Welcome to "The Last 10%," where your host, Dallas Burnett, opens up the challenging world of change in the workplace. In this episode, we have Jenny Magic, a leading voice in understanding how changes affect employees and organizations. Dallas and Jenny unpack the concept of change fatigue, delve into the importance of psychological safety, and share strategies for managing the overwhelming demands change can bring.

Find out the WRONG questions leaders ask as they relate to change and psychological safety and how to ask the RIGHT questions. They explore the importance of leaders recognizing employees' emotions and prioritizing projects to prevent burnout. Dallas and Jenny guide us through understanding how individuals and companies can adapt to change without losing their drive or well-being.

So tune in to this powerful episode of "The Last 10%" for a deep dive into modern change management challenges. Dallas Burnett and Jenny Magic provide insights and resources for navigating change with optimism and effectiveness. Don't miss out on their valuable lessons in the latest episode.

Amy Edmondson Survey - www.fearlessorganization.com

Connect with Jenny Magic and Discover Change Fatigue: https://changefatigue.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey, everybody.

We're talking to Jenny Magic today.

What an amazing woman.

She helps leaders say no to unworkable work.

What in the world is that?

We're gonna get into that, and she has some incredible stories about

how to successfully navigate change.

She's a great new friend of mine.

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Coke Brothers

Barber chair in Thrive Studios.

But more importantly, today we have a great guest.

She is an author of a book called Change Fatigue.

So speaker, an expert in tech adoption and employee engagement.

Real excited.

Welcome to the show, Jenny.

I'm so happy to be here.

Well, let's just jump right in because I am, the title of

your book really was intriguing to me because I feel like it sums up how

a lot of people in our culture and at work feel today change fatigue.

So tell us how you define that term, change, fatigue and what

inspired you to write the book.

Absolutely.

So I have been a marketing strategist for almost 20 years and realized over the last

five or so in and around the pandemic and coming out of it, we were seeing a lot of.

Of those strategies just stall out.

A lot of organizations are having a really hard time encouraging

their employees to get on board with whatever the new idea is.

And so in that time period, I really wanted to shift my focus and give leaders

a handbook for how to get their employees more excited about whatever it is that the

organization is trying to move forward.

And in that work, trying to uncover what's going on, it became really clear

that we are in a very unique moment.

We have a lot of pushback from employees.

There's a lot of burnout.

Morale is low.

Employee engagement.

Surveys are coming back.

it was pretty, Dramatically lower marks than before, and leaders are really trying

to figure out what to do about that.

So this was our answer.

My co-author, Melissa Brecker and I come from, change management and

strategy backgrounds, really trying to give, non-professional change

management people a skill set that they can take into their everyday work.

Oh, I like that.

Oh, I like that a lot.

I.

I do.

I do think that when you get down to the root of it, like when you talk about

employee engagement and how those numbers are lower today, I agree with that and I

think there's a lot of different reasons why, but I think that so many business

leaders and business owners and coaches.

Overlook that the value of engagement and all the ripple benefits that

come with employee engagement.

So it's really cool that you're unpacking it from the change fatigue.

So let's talk about if I'm experiencing as a leader change

fatigue, what does that look like?

how does that look if I'm going through, if I'm in an organization and I'm

experiencing this, is there some signs or some symptoms or are there some things

that just will create change fatigue?

Tell us a little bit about that.

Absolutely.

So it can look different in different organizations.

It's dependent on your culture.

In some organizations, we're seeing leaders really face active and vocal

resistance to change, initiative.

So you're, they're hearing like.

Why are we doing this?

I think the way we've always done it is fine.

What, tell me more.

Or pushing back, but more often and more common, and especially in white

collar work knowledge work where the work is happening in between our ears

as opposed to pumping out widgets.

The way that the response is, the way that change fatigue

manifests is just in a slow.

Resistance, quiet, pushback, sandbagging, I like to call it.

So the employee may say great, that seems like a great idea.

I'll get right on that boss.

But then, the kickoff meeting is delayed because of someone's travel plans.

And then the next steps require, and before you know it, there's

a lot of plausible deniability, but nothing's really happened

to move that initiative forward.

And that's where I get called in a lot.

Leaders are frustrated.

They said everyone's smiling and saying the right stuff, but nothing is happening.

What is going on?

And that's where we uncover a lot of change.

that that buy-in's not there.

You can just tell it.

It's just not

there.

And it's so funny.

I love how you described that.

It's, there's a lot of.

There's a lot of plausible excuses that, oh, I couldn't do this,

or I'm traveling, but there's no

energy behind it, there's no movement.

, there's nobody that picks that torch up.

like the Olympics coming up.

Nobody takes it up and runs with it.

It just dies right there.

It just fizzles out.

