Ep. 036 – Alex Budak - Becoming a changemaker
Change is often approached with toolkits, frameworks and curves, something that we try to break down into comprehensible pieces to control. Instead, we can choose a different route - seeing change as a mindset, a capability or a state of being.
With Alex Budak we dive into the practices and skills we need to practice to live with and drive change in engaging and regenerative ways.
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About Alex:
Alex Budak is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author, and speaker. At UC Berkeley, Budak teaches his wildly-popular course “Becoming a Changemaker,” directs the Berkeley Haas Global Access Program, and teaches in Berkeley Executive Education programs. Budak co-founded StartSomeGood, which has helped over 1,200 changemakers in over 50 countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. His book, Becoming a Changemaker, has been endorsed by Nobel Prize winners, Olympic athletes, and most meaningful of all—his former students. He is a graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University.
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Becoming a Changemaker - the book:
https://www.changemakerbook.com/
Changemaker index:
EP. 036 Transcription
[00:00:00] Shani: Hi, my name is Shani, and welcome to the Experienced Designers Podcast, where we explore the human experience, what it is, and how we might create better ones for ourselves and for others.
[00:00:15] As the saying goes, the only constant is change, but even so. Dealing with it as people or as a company, or as a collective of any kind can feel really challenging and daunting for most of us.
[00:00:29] So what can we do to make change manageable as individuals or as leaders? What capabilities do we need to develop and put into practice? How do we transform that sense of resistance and friction into a feeling of enthusiasm and opportunity when we meet change? This is what Alex Budak and myself discuss.
[00:00:53] Alex teaches change at Berkeley Haas School of Business and has recently released the book Becoming a Change Maker. He brings a lot of practical tips and exciting angles to reframe how we see and approach change. Let's jump in. I'm super happy to finally get to, dig into change with you, Alex.
[00:01:17] Alex: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this as.
[00:01:20] Shani: So we've already met somehow previously in our career about 10 years ago, so it was a while ago. But I think the theme that's kind of stuck and when I went back to look at your career since then, change is really the word that stands out.
[00:01:42] You've led incubators on change, you've written columns about it, you teach change. You've written a book very recently that you're released becoming a change maker. Um, so I'm always curious about this. What is it about change that kind of pulls you in? Why, why do you think you're, you're. On this
[00:02:01] Alex: path.
[00:02:02] What, what a fun question. And we should also say that you and I first met through work with an organization called Reach for Change. Yes. Is that you name, the name of the organization itself was change. Um, I guess it comes from this belief in the power of tomorrow and this idea that. Tomorrow can always be better than today.
[00:02:21] And I think I find it exhilarating and fascinating and scary and all those things, but to think about like what could be next, um, I love thinking about that and I love helping people embrace their readiness to sort of think about and achieve change. So you're right that the sort of red thread to everything that I've done, um, in writing, speaking, teaching organizations, it's always been change, but I think it's really with that idea of.
[00:02:47] What could tomorrow be like? How can we play a role in shaping it?
[00:02:51] Shani: That's amazing. And I also think it's interesting because I've had actually conversations even just this week where we talked about kind of the other side of that coin is. The non excitement for change, which is also very much existent in this world, which is full of it.
[00:03:11] Um, and we all react really differently to it. So I think it's, always exciting to speak to somebody who has such an enthusiasm for change. So I always start really big with this. Question about the human experience because we all experience lots of change and I think it's definitely maybe at least felt like an escalation in the last few years.
[00:03:35] Whether or not it's been one time will tell. But um, it's very much. Feeling like a part of our normal setting nowadays. I think that, you know, whether it's at work or private life or in the world around us, there is a lot of changes to deal with. So I'm just really curious, just because of your kind of in-depth work with this, what do you see as a good experience of change?
[00:04:07] How can we, yeah. How can we do change to make it feel manageable to people?
[00:04:12] Alex: No, it's a great question, but I'll start with some sort of, uh, big picture things as well, and then we'll get into some details. So, I mean, first I think it's important to recognize that humans tend to like things the way that they are.
[00:04:25] So there's something called the status quo bias, which social science tells us is a very real thing. Behavioral economist, Samuelson and Zack Hauser basically proved that people tend to overvalue what they already have.. And that means that most people in most situations will probably be scared of change. One of the most important reframes that I had around change is, you know, I think you began the conversation.
[00:04:47] Talk about how I see opportunity and change, but also not everyone does. The former dean of the Haas School of Business, where I teach at uc, Berkeley, um, he helped me sort of change the way I think about this. He said, let's start seeing resistance is rational. That when people are scared of change, that's rational.
[00:05:04] That's a totally normal thing to think about. You know, maybe you've been part of change efforts before and they've fail. Maybe you so wanna believe that change is possible, but you just don't have the track record that chose that it is. Or maybe you're just kind of comfortable and the unknown scares you.
[00:05:19] That's totally fine. And so I think it's good to first ground us in saying that a lot of changes happening and that we tend to like things the way that they are. And so let's not blame ourselves if we feel differently about that or if change doesn't come perhaps as naturally as sometimes it does to me.
[00:05:37] Now in terms of what a good change effort can, can look like? I think there's a few components, but first, a huge part of being a change maker is having a sense of agency. I think where change can feel really scary is when you feel like change is happening to you, where you have no control, you have no say.
