The 251 Technique: Exploring Leadership Transformation with Dr. Karuna Ramanathan

Join us as we step into the world of transformational leadership, with Dr. Karuna Ramanathan, our esteemed guest for the episode, who has a rich history as a naval warship captain, leadership transformation architect, and globally certified coach. Brace yourself for a riveting conversation about the dynamic role executives play in leading change within organizations. Dr. Karuna's deep wisdom and our personal journeys make for an intriguing exchange of ideas and experiences.

Intricacies of control within organizations and the challenges of shifting gears from execution to strategy are up for discussion. We dissect Dr. Karuna's unique 251 technique, a potent tool for leaders and managers, helping them to share their stories and experiences, fostering confident and adaptive team leadership. We also delve into the realm of natural, though often muted, emotions, setting the stage for an enlightening discourse on the power of storytelling in leadership.

As we near the end, we navigate the choppy waters of change, where Dr. Karuna generously shares his expertise in aiding middle managers metamorphose into confident, adaptive team leaders. He emphasizes the significance of understanding the fear of change, the power of incremental steps, and the art of leading with respect and empathy. If you are keen to understand how openness, transparency, and a well-orchestrated path to change can create a seismic shift in leading an organization through change, this episode is a must-listen.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-karuna-ramanathan-885b52a/

About Dr. Karuna:
Karuna Ramanathan is a transformational leadership expert with nearly three decades of experience in supporting senior leaders and organizations through difficult transformations. He is a former naval warship captain who went on to lead and architect leadership transformation and systems-level change in the Center for Leadership Development. Karuna is currently the Principal Consultant for KR Konsulting, bringing with him deep experience gained from designing and facilitating more than 2500 sessions. He is a Marshall Goldsmith Global Certified Coach, Global Coach Group Certified Leadership Coach, and a trained Erikson Executive Coach.

Karuna is an expert in large system change programs, co-creation and collaboration techniques, organizational storytelling and narratives, and tacit knowledge elicitation/transfer methods. He has more than 2000 paid coaching hours with senior leaders and nearly 1000 pro-bono coaching hours, helping leaders grow. Karuna's book, "Navigating The Seas of Change," published in 2020, is a leadership primer for change leaders.

Karuna has been featured as “Top 10 Organisation Development Consultants 2023” by the Asia Business Outlook and nominated by the CEO Insights ASIA, a business magazine, as one of “Asian Leaders & Achievers-2023”. 

About our Sponsor:
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Welcome to the podcast that challenges you from the inside. Be more and discover the agile within. And now here's your host, Greg Miller.

Speaker 2: 0:34

We are thrilled to announce that the Agile Within podcast is a good gold sponsor of Scrum Day. Join us on September 14, 2023 at Align Energy in Madison, wisconsin, for this one day conference. Prepare to be inspired by remarkable speakers, including the author of A Pocket Guide for Scrum, as well as the authors of Fixing your Scrum. Get insights from afternoon keynote Dave West, the CEO of Scrumorg. Learn invaluable strategies from industry leaders on implementing Scrum in human resources, technology teams and beyond. Don't forget to visit us at our booth at Scrum Day. Mark and I will be there and get your tickets at wwwscrumdayorg for this incredible event. Look forward to seeing you. Stop by the booth, mark, and I will say hi, we'll see you then. Okay, welcome to another episode, mark and Greg here.

Speaker 2: 1:27

As usual, today we have a very special guest, our first guest from the island of Singapore. All the way, it's early morning for him there. It's in the evening for us here with the time zone, so thanks for waking up with us. So our guest today is a transformational leadership expert with nearly three decades of experience. He's a formal naval warship captain, went on to lead an architect, leadership transformation and systems level change in the center for leadership development. He is also a Marshall Goldsmith Global Certified Coach and a trained Ericsson Executive Coach. In addition to that, he's also written a book called Navigating the Seas of Change, which was published in 2020. Please welcome to the show, dr Karuna Ramanathan. Welcome.

Speaker 3: 2:17

Thank you Greg, thank you Mark, and really it's a pleasure to be here. It's an early morning start, but one that has been habituated over the few years. Some of you may have noted that I did some time in a Navy, so it's just a habit that's wake up early, get some exercise and get to work. So really happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:35

All good to start. Yeah, I wish I could do that. I can never get myself to exercise in the morning. I have most energy in the evening, like now. I like this is my energetic time. Right now I'm really energetic, so I'm glad we're syncing up there with our energies. So I wish I could be a morning person. I've tried, it just doesn't work out.

