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Mind Your Own Hula Hoop When Change Is Rampant

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What’s a hula hoop got to do with change? Whenever I speak on resilience and responding to change, I invite the audience to go on an adventure with me. We stand up. We imagine ourselves running across the shire. Together, we shout, “I’m going on an adventure!”

This proclamation is far more exciting than moping about, mumbling incessantly about things you can’t control. Try it now, if you can. (The proclamation, not the moping.) See? It’s exhilarating!

Where so many of us get tripped up is that we think about all the hazards, obstacles, and unknowns. We get overwhelmed with worry. We’re exhausted before we begin. That’s when it’s important to think about the space immediately around us.

Focus on Your Hula Hoop

Manage Your Own Hula Hoop

This is when I get out my hula hoop. Yes, really. I step inside it and gently remind myself that everything I can control fits within that plastic circle. There’s no need to worry about what might be discussed in the boardroom tomorrow. No reason to predict decisions being made about spreadsheets or org charts. No sense wasting time gossiping with Steve from Accounting. Just focus on what’s inside a 19-inch radius.

When I’m on stage, I bring my hula hoop with me. (There’s a snap-together version that fits in a carry-on.) It’s a great prop! For one thing, people can’t wait to see if I’m really going to use it. (I totally do.) But it’s also a great visual to reinforce the limits of our control. The message hits home.

Not only do I step inside my hoop on stage, I also invite my audience to imagine they each have one as well. After that exhilarating “run across the shire,” we hula hoop together.

This activity is usually a bright spot in a long conference day. Silliness and laughter also break tension. But, more importantly, each person remembers that the only way to positively influence others is to first manage what’s within their own hula hoop.

If you’re working through a rough transition at work, try this activity.

  1. Draw a large circle on a piece of paper. This circle represents your hula hoop.
  2. Write down everything that’s concerning you. If it’s something you can control, put it inside the circle. Otherwise, put it outside the circle.
  3. Accept that you can’t control the stuff outside the circle.
  4. Pick one thing inside the circle that you can do something about. Then do it! If you need some inside-the-hula-hoop ideas, check out my post about self-care.

Be a Yeti to Survive Change

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Changes, especially at work, can be stressful. The come in a variety of forms: new computer systems, reorganizations, shifts in responsibilities, personnel turnover. We are very rarely the ones initiating the change. Rather, we are more likely to find ourselves constantly responding to a wide variety of changes, all at the same time! Therefore, it makes sense for us to spend time developing strategies to deal with this barrage.

Surviving Change Requires a Change in Mindset

Our reality is defined by our perceptions. Change creates a shift in our reality. We must be prepared to manage our own perceptions, or mindset, if we hope to survive — or even thrive in — change.

Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset: The new psychology of success: How we can learn to fulfill our potential lays out a brilliant distinction between opposing mindsets. Dweck tells us that a fixed mindset says “I am.” A growth mindset, on the other hand, says “I can.” When we adopt a growth mindset, we step away from a static notion of “what has been.” Instead, we move toward an ever-evolving concept of “what could be.” Having a growth mindset, then, allows us to continue accumulating skills and knowledge, pushing ourselves toward infinite possible futures.

I frequently cite Dweck’s work in my own talks on responding to change and creating a learning culture. Then I take my audiences one step further by asking each person to “Be a Yeti.”

What Do We Know about the Yeti?

No one’s captured him …yet.

For that matter, no one has even proven his existence… yet.

The Yeti is a great unknown. So is an ever-changing future. Can we harness the power of the Yeti to create our own change-friendly mindset? I believe we can.

Be a Yeti

We can be more like a Yeti by learning to say “yet.” For example:

  • “I don’t know how to use the new computer system … yet.”
  • “Our new reporting structure hasn’t been announced … yet.”
  • “I haven’t learned about my new responsibilities … yet.”
  • “I don’t have my degree … yet.”
  • Or even, “I haven’t found another job … yet.”

What Being a Yeti Does for Us

The word “yet” says — to ourselves and to others — that it’s not too late for us. “Yet” says there is a possibility of the future being better than the present. It empowers us to take action and to regain a little bit of control.

