Brain Aware Podcast
The Brain Aware Podcast, exploring the science of success. We harness the power of human biology to help people—and organizations—rise to their potential. Join internationally recognized thought leader Dr. Britt Andreatta and talent strategist Justin Reinert as they explore the neuroscience behind today's workplace challenges, like change, teams, and leadership.
Each episode unpacks actionable insights from cutting-edge research to help you create environments for people to do their best work. Whether you’re an executive, people leader, talent professional, or lifelong learner, you’ll walk away with tools you can use today. Listen to become more brain aware.
Brain Aware Podcast
Fear, Transparency, and the Eminem Method: How to Lead Through Change
What happens in our brains when organizations announce major changes? Why do some people embrace change while others resist fiercely? And most importantly, how can leaders create more successful transformation experiences?
Anthony Onesto, Chief People Officer at Suzy, takes us on a fascinating journey through his career—from failed accountant to strategic HR leader—while sharing hard-won wisdom about navigating organizational transformation. Drawing from his experience merging five distinct company cultures and implementing multiple change initiatives, Anthony reveals practical strategies that acknowledge the biological reality of how humans process change.
The conversation explores what Anthony calls the "M&M Method"—a transparent approach to addressing concerns upfront—inspired by Eminem's strategy in rap battles. This approach recognizes that fear is a natural biological response to change rather than an indicator of an employee's performance or commitment. As Anthony explains, "An individual's reaction to change is not indicative of their performance level."
We dive into the four brain structures activated during change (the amygdala, basal ganglia, entorhinal cortex, and habenula) and how understanding these neurological responses can transform resistance into acceptance. The discussion also covers Suzy's implementation of the ChangeQuest model and how simple frameworks help leaders navigate complex transformations more effectively.
Looking toward the future, Anthony shares his perspective on AI's potential impact on HR—both the exciting possibilities for enhancement and legitimate concerns about displacement. His balanced view offers valuable insight for anyone navigating today's rapidly evolving workplace. Whether you're leading change or experiencing it, this episode provides practical wisdom for making transformation more successful and humane.
Find Anthony on these channels:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyonesto/
Website - https://www.anthonyonesto.com/
Newsletter - https://www.flexos.work/ai-in-hr-today
You're listening to the Brain Aware podcast, where we explore the brain science of success and discuss evidence-based approaches to tackle workplace challenges. And now your hosts, Dr Britt Andreatta and Justin Reiner. Welcome to the podcast, Anthony Onesto.
Speaker 2:Hi, anthony, it's great to see you. I'm so excited that we're spending a little time chatting with you today, and I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself. How has your career journey led you to your current role?
Speaker 3:Britt, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate both of you. So I think most HR stories are accidental. I think now you see more people going into studying HR. But I was an accountant actually. I studied accounting in college and my first year out I was really bad at it and and I didn't really love it all that much, and so they fired me. So I was like, ok, here's a, here's a career path crossroads, and I had to figure out what I was going to do next. And I went to the recruiting firm and they're like, why don't you come in and recruit for us? I was like, all right, I don't know what that's about, but that sounds like fun. And thus my HR career started.
Speaker 3:I did it mostly for boutique search firms, and then com started and all these tech companies needed to hire folks. So I started working with them, them recruiting, and then they're like, hey, can you create an employee manual for us? And of course you know it's yes, and so it was yes, and of course I could do that. I had no idea how to do any of that stuff and so, thank goodness for Sherm binders, I was able to put employee manuals together and I got bit by the startup bug, started really working with startups until one of them said hey, come work for us, we'll give you all these fancy options, you'll be rich. I think it was right after netscape exited and so we were all watching that going. We're all going to be rich, we're all going to be rich.
Speaker 3:Um, and I went into one of the startups and again got bit by the startup bug and I've been in startups my entire career. Like, say I say, I got my PhD in startup and been doing HR, building companies, building them from zero to one their HR functions, their recruiting functions, doing all that sort of stuff and just been absolutely loving that experience and started doing some advisory stuff for HR tech companies and wound up, you know, through a bunch of different startups and finally, here at Suzy, I actually jumped out for a little while of HR. I was actually a president of a startup called SmartUp. It was a learning and development platform out of the UK, so they were looking to expand into the United States, which was really fun. It created a very different opportunity and challenge for me.
