TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
Transcriber: Adam Authier
Reviewer: Denise RQ This is where it starts. Someone gets up at a TED Talk and says,
"Behold, we don't have to do it like this. I've got a better idea.
There's another way. There's another technology.
There's a new way of seeing the world." The new guys go, "Wow, that's fantastic.
We'll go out and create change." You can't wait to go to your workplace or go back to the people
that you live with and say, "Rejoice my people.
There is a better way. It doesn't have to be this way." You're expecting the whole world
to go, "Fantastic, it's going to change." This is what you hear. You go, "Come on, we can do this,
we can totally do this." They go, "No.
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
You know what?
Because we've done it before," or "Now's not a good time,"
or "We haven't got the money," or "It's been done",
"It's never been done." That's not the way we do things
around here. It's not part of the charter. It's traditional. It's complicated.
It's political." Do you recognize any of these? Of course, they're
all different ways of saying this, of saying, "It's not going to happen." What I've been doing –
I work in the innovation space, I'm interested in this wall,
and how do we get past this wall. How do we take our passion and our ideas
and actually make them happen? I've been trying to figure out, what this wall is made of,
and how do we get past it? If we can't get past it, go under it,
go around it, or just smash through it.
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
The first thing you need to know:
these aren't real reasons. These aren't real reasons. That becomes pretty clear
because they're so easy to refute. If I say for example,
"It's always been like this", what does that mean? It means the problem
is older than you think it is. It's not an argument
for not changing it now. It's a reason why
we should've changed it 20 years ago. When they say, "It's the same everywhere," what they're really saying is the problem
is broader and wider than you think; it isn't an argument or not fixing it here
but an argument for fixing it everywhere. When they say for example,
"It's not in the budget," it means we've spent the money
in the wrong places.
TEDxPerth - Jason Clarke - Embracing Change
When they say, "It's not in the charter," what they're saying is the people
who were supposed to provide the vision weren't thinking as big as you. When they say, "It's political,"
what they're saying is, "I've learned to keep my ideas to myself." (Laughter) When they say, "It's just traditional,"
what they're saying is, "Actually, I don't know
why we're doing this, but it's always been that way." (Laughter) The thing is they are so easy to refute.
When they say things
like, "It's too complicated," you say, "I can make it simpler for you." When they say, "You know what,
it just sounds like it's too simple," you say, "That's OK,
I'll make it more complicated." (Laughter) My favorite one, a friend of mine
got this one the other day, "This isn't what we pay you to do." His answer was, "That's OK,
this one's a freebie." (Laughter) If these aren't the real reasons,
then what are? What are the real reasons? "No." No one will tell you
what the real reasons are, but I've been collecting them. I'm going to show you the seven
classic reasons why people resist change and what to do about them. "I'm too full of emotion and fear to think about
what you're talking about." This is a big one.
"This has all come as a huge shock." That just means,
"Thanks for the heads up. No one told me about it,
and now I'm just dealing with horror." "I'm scared of
the transition not the idea." Very often, we think
they don't like the idea; what they're really worried about
is the journey to the idea. "I don't know how big a deal
this change really is." "I don't see how I fit into any of this." "I feel like I have
no say in what happens." This is really what people are saying. The one that cracks me up,
the big one is this one, "I'm fed up with phony change.
I want the real thing." Very often, when people
are saying, "No it won't work," they're not saying they don't want
change but "I want change that's real.
I want something I can believe in." Let me take you
through these one at a time. I was dealing with a group of people who were supposed to be planning
the future of their organization, and 20 minutes before I turned up,
they all got fired. The organizer said, "Maybe
we don't want to do the workshop now, because it was going to be
about the future." I said, "No, actually, this is
more of a reason to have it now. We just have a different context;
what will the future be for these people? Every time something happens
or there's a change, there's three basic ways you can go about it,
"I want to see the positives," "I want to see
what's interesting about it," or, "I just want to focus
on the negatives." These people who've just been fired?