[00:05:55] All of this change is happening all around you, and you're just merely trying to hold on for the. And so I think one of the most important shifts we can make is, as you suggested, we can't slow down change. I think change is only accelerating. And so it isn't about stopping change, but rather it's about changing our relationship to the concept and not just trying to merely survive change, but can we become so comfortable with it that we can navigate sheep and steer change and make it positive for ourselves and for those around us.
[00:06:27] Shani: Mm, I love that. And it immediately, Makes me think of. Things that I've learned throughout my years also with NeuroLeadership and how, as you're saying, resistance isn't just rational, it's also natural. It's our natural reaction to things that throw us off or throw us out of our normal is to actually start feeling that resistance and go, ah, I don't feel, I don't feel sure about this.
[00:07:01] And I think a mantra that I learned with this is also that it's not so much about whether you feel resistance because you're likely to, the question is how long you stay with your resistance. And some people are then really good at going okay, and quite quickly moving on to the next thing. And other people feel more rattled by it.
[00:07:23] And each is natural. Mm-hmm. And also I love this word agency that you brought up, and it's funny cuz I had another conversation this week exactly. Around that agency and having a sense of, yeah, being in control as much as, I don't necessarily like the word control, but um, just having a say.
[00:07:49] I think is , is super important. I'm really curious cuz we both work in quite big settings and there's always this like parameter of the individual and the kind of collective space, the company or the workplace or you know, whatever that is. What do you think? Each of those can do to like move into that space or sentiment of opportunity and agency.
[00:08:20] What can an individual do to do it and what can. Whether it's a workplace or something else due to help people get a sense of agency.
[00:08:29] Alex: Yeah. And there's a fascinating interplay between the two. I think there's a cultural component, so I'm coming to you from the Silicon Valley Bay area, which is uh, often I think hyper individualistic.
[00:08:41] You and I met working in Sweden, which is much more collective. I'm thinking about sort of the. Um, and I think there's a balance there between both of them and I think we can, um, over-index on either, which is no good. And so instead the question is like, how do we think about the best of both? Hmm. Um, so in terms of thinking about like the individual's ability to lead change, I mean here we think about that sense of.
[00:09:03] Like having the skills, having the mindset, and then also having the courage to step up and, you know, say, Hey, let's do something about this. But I think at its best, those individuals will also have a sense of the greater whole, the greater context. Um, the best changemaking I think comes in a team sport.
[00:09:20] We may like to over glorify the individual, the loan contributor, but realistically no change happens by themselves. And so, for instance, if you're trying to lead change within a. Can you be conscious of the culture and the institution in which you're trying to lead change? In the book, I tell the story of Sam McCracken.
[00:09:38] Sam is a member of the Sue and Assiniboine tribes of North of Northeastern Montana in the United States. And also general manager at Nike, and he came up with the idea for the Nike N seven line. So it's an in indigenous inspired line within Nike, the proceeds of which will go to support indigenous youth communities like his own and support them in having more access to sport and recreation.
[00:10:01] And when he did this, of course he's the changemaker sort of standing up and leading change within the company, but he did so grounded in Nike's values. Nike has what they call their 11 maxims, sort of 11 ways of doing business. And he says he made the pitch, he grounded them in all 11. So in making the pitch, he was advocating for his community.
[00:10:21] Um, how did he know is a change worth pursuing? Well, in his own words, he said that I heard there was a need in my c. And I listened. So he is deeply connected with his community, but also embedded himself within Nike. He found there's 11 ways that he, that Nike likes to think about business and they did all 11.
[00:10:40] And then from the company organization lens, you know, let's think about how do you bring others into the change with you?
[00:10:46] Patty Sanchez wrote in Harvard Business Review finding that 50% of C-suite executives, when they lead change, they don't actually take into account how that change will be perceived by people on the front lines. So, in other words, they're in their office, they come up with, this is the perfect change effort.
[00:11:03] They announce that they rolled out to the company and one out of every two hasn't thought about, well, how will someone that's 5, 6, 7, 8 layers of authority removed from me be thinking about this? How will someone who actually interacts with our com or customers be thinking about this? And so I think for the institution, for the organiz, Gotta put a lot more empathy into the change, right?
[00:11:23] So you may be leading change because you're worried about the bottom line or the stock price or pressure from your board, but that may not matter too much to the frontline person who has to deal with a lot of the change on a day-to-day basis. And so can you use empathy to understand where someone else might be coming from, not just to communicate the change, but also ideally to formulate the.
[00:11:42] Mm.
[00:11:43] Shani: What does that look like? Have you seen any good examples
[00:11:45] Alex: of that? It's a very practical thing that I, when I work with these executives, I love advising them on is to build, um, advisory boards. So we often have advisory boards of people who are famous and have big names and so on. Build an advisory board that represents the diversity of teammates in your company.
[00:12:02] So that means race, gender, experience, age, but also geography, language that they speak and start running decisions through them. We all have blind spots. So the question isn't, do you have blind spots, because of course you do. But instead it's about what do you do with that, and can you proactively bring people into the change with you?