Speaker 3:I was doing sales. I was doing sales, I was doing product um, customer service, all that sort of stuff, not much HR things and uh, and then unfortunately it just didn't. We didn't get a lot of funding and so I had to move on to another company and uh, that was out of Toronto same kind of thing looking to expand in the U? S, so as general manager, doing a little bit more HR things but building their presence in the US, and got a call from an old friend and said, hey, this thing, susie, we're just starting to pivot it and we really need someone to help us from an HR perspective. And I was like, all right, should I go back into HR? Well, you know the rest of the story. I'm here at Susie seven years and this has been really, really a fun ride as their chief people officer. So that was a couple of decades in about two minutes.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the overview. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Stuart being in the startup world. I've had the most fun in my career in smaller high growth firms, so I think we've got that in common. As you think back on your career, you've probably been through a lot of change initiatives, especially, you know, in the startup environment. So, you know, let's dive right in and talk a little bit about change. I'd love to hear about just one that's memorable. So you know, maybe one that went smoothly, or maybe one that was a little more challenging.
Speaker 3:Oh, I can't remember one that went smoothly. I think change is always and especially up until, of course, you know, when you look at a brain aware type of element around change and understand that there's so many different elements and so many ways to tackle change, I think from the very beginning. Now I'm going to go back probably about 15 years. I was with a company which is now known as Zeta Global billion-dollar company, but when we started it was called Zeta Interactive and it was actually a private equity combined a bunch of companies together to combine into Zeta Interactive. And I was hired right after they literally signed the agreement to acquire all these companies and so I joined the company and there were five different companies with five different cultures, five different executives, five different employee bases, different locations, one in India, mostly in the US and they were all looking at me going what's our culture, what's our employee manual, like, how many days off? And that was the most difficult change I've ever had to go through, because typically you're with an organization and an element changes and again harking back to the brain order, training, right, is it long, is it short? What's the impact on the business, the different elements you look at. Back then we didn't have that kind of framework. So we're kind of treating change in the same way and, frankly, I think with due respect to the leadership back then, by hiring me, they knew that they needed someone to kind of manage the organization through this change, but really didn't prioritize the human elements of it, and I think that was a very much a thing in business for quite a while. I think we're better at it today. Are we perfect? Of course not.
Speaker 3:So that was a very difficult change because it was like people were already in existence. When you're in a startup, you're building it, so you kind of can change, manage over time. This was like okay, I got in front of the orchestra and there was like you know, 600 employees going what the heck is going on? And it was like and they love their culture of their business. Right, they were all small companies and so I had to essentially and I hope you get the reference, maybe some of the folks listening might not, but I had to Voltron this together, if you get the reference, so different lion bots coming together to form one robot, and I literally did that and I had to.
Speaker 3:What I had to do there is pick pieces of the culture of each. So people, it's almost like a quilt, if you will, and I had to pick pieces of it so people would recognize it. It was way different. We were now Zade Interactive, not your old company, so you didn't get all that PTO. But oh, that benefits thing, yeah, I remember having that piece. So I try to bring elements of every organization. So I that's both sides of your question, cause I think there was some success there and a heck of a lot of failure. And then I'll add in the global piece with India, totally nuanced compared to what the US was, and that was an entire entity. So both successful and and and and failure there in that story it makes me think of.
Speaker 4:I went through. I was with a startup that was growing and then we were acquired by Oracle. And you know, by the time we were acquired by Oracle, oracle was just an acquiring machine, like that's what they do. And, um, it was interesting. They had one question in the process, as we were kind of going through that acclamation that sounds familiar to what you went through, and they used this metaphor of what's your goldfish. And what they were talking about was they once had an acquisition and you know, they just kind of come in and they wipe out a lot of the culture. They were like here's, here's who you are. Now You're an Oracle employee, here's how you're going to operate, and this one organization. Everything was fine.
Speaker 4:Everything was fine up until the point where they had a policy of no pets in the office, and so they got rid of this goldfish, and that was the one thing that just sat people over the edge, and so now they ask this question, yeah, and so now they ask this question of what you know, what's your goldfish air quotes, as in, what's the one thing that, if we changed it, people will lose their minds, and we want to make sure we protect that thing. I love that. Yeah, I'm curious, you know. Thinking back on that, I think you did share some insights, but I'm curious, you know what's the biggest thing that you learned from that particular?
