Change Is Coming—Will You Adapt or Cling to the Past?

Ever wonder why some teams soar through change while others crash? 

In this episode of Flow Driven, Dr. Dave cracks the code on adaptability—your must-have edge in today’s AI-driven world. 

Say goodbye to stiff, old-school leadership and hello to a flow-driven culture that embraces disruption like a pro.

• The Hidden Trap: Uncover the mindset silently sabotaging your team’s potential.
• Trust Over Control: Why letting go could be your boldest leadership move yet.
• Future-Ready Your Culture: One simple habit to make change your superpower.

Ready to lead a team that bends, not breaks? 

Listen now to unlock actionable strategies for a business that thrives!

Unlock Your Business's Full Potential: Enroll Now in Dr. Dave's free Flow-Driven Business Blueprint Course!

Transcript

The prototype weighed eight pounds. It looked like a toaster with a lens. Steve Sasson walked into the Kodak boardroom cradling it like a newborn, 1975 a room full of suits. He was 24 years old, an engineer, nervous but proud this, he said, placing it gently on the table, is the world's first digital camera. A few men leaned forward, one raised an eyebrow. Sasson pointed the device across the room, clicked. No flash, no film, just a faint word. Seconds later, a pixelated black and white image appeared on a monitor beside him. It captures light electronically. He said, No. Film needed silence. Then an executive asked, What's the resolution? 100 pixels by 100 pixels. Sasson said, but it'll improve. This is just the beginning another lean back in his chair. Where is the money if there is no film? Sassen went on to explain, cameras, screens, storage, a whole new ecosystem. The VP of Marketing chuckled, interesting, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. They filed the patent, boxed up the camera and put it on the shelf for later, because at the time, Kodak was King, 90% market share, billions in revenue from film. Changing meant cannibalizing their own cash cow, so they didn't and in 2012 Kodak filed for bankruptcy. From the top of the mountain to irrelevant, not because they lacked innovation, but because they lacked adaptability. Years later, Sasson gave a talk at a tech conference. Someone asked if Kodak ever really understood what they had. He smiled, quiet for a second, then said, they understood that was the problem. They weren't afraid it wouldn't work. They were afraid that it would. And then he added, when I carried that camera into the boardroom, I thought I was showing them the future, but I realized later I was carrying a mirror, and they didn't like what they saw. So here's the question, are you protecting what was or building what's next? Because in the age of AI automation and constant change, survival belongs to teams that flow with that disruption. Let's get started. Hey there, my friend. Welcome to flow driven, the podcast that turns ambitious entrepreneurs into flow driven CEOs with high performance workplaces. I'm your host and coach, Dr Dave Maloley, and I believe that entrepreneurs are athletes and their business is the field of play. Every day is a game, and the outcome of that game hinges on whether you're prepared to win or you're not. Here's what I dream of. I dream of a world where businesses routinely adopt flow as one of their core values. Imagine workplaces where leaders and teams perform in harmony, where challenges are met with collaboration, and where potential is unlocked, not wasted. Flow driven is where high performance and high profit intersect in the business world. And that idea is built on five pillars. First, mental optimization, sharpening your mind so that you are the best damn leader that you can be. Second, flow orchestration, structuring your business to home like a well tuned machine. Third, courageous communication, deep trust and alignment through real no BS conversations. Fourth is Team transformation, a culture that unleashes collective genius and maximizes profits. And finally, we have number five, lifestyle integration, making time to recharge, connect with the people that really matter in your life, and schedule some fun and adventure along the way. These five are going to be your edge in an AI accelerated transformation age. Today, we're going to be speaking specifically about that fourth one team transformation. When pressure hits, most businesses get more rigid, more meetings, more approvals, more rules, the very things that kill momentum, we're still dragging Industrial Age habits into the transformation age. Here's the truth. You can't bolt AI onto a broken culture and expect a breakthrough. Kodak had the tech. They didn't have the leadership model to use it. If you're running a company, the new rule is to expect change and keep on learning. We cannot protect the past. We have to train for the future if you're going to be adapted. As a leader that's not soft and it's not reactionary. It's a system designed to bend, not break old school leadership. It's a concrete bridge, strong, but cracks under stress. Adaptive leadership is more like bamboo, rooted, flexible, anti fragile, but let's define it more clearly. An adaptive leader has the ability to lead through uncertainty by fostering clarity, flexibility and learning so your team can respond to change without waiting for your permission, and here's how it contrasts with the old model. Let's say traditional leadership tells people what to do. Adaptive leadership teaches people how to think. Traditional leadership avoids risk. Adaptive leadership experiments and iterates. Traditional leadership optimizes the current system. Adaptive leadership questions the system itself, and traditional leadership measures output. Adaptive leadership measures, learning speed. Seth Godin recently said, Any job we can write down exactly what to get done all day will get done by a computer instead. So your job as a leader is to build the conditions for human brilliance, the stuff that AI can't replace creativity, connection and real time decision making when pressure hits, reactive leaders, tighten that control, like we talked about, adaptive leaders increase trust, and that's how you activate team flow, and let's not forget to infuse meaning into the work. Ron Heifetz wrote the book on adaptive leadership, and he said, if you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose. You probably want to rethink what you're doing. So that's enough of a theory. How do you put this into practice? Well, step one is the culture mirror. Ask your team anonymously when something breaks, do we adapt or delay? Do you feel safe or take smart risks? Are you trusted to act without checking in their answers are going to reveal your adaptability. Ceiling. Stefan Charbonnet is a former Chief Human Resource Officer at L'Oreal USA. He put it this way, culture is now a top leadership priority. It must be allowed to develop from the bottom up, but requires consistent vision and behaviors to guide it next. Kill one bottleneck, pick one thing you usually approve and hand it off fully. Say, I trust your judgment. Run with it. You're not losing control, your unlocking flow. Third, start a learning loop every Friday. Go around and ask, what did you learn this week? And what mistake did you make, and how did you recover? This builds psychological safety, autonomy and anti fragility, as you've heard here many times, Trust is the key to a sustainable culture, and transparency drives that trust. And here's the truth that most leaders Miss teams. Don't resist change. They resist looking stupid. That's the cost of a fixed mindset culture. People fear mistakes, they hide, they stall, they stay safe. Carol Dweck, the author of the book mindset, said, in a fixed mindset, people believe their abilities are static. In a growth mindset, people believe abilities can be developed. That belief determines how they face challenges. So your real job as a leader, it's not to eliminate mistakes, is to normalize them. Make learning visible, make recovery honorable, make experimentation expected. That's why the learning loop matters. It's not just a feedback habit. It's a culture reset. When you look at that opening story, Kodak had the technology, but fuji film had the courage. The first company protected their past, the other prototyped their future. Fuji film diversified into cosmetics, health science and digital imaging. They didn't just survive the storm they surfed it. Leaders of the future will direct learning and generate a what if mindset. So that's your job moving forward, to build a what if culture and get rid of the what was culture. And let me be clear, this is not just about doing more. It's about creating an environment where adaptability is normal, where people feel trusted, where change becomes your advantage. I mentioned Seth Godin before, and I want to end this show with one more piece of his wisdom. He said, If you want to make change, begin by making culture. Begin by organizing a tightly knit group. Begin. By getting people in sync, culture beats strategy. So much that culture is strategy. Thank you for joining me today. If you found value in this episode, I'm going to ask you to take a moment right this very minute and pay a small fee share this episode with another entrepreneur that would benefit from it and leave a five star review. Those two things help continue the rapid growth of flow driven until next week. This is Dr Dave reminding you to stay focused and flow driven.