communicate that, that will give people a sense of. Actually, no, we understand what this is and we have a track record of doing this.

So that helps that sort of uncertainty, that sort of fear of lack of security. So talk about that. If you do have a track record in that, what can you do to minimize the surprise of the change?

This is about what clarity can you give to people? You can't eliminate uncertainty.

No, you can't.

But what clarity can you give to people? What can you tell them about process of the change? What can you tell them about what you've got planned?

What can you tell them about the risks that they can expect? What have you done to mitigate the risks? So that's all of those things I think you can communicate and of course.

What you can also do, because most change initiatives require A bunch of meetings as you go through that timeline and that process of change. So for every meeting where it's appropriate, you adopt a whole brain thinking approach in terms of how you talk about the issues that are arising.

So for example, a month into your change, you've got a team meeting.

Actually, if we look at that team meeting, looking at the issues that have arisen from all of these four perspectives, we make sure then we carry on keeping everybody involved in change. We're not missing a perspective which is, I think it's really important.

Yeah.

And I think you can actually structure meetings, structure workshops, structure planning meetings around these four perspectives, what we call the whole brain walk around. So you could say, right, so this part of the meeting, we're going to focus on blue star thinking.

Yeah.

So what are the facts, what's the bottom line, what the evidence, all that sort of stuff.

So then when you capture all of that and you understand the context, then you move to the yellow style of thinking, say, right, okay, so this part of the meeting or the planning session, let's focus on the yellow star, the celestial telescope type thinking. So in the context of what we now know, you know, what are the possibilities? What's the big picture? Why do we need to do this?

You know, if you're to think creatively about the issue, you know, what could we do differently? And there's all sorts of activities that you can do around that.

And then I think what it can then do is move to the red star thinking, the relational thinking, the X ray specs. So thinking about, okay, so that's the evidence, that's the facts, that's the big picture. That's where we're going to go. That's our vision.

Now, who's going to be impacted by this, how they're going to respond emotionally, and how we're going to address that emotional response.

Who do we need to speak to.

And who do we need to speak to, all of that sort of stuff. And then the last thing, and it's really interesting that it is the last thing you do is the green star.

Not the first thing.

Not the first thing. The safety goggles start. You know, so what are the timelines, what are the specifics? What's the plan? What's the risk management strategy?

And I think too many organizations, they, well, they, they probably do start with the blue stuff.

Yeah.

But they go to the green.

They jump too quickly to the practical.

Too quickly to the practical stuff, and they miss out often, the yellow and the red thinking stuff.

So this is why I Like whole brain thinking as a tool because it's really practical.

Yes.

And this is a good example of why it's really practical.

Now, I know, as you said, we've built a whole workshops around using this approach, but I think if I was going to have a conversation with my team around change, I think it's a really practical tool to use to make sure no matter what my preferences are or the preferences of my team are, that we get a very balanced perspective around the change that we're trying to. Okay, so whole brain walk around. That is basically what we wanted to say about that. So, Rich, let's just dive into some final thoughts here.

This podcast is called Managing Change from Four Perspectives, leveraging all of the thinking resources we've got available in our teams.

What would be your top tips, final thoughts for anybody listening to this, who's got to drive some change, manage some change, communicate some change.

So the first thing is just to be aware of your preference or your strongest preference and to understand where that serves you well and where it doesn't serve you well. And the key thing, the key top tip is to flex.

So if you have particular blind spot or a weakness, what you're doing to compensate for that, are you flexing your communication style, the way you behave and. Or are you engaging other people in your team to compensate for that potential weakness or blind spot?

Yeah. Brilliant.

And I would add to that in terms of how we flex is just think very carefully about the language and tone that we're using language, particularly because the language is important in terms of getting the right outcome, isn't it?

Yes, it is. Yeah.

So, and small changes in language and tone can make actually quite big differences in all of this. So final prompts for anybody listening to this. If you're managing change, which of those perspectives do you lead? You know, mainly with?

Where might you have some change perspective that you've overlooked and how you're going to make sure you don't overlook that in the future. Again, anybody listening to this thinking, I'd love to know what my preferences are and the preferences of my team. Come and speak to Zentana.

We can help you work that out with whole brain thinking, individual profiles, whole thinking, team profiles, and they can be really, really effective in gelling a team around all sorts of things, not just managing change.

And whole brain thinking is one of the leadership tools that underpins our leadership programs. So if you're interested in engaging us to talk about that, please do. And also we do whole brain workshops as well.

So if you want to engage us to work with your team, your leadership team, to use whole brain thinking to harness the diversity in your team. Please get in touch.

So thanks for that, Rich.

Next time on the podcast, we're going to be talking about what I think is a really interesting topic, leadership in this emerging world of tech and AI. Now, you've had some real experience having been a leader in a technical environment, Rich. I want to tap into that next time.

And how do we lead in the world of AI and all the things it's going to bring. So that's for next week.

Okay, I'll look forward to that.

For now. Goodbye.

Goodbye.