Speaker 3:experience. I think, especially back then, I'm obviously more experienced and failure is the greatest teacher. I believe. Prior to that, just thinking through, not thinking I guess there's an element of being fully transparent with people Like what you tried to do back then is try to really many people had many goldfish. Is this, I don't know? Is it is this many, many, many many fish were had back then, and so you tried back then you were trying to solve for each one of those goldfishes Right when in here. It's just what is what was the one thing? And then you have to be really transparent about the other things, like that stuff is going away, that stuff that you really liked but wasn't a priority for you. That stuff is going away. And I think that's the one learning lesson for me, and in fact I was.
Speaker 3:When I was with Fresh Direct years ago, which was an online still is online food delivery service here in New York City, I was talking to one of the board members and at the time I think Eminem had come out with his eight mile movie, and there's a scene in the movie where Eminem is has to go up against a rap battle and he knows what the other rapper is going to say about him. So he calls those things out and essentially takes it away from the rapper. Believe me, the story will come full circle and also people will now go watch the eight mile movie. But the point is like, if you know certain things to be certain, like those elements are going away, don't hide them. Take them away from the.
Speaker 3:If the employee is going to think about them, let them know that actually. No, that's actually going away, and just be very transparent with them. That's one of the big learning lessons. Don't try to hide things, try to be, and people are going to be angry and they're going. They're going to go through their fight, flight or freeze response. Just let them go through that and then, on the other side, explain why these decisions were made. So I think that was a big learning lesson for me is that transparency piece. Don't try to hide, especially if you know people are going to be annoyed about it.
Speaker 2:Well, you've been with Suzy for seven years, so I know you're probably in the middle of some changes. What are some of the changes your organization is currently navigating or will be launching soon? I'd love just to hear a little menu of what's on your plate.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely. You know it's so funny. For years we always looked at change in these events, these big tentpole events, often kind of referring to changes. In the same way, we would upgrade software like Suzy 1.0 or 2.0 or 3.0. I'm now in the mindset that we're in constant metamorphosis, that we're constantly changing. There's no longer in a year from now we're going to change.
Speaker 3:Well, I will say there was a very large temple event, in fact, very recently here at Susie last week, two things happened. One is we launched this new initiative within our product called Suzy Voice or Suzy Speaks, and essentially what it is. Suzy is a market research, consumer insights platform. It is survey and answer right, and we're going to launch a survey. People answer those surveys. That really hasn't changed all that much in quite a while. We're trying to bring AI voice to it. So instead of you filling out a survey, you have a natural conversation with an AI bot, us to go into the market. Huge change for us because, again, we've always been in this world of quantitative and qualitative research, but this is fully qualitative, but at scale and using AI. So huge initiative for us and we launched it and, you know, really excited and have a bunch of beta customers and, just from a product perspective, a really different way of doing surveys in the market that no one's doing, and so we're definitely first to market on that.
Speaker 3:At the same time because we love to make change happen on the same day is that we rebranded Suzy. So for seven years we had a logo. We were named Suzy Actually, I was part of the first rebranding because Suzy is a pivot story from a company called CrowdTap. So in 2017 and 18, we went from CrowdTap to Susie. We're still Susie, but we have a new logo. We have new colors again.
Speaker 3:And one of the things and this is what I love about our CEO in the M&M method. He was an internal meeting and he was like listen, some of you are going to like the new logo, some of you are going to hate the new logo. Anytime you'd make change, you know you're going to have different reactions and he called it out. So that way, folks are like, yeah, I hate the, but they're saying it to themselves, right, and they get along and they get used to it. And so these two major changes within our organization also happened with some organizational changes around our commercial team and how we're going to market for our customers. So I mean literally within the last 30, 40, 45 days we made some really significant changes to Susie. We're adding a new product, we rebranded and we did some organizational changes on our commercial team.