Speaker 3: 2:56

Well, Greg, people, everyone's beautifully different and we just learned to adapt.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Yeah, yeah, that's true, I could probably make myself, I guess by doing it right. Like you said, you got used to it so I guess I could do it. It's just, yeah, it's hard, it's very hard. So today, if you notice by the intro, karuna is an expert in transformational leadership change. So obviously we in Agile are charged with change, not only with our teams but with executives, and Karuna has a lot of experience with executives. We're responsible for sometimes leading the change in an organization, pushing out from our teams, working with the executives, the directors, talking with them, helping convince them why Agile is the way to go and Dr Karuna has a lot of experience here that he can help us with and dealing with that why leaders maybe don't want to change, how we can help them embrace the change. So with that, dr Karuna, so Mark and I both are on teams and we're working with some executives here. Mark, I'm sure you've done the same too, right, you work with executives too.

Speaker 4: 4:15

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 4:17

Yeah, what has been said been some of your experiences that you've had with executives, good or bad maybe.

Speaker 4: 4:27

Sorry, you're asking me.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Greg, yeah, I'm just asking you. Yeah, what do you think? Yeah, have you had any positive, negative experiences with executives that you want to share Sure, at least on some level.

Speaker 4: 4:45

It helps a lot to have some sort of for lack of a better term, I'll just say a relationship or maybe even a reputation that can precede you. That will help a lot many times. But so I've got a really quick story that I see he we talked about this before. He said be sure, and reference him as Karuna, but I see people they also call him Dr K, so we have to share this with Dr K and get his take on this. This was a I mean Greg. I may have shared this story on our podcast before.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Okay.

Speaker 4: 5:23

I remember interviewing at a company this is when I was a developer and a software developer and I can't remember. The gentleman that was interviewing me, who is the vice president over over the IT section of the company, asked me how I feel about change and what's the best way to affect change across the organization, and I replied that I feel like change is best had at a gradual pace so that it's not forced upon people but so that you can see successes that are achieved at a small level and then they slowly can get rolled up to a larger level. He listened to my story and once I was done he set up a little tolerance seat, moved a little bit forward in the desk and said well, thank you for sharing that with me, mark. But I would like to just share that my experience here at I'm not going to name the company yet, company A, my experience is quite the antithesis. And it's first thing. I'm thinking I was young in my career. I'm thinking what the heck is an antithesis? And I'm like I think I know what that means. I think it means the opposite, I'm not sure.

Speaker 4: 6:40

But so he told a story that he said he was a contractor and that his company had built a software system for the client and he was meeting with the clients and the users and he was trying to find a time where they could be trained. And they were very resistant because they didn't want to learn anything new. They didn't see why. You know, this old system works just fine. Why do we have to move to a new system?

Speaker 4: 7:09

And so they kept throwing up these, these obstacles. Well, I've got too many meetings today, I can't do it today and I've got some deadlines that I need to tomorrow's. Tomorrow's not good. And you just kept over and over doing these road blocks. So he finally told them. He said you know, I understand you're busy people, that's fine. I've cleared my weekends for the next month, so any Saturday and Sunday that she would like to meet to be trained, you just tell me what best suits are scheduled and I'll be happy to come in and train. You know what magically found time in their schedule to be trained. It's amazing. And so I just had to say you know, thank you for sharing that with me. I am gonna share that story throughout my career and I am gonna learn from that. But I have not employed that before. But that is stuck with me, that is stuck with me, that change is not always best had on a small term basis. Sometimes you do have to be, you have to have a call to action and calls change to happen.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Yeah, absolutely so. I was reading here a stat that I wanted to get your take on, karina, that 70% of organizational change initiatives fail to achieve their goals. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 3: 8:34

Oh gosh, let's say that's the global. I think it was a McKinsey piece that actually happened in 2016 or 2017 that first actually pointed that out, and I used that stat quite a bit in the work I do with organizations and teams. Because there's one more guys. That actually is of even greater concern. Deloitte in 2018 put out, just before the pandemic, another stat that said when the change involves government entities, government type teams, that failure rate is 85% apparently. So we've all had experiences with this.