And I'm sure a lot of leaders have experienced that.

So that's, again, I think that's why, the title change fatigue is just really, I.

Captures some people.

'cause it definitely, resonates in that way.

so if I'm leading a team do you have any examples where you've worked with people?

Oh, I'll tell you what, I'll share one of mine first.

I'll go first.

We've had, we have a coaching system that we install to help, leaders increase

their engagement with team members.

So they're going through this kind of coaching system.

They have a scaffolding system for them to go through.

And you sometimes, inevitably we go into companies and it's

exactly like what you just said.

We'll have 30% of the people.

Are just completely pushing back.

I don't know, this thing's it just, they just, whatever reason it lands on 'em.

And it's you've got 30% of the people that's yes, this is what

I've waited for all my life.

Yes, we get it.

And then you've got the middle ground.

And I feel like that's where the battle is.

and even some of obviously the ones that are pushing back.

So if I'm going in, how would you coach an organization like that?

How, what, as a leader, if I'm leading that team, what are some

of the things that I can do to navigate that difficult situation?

Absolutely.

So I think the first thing leaders need to do is put on a mindset that understands

that resistance is a natural human reaction to a change in the status quo.

So I think a lot of leaders, when they encounter any resistance, they I don't

wanna say they take it personally, but they take it as an actual commentary

on the change when it's, in fact, it's actually just a commentary on any change.

So you're gonna have a natural response that you're gonna need to sit with,

let it be okay, validate, but not take it as a, deterrent to moving

the project forward if, especially if it's an essential project.

I think the other key thing is really making sure you're

solving the right problem.

So a lot of the times when I see an initiative face the kind of resistance

and, and encounter the change fatigue that we're talking about,

have a hard time building buy-in.

It's because the people on the ground don't fully believe that this problem

needs solving or that it needs solving.

Now they may perceive this as a problem that only impacts management, and

therefore I'm being asked to do a bunch of work to make someone else's job easier.

they may perceive the benefit as not being worth the urgency for the problem.

there's lots of ways that we can unpack that, but I think the most

important thing you can do to make sure that people understand.

You're solving the right problem is have what we call in the

book confidential inquiry.

This is just a, a cone of silence conversation.

I imagine that, the Maxwell smart get smart cone where it comes down

and descends over the dialogue.

In some organizations, this can't be with their manager or their boss.

It needs to be like with an outside person that they trust, but basically

being able to hear authentic feedback when someone says, look, I know you're

telling me that we need to do this, but I'm telling you that we've tried this

five times in the last 15 years that I've been here and it's flopped every

time and I don't see what's different.

Or every single time we try to do something like this, they won't put the

budget behind it At the very last minute.

or.

Right.

There's.

Beliefs and expectations that are going to color how they receive a change.

And so to the extent that you're able to, allow them to voice that and be heard

and validated and say, we hear you, but this time is different, and here's why.

That's a huge first step to make sure everyone agrees this problem needs

solving and it needs solving now.

And this solution that we're gonna pursue is something that, that

you should at least show up for as opposed to dismissing and resisting.

I love that idea of confidential inquiry.

I think that's really cool and I think that what you're going for.

is whatever it takes to get that team member that you're leading.

To be honest, that's really what we're talking about is we're going, when

we say confidential, it's however, I need to pull you out of this

situation where you need, you can talk.

It's not gonna be in a room of 30 people where nobody raises their

hand and everybody's yeah, I got it.

And walks out the door.

You're taking 'em off to the side.

It may not even be to the manager, but you're getting, somehow you have

got to cut through the static and get to the real heart of what that

employee is thinking because then.

you can start addressing movement.

I also love how you talked about, giving them a chance to voice their beliefs.

we have a saying, we call it.

for our coaches that we are training in the system.

We call, we say one of their, one of their jobs is to battle for belief.

You battle for that belief and I like it because you're

describing the same situation.

We're gonna pull you out into normal environment if we need to

put you with a separate person.

We are going to find out a, what you believe first to battle for belief.

You know what you're gonna, what you believe.

And then the second thing is we're gonna validate your belief

by at least addressing it.

It may not be that we share the belief.

You may say, well, we've never put the budget behind it and we're, we

know because of all of our strategy meetings, we've just allocated

like 10 times the amount of budget that we've ever allocated to it.

Right?

You may not know that.

So now just by saying, I hear what you're saying, I validate that belief.

You're right.

We haven't put the budget behind it and then coming back with some kind of a

solution or response that addresses it.

I think it not only.

I think it not only validates their belief, but it also would increase

trust because you've actually acted on something that you've heard.

So just sitting there and listening and then taking that feedback and giving,

have you seen that to be the case?