[00:12:20] Um, when you do, and what I've found in working with executive teams is when they do, it's awkward for them at first when they're like, Hey, we wanna do this thing, but what do you think? But once they do, they start realizing that there's all these blind spots and they get all kinds of new intelligence, cultural intelligence, corporate intelligence that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
[00:12:36] It's a much more inclusive way to lead, but also it's a much more effective way to. Mm,
[00:12:41] Shani: I love that. And it really resonates with what we work with, which is experience design, which also has its base and it's very starting point. Always an empathy. And actually empathy in itself also sometimes generates resistance.
[00:13:00] Not just the change, but actually even going to listen to people or. Operating from that place of inclusivity and um, less assumption. I've also experienced that to generate resistance because we're so used to going about our. Processes and in very specific ways.
[00:13:26] Alex: Yeah. Isn't it funny when the empathy looks like, okay, I'm gonna talk with this person, but also I'm gonna prove them why I'm Right.
[00:13:31] That's not really empathy, like the point of empathy is to honestly just listen and try to understand where they're coming from, put yourself in their shoes, and then you go together from there. Hmm.
[00:13:40] Shani: Then you have a starting point in empathy and you're listening.
[00:13:44] What have you seen to be more successful ways to create then that engagement or that movement from that point? Cuz it's one thing to listen and just create maybe a sense of trust and a a sense of dialogue. But then change is also about movement. So, How do you how do you go from there?
[00:14:01] Alex: So one of my favorite pieces of social science research ever came from Damon Sintola at University of Pennsylvania, and it's about tipping points in social norms. And so he and his colleagues look to see what percent of people in a group need to be on board with a new norm to make it likely that a new norm will take hold.
[00:14:19] And I dunno, you or people listening, I would've guessed at least 50%. I would've guessed probably 60, 70%. But no, the data show that the magic tipping point is about 25%. So way, way fewer people than one might think. And so one of the things I often see is that people trying to lead change try to get 100% of people all on board all at once.
[00:14:40] But if you think about it, if you only need about one quarter of folks on board, well then that changes your strategy a little bit. The consulting firm Nobel, that's N O B L, um, did an interesting piece, which is about the three types of people you meet while leading. And say, you've got your champions, you've got your fence sitters and your cynics.
[00:14:59] So they say with the champions, get them involved early. Delegate to them. Make them feel part of the change with you. And so that's again, going back to the idea of control. You're loosening control a little bit, bringing others into the change, make them feel like they're champions. Then there's the fence sitters, and they say, we tend to spend a lot of time worrying about the fences, but instead Nobel says, no, forget about them for a little bit.
[00:15:19] They'll come around if you can build enough momentum. Instead, there's the cynics. And this goes back to what we started our conversation with. They define cynics in, I think, a really refreshing way. They said that often a cynic is just a disappointed idealist, right? That idea that resistance is rational or even as you say, natural.
[00:15:37] And so instead, can you listen to their concerns? Can you find ways to bring them on board? Can you iterate with them? It makes them feel included. And when you do, if you've delegated it to the champions, you've heard out the cynics, perhaps gotten some of them on board, then the fence sitters will come on.
[00:15:53] One more technique that I found that's helpful is sometimes you wanna ask for less. So in working with one executive leader, he's trying to lead kind of a, a cultural transformation at work. And there were a number of people who were excited, but also a number of people who were really, uh, not excited by it, let's say, put it that way.
[00:16:11] And so he made an ask of the people who were his strongest critics. Basically saying, look, you don't have to believe in this. You don't have to support me. Just promise me you won't get in the way. You won't disparage this new culture. You won't speak badly of it. Um, but you don't have to believe in it. You don't have to be a champion of it.
[00:16:27] Just don't derail it. And by making a smaller ask, he got a hundred percent of people on board. Either they became champions or they at least were not detractors, and that allowed him to move forward with a new culture.
[00:16:40] Shani: Hmm. That's really interesting. And actually it just makes me think also that that's a quite an empathetic approach is to actually, it it, it kind of felt to me as you were saying, it's like, oh, that feels also like meeting people where they are.
[00:16:56] So actually it's okay for you not to, to like this. Um, you don't have to feel enthusiastic. You don't have to like jump up and down and come running for it. It's.
[00:17:07] Alex: That's, that's exactly right. Very empathetic and also requires leaving your ego at the door a little bit. Mm-hmm. Because you can imagine being a leader and you get so wrapped into this, you think this is exactly the strategy we need.
[00:17:16] This is wonderful. I've done so much thinking about it. Um, and then when someone says, nah, I don't like it, um, it's very easy to get her ego wrapped up in it. But instead, he was actually quite practical and said, okay, if we wanna get this thing done, I don't need you to be a champion. I don't need you to deeply believe it.
[00:17:30] Here's just what I need from you to put, putting ego aside in service of the.
[00:17:35] Shani: I love that. And putting ego aside is the theme that comes up for us a lot as well. And I've seen, and I usually talk about falling in love with the impact, when I talk about the ego and kind of setting it aside is it's not so much about you, it's about the impact and the value, whatever else.
[00:17:54] And then, Than the things that you want to create or the things that you've done that aren't working, they can stand aside because it's not about you. It's um, what are things that you see help people to put that ego aside, because that's usually hard sometimes, you know, we create these things and we build these programs and ideas and we kind of attach so much to them and we love them so much and we spend time on them, and then we have to let go of them, and it's really hard.