In a recent article, I explored the need for learning to get comfortable with change. The article cites a Deloitte report about CEOs’ views on change in their organizations. Specifically, the article states that “only 30% of CEOs believe their organizations have the skills to adapt.”

How would a Yeti rephrase this statement? The Yeti would say, “Seventy percent of CEOs don’t think their organizations have the skills to adapt … yet.” This distinction is important.

We need to be clear with our employers and each other that we can grow and learn and change and meet these challenges, even as things shift around us.

Even if we aren’t experts at dealing with change … yet.

Learn to Get Comfortable with Change

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Your world is changing more rapidly than ever before, bringing a barrage of industry discussions about disruption, agility, and resilience. Professionals who adapt quickly can seize new opportunities and manage their careers. It’s time for each of us to get comfortable with change.

What Keeps CEOs Up at Night?

Deloitte tells us that 90 percent of CEOs believe their organizations are facing disruptive changes. This is true in your industry, and in every other one, too.

As a professional speaker, I attend conferences in a variety of industries. I hear leaders in every sector of the economy discussing the impacts of blockchain, bitcoin, big data, climate change, future of work, power of robotics, changing demographics, increasing urbanization, technological advancement, and moving regulatory targets.

Taken collectively, these phenomena conspire to change our businesses, our jobs, and our lives in profound ways.

And yet, only 30% of CEOs believe their organizations have the skills to adapt. Make no mistake: CEOs are worried about this. Senior executives live in the future. It’s their job to prepare for coming challenges. And the metrics show a significant confidence gap.

Whatever your role in a company, stand out by showing a willingness to learn. Demonstrate that you are adaptable and responsive to change. Better yet, learn to anticipate or even predict change by getting out in front of trends.

Change Is Here to Stay

The pace of change is increasing. Put another way, the rate of change you’re seeing today is the slowest it will ever be.

We can’t stop it. So, we must embrace it. The only way to do so is to learn what’s new and what’s coming, or to create the future ourselves.

“Pain is the measure of our resistance to change.”

— Source Unknown

Change Is Complicated

Why is this so difficult? For starters, the problems of tomorrow aren’t apparent yet. Think about it. The jobs of today weren’t foreseen a few years ago: Data Scientists, SEO Specialists, Digital Marketers, App Developers. Can you imagine traveling back in time to try to explain “cloud security” to the executives at Blockbuster? For that matter, who would have predicted that someday people would be paid to deliver Taco Bell in the suburbs?

Now, time travel to the future. What jobs and problems will exist in 2040? More importantly, how do we start preparing today to solve them?

The Importance of a Learning Culture

Many people equate learning with going to school, obtaining certifications, or taking tests. Certainly, there are advanced programs that stretch students to innovate. But most of our formal education system is still tied to the needs of a manufacturing economy. Rote memorization, applying known rules, and multiple choice exams will only get us so far. In each these cases, the problems are contrived, and the answer is known. Someone asking a question to elicit a particular (correct) response.

We don’t know the answers to challenging business problems yet. In many cases, we don’t even know the questions! So we need to continue to learn and collaborate across disciplines to build flexible and unique solutions for myriad contingencies.

Learning cultures allow us to prepare for the unexpected. Inclusive leadership that celebrates diverse talent will identify needed perspectives we might otherwise overlook. And capitalizing on each person’s unique strengths will allow us to go further, faster, together.

Tell me, what changes are you facing? How are you preparing to address them?

Why Create a Learning Culture?

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Why Create a Learning Culture?

Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In other words, your strategy will go nowhere if your culture doesn’t support it.

I would take this a step further and say “culture IS strategy.” Any goal that you intend to reach will fail, unless your culture is aligned to that goal.

The Insurance Industry as an Example

If you work in the insurance industry, the purpose of your work is to keep a promise. Whether you work for a carrier, agency, brokerage or service provider, you play a part in fulfilling a past promise made to a policyholder.

Because of this, everything we do has to be aligned to long-term customer service. The best way to support our customers is to stay on top of, or even predict, what they need. We must then continually learn how we can better meet those needs.

Ultimately, insurance does two things:

  1. It makes all economic investment possible, and
  2. It helps people on their worst day.

If we are to maintain our promises in the future, we need to stay out in front of what’s coming. A learning culture can help us do that.