Absolutely, and I think goodwill and trust and engagement

are what a lot of employee employer relationships have been built on in the

past, and we've really seen that damaged in a lot of the ways that things were

handled as we like went remote, came back hybrid, everybody's trying to figure

out how to work in this new environment.

I think there is a gap in inherent trust and so anything leaders can do to.

Be a little bit vulnerable and that vulnerability might be as simple

as, you're right, we didn't put the budget behind it last time.

Just admitting the realities that everyone knows.

A lot of organizations have a really hard time with anything

other than perfect press, right?

They don't wanna say anything in any meeting to any employee that

might say, yeah, we were wrong.

we didn't do it perfectly last time.

and that is a, an opportunity for leaders that are willing to go there.

And it is.

A huge fast-forward button towards that trust if you can let your

employees be on the same team.

I like to talk about being on the same side of the table.

We all know what it's like when you go in and ask for a raise.

you're on one side and they're on the other and there's a

negotiation happening, right?

but true teams sit on the same side of the table.

they look at the paper from the same direction and they work together.

a lot of change right now is being handled across the table.

The leader slides the.

Change across and the employee accepts it or pushes to the extent that we can

get on the same side of the table, we can really start to see that buy-in

come naturally and authentically.

But it takes a leader stepping away from their position of power coming

around to the side of the table, sitting down with their team and truly talking

about what it is we're trying to do.

one of the ways that we, the mindset I feel like

leaders have is the one that they've been brought up in and trained in.

And this, it's a win, a lose situation like my.

Job as a leader is to make this budget or make this, if I'm

owning the company is to get this.

And if I can get you to work for your job as little as I can, and

then you're on the other side getting to, get as most as you can from me.

And it's just this adversarial, just like you said across the table,

what I've seen it, you can flip that on its head, like you said,

come to the same tie of the table.

And what I see there is the leader or the owner saying, I absolutely want.

You to make more, because if you are, you're contributing more.

you're giving more, you have more resources that you're giving, you have

more expertise that you're giving.

you're creating more on the team.

And therefore, if you're contributing more, I'm overjoyed to pay you more.

I'm overjoyed.

Our production's going up, our performance is going up.

Why can't I?

It's a win-win in that situation.

But it's sometimes I think hard because again, going back to.

understanding what the employee believes we're addressing some of those issues.

we're having to be transparent.

we may have to be more transparent than we've been in the past

about, the numbers and whatnot.

also, are we willing to do the work to go see what that position is being

compensated outside of our organization and so that we can be fair and know

that we're doing, and then really be clear about those jobs and expectations.

And I think that if you are willing to do the work, you're willing

to do the work on the front side.

You can sit on the same side of the table and you can be

there, you can cheer for them.

Which again, I think goes to your point of, in being in an environment now

where trust is not, it's lacking and it's an absolute competitive advantage

if you can instill it and grow it.

And Yeah,

I love that.

I love

we're asking our employees to show up for the company, but we

have to show up for them, right?

there's that balance and that's really, I think when, if you can get there and

change projects, often present a really nice opportunity to leave the status

quo and do a little project differently than you've done something before.

It can be a, an experiment in a reset.

I love that.

I love that.

That's really good.

That's very good stuff.

let's talk a little bit about, if you've been in, what's one of the most, I would

say, what's, is there any particular change that you found and I don't know

that, is there any particular change or organizational change in your.

experience that seems to be more difficult to navigate than other types of changes.

all change is hard, but is there any that you've experienced on the co, on

the organizational or the team level that seem to really be difficult Mo the most

difficult for team members to navigate?

I.

I do.

I think there's a category of work that, doesn't often get the same level of

scrutiny that often runs into to trouble.

I like to call this unworkable work.

unworkable work is work that is either not necessary or not achievable.

I.

In this moment.

And, what I mean by that or the category of work that this fits

is often, internal improvement projects or, optimization projects.

So this is we've always used Excel to keep track of our sales leads,

but we need to shift to a CRM.

We've always used, this process to approve content out on the marketing team.

We wanna up that and put system, process reorg efficient.

Optional process and technology changes that are intended to improve things

over the long term, but may be really hard for people to understand and can be

very disruptive in a way that I think a lot of leaders don't fully account for.

How disruptive it is to not only stop doing work in one system or process

and start doing it in a different system or process, but learn a

new tool or process and make the mental shift to do things a new way.

All while keeping the existing plate spinning and the existing

work going out the door.

So I think that the challenge, most often shows up for these kind of

optional things where the employees are like, that is a ton of disruption.

The benefit won't show up for 18 months, and you're expecting

me to do that in budget season.

what the heck?

No thank you.

I don't want anything to do with that.

I'm laughing because I've experienced this personally.

We rolled out a system, in an organization.