[00:18:22] Even when you have all these mantras, that can be really hard. How, how
[00:18:26] Alex: can we do that? Yeah. Something I see all the time in my book, I read about a meeting that I had with a recent graduate and I, I love meeting with change makers of all kinds, and so he met up with me in, in San Francisco. Those of your listeners that have been to San Francisco or lived there know that's very hilly.
[00:18:42] And also usually pretty warm. And so he showed up for this meeting wearing a three piece suit, and I'm a pretty casual laid back guy, and so I was wearing like a t-shirt and jeans. There he is in his, his like very fancy suit. And I could tell like, okay, this is not my normal meeting. So as we started walking up and down these huge hails in San Francisco, and he's probably sweating and go, what am I getting myself into?
[00:19:00] Asked him, you know, how, how can I help you? What are you thinking about? And he said, well, his goal, his number one goal was to be on Forbes 30 under 30. Said, okay, um, what would you like to have done in order to deserve that honor? And he just kind of looked around hoping that some answer would come to him, but he had no idea.
[00:19:18] All he wanted was to be on Forbes 30 under 30, but he had no idea what he will have done to deserve it. And I think that's a metaphor for how we often think about these things and sort of our ego that, you know, ultimately, as I. Whether or not you get on that Forbes 30 under 30 list, you really can't control that.
[00:19:35] It'll be up to some person sitting in a conference room in New York City. They'll have probably a hundred people who would be eligible and they choose 30. You can't control that, but what you can control is meaningfully choosing to serve others. It's an approach I call, going beyond yourself, but this idea of how can I be of service to you and to those around you, whether that's a community, your team, someone around you thinking about.
[00:20:01] Rather than, what can I get out of it? What could I do to be helpful to you? And once you do, you know, you have to let go of control because you don't know exactly what people will say, what exactly they'll want. But if you do lean in with that, well, not only will you have more impact, but also you ironically have a better chance of getting that recognition of something like the Forbes, their narrator list, because that's your better path to doing really meaningful, impactful work.
[00:20:24] Hmm.
[00:20:25] Shani: I love that. I love that you're bringing up service. I think it's, it's a word that I see appear in much more places in the last, I can't say our last many years, but it's definitely been kind of a theme that comes up. You know, even the spiritual community in, in the business community. This concept of being of service, uh, which is, um, I think.
[00:20:53] Yeah, it ties much more to contribution And also I, I always find it refreshing when there are things we talk about that move away from performance and they are not about, you know, perfection it's about creating value. Um, you meet a lot of people also who. Work with change, and as you're saying here, sometimes you don't even know what it is you wanna achieve.
[00:21:21] How do you see that people kind. Are able to pinpoint what type of movement there is they want, because sometimes we also are coming from place, like, I want something to change, but I don't really know what, how do you, how do you even identify like the direction for
[00:21:38] Alex: it? It can feel really overwhelming when you see this scale and scope of change.
[00:21:43] And also often just our desire to make an impact, to create change. It can feel really overwhelming. And so I find that oftentimes people feel so much pressure trying to come with exactly the right thing, especially when it feels really overwhelming to even decide. Let's say you care about climate. Well, that's a great place to do work, but even within that, there's so many areas of climate that are important and needed.
[00:22:02] And so I think I have two pieces of advice here for finding. The first, I think it's good to pay attention to things that make you really upset, things that you feel angry about. Um, it's oftentimes a violation of your values, and so that's something that could be sort of deeper inside of you that you feel like, oh, that just doesn't feel right.
[00:22:21] Um, maybe that's a, you know, when people aren't treated well or maybe really value equality, uh, or justice, and that's a sign that maybe you're onto something and maybe your change should be something related. But then the second one is that it's honestly very hard to figure out your change by sitting in your room by yourself and reading books or listening to podcasts.
[00:22:40] Like you've gotta go out and do it. And so rather than thinking that before you take action, you have to figure out, okay, my change in the world is gonna be around climate tech. That's what I'm gonna do. Oh, maybe. But before you decide that, why don't you go out and. Do a little bit of work in that field or try five different fields or six different areas, or maybe you care about education and try three different approaches to education and see what resonates.
[00:23:02] It's so hard to do unless you actually take action. And so I have to say, have a bias towards action. Give yourself the space. You don't have to have it all figured out. Certainly not right away, and certainly not before you act, but go into with some curiosity, run some experiments, and then see what resonates with you and where do you think you can actually have, uh, make, make a.
[00:23:21] Shani: I think that this is something I also observe maybe from a slightly different angle than you, um, that we especially in the space of work. I think we've traditionally been very used to kind of buying everything. Like the one size fits all solutions. We've been very spoiled with just going off the shelf, here's the system, here's the solution, here's the thing.
[00:23:47] And I feel like the shift that we are in right now is exactly about this playfulness also, or um, more iterative approach to actually, yeah, no, you don't know. You know that this is the area that's important. And you know that there are hundreds of things you could try, and you just have to start somewhere and go and try and empathize and kind of tie it into your reality and see what works.
[00:24:17] And yeah, I think it's interesting cuz I, I'm, I'm seeing, I'm seeing this change also in, um, in, in the corporate space very clearly that you kind of have to move away from clear answers. To more of a reliance on process and on, being in change rather than doing changes these like five years and then in the next five years, then the next five years, then we'll change it and we'll sit in it.