Speaker 3: 9:17

The question on the table is what really should happen better, and of course there's, depending where you're reading who you turn to, lots of stuff, but I go by a few key parameters. The first is the strategy in an organization, be it government or, even more so, corporate, is often the responsibility of the senior leaders. So and that's the easier part to get to and we all know that right you kind of huddle together, you may get an external consultant, you might actually learn from other whatever, you might bring someone else in and it's done in a couple of months. So it might work with over the last few years. That stuff's out of the way by six to nine months and a lot of times then, following that, senior leaders take a simplistic view to getting that new things, the new things done, and that involves change. And they think that managing change would simply mean getting at a town hall, getting the anerostrum, getting on whatever and saying that this is all important. But that's cognitive. So change is essentially an emotive process for most people and rhetoric is not going to be enough. So that's the first point that I make.

Speaker 3: 10:40

So telling someone what needs to change, why they need to change, what needs to happen better, is all great at a meeting table, but once that person leaves the room it dilutes down to what's in it. For me, where am I going with this? How's this going to threaten me or what the hell you know? Excuse the user, where is this going? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 11:01

And we all guys we come to work for reasons, for most of us works in enablement or something else. So it all it becomes threatening, you know, and that anxiety, those anxieties are really real. So that's one major reason why change actually doesn't take off in a way we think it ought to. The second and important pillar here is senior leaders often overestimate their ability to kind of get the change going and they think that they can drive change. But in order for that to happen, you have to have a seriously hierarchical and visible order in organizations. And most organizations don't have that, except maybe the military, you know, and when you tell people you want something done, I mean yes, sir, it's going to have to happen down the ranks, okay, but you don't have that kind of arrangements.

Speaker 3: 11:56

Thankfully, in organizations you have people who are creative, you have people who are curious, you have people who are, who actually come to work seeking fulfillment. They want to have a sense of belonging to them. Inclusion and diversity are important. Being treated right is really, really important, and here we are telling people to do something that's not in their normal repertoire of actions and behaviors. Now, where does this all add up? There is a space that we are currently working with in Singapore which might be useful for listeners over the other side of the world, because we're all essentially the same people with different experiences, right, and what that is is. Execution is not the same as strategy. Now, execution in an organization for change work is largely a responsibility of middle managers, and middle managers need all the help they can to kind of get them going. Agile, scrum, the whole lot. These are techniques and mindsets, but really it requires a shift. How do you move from manager to becoming an adaptive team leader? I'll pause here. I think you guys might have spilt off a few things.

Speaker 2: 13:14

That's a question for us. How do?

Speaker 3: 13:16

we know that's a question that I deal with here with my, my teams, in the consulting work we do and the coaching work we do with transforming organizations. How do we move the middle manager to becoming a more confident, adaptive team leader so that, so that he or she can be more confident, thinking a little differently when the situation warrants it, relating to others a little differently when the, when the mix of people is not necessarily convenient and, of course, feeling a little different when, actually, you really don't know what to do, and it can be a really frightening proposition not knowing what to do.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally yeah, I was working with a director right now and you were talking about from moving from execution to strategy, and I was working with him and I realized he's, I'm down here in the, in the weeds, I'm executing right and I'm doing the tasks and, as you would say, and he's, he was telling me like, oh, you know, he was getting frustrated with all the minutiae and all the details that I was talking with and I was like because he and I'm like, oh, he's a strategy person, he's used to seeing few levels up from me, planning and all this stuff and Down to the details. He's not used to, he's not used to be an execution person. He I don't know, I'm sure he's seen it before, but he's not. Do you come across a lot of leaders like that, like they're so far up, like you said, they strategize and they don't, they can't really emphasize with the execution piece of it.

Speaker 3: 14:58

I see they can't empathize with it more like because there's just too much control in organizations. I mean, management is essentially control, and we beat that up quite often in terms of you know, you've gone to LinkedIn and all that, you'll see all kinds of people Saying you need to have vulnerability, you need to. Yeah, all that aside, people became successful in those positions of power because they're really good at what they do. They were, they're educated for it, they have, they have shown results to get that, they are dependable, they deliver, and so therefore, the the gut word here is control. The better you are controlling things, the more likely you will be successful, and that is now almost paradoxical In the kind of change work we are seeing at a frightening pace, and so so they're so far from it. You spot on me, but, but really I think it's. This is this simplistic view of I can control things, because, let me give you a story. So we, we were, we were with a, we were with a group of very interesting senior leaders doing some transformation work in an organization in Singapore, and and the senior leader, who's actually very well respected, comes in and say you know, I mean, we are very good at what we do. I see, yeah, you are. I mean, really you are. The results show from day to day. You are, but, but but his bosses feel and his peers feel that he is one of the more resistant senior leaders to change.

