Ep. 141 - Season 10 Finale: Navigating a World of Change
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I started this season thinking about transitions -- about the big societal changes that we all have to grapple with, about the personal challenges we end up having to navigate individually, about the increasingly frequent career transitions that most of us experience at some point in our lives, and about how organizations can accommodate people who are constantly changing in a world that is changing just as much.
And as I talked to our guests, it stuck out to me how much of the advice was about community, about support. We’re all walking a unique path, we’re all going through something different, we’re all navigating a rapidly changing world of increasing complexity — and none of us can do it alone.
Key Takeaways:
We have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Our lives change so rapidly, internally and externally, and everything gets harder when you resist that change.
It’s easier to weather the discomfort of change when you have an accountability partner.
A lot of people get stuck in this kind of familiar discomfort until it's so unbearable that they have to make a change. But, as a number of guests have said on the show, change is like a muscle. When you train your brain and your mindset, you get better at navigating it, you get more resilient.
You can build the practice of change in small, daily ways. For example, try switching up part of your routine, even something as small as which shoe you put on first when you leave the house. It may seem inconsequential, but these little things can help you gradually get comfortable with newness and build the habit of adaptation so that you’re more prepared when you’re confronted with a big change.
Practice telling the story of your own life. Jordan Gross shares a “spin zone” technique, in which you take a ‘bad’ thing that has happened to you and reframe it as a positive story. This can help you internalize the good that comes with the difficult parts of a transition, and developing more optimism really helps mitigate the fear of change.
Keep your brain cognition healthy with good sleep, good nutrition, oxygen or exercise, learning new things, and social interaction.
It’s the power of a team — the great people that support an organization — that fuels a business’ success. That means that leaders need to gain perspective and context on what benefits the whole of an organization, not themselves or one sub-group within it.
There’s no better way to shepherd your organization through a rapidly changing world than leading by listening. A key part of this process is diving into the core motivations behind people’s preferences.
Leaders need to be more intentional about keeping the finger on the pulse of the organization. Do you know what your people think the culture and mindset of your organization is? And did you create it on purpose?
Your company’s values are central to everything your organization does. It’s really a core part of your DNA so it’s important to live and breathe it but also recognize and reward others for reflecting them.
“There is no end point in the development of culture or mindset. It is a constant process of creating a flow of talent, a flow of human beings into the organization, and continually helping them to all go through this process of aligning around the organization's strategic goals.” —Gary Bolles
We now live in a constant state of transition. Change comes in waves, and the frequency of change is increasing. That means we need to be constantly anticipating and adapting, as both individuals and organizations.
The status quo in this new world of work and life is that the status quo will constantly evolve.