It was an it custom build, and it was, it was just transformational in the

sense that it was allowing all this different information to be, talk across.

But it's exactly what you said it was.

Unbelievably painful for the first six months.

I mean, just to the point where some people were like, we're not doing

this, you know, and it's like, no, you

have to phase over.

But it's going through a busy season and they're already stressed 'cause their

workloads high and then we're launching this new thing and they're supposed to

keep doing these projects that, that was already in the old way, this way.

But there are any new projects coming in there.

And man, it was.

It was brutal.

I have so much respect for the team because they grinded through it.

And we had to do a lot of what you're talking about these, con confidential

inquiries, pulling people aside, Hey, you know, where are you at?

. But then you, once you get through that and you get to the

other side, a year later, it was.

Right before Covid, and had they not done that before Covid, I

don't know what would've happened.

So they were very appreciative at the end, but man,

that was, I was awful.

It was awful, it was

hard.

So, yeah.

A recent Gartner study said that the average employee

faced 10 of those planned enterprise changes in 2022, up from two in 2016.

So that is a 10 times increase in eight years.

I think two things are true.

You can do it the way your team did it, but know that you don't get very

many of the, I call 'em change tokens.

You don't get very many change tokens to ask your people to

go through that kind of hell.

You

That's true.

That's true.

So you either need to slow the number of things you're asking.

You can do that, once every few years and ask people to just suck it up and have

the worst six months of their life or.

You can compensate for the balance, you can figure out what work do they

usually do that can get outsourced or paused or what can we take off their

plate that is not absolutely, if this project has to be absolutely essential,

what is it that only they can do?

And can I hire?

Part-time support.

Can I pause?

standard reporting things that don't change our day-to-day.

what can we pause or take off their plate in order to make room for this

awful thing that we're asking them to do?

So reduce the amount of change, reduce the workload so that they can

focus on change and or do whatever you can to smooth the rest of the

ecosystem to make this more palatable.

Right?

I love that approach because again, you're just being

very intentional and I think as.

as leaders in an organization or leaders on a team, if you do ask the

change, I, yeah, we totally finished that and we just, were like, we're not

doing nothing for this period of time because we just need everything to

normalize and everybody to be like, oh,

and I, and that.

It literally, you could feel it, you could feel the need for that.

Organizationally, I think one of the things that you have to do on the

front side, just what you said, you have to pay attention because you have

to do one of those, one of the two.

You have to either say, I'm going to make these things easier.

For everybody at work.

By, what can I do?

Pull things off.

or share load or pull people in.

Or add extra consultants or whatever it is.

Or do what you just said.

Which, just, you can only make so many asks.

I was speaking on burnout.

', and with a large financial, service organization who will remain nameless

at this point in time, but they were going through, if you're listening to

the last 10%, you know who you are.

But, they were going through and are currently going through this major system

rollout similar to what you just said.

I was on this Zoom type call and was, but was talking about burnout

and we got to the end and there were so many people that were.

literally emotional.

And why don't I just absolutely bawl in on the phone.

Because they're changing the system and you go, you from the outside,

you're like from the outside.

It's just really easy.

And especially for leaders, if you're disconnected, it really is a bad thing

because you're, if you're not in it and you're not experiencing that same level

of change, you might take a look at that and say, what is she so upset about?

what is her problem?

Did you hear her getting all emotional?

Just 'cause we're changing the computer system And yet for her.

It's her daily.

It's like what she, when she walks into work and that morning at eight

o'clock, she logs into that system and then she works in it all day.

And so her day just went from normal to Absolutely, a mess every day for,

and that is, if you get it right, you might get through it and so many months.

Right.

So it's just, it's so true.

I think what you're saying is exactly.

It's on point.

And I think that, what's some of the dangers like, 'cause I see one

of the dangers is a leader being disconnected and seeing that person

and not having empathy for them because they only see the upside, Is there

other pitfalls that leaders tend to fall into as they go through these things?

I just wanna say one thing about that one though, in particular.

I think one of the things that leaders really need to think about is the amount

of, Privilege, I guess is the best word for it that they had through the pandemic.

A lot of the leaders we work with are frustrated with how their employees are

showing up for these change projects, but when we start talking about

what their employees did to keep the company afloat during the difficult

times that we've all been through.

In a lot of cases, these employees faced complete uncertainty, not knowing

if their job would exist, not knowing if the company would exist, and there

was some extraordinary measures in terms of moving their life work-life

balance around to survive the pandemic.

the outcome was a lot of organizations, unless you were in hospitality and retail,

a lot of, tech companies, financial companies like actually came out.

On the positive on, the books looked good and, a lot of leaders were able to

insulate themselves from some of the worst changes just because of where they sit in

the organization and what their role is.

I'm not saying it was easy to lead through a pandemic.