Speaker 3: 16:27

Because go away, I don't need all these. I'm doing my work really well right now. But whatever change you want I can, I can get my people to do it. So I asked how many people do you have with you? How many teams do you have with you? What's the total? You know the total number of people. And he said, well, about 300. And I said, good, hundred. Wow, that must keep you really busy, but no problems, we know how well and I was change work, good houses, change work gonna go for you. It says, well, we need to make some changes. I say who's we? I mean, this is who's we? Said we, we as any organization, who is the organization? 300 people are the organization.

Speaker 3: 17:08

And then I this is, this is a story back for you, mark, especially because you're so kind to share that story, let me get you one right. I said when, when was the last time you actually went away on vacation? And and? And he said this oh yeah, just quite recently. And I said well, how long a time did you take on your vacation? And you must have enjoyed it? He said four days, four days. And I said no, no, no, no. I said, dear senior leader, when can you share with us? When was the last time you actually went on a long vacation, I mean in the context of Singapore? Two to three weeks, right, I know, I know in some parts of the world it's six to eight weeks, you know, right, but but two to three weeks, he said. Oh, that was about 10 years ago, before I joined his organization there you go.

Speaker 3: 18:04

yeah, good people, they just Over, simplify things and I underline that is this developed need for control and and and that comes with that. That gives rise to a lot of issues down like am I making sense?

Speaker 2: 18:22

Yes, you are. Oh, yeah, for sure it is. It's totally controlled because we have, yeah, so we're a lot of our teams come out of I think I was sharing with you earlier come out of waterfall, right, waterfall, solfer projects into agile, where it's, yeah, the project manager command and control in waterfall, and then agile is complete opposite. It's collaboration, it's autonomy for the team, the team makes decisions and, oh yeah, absolutely, I can. I can totally Equate or understand that, I'm sure marketer right.

Speaker 4: 19:00

Yeah. So I was gonna, I was gonna say that was a great story. You know, from my point of view, I'm actually in a really good spot right now with my current company and you know, senior management truly does understand. One of the big parts great that you and I have an hour role is that when these changes Like big, sweeping changes, like okay, we want the teams to focus on this and we want this done by a certain date let's say, if it's a date driven perspective is to just let the management team know.

Speaker 4: 19:40

Okay, you're saying you want the teams to focus on this, that means we're gonna have to put this other work on the shelf in order in order to meet these time frames that you're putting forth, and we have some other work that probably is going to come up that we can't plan for right now. We know it's going to be a problem, so how would you like for us to deal with that? Because it's coming where we want to or not. We just need to decide how we are going to deal with it. So, in scrum, for instance, focus is one of the values of scrum and just making things transparent and so, greg, you and I would be greatly aligned on. This is just making sure that the goals are transparent to everyone, because I can't tell you how many projects I'm giving air quotes again.

Speaker 4: 20:32

Greg, we gotta do something.

Speaker 4: 20:33

I can't give air quotes on a podcast, but no, you can't have projects and how many times One person assumes that the date is, let's just say, january 1st. Some other team heard the oh, it's really not until March 23rd. And then somebody else on the team, oh well, yeah, I heard the VP talking. He was probably talking like in the fall sometime, like this of everybody has these dates flow flowing around but nobody has the definitive Word or the definitive. I guess they don't get the definitive word on on win. So just making things very transparent, making things clear and so that expectations of when decisions are made, all the parties, including the executive team, understand what making those decisions really mean.

Speaker 3: 21:26

That's just so spot on. You know, actually I'm just taking down some pointers for this because actually, at the end of the day, research time and time again indicates how, when people co-create together and they can communicate together and sit down and work things out together, you can call it agile scrum. There are so many other approaches as well. The whole idea here is to move away, when you said waterfall, to agile. The waterfall methodology is actually in the work group traditions. So basically, when we get employed I mean at least in Singapore and I'm pretty sure it is that way as well in the US you said well, here's a job, these are the descriptions. The descriptions would have been the job descriptions would have been worked out with, say, hr entity for the organization and say let's go out and put the ad out there, and then someone responds to you and I respond to an ad, and then we come back and we say, hey, you know what? Let me apply for this. Well, here's my resume.