[00:24:44] Now it's more this continuous movement, um, of just, you know, constantly asking, constantly trying, constantly spotting opportunities. I feel like it's a practice on an individual level. It's the practice, but then also how do you translate into a, like collective practice of continuous change where you not get stuck too much in these resistance moments, but actually kind of move through them and in a way that people still feel enthusiastic and engaged.
[00:25:19] Alex: Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. And that's what I like thinking about is what I call a changemaker mindset. Mm-hmm. I think sometimes, especially in corporates, we love to fall in love with these sort of tools. And so you learn some type of change management process and you go and you learn the eight step model by Coter or something like that.
[00:25:34] Um, but. That kind of comes with this idea. They're like, okay, we run it and then our change is done. Like that's done. We've changed. Uh, but no, I think we need to have that continuous mindset, and that's where I think it's a little bit less sometimes about tools or techniques. People often ask like, you know, do you have a favorite change management technique?
[00:25:51] And no, honestly, I don't, I don't have a, a favorite. What I do focus more on instead or sort of the changemaker mindset. And we can talk more about them, but you know, things like resilience and curiosity and flexibility and adaptability, uh, empathy, which you've already talked about. Those are things that if you could really focus on developing those, honing those well that way set you up for not just leading a single change initiative, but rather being a change maker.
[00:26:14] Someone who can lead change continually throughout your life and career.
[00:26:20] Shani: I, I love this, and this is actually a theme I've heard with a lot of my guests, is this focus on capabilities rather than specific tools or models. What have you found to be kind of. Then a good way to, when you're saying like hone in or focus on those capabilities, how do you work on your curiosity?
[00:26:41] How do you work on your resilience? What, yeah. What are some of the things that you've found through your years of interacting, teaching, doing research on this?
[00:26:49] Alex: Yeah. We can share a resources maybe some of your listeners would be interested in. Yeah. Something called Changemaker index, and so when I first began teaching changemaking at uc, Berkeley, I'm not a researcher, I'm a.
[00:27:00] Uh, but as decided to do just a little bit of research and set out to try to study, you know, what are the traits that the most effective change makers have in common, irrespective of roles or of sectors of age. What do change makers do to lead change? So create this index, um, and it's now publicly available as part of my book.
[00:27:16] So if anyone's interested, you can go to changemaker book.com/index and actually take it for. And it'll tell you what your greatest strength as a changemaker is. I like the sort of strength-based approach, and it'll give you some insight into that. Um, but then from there, yeah, we're starting to like understand like what are some of those traits that the best change makers have?
[00:27:34] And the question of course, is it teachable? Is it learnable? And the data, they're. Super clear. Yes, absolutely you can. Uh, and so questions, what you wanna learn, how you go about it. But that's really what I've dedicated my professional life at uc, Berkeley to doing, is teaching things like curiosity and resilience, which might feel a bit squishy or a bit fuzzy, but I think absolutely one can learn in practice.
[00:27:57] Shani: Yeah. Uh, let's dig into that a little bit more because I think definitely both resilience and curiosity are words. Or on my table, in my radar, on an all if not daily, then definitely weekly basis when I talk to people. How do you, how do you make curiosity like a tool for your life? Because I think.
[00:28:21] It's also, it's the basis of empathy as well, right? Is taking your curiosity and directing it somewhere how. Yeah. How do you do
[00:28:28] Alex: that? Well, so the first thing is, I really like this as just a tool of framework just to understand. It's something that those of your people listening have studied.
[00:28:37] Design thinking will probably know quite well, but it's conversion thinking and divergent. So convergent thinking is the thinking that most of us do most of the time. It's this idea that there's one single right answer, right? If I ask you what's the capital of Germany? Or how much does a panda away, there's sort of one answer and you just like memory recall.
[00:28:57] You put it out, divergent thinking. Meanwhile is, um, Exploratory, it's divergent, it's uh, non-linear. It's kind of what we might call it, brainstorming. But instead of coming with one single answer, you're coming up with lots of different possible answers. Now, what's fascinating is that often working with executive teams when there's tension, I find that sometimes the team hasn't decided, are we in mode or divergent mode right now?
[00:29:23] And if you have half the team that's trying to come up with one right answer, half the team that's trying to come up with new possible answers, well, there's inherent conflict. So it could be very helpful to say, okay, look for the next 15 minutes, let's really be focused on divergent thinking. Let's come with a bunch of different ideas.
[00:29:36] Let's see what other people have in mind. And then from there we can of course decide. So it can be actually really helpful to just be proactive about saying, yeah, we're gonna do divergent thinking. The second one is one that you reference, which is just bringing in more play to what we do. It's funny, I know both you and I are parents and, um, play comes so naturally to our kids, but there's some point in our adult life where it's like, oh, we don't, we no longer play.
[00:29:57] Nope. No, we gotta be serious all the time. But I think some magic happens when you're willing to play. Uh, so I'm not saying that's as simple as like take a 20 minute break and play with leg Legos, but maybe it is, you know, maybe it is just like, give yourself a chance to go play and to sort of be curious about.
[00:30:13] Um, there's a quote that drives me that I really love from a journalist, uh, Kate Murray. She says that every person is interesting if you ask them the right questions. If someone seems boring, then it's on you. And so I always use that as a way, as I like, have conversations, whether that's someone on a plane or you know, someone I meet at a dinner party.