There were some tough decisions, but I think in terms of the grind that you're

describing, the pandemic was the grind for a lot of mid, mid-tier employees.

So they are.

They have been doing that for a period of years, and in a lot

of cases we've gotten, 20, 23.

Most of our executives said, great, now that's over, let's

grind, let's change some things.

And everybody went, what are you talking about?

We need a break.

We need a, we need that period of time where nothing changes.

We need that.

Yes.

If leaders don't understand that, that they were in that state

and they need a pause before they can get back in that state, then it helps

explain a little bit of some of this resistance that I think a lot of leaders

are like, nobody, nobody wants to work.

I'm getting all this resistance, quiet, quitting.

It's well, yeah, we haven't given them a real pause and a thank you

a validation for what happened.

what we had to deal with.

It reminds me of this, we had a PGA golf coach on,

the show, a couple, I guess it was a couple years ago now, and he

made a comment a, about burnout.

And it was interesting 'cause he was associating it with physical workouts and

mental burnout, and these golf players.

And he says, stress.

And I was like, oh, that's like a misdemeanor.

You would think it would, I think stress Christmas.

He goes, no.

He goes, stress you, gets you going.

It, makes your sense, makes you more aware, makes you

actually pro, produce more.

But he said stress without recovery is what will give you burnout.

He said, if you go and work out and you're stressing your muscles,

that's what helps your muscles grow.

you push it and you get better, you get stronger, you get faster.

But if you don't recover.

That is when if you just go max out every day, well then you're gonna tear

your muscles and be a, a hot mess.

so I thought that was so true and it goes , along the lines of what we're saying.

I think it's easy because it, the whole covid thing, just.

It just wrecked everybody, in terms of just your personal life was all messed

up 'cause you couldn't go to the grocery store without certain things and your kids

were home from school if they normally went to school and you're trying to figure

that out and then your boss is calling you, are you coming into the office today?

Are you staying home today?

Who's got covid?

it was just a mess.

and so you come out of that and then but the in, in a lot of leaders' minds.

I do.

I think it would be easy to assume that.

Well, that was covid.

That's not our business, And it's eh, well, it kinda all goes together.

You know, if a lot of employees were having to do hybrid work or wanted to

do hybrid work or having to shift their whole work life around and doing all

these things differently, it is that change, even though it wasn't something

that we as leaders wanted or necessarily.

Thought we created still is the reality of the

situation.

So I think that's really good.

So if you're seeing in your organization, if you listen to the last 10%, if

you lead a team and or if you lead an organization, I think it's important

if you're seeing, if you're not seeing the engagement numbers that you want

or you're seeing your turnover levels increase, I think you need, one of

the questions you need to be asking yourself is how are you giving your team

members the opportunity to recover from?

The last couple years of a lot of change and are you thanking them?

Just like you said, are you recognizing them for the hard work

that they've put in, and doing that?

yeah.

That's really good.

I like that.

So let's talk a little bit about hybrid work, because it

is so much more prevalent now.

So many more teams are moving to that.

So

how about hybrid work strategies, what do you recommend or

what have you seen this work?

Good.

'cause we've gone through this change for

team cohesion and employee engagement in these hybrid teams.

I think, what's interesting is that it's not so much hybrid that's

causing the problem, it's just that we have to think differently about

things that used to happen organically, because we know that relationships,

in proximity are easier to build.

And so when, if we're not in proximity, we're not building

relationships, which just need means, we need to be a lot more thoughtful.

our communication strategy.

So one of the things I like to, challenge leaders to do is look at

the concept of psychological safety.

I don't know if you're familiar with that term, but

Dr.

Amy Edmondson has spent 20 years at Harvard figuring out what

makes a great team, and Google did their own study in 2008.

What makes a great team project?

They're subtle.

Same outcome, right?

They basically have all come around this concept of psychological safety

and what it boils down to is can my team tell the truth to each other?

Can we be honest and navigate mistakes?

do we have a great attitude towards risk and failure?

Do we, are we on the same side of the table?

Is there inclusion and willingness to help out?

So there's a simple seven question free assessment and

at Fearlessorganization.com, that's Amy Edmondson's website.

That I think leaders need to look at because, the idea of building, for

example, how do we make open conversation?

That's the, this idea of confidential inquiry is built on open conversation.

How do we get to a place where people can say the real thing openly?

if your team has.

Real has meeting conversations and then has side of the desk conversations

where there's different storylines.

Then you have some work to do.

something like seventy-eight percent of leaders overestimate

psychological safety in their team.

And this is something you can have everyone take a

survey and get a benchmark.

You can see a number on a chart and see where you have opportunity to grow.

And I think there's some real value in being thoughtful.

How do we have.