Speaker 3: 22:33

And then you get the view this is a traditional process, right? So the interviewer might be just saying, would probably say do you know what this job requires? And then you say, yeah, the requirements of the job is in that job description. And so I start with this mental model that this is what's expected of me and I ask some questions around that to clarify some stuff. And when I then join I said this is what's expected of me and the manager says yes, this is what's expected of you. And it's water falling. And he's like waterfall right, the water just falls on. I mean, if you're going to get all wet, man, exactly yeah, but it's waterfall. And then we are asking what are the assumptions behind this waterfall method? It works really well in hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations where things are very simple, obvious and very clear, visible to people. You call that processes, protocols, you know, ideas, whatever the case might be, and most people are really comfortable in that in those kinds of settings, and let's not blame them.

Speaker 3: 23:40

I'm quirky as well when I can't park my car in a usual parking lot. I share this with my client. I'm going to the client's place now and I know it's a thing I'll be there at 10 o'clock and I'm not going to get my usual parking lot. I'm just getting nervous and upset and then I might be anxious because at the end of a long day, at six in the evening, I might not remember where the cars parked. It might just be.

Speaker 3: 24:03

So the point here is this way of working, this traditional way of working, is not wrong. It's problematic when the change demands the environment. The uncertainties, the complexities, the ambiguities build up. Now how do we then move that manager who believes that his or her job is to manage work and, by default, manage people, to a role that is far wider than that job description, and in that role, is he or she Just want to be gender neutral here? Here is both of the manager is a influencer. The manager is someone who actually leads. That co-creation builds, that collective ownership, strengthens the communication. Now, does that mean that this person needs to go to a leadership development program? Yeah, maybe I mean there are some options out there, but the last part of this is the sensibility and awareness that you can't simply be dishing out work, but you need to work with people around work, and that's a major shift for many middle managers. How about you guys?

Speaker 2: 25:29

Yes, yes, totally, totally, Absolutely. Yeah, We've been talking about, we've been all telling stories and I'm curious about if I can slide in here a little bit You've created the 251 storytelling model for leaders in your book Navigating the Seas of Change, and that's I want to touch on that, If you can touch on that. I find that very interesting and you emphasize the importance of storytelling and building strong teams. How can we go about doing that?

Speaker 3: 26:07

Thank you for bringing that up. I sometimes forget that we have done all this work over the years. I mean I met this like for four decades. It's been a real privilege working with people. So you know, I had a. I had I spent 19 years in the Navy and then I moved on those two ship commands. I get asked about that quite often actually and I just tell them all the things I made. But when you get into, when I got into the leadership center, I started working with unique groups of people and one of the big problems we have, as with any military deep, visibly hierarchical, very orderly and you're trying and the question on the table was how do you, how do you accelerate learning? And that that was not easy because you can. You have a lot of dynamics in the room and people are fearful. I mean Amy Anderson talks about psychological safety. Gosh, I would like to see her test that. I mean no disrespect to her out of Harvard. I would like to see her test that in a military, you know.

Speaker 3: 27:10

Yeah, I mean yeah, the military is psychological and it is safe.

Speaker 2: 27:20

They don't go together, right yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:21

They don't go together. So let's come back to the story I had. I did some work on it with a small team of consultants in 2008 and one big problem we had was to get a young a mixtape man. Mixtape man is a term we use for the first year of training before the person becomes a qualified naval officer. So we watched his midshipmen going about their training on the ship and when he came to the evening in a learning session, this person was asked to share his reflection.

Speaker 3: 27:55

A young man, 20 years old, 21 years old, and he stands up and holds up a flip folder and he starts reading what he did the whole day and about three minutes into it, I say wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, if you don't mind me. How did you actually feel about today? So started to facilitate that right and he, magically, he just paused, paused, paused, paused and he wrote the paper down and he said I felt scared, and it's obvious, because the ship was rolling somewhat you know, we're literally middle of the tease, you know and we were just proceeding to another port. And I said scared about what? And he said I was very concerned about it. And he went on to explain what he was really concerned about and to do some things. And he was. And I said then how did you feel through those steps? And he said at some point I got pissed off. And I said, yeah, because I felt that I did not have enough knowledge to actually get through this. There is the knowledge, not in the books, no one's telling it to me. I made to go find that out. And then he said something happened and he went on to recite what happened and he said by the evening it dawned on me that actually there were only possibly two steps to this one and two. And at supper, which is the dinner call on ships, I checked in with a ship crew and he said yeah, it's as straightforward as that, don't think too hard about this. And so I'm now actually in a good place.