[00:30:32] Uh, the idea that like go into it assuming that someone is interesting, that someone has something to teach me that I may not know and it's my job to sort of bring it out of them. Once you think about that as a deliberate practice, um, it starts changing the way you think about curiosity because it's not that there's one single right answer and there's some limited, um, wealth of all the knowledge been sets about like what can I learn from someone?
[00:30:53] How can we curious and bring that out of. Hmm.
[00:30:56] Shani: Yeah. That's amazing. I think, yeah. Play is, uh, I love that you bring that up as well in terms of, I know, I, I can't say exactly how long it, w ago it was, but I listened to this episode on the, on the Huberman Lab podcast, and they were, or he was, he was alone on the episode, he was talking about play and in particular, what it means to the adult brain.
[00:31:22] Which I found was really interesting because I think we've kind of missed an opportunity sometimes in redefining what play can be when you're an adult and you get stuck a little bit thinking like it needs to look like you're down on the floor doing things or being like playful as a child. But the way he reframed it was.
[00:31:42] It's about creating a risk-free environment where you're exploring opportunities which allows you to open your mind. And some of it you can do it if you're like trying to learn to dance if you're not used to it or doing it with playing chess or, um, just you can't have too many stakes cuz he says as soon as you get adrenaline, then you basically are dis disrupting your ability to play.
[00:32:09] But. Then I thought exactly of what you're saying is that wow, actually divergent moment is play to the adult brain and if we can just also then find moments of, and ways of making it fun and kind of more fulfilling then, then it we're actually being playful. So yeah, when I think about that as well is that we also have this opportunity to actually reframe a little bit what play is, and if we do, then we're actually playing maybe a lot more than we give ourselves credit for.
[00:32:41] Alex: I love that I hadn't heard human's definition before, but what strikes me in hearing it is that it's very similar to Amy Edmondson's definition of psychological safety. She talks about psychological safety, is the feeling that a team is safer interpersonal risk taking. Hmm. And there's amazing data that show that the presence of psychological safety leads to greater innovation and team cohesion and all kinds of positives.
[00:33:03] Uh, but interesting to think about perhaps a connection there between like our willingness to play and our ability to feel. And that's something that leaders of a team could then do to make sure that their team feels safe, to try new ideas, to think divergently and to honestly just to to play.
[00:33:18] Shani: Yeah. But I like what you're bringing up here in terms of psychological safety, cuz there is also an element of trust in change and especially as we talked about before.
[00:33:27] Also, if you wanna engage people and bring them with you, then trust is a pretty basic. Thing, um, that you need to be able to either create or if it's already there, maintain. So that can definitely play a role. I'd love to loop back also to the word resilience, because that's definitely one that's been with me throughout many years of working with self-leadership, leadership, and kind of.
[00:34:00] Also in relation to, there's a lot of terminology around VUCA world and that kind of connection between those. But yeah, I would love to also get your take on. Resilience and how do we tap into that?
[00:34:17] Alex: Well, first what I like to do is reframe the way we think about resilience. So I think many of us, especially here in the Bay Area, we like to think about resilience as like enduring as much pain as possible.
[00:34:28] That it's like just grind it out and just like, it's gonna be terrible. Just get through it, get through it. But I don't think that's the right definition of resilience. Instead, the way I like to define it is staying strong for the long haul. When it comes to leading change, you gotta think longer term because as we've talked about, sometimes change will happen quickly.
[00:34:45] Oftentimes it'll take a long time and it's a up and down process. Um, and so the question isn't about just sort of like being able to withstand a, withstand a bunch of pain for three weeks and lead change, but rather making sure you remain strong for the long haul. Um, I had Sid ESP Espinoza, who at the time was the VP of philanthropy at Microsoft.
[00:35:06] Come speak to my class. I was student based asking him this question, which is like, Hey, I wanna lead change around climate, was her interest. Uh, but it feels really overwhelming and it feels like, I don't know, I'm just gonna burn out on it. And he said, look, we've gotta stop seeing change as an individual sprint.
[00:35:22] Instead, we've gotta start seeing it as a relay. That any of the big, meaningful changes you're trying to pursue in your life may not be solved in your lifetime, but instead, our job is to take the baton from those who have come before us in the time we're working on it, advance the baton as much as we can.
[00:35:38] So if that's five years, 10 years, 15, 30, 50, 60 years, And then when the time comes to hand the baton to the next generation, make sure that we're being good stewards, that we're setting them up for success, we're mentoring them, we're supporting them, making sure that they have what they need to go. And I think when we shift from thinking about the idea that I have to do all of the change all by myself, but instead to see ourselves in the larger picture, that helps us understand, look, it's not about burning out, it's about staying strong for the long haul.
[00:36:05] Now, going hand in hand with that, I think is also reframing our relationship with failure. Um, so we spend, in my class at Burke, we spend an entire, uh, lecture talking all about failure because, uh, as Mia Brunell Livfors, uh, the Swedish investor, entrepreneur told me, if you can do anything meaningful, you're gonna fail a lot along the way.
[00:36:24] And it's so true, especially when it comes to change. And so we spend, you know, a couple hours in the class talking about frameworks around failure. We do some case studies, look at data, but then towards the end of class, I flash up a slide, which just has two. And it just says Go fail.