What do you think? The negatives.
Instead of trying to change their minds
to help embrace their change, I just said, "How do you feel about it?" These were the four things, "I feel scared", "I'm angry,"
"I feel betrayed", "I feel stupid." I let them talk for about 15 minutes, and everything that came out of them
was a variation on that same four. I'd write them down, and I say,
"Have you got anything new?" After 15 minutes they're exhausted. There was nothing else to say
about the negativity. Then they started saying,
"I knew this was happening. I've never liked it here. I've only been putting up
with this job out of sufferance. I need a good push, and is the best
that could've happened to me." They got there by themselves,
with me only ratifying their feelings. I was just listening to how they felt. Then, before I knew it, they were
here, saying, "This was great. I'll go back to study. I'll travel. Why don't we build a little support group
and keep in touch with each other?" All of them have got better jobs,
and they all keep in touch.
They went through this whole thing of what's the negatives,
the interestings, and the positives. If you've ever seen
a small child running and falling over, he doesn't know for a short while
whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. They're not sure. Have you noticed? They just sit there in this neutral space
like, "OK, this is different." (Laughter) What will happen is,
if dad says, "That was funny," then the kid gets up and does it again. If mum runs up and goes,
"Oh, my darling, are you OK?" the kid goes, "I don't think so." (Laughter) As children, we have this positive/
interesting/negative space. This interesting space
is where the artist is, it's where the innovator is,
it's where the inventor is.
They'll say, "This is unusual.
What can we do with this?" As we get older we compress that space, and we see everything in terms
of this dichotomy between good and bad. This is good, this is bad. Our default is to rate
every change as being bad. This is a way of people to understand,
to audit their emotions about this state. What about this? "I'm scared of the transition.
I'm not scared about the idea." I used to think it was about saying, "This is what we're doing
at the moment, it's not good. This is where we should be going,
it's way better." I've realized the way we do things now has
a couple of good things going for them.
The status quo is all of these things;
it is known, it is proven, it's familiar. Sure it's insane,
but we know how to do it. We don't have to adjust anything.
It's crazy but it's what we do. You've heard that argument? Whereas, what's the problem with B?
It's all of this stuff. It's unproven, it's
uncertain, it's freaky. Someone told me once,
"Everyone's afraid of something." It's very true.
We've all got
something we're afraid of. It could be failure, ridicule, or clowns.
I don't care what it is. In the unknown, the thing
you're scared of could be there. I'm scared of math. I'm innumerate. Any change where I have to do
some numbers, I get very concerned about. If the unknown contains math, I'm nervous. How do we solve that problem?
It's pretty easy. Between where we are,
and where we're going to get to is all of this stuff. This is foreseeable, predictable stuff.
We know about this. I'm someone
who I don't like flying very much. I like coming to Perth,
but I don't like getting to Perth. What happens if I have
a really turbulent flight? If the captain says, "It's going
to be bumpy, get over it," I'm fine. If he says nothing, I'm imagining at the front
of the plane the cockpit's on fire, and he's madly trying to
control us from going…
Because I'm not being told. This is the trick,
it's giving people the heads up, "It'll be bumpy. It'll be weird. Fasten your seat belts,
this'll be the ride." "I don't know how big a deal
this change really is." I love this one: you think
about this idea of four doors. The first door are the things we used
to be able to do and can still do. People list, "What are things we could
before the change that we could still do? I know one organization
that said to its staff, "You're going to be working from home
and whatever hours you like." Everybody freaked out. We said, "OK, what are
the things that won't change? Will we still have email?
Will we still make phone calls? Will we still be
in this same business?", "Yes." A long list of things
that weren't going to change.
Everyone calms down. Door number two are the things
we couldn't do before and still can't do. Make a list, "We can't put
poison in our product, and I suppose we can't cheat,
lie, steal, or that kind of thing." That's also a long list. Door number three are the things
we could do before and can't do now. In this case, it was get stuck
in peak hour traffic and have long meetings that go nowhere. Gosh, could you sacrifice those? You can for door number four.