Speaker 3: 29:40

Now, guys, he went through five emotions. So what did I do? I said so the next time you want to build a story, start telling yourself who am I. I mean so my name is Karuna. So let's just put myself in the measurements shoes. My name is Karuna. You know. I want to share with you what I went through today. That's the two. The first is introduce myself and the second is set the context for the story, this story. This took place on 2008,. In 2008, on board a warship out in the South China Sea. So that's the one and two guys.

Speaker 3: 30:13

The five is actually the use of the hand to remind ourselves that there are five natural, though often subdued, emotions in many of us leaders and managers, team leaders. The first is the little finger. The little finger is the one that is probably the most vulnerable. If you had a misfortune of getting your hand hurt, the little finger will take the time to heal. It's probably going to take a long time to heal. It could be crushed. I mean, what a terrible imagery, but that's the way.

Speaker 3: 30:47

The little finger is my fear finger, which means I start my story from a place of opening up with fear. What was I most anxious about? What did I fear most? What was I frightened about? So the young measurements said I felt scared. I mean, it's as simple as that. Scared about what? So I felt scared when I realized that I was given this talk and I didn't really know what I was looking for.

Speaker 3: 31:15

What were your concerns? That's the concern is the ring finger, the relationship finger, where you actually will worry a little bit. It's where we put our rings on. If we actually decide to settle down, then the middle finger segues into reminding us there's always something that frustrates us, piss me off. That's the middle finger. And the next finger, which is the index finger. The next one is the lessons learned finger. So when I reflect, it's a reflective finger. When I reflect I actually like I put my finger to my forehead. You know, what did I gain today? What did I learn today? And then I'm a believer in positive psychology. So basically, the thumbs up, it's not a thumbs down, it's a thumbs up. That's the days that I'm really happy that I picked this up today and I'm going to pack this away and remember this lesson today.

Speaker 3: 32:08

So the 251, the two is simply an introduction. It's actually a paper on it. The one is a conclusion, because storytelling techniques all point to the need to kind of land or summarize on a major message or the team. So the message in my story is even as we become a bit, we can find people around us let's take that 2,000 who can actually help us and verify if we just managed to look around and just looking at the task. So that's the 251 guys. Now it was great because there's a story behind the 251.

Speaker 3: 32:45

So, having done this, in 2008, I was at a KM Knowledge Management Conference in San Jose actually, and I signed up for a little evening session with Nancy Dixon. She's quite well known in the circles, a really, really great mentor, and Nancy was actually kind of facilitating this. After dinner session Now, of course, karuna was still in the Navy, with all the military traditions he got out and sort of getting a sandwich. He had a sandwich and two beers Right. Ha ha, ha, ha ha. So I find myself rushing back to the session, but I'm just, I pump two beers right.

Speaker 3: 33:30

And when I got in the session, there was this round around the room discussion around what would be a unique knowledge creation technique, and when it came to me, I was near lost for words and I started using the fingers to explain the 251. She picked it up, someone else in the room picked it up. Next thing, you know, is all published and the model is launched. Oh, wow, wow, that's great. No, no, it's just purely accidental as well. Right, I mean, we divided it and then someone wrote about it and someone published it, and you know what, in 2013, I had a request from UNICEF to actually use it in the UN. Oh wow, inaction reviews. So really, I mean, it's a free to use. We don't it's. The world needs to be a better place for all of us to share how we feel about some things, and that's really where the start point comes.

Speaker 2: 34:29

That is wonderful. Yeah, that's Mark. That kind of, as I was listening, I was thinking you said transparency and like I was thinking a lot of the values, like you were talking about the midshipmen, and I think it took courage for him to say that he was scared For sure. Yeah, I can relate that to Scrum values totally.

Speaker 3: 34:54

Just, I mean, to Scrum and Agile colleagues I would say just go for the I mean, use the little finger story. I mean the little finger is actually so what scares you? What scares me, you know. I mean, what am I most anxious about? And that's inherent in all of us and it's actually in the work they've done over the years with sense making and helping teams through complexity and growing uncertainty.