Open conversation when side of the, when someone when Jill to go to

Jane's cubicle and have a little powwow about what we really think.

Yes.

How's that happening now and was that healthy?

And do we need to have opportunities where, we call a town hall and then we

go break into breakout rooms of three and have what are you really thinking?

Conversations.

And then we come back and we read out and we talk about, what we really think

about an idea because it is just so hard.

In a real meeting, you twitch your finger and the boss goes,

oh, Jenny has something to say.

and it flows organically.

That's super hard to monitor that kind of body language on Zoom.

And so even just the simple things like really trying to focus on how

do we become a team that says what we mean and can have honest feedback

and authentic feedback, that's probably the most, The most essential

one as it relates to hybrid work.

but it's just something that used to happen organically and I think

a lot of leaders say would be like, everyone just come back to

the office, we'll make it work.

But it's actually not hard to do this in a hybrid environment.

It just has to be intentional.

Right.

has to be intentional.

Yeah.

And I think that's so true.

it reminds me, it's like I, that totally makes sense.

When you said the 78% of leaders overestimate psychological safety

or the psychological safety levels in the organization, and here's why.

How would you know if it's not?

Because that's the thing that they're not talking to you.

Nobody's raising their hand going, I, I don't feel safe.

The reason is they don't feel safe, so why would they

raise their hand and tell you that?

You don't know, because nobody's gonna tell you.

And so I

And leaders, by the definition, they are

probably psychologically safe.

They probably can speak their mind.

They probably do feel included and that their point of view is heard.

yeah, it's 'cause you're sitting in a spot on the org chart that, allows for that.

And you have to be thoughtful about people that are not, I.

I think that the, to your point, I think it's, you

should be asking yourself, you're listening today and you're thinking

about, and you're leading a team.

If you're coaching a team, if you own an organization, you don't

need to be saying, well, do I, the wrong question in my mind is this.

The wrong question is what do I think the level of psychological

safety is in my organization?

Because as a leader.

You are absolutely hardwired to not get that right.

In fact, we know that most likely, whatever your number is, it's not right.

It's actually seventy-eight percent is over.

So I would say the better question is what are the ways that I can absolutely

point to that I am being intentional.

In creating that.

And let's look at the ways that we can create it and how, which

one, and if I can't point to some really specific things.

And one of them might be, getting anonymous feedback, like you said, finding

some type of confidential inquiry, whether that's in an assessment or an outside

person coming in, whatever that is.

But how are you doing these activities that's gonna generate

that and do the right things first.

So I think the wrong question is just, Seeing where the wind, oh yeah.

I think it feels good.

Yeah, it's good.

I think that's the wrong way, the right way is to really be intentional about

laying out specific ways in which you're helping promote that in the environment.

And I think that's where you win.

So I really like that.

I would like to go back because you dropped a couple terms that I want to.

I wanna unpack a little bit.

you talked about unworkable work and internal improvement, and then

you went right into the example.

And I wanna back up just a little bit and say we've talked about change fatigue.

And so what, how does that relate to the term that you used?

Unworkable work.

And then let's, and then how does that relate to internal improvement?

Absolutely.

So in unworkable work is just a phrase I use for a project

we should have said no to.

There's a lot on.

The agenda and the, my definition is something that's either not necessary

or not achievable in this moment.

and of course those terms are subjective.

Necessary according to who?

Achievable, according to who.

But I think what I'm really getting at is when the people who are gonna

be impacted by that change, the people who are being asked to manage and

implement that change, believe that it is not necessary or not achievable.

It's unworkable, and there isn't any amount of prodding that you

can do as a leader until you change their minds about those factors.

Right.

mm.

And so a lot of, a lot of projects get kicked off.

And the reason I talked about internal improvement projects is,

when we think about all the kinds of change an organization can bring

forward, it can be, Hey, we're rolling out a new product or service.

Hey, the way that we do business, we're gonna fundamentally shift.

what we sell or how we sell it.

Those, to me, are essential kind of non-negotiable, top priority projects.

Those tend to have a lot of scrutiny.

They have to pass a really high bar.

They have a lot of planning.

They have a lot of investment in their planning in terms of making sure we

get it right, there's customer research and there's rollout plans, right?

The kind of projects that drift into unworkable work and are really susceptible

to triggering change, fatigue and burnout are the next tier of projects that

are this internal improvement project.

they're seeking to squeeze a little more productivity out of the team.

They're seeking to organize materials in a more coherent way.

They're seeking to centralize processes have been diverse or silos between teams.

I think a lot of employees would say, yeah, that'd be

great if I didn't have to do it.

it's a great idea, but like, where are we gonna fit that in?

And so until you can convince them that it is necessary right now, I.