That's a door that's only recently opened.
These are the things
we couldn't do before but we can do now. It means I can make
my job suit my lifestyle. I can get away
from this work-life balance thing and start thinking work-life harmony. You see some sense in this? What we're really ask you to do is say, "Guess what? This is what we currently do.
This is all the stuff that won't change. This is the stuff
we're asking you to let go of.
This is the stuff you
get to do in exchange." Suddenly, everybody calms down. They can see the change's got edges to it.
"I don't see how I fit in any of this." People feel like they're
not being consulted. The key to this is the difference
between authorship and ownership. What we do is we say to people,
"Here is the change. Own the change. Gosh, why aren't people
having ownership of the change?" You've seen this happen.
I'll say, "Here's why we've got to change. Here's what has to change.
Here's how it's got to change. You report to me, and by the way,
I want you to own it." It doesn't work.
What works is authorship.
If you say, "Here's why we have to change.
Here are some things that have to change. You tell me how. You tell me
how you're going to make it work." You give them authorship. You empower them to design
the change for themselves. Suddenly, they're not responding
to change but taking control of change. Here's one of my favorite techniques
for this, called the renovator's delight.
If you think about it,
have you ever renovated a house? What did you keep? What did you chuck?
What did you change? What did you add? They're the only four questions. We talk to organizations
and say, "Take this tool. What would you do? What would you keep?" They say, "We'd keep our values, passion,
our enthusiasm, our best people. "What would you chuck?" "We'd chuck our negativity.
We'd chuck our systems. We'd get rid of the bureaucracy
and the red tape." "What would you change?" "We'd change our culture,
our attitude, our thinking." "What do you want to add?" "We want to add empowerment,
innovation, creativity, and fun." Guess what? They've just designed all the things we thought we'd have
to convince them to do.
Now it's their idea. Can you see the power in this?
They've been given authorship. They're given the power
to make the change. "Yeah, but people hate change."
Don't they? If this is true, we've got to tell
the fashion industry right away. They are based entirely on the idea
people want to change their look. We'd better talk
to the tourism industry as well, because apparently, people
don't want to go to other places. All those people in gyms, those people
who are trying to lose weight, people having cosmetic surgery,
or getting their hair done. We've got to tell them
how much they hate change. People who have elections,
and people who have affairs; we've got to tell them too,
"No; apparently, you hate change." It's not true. Guess what? Bored people want change.
Frustrated people want change. Passionate people want change.
Irritable people, cynical people. Actually, the number
of people who want change is much greater than we imagine. It's not true that we hate it.
In fact, this is closer to the truth. When I take a brief
on working with a group, I'll be told,
"Our people don't want change." I listen very carefully
to what people say.
What's interesting is
as the conversation evolves, it's not that they don't want change,
the truth is down in here somewhere. The truth is they want real change. They're sick of believing
something that isn't real. They want something genuine. Let's look at that. The thing is
we've all dealt with this before. We know what it is. We know how the lack of change
can get packaged up as something new, and we're savvy to it.
Someone comes in and says, "Behold my people,
we'll do it differently. We're going to change everything else." You go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is just new look VAM. It's just a repackaging." How do we know the difference? Is it likely that we now suspect
all change as being fake? We think, "You know what,
you tricked me once in 1972, I'm not believing you again.
I've heard all this before." That's the problem. Real change sounds
very much like fake change. It's hard to pick the difference. Here's the thing,
I do work in probably every sector – commercial, non-commercial, government – any group you can think of,
not for profit. I ask people how do they spend their time.
Where does their career go? How do they estimate their use of time? This is the first map I get, which is, there's a very large amount of their time
is spent just staying out of trouble. The three rules in any organization is attract praise, avoid blame,
don't stand near the fan. We learned this. When you think about,
"How is the rest of the time broken up?" There's an awful lot of turf
squabbling going on.