Speaker 3: 35:20

You have to acknowledge that fear because most of us prefer to be in ordered space. We don't like to be in unordered, disordered spaces. We all like that. We have routines, we have to do list, we have plans. We have I mean we write a will. I mean you have investments. That's how we're programmed. But actually the fears are what keeps us a little down at work. I often couldn't. I mean I'm 59. And so I think about life and at this stage I think the fears are what keeps me going. In a family, it's completely the opposite. So I don't like the word vulnerability because it connotes different things to different people. But if you ask them, what are you scared about? I mean what are we scared about? What should we be scared about? It's a great start to a difficult project.

Speaker 4: 36:20

Yeah, it takes me. So I finished training from the back of the room. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, greg, and I think we've talked about it. It's really big among trainers. It goes into brain science and really how we as humans, how we learn, and what the little finger really reminds me of is one of the principles that is taught in training from the back of the room, is it? There's a rational side of the brain. There's also an emotional side of the brain. Unless you exercise both sides of that, your learning is not going to be as high as it can be. And to your point, if I remember correctly, pain is the number one trigger on the emotional side for learning. That casts the highest retention, I guess, or comprehension. But when we're training we don't necessarily like to inflict pain upon our trainees, right? So the next best thing is just to have some positive emotions, some storytelling perhaps, or just have different techniques in hand that evoke emotion to really hit both sides of our brain. So yeah, that lines up perfectly with that training course.

Speaker 3: 37:42

Yeah, you guys are spot on man, you know, I mean as consultants. I want to say two things. One is I was working with a dear friend and associate, his Australian, arthur Shelley. In fact, he might be someone you might want to talk to as well on this, because Arthur is a really, really learning consultant. I can link you guys up.

Speaker 3: 38:01

But what he said last week when we had a session with clients, he said he was asked, we asked the question how do you deal with mindset? He said let's get to mind flex. And I thought that that's a really easy way to see it. So the mindset's not bad, it's not a bad problem, but it should expand, however, to mind flex. So how do you flex your mind? And that goes back, mark, to actually what you said about getting to both sides of the brain, and it's a really, really important thing.

Speaker 3: 38:31

Now, the second thing I want to say is I actually have a 65 manager, 60 managers getting in a room for a whole day and we are doing exactly that training from the back of the room. I mean we are borrowing a lot to say that. You know what. And, interestingly, I'm actually meeting the HR coordinator this afternoon and I can imagine the question that's going to come what is the program going to be like? What are you going to be saying and designing what are you going to do? And I'm going to say what am I going to do, what are we going to do? And I'm actually kinesthetically going to walk from the back of the room and I'm not going to be standing in front of the stage. There may be no PowerPoint slides this time. And then, yes, it goes. You know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:20

Nice, that's great. Yeah, so do you find we were talking about fear In your work with executives and folks at that level? If they're open enough with you, do you find, like, when they're going through transformations, are they kind of when they tend to resist? Do you find that some of them are actually afraid?

Speaker 3: 39:50

I make the assumption that everyone's afraid. We have a team of associates, so I'm just going to use the word we. We actually notice, we try in the first mile. We try to look for people who are not afraid. These are people who are over talking, who are over driving, so a lot of noise generated in the room are excessively positive. We believe that the ordinary and interested person is going to quieten down and start fearing and becoming anxious. That's the house. So there's a small number say, yeah, let's do this, this is so important, and I say wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's just put a marker on that because somehow in our years of experience, this is probably the person who's not going to get it going. A lot of that kind of we call it drama that starts Our work with executives. But we run and so over the years we have and we are known in the region for this. I mean we happily just got picked up for being one of the top 10 ODI groups in Asia by an independent magazine.

Speaker 3: 41:18

So we run two programs. If the organization is in the first mile of change, we run a change leadership program around those very projects. So we actually have the organization saying here are 20 managers and these managers are going to be working on 10 projects in pairs. How do you get these projects going? We actually team coach these projects for six months and our success rate is quite high. It's for 75 to 80%, and we're proud of it, because here's McKinsey saying 70% of fail and we said no, we give you back the 70% in a positive. But it does take a bit of work. And to go to your question, yes, a lot of that is dealing with fears and unknowns and trying to construct the exploratory probes into difficult situations and, now more than ever, mark and Greg working with data and sense making and all that stuff. It's a really, really important work.