Achievable that we're gonna support it in the way it needs to be supported

until they believe that it's unworkable.

And you're gonna have an uphill battle sisyphusia pushing that rock

up and having it roll back down on you until you can encourage them.

and a project that starts out that way can shift.

This is a mindset shift you can take your people on.

But I think, a lot of times we, leaders tend to use our rational brains to try

to shift the necessary and achievable.

Mindset when in fact this is an emotional thing.

All change is emotional, all change is lost.

Like the woman on the call who was, in tears about her status quo, it is hard.

No matter, even if we're moving towards a good thing, we're moving to, being

childless to celebrating our first child.

You're leaving behind your life without kids, right?

Even if you want to go in the direction of the thing.

There's a loss.

And so acknowledging the loss, acknowledging the transition period,

acknowledging how much time it takes to adjust to a new thing is

essential for any change, especially a change that someone really doesn't

understand why they're having all this impact being foisted on them.

And so to the extent that we can go, yeah, I laid out the

logical case for this change.

I'm getting some resistance.

Let me slow down and listen to what they're feeling.

Are they feeling like we've done too many concurrent changes?

This one might be a great idea, but there's too much other stuff going on.

Is it the wrong time?

do they feel like we're not gonna put the right resources behind it?

Or one team's gonna bear the burden more than one team does the work and the

other team gets the credit, like that's.

A common problem that leads to this unpacking and this problem.

So being able to understand that the folks who are impacted deserve to be

heard and they need to believe it's necessary and achievable so that

we can, move forward with some sort of same side of the table strategy.

I agree with that, so much and I love how you described the

acknowledging the change and even loss in that, just saying, Hey, look, I'm in

this transition period, and I lost that.

And that is sad because I, there was attribute, there was things

about that I really enjoyed.

And there's wonderful things of what's coming, but there's

always trade-offs, right?

, I don't think, I don't think organizations do a good job of that.

I, at least the ones that I've experienced and worked in or consulted with.

Yeah,

A lot of times it's that the person felt like they

were good at it the old way,

and we're about to take them on a journey where at least for a period of

time, they're gonna be real bad at it.

So they went from being an expert in the old system and the old

process, and they, people knocked on their door and asked for advice.

Now they're in a situation where they don't have the first

clue how the new thing works.

they feel dumb, they feel unappreciated.

They feel like their historic value has been diminished.

And those are things that, like the social capital in a knowledge

organization is a real resource.

Oh my

some of these transitions take social capital from people

in ways that leaders have a really hard time seeing and acknowledging.

someone always used to be the linchpin of an old way of doing

something and now it's distributed.

It may be way more effective, but that person is gonna have a really

hard time adapting to this new way of their social capital being diminished.

I have such, so many examples come to

my mind when you say that.

'cause I've just had so many different experiences like that.

But that same system that where I was telling you example about before, it was

years ago when we did that, but we had one of the guys that we were automating

certain attributes of his job . Now, he had done this for like 20 years.

There's no way that we're capturing his brain and all the nuance there and

experience there, but he was so anti the project and just was not giving

information, was not being, and he, we really needed him to be a part of it.

Finally, it just came down like, dude, what is the deal?

Like why and he finally got to voice his honest belief, and it was his

honest belief that we were trying to take this system and create this

automated process to replace him.

And we're like, oh, no, no, no.

You don't even get it like that's , not even in the same ballpark.

We're not even in the same state.

we're trying to take this to free you up to do more of what you love, that's

adding even more value and take you out of these repetitive things that

you don't even like doing anyway.

But he didn't see that he saw the loss.

When we don't know, we typically fill in the details with the negative.

That's just human nature.

And so he's going and filling in the details and in his mind he's sitting

there going, they're doing this.

They're gonna just do this.

And then once they, I help 'em build this thing, they're gonna fire me.

And we're sitting there on the other side going, man, if he

helps us build this thing, think of how much farther he could go.

But I think that to your point, we have got to improve as leaders I think

we're really not so good, especially visionaries, not so good at looking back.

' I think that's one of the things that, that catches is not being

able to say and have empathy for the person in that moment and say, look.

We get it.

This is where you were and we still value you, but it's not

gonna feel like that for a while.

Here's why you're gonna learn this new thing.

It's gonna be even better.

But we understand there's a process and just really speaking to that and

acknowledging the loss, you know,

um, that's really good.

. All right.

So we've talked about unworkable work, which when we talk about that, you talked

about like almost like tier B projects within an organization , it's that tier

B, so there's no focus in intensity., I think that's you either have to decide,

no, we're gonna put that on there.

We're, here's how we're gonna carve out the time to do it

and put more focus on it.

Or we're gonna say, Hey, pause until we get some more bandwidth.

So that's really good.

Unworkable work.

I like that.