Speaker 2:And in your role as chief people officer, do you have a seat at the table when these changes are getting launched? Are you part of really mapping them out and figuring out what they're going to look like? Or, in some organizations, it's like the part of the business that's driving change doesn't always check in with the people side of the house. I'm just wondering what role have you gotten to play with some of these initiatives?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've always said if you don't have a seat, take one. So I've always, if I hear of something because and you said it the best what happens is we've set a standard here at Suzy that people team, the HR team, is a strategic partner. We're an advisor. So we tried to shake off that sort of traditional view of HR. But a lot of people come into the organization with that debt already, so they don't see HR. So we have to prove to them we are a strategic partner. So if I'm not seated at the table and I hear there's a discussion, I bang down the door and I'm like, hey, what's going on over here? So, but the good news in a lot of these changes now some of them are relevant to to HR, a branding exercise they're not going to bring in HR. We're not experts in that. Maybe we'll help with some of the internal stuff, but at the most part that thing was done by our awesome marketing team, our CEO and an agency outside.
Speaker 3:On the organizational stuff, absolutely it's driven by the business needs and a lot of it's driven by the data we've collected within our revenue operations to say, okay, what is our, what do our customers? So we started with the customer, what do they look like and what are their needs? And then HR is brought in to be like hey, what does this mean for our people? How is this changing from an organizational design perspective? What is the impact? How are we going? What's the communication, the scripts? When are we going to do this? Who are you going to tell first? How is that going to cascade? And so we become a critical partner?
Speaker 3:But what I love about Susie is it's very collaborative environment. So we're all sort of throwing out ideas and then, when it's ready to execute, all right, you're the, you're the cat. We call it captains. You're the captain of that, because you can only have one captain of a ship, could only have one captain of a ship. You're the captain of this, you're the captain of that, and then we come back and collaborate.
Speaker 3:So I think for us we've been I've been blessed in my career because I just take a stance like I'm going to grab that seat, but also we're seen as a strategic partner in a lot of these efforts, not always a hundred percent the case. There are times where change happens and you know, as they say, stuff rolls downhill and here's HR to catch that stuff. And then we come in and we're like and I think that's a great. As much as I don't love that, it's a great learning lesson for the leader, because they go through so much pain and I don't want to see them to go through pain, but sometimes it you know that the pain is the best experience. And now they know hey, I got to go to HR when I'm just thinking about this, that you know, if I'm doing a back of the napkin kind of thing, I'm going to bring in the HR team because I know they can help me think through it.
Speaker 4:I want to shift gears a little bit and in I want to talk a little bit about, you know, some of the brain science of resistance. So in Brett's book Wired to Resist, she talks about the four brain structures that are activated by change. So you know, reminder for you or for listeners we've got the amygdala, which deals with fear, we've got the basal ganglia, which deals with our habits, we've got the entorhinal cortex, which deals with the physical and social space and networks, and then the benula, which is monitoring for failure networks, and then the Hebenula, which is monitoring for failure. So if you could, you know, think about a time when you've seen one or more of those brain structures at play with change in your work.
Speaker 3:And just you know, tell me a little bit about it At any given time. All four at play, because when you work in startups there's just so much change and so many things going on I would say the most prominent. If I were to throw sort of the transcript of my career into ChatGPT, it's probably fear, I think, that one the five companies coming together, like Voltron at Zeta Interactive, because it's the fear of the unknown, not really understanding what this new entity was. You were still working, you still had to deliver stuff, but now you were Zeta Interactive. What did that mean? What is our new handbook? What does this mean for me?
Speaker 3:I think I saw that most prevalent in that experience with the previous CEOs of the organizations, because when you're a CEO, obviously there's always a bigger fish. So you have a board or investors, whatever it is, but you're a CEO and you have control over your domain. You no longer have so much control over that domain as part of a group that comes together right where there is a CEO in place already. So I saw a lot of fear in working with the executives during that period and that was fear at the executive level but even at all levels of employees, like what does this mean? And so you tried to combat that with, obviously, transparency, but also like what the vision of the future is. Why, at this time, is this thing coming together again? To stay with the Voltron metaphor, like the lions coming together to create the that whenever they had to create the beat to beat the enemy, the antagonist in the cartoon, they'd have to come together and fight it. They couldn't do it individually. So trying to tell that story in a business context, like what is this pulling together? How does this position us in the marketplace? So I say fear definitely is always prevalent and I think it even today it exists. It just now exists in the continuum given.