Who's in charge? Who's the boss?
Who's got the biggest desk? Then let's allow some time
for just office intrigues. What ends up happening is this tiny
little sliver for actual achievement. I've been running this as an unofficial
straw poll now for 15 years, and everyone says
it's basically what it looks like. When I say, "Here is a change," you can go, "Yeah, you know what?
This is more of the same." Guess what? I think people are hungry
for that little green wedge there. I think people are hungry
for actual achievement. I don't believe that we want
to dedicate our lives to nothing. I don't believe that we are here
so that we could achieve zero. I think we're here
so it amounts to something somehow. Let's look at that. You're clock's going crazy, but that's OK. "Is the change real or fake?"
That's an important question. Is this a genuine opportunity
or is it phony? I think that's an important question. By the way, fake change – no good.
Real change – good.
Just in case you weren't sure. "Is the change cultural or structural?"
This is a huge question. Structural change is, "We've changed the reporting,
we've changed the org chart, we've changed the name
of the organization, and everything keeps going the same way." Until you've changed the way we think,
unless you've changed the actual culture, you have zero change. Does that make sense? Then finally,
"Is the change offered or foisted?" Am I invited to the change? Am I invited to the change
or am I forced to make change? Guess what? Real change,
which is cultural and offered, works. Fake change, structural and foisted,
doesn't work and shouldn't work. Let me show you how to break that up. If I'm talking to you now
you've got two choices, really. You're mind's going to be open or closed.
That's your choice. I can't affect that. You could say, "You know what?
I'm not buying a thing this guy says." That's your right.
If you go, "Yep, I'm totally into it."
That's also your choice. This is the choice that any group
that you talk to will make. I have choices as well. I could be talking about
something genuine or something phony. That's my choice. What are the outcomes
of the choices that you can make and the choices that I can make? Let's look at them. Let's imagine you've got your mind open,
and what I have for you is nothing. This is just phony, phony change. What does that mean for you?
Big disappointment. You've got your hopes up one more time,
you've been let down one more time. That's what that means.
What would happen, though,
if this was an empty shallow badging, and you went, "No, I'm not buying it." Then you win. You reserve the right to say, "I told you so. I didn't buy that
for a second. You didn't fool me." What about this? What if your mind is shut,
and we have a real opportunity here, if we're talking about something genuine? Guess what? You lose the opportunity.
You lose the possibility. What if your mind is open,
and what I'm telling you is real? Then here's where we are.
We have an opportunity
to make a real difference. When I work with very cynical, closed
groups I present them with this choice. I'll say, "Here's your choice.
You have the choice to close your mind to lose a rare opportunity to make change
for the right to say I told you so. Or you could give this a fair chance
and open your mind and risk disappointment
for the chance of making a difference." When you lay it out like that, the choice
is practically pretty straight forward. This is my belief about people.
What are we here for? What do we want? If you're a young person
the conversation is about destiny. If you're an old person
the conversation is about legacy. It's still the same. What was I here for?
What did I do? What did it amount to? I ask people how do they want
to be remembered. What is it for them? "Here lies me, I protected
the status quo." Do you think that that turns anybody on? Do you think that anybody wants that
to be their life's achievement? What about this one? "I met all my KPls." (Laughter) "I satisfied all departmental
and OH&S standards." Do you think that this excites anyone? Do you think
anyone would give their life to this? Or this one.
Is this a life? I don't think anybody wants this.
I don't think anybody wants this. My belief that a fundamental human need is to contribute, is to make a difference. You are here for a certain time,
and you've made something of it. Tolkien said, "All we have to decide
is what to do with the time we have." I've put it in much simpler terms. For me, you can keep things the same,
or you can make a difference. You cannot do both.
That is the choice you've got to make. I've made mine. You choose yours. Thank you very much.
(Applause).