I love, there's a Maxim Little's law states that as

work in progress increases, as the number of projects we have active

at any given time increases our ability, our throughput decreases.

So I think it's really important for leaders to think about those tier

B projects as, detractors from the focus on the tier A projects, and also

that, that these internal improvement projects, whatever they are, reorganizing

the factory floor, putting a new project management system into place.

Are competing with each other.

And so a smarter way to do things is to have a relatively high bar

for what we're gonna do right now.

So instead of, six to 10 projects over the next 18 months, slowly grinding

it out, are there three or four that we can put at the top of the list,

give them a little more resources, a little more attention, a little more

throughput, and then achieve some success.

And on the back of that success, we are able to launch the next

few set of internal improvements.

also, we're gonna know a lot more.

Three months or six months in when we launched the second set of projects than

we did when we launched the first one.

having all of this concurrent work, which I'm seeing a lot of organizations have,

there's, org-wide, HR level improvement.

There's team level improvement.

There's, breaking down silos and communication, collaboration

across team improvement.

There's just so many improvement projects.

Simultaneously taking attention that, that I think, a smart

leader goes, what can we pause?

What can we, how can we stack success?

so that these guys really feel, and you know how you win

trust and rapport and goodwill.

You say, Hey everybody, that thing, you've been dreading.

We're putting it on pause.

Oh yeah.

applause and a sigh of relief.

and people go, oh, they, they get it.

Thank goodness they get it.

I love that.

It is so true.

The more.

The more you know, the more different competing initiatives you have.

Yes, throughput.

It makes total sense because they are competing.

Even though you're on the same team, those activities are not competing with

each other, competing with the time.

You've only got so many hours in the day and you've got to get this work done.

And so I do think that it forces the leader to prioritize

what's most important.

And so having that mission, vision, values and purpose, and really having clarity on.

Why we're doing what we're doing and then, what are we focused on as an organization?

How can we align with that is so much more important because

everything else is static.

Everything else is just lowering your productivity and

I think that, is unworkable.

Yeah, it's unworkable because like you said, if you've got six or eight

or nine, 10 projects going at one time and you're grinding it out

for six or eight months, that is.

And that is like inevitably generating change fatigue.

However, if I shorten the number of projects, I finish those

faster and I have success.

That's not change fatigue.

That's, that is confidence building.

We just.

We just had a pizza party.

You know, let's go, we we're invincible.

We can do this.

Let's bring on the next one.

That's momentum.

And and it's, and at the end of the day you might be able to do about the

same number of projects, but it, the feel of when you get to the finish line

of all of 'em is totally different.

So I love that.

That's really good.

well, Jenny, this has been a fantastic discussion today on

change management and just how we manage through change, fatigue.

How we need to be aware of unworkable work.

You've given us some things like, I love how you talked about

78% of leaders, don't, and they overestimate psychological safety.

How we need to get people to have, a confidential inquiry

on some different things.

And we go through change.

I love how we talked a little bit about how we have to

acknowledge the loss and change.

So, I mean, just fan fantastic discussion.

So we always.

We always end the show a couple ways.

First of all, let's talk about where can people find, change fatigue and where

can they find you if they want to get and reach out to you about more discussions

about change and where can they

find

it.

Both of those answers are changefatigue.com, where

you can find the book.

we have a quiz.

What kind of change leader are you?

Are you a visionary that has trouble slowing down and getting

in the weeds, or are you someone that really wants to dive right in?

there's also a really affordable online course if your team is struggling with

this and needs some templates to actually start applying this to a specific project.

And of course the contact form gets me on the other end of that.

So I would always love to, to talk to folks.

Um, yeah.

All right, great.

So we'll put those in the show notes and the last question we always ask every

guest is, who would you like to see or hear on as a guest on the last 10%?

That is a great question.

Um, you know, who immediately pops to mind is Mel Robbins of the High Five Habit.

She, is such an inspiring leader who does a really nice job, I think,

of threading the needle between.

The kind of, actionable tactical stuff that I know leaders are used to seeing

in their business books with the sort of emotional context that I'm trying to

bring forward, which is, in knowledge work, you're buying what's between

their ears and that is tangled up with their humanity and their feelings.

And you know, as long as we're working with humans, we

gotta be human as well, so.

That's fantastic.

Okay.

Mel Robbins, we will, we will reach out and see, if we can get her on

the show, that would be Yeah, I know.

Fingers crossed.

Who knows?

You never know.

So we've had some amazing guests so far, and so that would be, that'd be fun.

That'd be a fun episode.

Well, Jenny, thank you again for all the work that you do, for caring

for people, for really seeking to make changes in organizations and

help people move through change.

Well, we appreciate you and thank you for being a guest on the last 10%.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me.