Speaker 3:You know, see above the metamorphosis piece the fact that we're always in change means that there's always this element of fear that's happening within organizations, and so it's something to think about. I don't have an answer to how to solve for that other than continuously being transparent and coaching people through it. But that has always been an element that I've seen in a lot of the change initiatives, that idea of fear and fear of the unknown. And it's also as much as you in again back to the M&M method. As much as you talk about how great this is for the company. No one cares. Everyone cares about themselves. Right, it's like. What does this mean for me? So I also try to educate people in their building scripts for change.
Speaker 3:Don't, don't build it from your perspective, build it from the employee. What are the things they're going it from the employee? What are the things they're going to be concerned about? What are the things? It's their job. Is it going to continue? It's their growth. If they were going to be promoted, what does that look like now? Their benefits, all this Is the company going to survive in this newly created entity? So that fear piece, I think, has been the most problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like we talk about in that research, you know humans are just being humans. This is the biology of how we're built to respond to change and while we are adaptive and resilient, we freak out first. So I'm not surprised to hear that that's what you see and you're using some of those strategies that we can use to kind of calm down the biology and get people more on board with change. Yeah, so those are some strategies you're already using. I'd love to hear you share a few more. When you're helping your organization navigate change, what are some of your go-to strategies that you talk about in your books?
Speaker 3:and in your training materials is, I think you need to start with that element of either biology or data in some way to support what you're trying to do. Because, to your point, you and I both know, yes, it's biology, this is humans being humans. But most of the business side folks not all of them, but some of them are like can't we just make this change? Oh, that's, you know they'll, they'll just get it. And if they don't, we'll get, you know, we'll exit them. Or, you know, you have some harsh reactions to what I would call the more softer things. But this is, they're softer things, but they're rooted in science, right? So, like, we should expect this. So, coming with that education at the highest level when this change is initiated, letting people know, hey, folks are going to have a reaction to this and, by the way, depending on their reaction is no element of their performance or their care about Susie. Because sometimes, you're like the people that are resilient, they're like, yeah, let's go, this is great. They're often regarded as high performers, right, like, look, anthony buys in, he's not resisting this change, he must be, you know, really loyal to Susie and we're going to promote him forever because he's one of us right when the person's like oh, I don't know. It's making sure you understand that those are two reactions that are different. Because they're reacting, it's biology, right. It doesn't mean that that person that's resisting is going to be the anti-SUSY or should be in any way punished for their reactions or discounted Like maybe it's a real reaction and we need to figure that out. So, getting that at the highest level buying is really important. Bringing the neuroscience in Because, again, if I come in and go, you know some people are going to feel good, Some people are going to feel bad, like no one's getting that. But if you're like, hey, if you want this change to be effective, which means that you want to continue revenue growth and profitability, always tie it to business is my offer Number one in terms of strategy. That's how you do it. First and foremost, we're going to do this change and we're going to take a pause. Let's plan this outright. Make sure we understand the human element of this, because you want this change to succeed correct, and the measurement of success is what Revenue and profitability that's the end game for all businesses. So I'm going to help you get there, but just take a beat with me there and then making sure that you and I said it before take it from the employee's perspective.
Speaker 3:Any change. Again, we all believe in this change. We heard the CEO talk about this change in private meetings and we're all on board in this change. We all think it's right, great, and we all see that there's a connection to the business. Everything's going to be wonderful.
Speaker 3:But that's your point of view. Think of it from the employee's point of view. What are the things they're going to question? See the M&M theory right, and answer those questions at the beginning. I know you're going to be thinking about this and this is our answer to that. I know you're going to be feeling this. This is our answer to that Making sure that you really think of these things. Any change, and to your point long, big, tiny change, whatever it is, take a beat. Make sure you're thinking of that human element. And how are you going to make sure? Because, again, the point here is that any. No one wants change to fail, but yet most of it does. So the data shows right, like if you come in and go listen, most change fails. Here's why you're not thinking of the human element to it. I think that's an important start for all of these things.