[00:36:42] Shani: How do people
[00:36:42] Alex: react to that? Oh, so nervously, I'm at the front. It's, I can see them react somatically and I see them start turning red. They start sweating. They start kind of laughing nervously, like they feel really uncomfortable, perhaps. Like a lot of listeners of your podcast, they're sort of high achievers and they've gotten where they are usually by doing things quote, right.
[00:36:59] And by succeeding a lot. It's this idea of failing feels really scary to. Hmm. I flash up the next slide and it says, okay, you have 15 minutes and you have to go leave the classroom and you can't come back until you've been rejected. You have to ask for something and purposely get someone to say no to you.
[00:37:19] And now here's where it's nice cause it's a class. So they know they have to do it. And I say, look, I'll be at the front of the room. I'll, I'll coach you, I'll guide you if you need some support. But yeah, I'm serious. Go out there, go fail and don't come back until you've been rejected. And the students, they leave the classroom and they shuffle out like nervously and you know, try to take as long as they can and they're scared and they're.
[00:37:39] Uh, but then when they come back, the energy is just off the charts. So much so that I once had a professor next door that came over and asked us to keep the noise down cause students were just so lit up from this experience. And so in doing so, we find that one of two things happens for about 30% of students.
[00:37:58] They ask for something, they're sure that they'll get reject. But they actually get a yes. I love that. I think about one woman who went to the cafe downstairs and said, hi, um, could I have a free orange juice? She starts turning away expecting a no, but the barista says, yeah, okay. And she goes, uhoh. Um, okay, uh, could I have two?
[00:38:19] And he goes, yeah, okay. Three. No, thankfully he cut her off there, but she came back to class with two orange juices for the class. And so the lesson of course, there is that sometimes our first failure is not putting ourselves out there, that we're so sure will be rejected, that we don't ask for something that we otherwise want, and maybe we would've otherwise.
[00:38:39] So that's about one third or so of students. Then for the other 70% or so, uh, they ask for something, they get rejected, but they come back rather than feeling defeated. They actually feel really inspired and proud of themselves. They're glad that they put themselves out on the line, that they took a chance.
[00:38:57] And they also realize that in the entire time I've done this experiment, not a single student has ever been laughed at or made. We often make in our head that failure is gonna be so much worse than it actually is. And I have students ask for silly things. So, you know, one woman asked another woman to say, hi, could I put on your shoes?
[00:39:15] And she thankfully said no. Um, or had one student go over to a guy who was working on like a big bulldozer and said, Hi, I don't even have my driver's license, but could I drive the bulldozer? And the guy said, no, sorry, you can't do that. Um, but they come back and they have this like boost of confidence because they put themselves out there and they realize, Hey, if I could ask for something that I didn't even want, like I didn't wanna wear that woman's shoes, if I could ask myself for that, then imagine what I could do when I really care about something.
[00:39:39] And it changes student's perspective about what failure actually needs.
[00:39:44] Shani: I, I love that. I think it reminds me of a conversation I've had with our previous guest, Maria, she's a neurologist and we talked about the learning brain and, um, exactly those, you know, moments of discomfort when we're kind of faced with something and, and I'm, I'm hoping I'll do justice to our explanation here, but I think what stuck with me is.
[00:40:12] The fact that when you feel the discomfort, it's like this is your brain shining a flashlight on your opportunity to learn something. It's your brain telling you, Hey look, here's potential here. Cuz there's a gap between where you are and where you could be. And. If we then in that moment choose to not lean into it or do something, we're actually teaching the brain that we're not capable.
[00:40:34] Whereas if we lean into discomfort and try, then we start building new pathways for ourselves to like actually generate. A sense of belief that we can do it. And so, yeah. I love that you also just bake that in in terms of actually creating an experience for them where they get to like push past it. Not on a theoretical level, but actually on like a physical experience level cuz it can have such a big impact on just moving past the threshold.
[00:41:02] Alex: Yeah. And that threshold was a nice way to think about it and it's perhaps in line with the way Maria thinks about it, but in my teaching, like as we think about pedagogy, I'm a big believer that there's like magic moment of growth that happens. You think about it as like a big circle in the middle of the circle.
[00:41:16] You've got the place where you're just too comfortable, where things are just too easy, where you're not sort of being challenged and you just, you know, you're fine. You'll get an A in the class. Things are just easy. Then there's also towards the outer part of the circle, this area, which is just too scary, where it's just too big of a leap and you don't feel equipped to do it, and it feels just like I can't possibly go.
[00:41:37] The place I try to be in my teaching is right at that magic intersection, that inflection point where they feel just safe enough, but also just scared enough. And I think there's a lot of amazing growth that happens right at that, that tipping point. Now, it's not easy to get to there, but I think when we think not about being too much in the too safe, and not just throwing ourselves into the deep end where it's too scary, but titrate into that perfect moment, that's where a lot of growth.
[00:42:00] Shani: Hmm. Yeah, I've had a, I've had a mantra around like leaning into your edge for several years is just when you're feeling like you're just there, then you lean in and as you say, also it can't be too big, cuz then it's really threatening for us. And we also then we kind of just want to go hide and pull a blanket over our heads.