According to the Association for Talent Development, top performing organizations are five times more likely to have learning cultures, compared to lower performing organizations. It’s not hard to imagine that these companies are high performing because of their learning cultures.

The High Cost of Low Engagement

Across all industries, Gallup (“State of the American Workplace,” 2017) estimates that 34 percent of annual salaries lost to disengagement. When employees are disengaged, they are not as productive and not innovative. If employees don’t feel safe, they can’t contribute to their fullest.

Let’s think about what this could mean for a single Fortune 500 company. Consider, for example, a company that has 30,000 employees with an average salary of $56,000. This company spends $1.7 billion in annual salary, exclusive of benefits such as health insurance and 401(k) match. This fictitious company stands to lose $570 million each year due to disengagement!

That’s the impact on just one company. Now think about how much this costs the industry as a whole. The cost goes beyond lost dollars. It also includes the loss of any innovation could have happened with one-third of our staff. Think of the products and services that aren’t being created or implemented, or the number of customers who aren’t being served.

Such a loss is a tragedy for the industry, our economy, and the clients we serve.

Learning Cultures Build Engagement

Providing ongoing learning challenges is essential to employee engagement. Younger professionals, in fact, are motivated as much by learning opportunities as by other benefits.

Based purely on engagement savings, companies can see a tremendous return on a relatively low investment. When you further contemplate the “time value of potential” for these employees, the dividends are immense.

Learning Cultures Represent a Long-term Investment in Talent

It’s no secret that industry leaders are worried about a talent crisis, or talent cliff. Roughly half of our knowledge workers are on the verge of retirement. When they go, they will take institutional knowledge with them. The insurance industry is not alone in this. Other industries face similar challenges.

Folks coming in early- or mid-career have much to learn about the industry. To make matters worse, there are fewer newcomers. It’s easy to see the knowledge gap that looms.

Furthermore, if we are to retain new employees, we need to make sure we’re actively engaging them. How better to engage than in a learning environment where professionals can build skills, knowledge, and confidence in their roles?

Improved Customer Service

Finally, customer service improves significantly in a learning organization.

Bersin & Associates reports that companies with learning cultures are 34 percent better able to respond to customer needs and 58 percent more likely to meet future demand. The combination of these, remember, is the very promise of insurance: to be there for our customers when they need us most, at some undetermined point in the future.

What’s more, Bersin tells us these companies are 46 percent more likely to be first to market and 17 percent more likely to be a market share leader.

Creating a learning culture, then is critical to the top line, the bottom line, long-term growth, and customer satisfaction and retention.

Why would we not to create a learning culture?

 

Deviled Eggs and the Recipe for Success

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My grandma’s deviled eggs were legendary. They were always the first thing to go at family gatherings.

One time I asked her what she put in them to make them so good.

She said “It’s not hard. You just put a little bit of whatever you’ve got in your fridge.”

“But, Grandma,” I said, “I don’t know what’s in your fridge!”

The Recipe for Success

As a new business owner, I look to a lot of experts for their “secret sauce” recipes for success. And it seems like it all comes down to “a little bit of every single thing you’ve got.”

In his autobiography, Born Standing Up, Steve Martin says, “You’ll use everything you’ve ever done.” I think about that a lot. Every skill we’ve learned, every bit of knowledge we’ve acquired, every hard-won lesson that came from a huge mistake. All of it shapes us into who we are and what we offer our colleagues. Our job is to keep learning, keep adding to our recipe.

The Deviled Eggs Are in the Details

One day, a couple years after my Grandma passed away, I got up the nerve to make deviled eggs for the first time. I obediently opened my refrigerator door: pickle juice, pepper juice, mustard, mayonnaise, lemon juice, some sweet relish. I put a little of everything in, just like Grandma told me to do. And, while my deviled eggs weren’t as good as Grandma’s, they weren’t half bad. Turns out, I had the right ingredients all along.

So, what’s in your fridge?

Do you sometimes feel that if you just keep adding more ingredients, you’ll come up with a successful recipe?

What’s worked? What hasn’t? Or could it be that you’re just afraid to get started?

I’d love to hear about your shining successes and spectacular flops. Oh, and if you have a good recipe for deviled eggs, send that along, too!