Speaker 4:I want to grab and highlight something you said that I think is so key that I'm going to summarize it that an individual's reaction to change is not indicative of their performance level. Like, I want to sit on that for a second because it's so interesting to think about, because there are some people that just process information via resistance right. Like I want to push back, I want to poke holes in this, I want to understand it. I think it resonated with me because I'm one of those people you know I like it's not that I can't get on board with it, but I need to poke out a little bit before I get on board with it. And on the flip side, you might have people that in the meeting are saying, yeah, this is great, we love it, but actually they're the silent resistors who you think are on board, but they're out sowing discord across the organization, and so just I want to put a big underline under that kind of reaction is not equivalent to someone's performance.
Speaker 2:I think we've all worked with organizations or with leaders who some leaders really take offense at that, Like they. They think their idea is brilliant, they're ready to launch it and I think they expect trumpets to blare and people to give them a standing ovation. And yet humans are going to go. Wait, what's happening? You've just upended my world, and that's not like the ego should not take a ding for that. It's just humans having this reaction, but many leaders do want to find some element of. Well then, this person's not on board.
Speaker 2:You know they're maybe a culture fit, or whatever phrase they like to use, you know.
Speaker 3:And I and I think that's where your, your HR partner, can be really critical in that initial stage of the idea and poking hole like giving that, if you have a great relationship, or you just say, listen, my role here is going to be these three different personas. I'm going to be the advocate and, by the way, justin, I am always the like oh my God, change, great. Yeah. This is going to be the advocate and, by the way, justin, I am always there like, oh my God, change, great, yeah. This is going to be like awesome and this is.
Speaker 3:And I, I have to, as the head of HR, I have to play the other part, which is like this is a terrible idea.
Speaker 3:And this is why we shouldn't do this Right, because I need to be fair in that, in that prep for that leader and that's the key factor in that HR could be a strategic partner by doing exactly that, like thinking through okay, what are the elements that make this really exciting?
Speaker 3:What are the elements that could make this, you know, make someone you know have some kind of fear or even flight to your point, and those folks are the worst. That negative contagion is so disastrous for everybody that you have to get that out on the table. And that's why, when the you know, when I, when I talked to our CEO or any leader, and he did it with the, with the logo change right he called it out. He's like, listen, some people are going to love this, some people are going to hate it. And I love that because he was like, yeah, I know what you're feeling if you hate this and, by the way it is, it's what we're doing, it's our new logo. So, you know, kind of get used to it. But by him calling that out, I think you're addressing some of that and giving people the space to have that. You know that reaction to that kind of change.
Speaker 3:Anthony, you all at Suzy use our Brain Over Leader products, and ChangeQuest is a part of that, and I'd love to hear just how you've seen the ChangeQuest model positively impact change in your organization where you've delivered that program. Yeah, I think we delivered the Brain Aware to a pilot group of leaders because we're going through, like, how do we deliver this in a way that's super effective in getting their feedback right, both on the content but also in the structure that we've had within the organization. And I have to say, and what we do is we deliver the six different sessions and then we get feedback. We're a survey company, so when you come in here you have to know that you're probably taking more surveys than anywhere else in your entire life, in your entire career. So we survey folks and I will say the change one hit the hardest, like in terms of like feedback and like wow, like practical. Now, all of it's great, but that one, for instance and I think it's I was probably timing because we're going through a change and I think the elements of understanding both the longevity of the change is just a very quick change and the impact or the effort for that change.
Speaker 3:I think, if I were to distill all of it in terms of things that I thought really had a strong impact in our organization, I and and because I think what what would happens is, if it's a small change, people discount the impact, meaning, oh, this is a small like. Again back to Britt's point before, where people will you'll, you'll get points taken away If you push it's. It's a small change, like why are you reacting this way? Right, where it's like it could be small in terms of length of time, but the impact is great. And so, even though it's like, hey, this is going to change, like our, our website, boom, it changed. Like, listen, the work done beforehand was, was really heavy, but that one when we flipped it over, that's the change.
Speaker 3:And now it's, it's kind of done and it's now with us, but it was a big impact. Like, changing your logo is a big deal, your colors, things like that. So I think that element of understanding and then for us, as HR leaders and HR business partners, to then look at the lens and teach our leaders hey, when you're thinking of this, let's think about it. Is this a big change? Is it gonna be long? Actually, yes, it's gonna be over the next six months, but the impact is also pretty large. Okay, now we really need to overlay a certain like just having that beat before you go into the actual execution, or the strategy and the execution of these things. I think is I like frameworks, I don't like complex frameworks, so in this case, it's a very easy framework for people to think through and go okay, this is how I would approach this change, or this is what I would do in terms of making sure that this is successful.