[00:42:21] And that's not, also not a good place to be. But definitely subjecting ourselves to a little bit of discomfort can definitely help us develop that sense of resilience and sense of belief that we're actually capable of, of doing things.
[00:42:35] Alex: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:42:37] Shani: Amazing. What I'm thinking is also. You know, now we touched on like a lot of different topics.
[00:42:46] We talked about resilience, creativity, engaging people, empathy, all kinds of things. So maybe let's boil it down to like just a few little tips. Um, and I'm thinking, my one question is, I have two actually. So let's do them one by one. One is, If you're a person in a place where there is change going on, um, whether or not you're leading it, what can you do to contribute to movement and, you know, making that easy.
[00:43:26] Alex: So I think part of it is recognizing where you might be in that, uh, model that Nobel talked about. So are you a champion? Are you a fence sitter, a cynic? There's roles for each of those and sort of understanding where your, your place is. But then also one of my favorite videos that I show in class is called Leadership Lessons from the Dancing Guy.
[00:43:41] And it shows how this dance movement that a music festival happened with one crazy guy who was dancing by him. But then the magic happens when this guy, they call the first follower came aboard. So this one shirtless dancing guy is dancing by himself for a few seconds, but then this other guy comes and joins dances for a few seconds, and then he calls to his friends and say, Hey, come check this out.
[00:44:03] And that's the turning point that first follower turned this way. Uh, Derek services a low nut into a movement. Hmm. And so what you might think about is, is there a role for you to be the first. There's sometimes you'll be the crazy dancing guy and that's great. You know, maybe you're the one that's on the edge.
[00:44:18] Most of us probably aren't that way, but can you pay, pay attention to other people who are doing something interesting or a change that you believe in? And then can you be willing to put a little bit of your own privilege on the line to make it safe for others to be part of it with you, to validate it, to invite others to be part of it, to not take over the change, but to be of.
[00:44:35] To help support that change. Uh, and so think about perhaps there's a role you can play not to be the crazy dancing guide that you don't necessarily have to start the change, but find some change. Find a spark, and then help to turn it into a bigger flame.
[00:44:49] Shani: Ah, I love that. And I've seen that video. It's really, it's really engaging.
[00:44:55] And a second question then is, Because I always, I always look at change or anything that's ongoing. It's, it's always this as, as we talked about, this is a parallel movement between what happens in the collective space and the things that we bring in and our capabilities. So, Yeah, I'm, I'm curious, just, let's just kind of try and sum up like what are some core things that maybe that you practice or that you see that have a lot of success with your students that you can practice to hone in on your own?
[00:45:29] Skills to cope with change or, or drive change?
[00:45:34] Alex: Well, the first is one that's just super practical, but it's a concept I call micro change. So before you go out and launch your own social enterprise, you gotta get comfortable with smaller change as well. Let's encourage all of my students, executives that I work with to practice small change all the time.
[00:45:48] So what does this look like? It's committing to changing up your routine in small ways. And by the way, this makes people really uncomfortable, even though it's a small change. But that's the whole point of this, right? So maybe for an entire week you only eat breakfast foods for dinner and only dinner foods for breakfast, maybe every day, driving your kids to school when you take a different route.
[00:46:07] Mm. Um, maybe you let your best friend choose your, and create your Spotify playlist and you only listen to their music for an entire week. Or the one that really freaks people out is if you have a partner or spouse, switch sides of the bed with them for a week. Oh, shoot.
[00:46:22] Shani: I felt
[00:46:22] Alex: that one. Yeah. Right. So all tiny little aspects of micro change just for a week.
[00:46:28] Small little things, and that just builds up a bit of your confidence in yourself, your ability to navigate smaller bits of change. That way when the time comes for bigger change, you feel like you have a bit more resilience to, to
[00:46:38] Shani: lean on. Yeah. So you're actually kind of playing with change in this space of Yeah.
[00:46:42] Little less risk, but just building your tolerance.
[00:46:46] Alex: I think that's enough to make listeners a bit uncomfortable with their change and give them some things to try. So I think that's, that's a great place for which
[00:46:52] Shani: to, to start. A great place to start. I think this is fabulous. Lots of super concrete tips to deal with change, to drive change, to be a leader of it.
[00:47:06] Any last words of wisdoms that you wanna send to our listeners
[00:47:11] Alex: that the world has never been, we're ready for you. I think there's never been a better or more important time to find your own potential as a change maker and to lead change for yourself and for others. There are big, scary changes out in the world, but there's also lots of huge opportunity.
[00:47:28] And so my invitation to you is to find your own agency, to find your own ability to lead change and to step up and create positive change for yourself and for those around.
[00:47:38] Shani: Amazing. Thank you so much, Alex, for sharing all of your wisdom and your enthusiasm for change because that's definitely the spark that you were talking about that is felt also through you.
[00:47:55] So thank you so
[00:47:56] Alex: much. Uh, thanks for having me. This was a really fun conversation.
[00:48:00] Shani: Thank you for listening to the Experienced Designers. I hope this episode brought you some new insights and some new topics to stop and wonder about. A special thanks to Alex for sharing his concrete tips, exercises, and enthusiasm for change.
[00:48:15] Don't forget to click subscribe, and as always, get in touch with any questions or suggestions. That's how better experiences are made.