Speaker 3: 42:19

But the other program that we are actually increasingly known for is once. This is the middle mile of transformation. So you have these projects. They've started for a year, year and a half, and they're now finding their way into the usual BAU functional stuff, and so the question then becomes how do ordinary middle managers deal with new ways of doing things? And the answer to that is the start status also fear. You are going to compromise what I have perfected for the last 10 to 15 years, and I'm not about to allow myself to be unfrozen to open up to do all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 42:57

So we actually run an adaptive managers program and that takes about six to eight months as well to allow for people to gradually shift as a gradual pace. Don't impose it on people, as Kotter said. People just hate being told that they have to change, but we curate the small steps with them. And what's beautiful about that program is you could have like I'm just finishing one next week 40 managers on the program guys and you are literally looking at 40 different leadership programs, because they're all very different. They are different personalities, you know, and they have different projects. They have different experiences, they have different quirks, they have different knowledge bases. It's amazing to see the beautiful differences in people and celebrate that instead of, you know, constructing them as problem makers in the center of an organization. So that's where we are. Fear is the most important realization in change work, and accepting that with some sense of respect and empathy in people is a really good part to getting this kind of work going.

Speaker 2: 44:12

Yeah, totally, yeah, absolutely. I was just curious as to what you were experiencing from them, because a lot of times when we deal with executives, even ones that are receptive to change, my experience is they don't, they will only open up so far, and I was just curious if there's fear behind that or that you have to put on this front that they're. You know change is good and we're all for it, and rah rah sometimes, you know.

Speaker 3: 44:44

Yeah, change is not good. My wife tells me I should eat less of this and less more of that.

Speaker 2: 44:51

No, not good. That's right, I know. Why do things have to change right? Yeah, why do things have to change so much? Yeah, change is good, though right. I mean, do you think so? Change is good, though right Overall? I mean? The world changes all the time. I can't stop it, right, but I think that, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 45:12

More realistic view of it. Change is real, which is which is gosh? You know what? I kind of thought not to change.

Speaker 2: 45:22

You thought not to change.

Speaker 3: 45:23

Yeah, I kind of I cannot afford not to change. I can't afford not to change.

Speaker 2: 45:28

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah. So why do we? Why do we fight and resist it and kick it somewhat? Yeah? Yeah. Exactly, yeah, totally, mark. Are we we're about at the out of time? I think, right, just hit the one minute, mark. Just hit the one minute, Mark, mark, yeah, so any, any, any. Final thoughts, mark, on anything that you have for Karuna.

Speaker 4: 45:57

So I'm just going to say what was on the top of my mind, just thinking about in my past leaders, some leaders being resistant to change. And maybe we should ask Dr Karuna back again, because there's another thing of you know, there are some, some leaders that really keep information close to the chest and don't share information, because information is power and I mean, who are we kidding?

Speaker 4: 46:31

Sometimes, holding onto that power allows you to ascend within an organization. It's a very selfish play, but nonetheless, some people are able to ascend in the company because they do possess knowledge. What's going on in my mind as we were talking through this is it's probably a larger thing about, about change and being open Karuna doesn't like the word vulnerable, but just being open and transparent with information. So anyway, maybe that's a teaser for a future episode.

Speaker 2: 47:10

Yeah, absolutely Definitely Well, Dr Karuna. Karuna, thank you so much for being our guest today. We definitely appreciate you taking time out. I know we wish you good luck today at your 10 o'clock appointment, right? I hope that goes well. Once again, this has been Greg and Mark and Dr Karuna. Dr Karuna has a book, Naviating the Seas of Change. Be sure to check that out. We'll leave a link to that in the show notes. We'll leave a link for Dr to reach out to Dr Karuna on LinkedIn. Any other ways folks can reach you, Karuna.

Speaker 3: 47:46

I mean Jacen this. Drop me an email. You have a question? It's karuna at krksg. We'll have to get back to you. If you're willing to change, I'll help you I mean.

Speaker 2: 48:00

That's a simple question. Yep, reach out to him with any questions that you have. Again, he's an organizational executive change management expert. If you want to reach out to Mark and I, again, you can contact us via LinkedIn. We both have our personal pages out there. We have the Agile Within page. We're also on Twitter at the Agile Within. We are also have my email, Greg Miller, at theagilewithincom. You can reach out to me with comment suggestions, what you like, what you don't like about the show, what you want to see. Do you want Dr Karuna back? We do. We definitely want Dr Karuna back. Another great episode here. Thank you for joining us. I've been Greg and Mark with the Agile Within and we'll talk to you next time.

Speaker 3: 48:52

Thank you so much, Greg and Mark.

Speaker 2: 49:12

Thank you.