Speaker 2:You know we hear that from a lot of our clients that the change session. You know that they get great reviews on all the sessions, but that the change one is super impactful, and I think it's two things. I think, like you said, organizations are in constant transformation. Now Change isn't just something that shows up occasionally. A recent survey by Gartner said that in 2016, the average number of enterprise-wide changes that employees were living through was two per year, and now it's more than 10.
Speaker 2:And so change is just everywhere and, coupled with change management training is hardly ever provided. It's not seen as a skill or as something that a framework would help. It's sometimes used as a structure to put together your plan to execute, but the how are people going to react and how do we get them through that? And all of that has been missing, which is part of why I wanted to bring the science of it forward, because change is the one skill everyone should have, like it's really one of the number one skills, so I'm glad to see that it resonated for you guys and that you've seen it'd be helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the science is so super important because it lays the foundation of why do we need this, but also the business impact, Because I think everyone is going, people are changing. So when you're having that discussion around the change, it means either something is not working the way you intended it or it working and you want to double down on that. And so for me, it's always a business. You're trying to get a business result out of this. So why wouldn't you, you know, invest the time and effort to make sure the change is successful? I think often it's too many.
Speaker 3:Too many people came with that people debt again thinking like, hey, people are just, you got to accept it and that's it. This is the rule. You have to accept it. You, as a kid, you get what you get and you don't get upset. And we know now that that's not the right way to approach these things. And while the biology is the same, the reactions are quite different, and so you have to think of that when you're going through change again, to get to that end result of having a strong business impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know, as we're looking forward now into 2025 and beyond, what is something that you're excited about in the coming months? It can be either professional or personal, but I'm just wondering what's got you excited as you look forward?
Speaker 3:organizations. On HR specifically, I actually have a new newsletter called AI and HR Today where I try to bring the entire profession comfortable with what's happening with AI very practical approach to the newsletter. So for me I think it's the impact of AI and it's both. You know, there are some days where I'm an optimist and I believe it's going to enhance so many things. If you think about the type of initiatives that you're working on around brainware and the neuroscience, like how to get that to the fingertips of change when it happens, like just instead of HR being an interventionist, like it's just sort of there. Maybe it's a AI thing that nudges, whatever it is Like, I see so much incredible opportunity to finally get this people stuff right.
Speaker 3:And then the next day I go down a very dark black hole of whether this thing is going to take all our jobs and you know HR departments won't exist because it'll be all bots and all sorts of things. And I think you need to have both of those. I think you have to have both of those perspectives. But for me it's just it's being part of yet another really large. When we think of AI and the longevity of this change, it's, you know, massive impact, massive longevity. We were same thing when the internet came and mobile came, and so it's just like I am blessed that I am still here and I'm going through this change again and I'm in a position of executive overview of it and just really excited about what the potential is, but also concerned about some of the other pieces of it and I know you mentioned your newsletter and I know you have your hands in a lot of things.
Speaker 4:So before we go, if people want to find you, learn more about any of your work, what's the best way for?
Speaker 3:them to do that. Best is my website, anthonyonestocom Best place to catch everything that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll make sure we put that in the show notes so that people can track you down, and I am going to subscribe immediately to your newsletter because I'm trying to keep up this AI thing myself and it's both exciting and so overwhelming. Like it's just so much in all the places and I can see the potential, but it's almost too much to really wrap your head around.
Speaker 3:Sure is. Yeah, there's so much out there and so much potential, and it's you know. Trying to synthesize all of that into just nuggets every week is even more difficult because I'm always thinking of what's the future of these things and I'm trying to be more of a pragmatist around it and provide advice. So I appreciate that, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for your time today. We really appreciate it. We know you're busy and we're also very thrilled to have you as a client, so thank you very much.
Speaker 3:And thank you both. This was real fun, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Brain Aware podcast. To learn more about brain aware training and our brain based approach to change teams and all levels of employee development, visit brain aware training com.
