From Fortune 500 to Founder

70% of enterprise transformations, enterprise-wide transformations fail. 70%. And what I found is that the first place that they cut costs, especially during transformations, whether it's system or policy within an organization, is training and professional development and helping people move through change. What was the feeling of like, "Hey, I'm doing this for someone else and now I'm doing it myself?" When you're shifting something so significant, especially when you go from making money to no money. And let's be honest, that's one of the biggest reasons that people don't step out of the corporate box.

If something doesn't work, you should be saying, "That didn't work. How do we move forward?" Don't try to make a story, don't try to run a campaign around it because people see right through that. 19 years, Fortune 500 companies. McDonald's, Merck, Pfizer. From the outside it looked like the definition of a successful career, but Jackie Peach has told me something in our conversation that stopped me cold. She said the bigger risk wasn't leaving, it was staying comfortable. Today she's here to tell us exactly what that meant.

This is outside the corporate box. But before we get into today's show, a quick thank you to our partners who make this possible, Wise Agent Subi and The CE Shop. These are the companies that believe in us and what we're building here. We're grateful to have them in our corner. The playbook is changing. The question is, are you changing with it? This is outside the corporate box. Real conversations with real leaders who broke the mold and built something better. With your host Jay Man and Jeffrey Scott Stanton.

Today we're sitting down with Jackie Peach, former change management leader inside Fortune 500 companies, a keynote speaker, and the founder of Inspiration Your Way. But what we really want to talk about is what happened when someone who spent two decades helping giant organizations navigate change and realized she had to navigate it on her own. Jackie, welcome to Outside the Corporate Box. Well, thank you. Welcome, Jackie. Thank you both. So, paint the picture for us. You're inside these like massive organizations doing work that by any objective measure looks like success, right?

What what did that actually look like from the inside? Well, so I've been in corporate for 20 years on and off. When I founded Inspiration Your Way, it was actually the first time outside of the corporate box. And that one was when I was working as an agency partner for the top 20 life science companies in the world. And what that experience looked like was getting this really interesting option of getting into Fortune 500 companies, seeing what's happening, and then sort of doing your project and then leaving.

So, it was kind of think of it like a consultant's experience. Yeah. Then my last outside of the corporate box jump was working full-time for an organization for for an enterprise. And one thing that I can tell you both is consistent is that consistently organizations have extreme challenge with moving through transformation and change. And so actually, it's industry agnostic. It is not something where you see people have an ease of implementing all of these changes. It is difficult, and everyone sort of goes through change in the similar way.

And that is that it is not easy, and most people are change resistant Mhm. purely because they're uncertain with what's happening. They don't have necessarily leaders that are trained well in actually leading through change. In fact, there's this really great data point I have to share with you guys. There was a survey done, and they surveyed employees. And they basically said, "How qualified do you think your leadership is to help you move through this transformation?" What do you think the percentage was? Where do you think people said?

Very low. 12%. Actually, they were more generous than the 12%. They said 27% felt felt that their leaders were ready. But I mean, this is a stat that tells you that the the belief that leaders have, in general, again, industry and company agnostic, is that hey, we don't really need to invest when we have pressure, when our when our revenue's down, when our board members are putting pressure on us, when we have to cut cost, when restructuring is in our future, the first thing we've got to do is think, where do we cut the cost?

And what I found is that the first place that they cut cost, especially during transformations, whether it's system or policy within an organization, is training and professional development and helping people move through change. Mhm. And the the the reality is an organization is what? It's a construct of people that are working on a unified mission. So, by cutting the cost for supporting the people, you're actually setting yourself up for failure. And here's another fun stat for you gentlemen cuz I love some good data points. This was actually from the Harvard Business Review.

And one of the things that they found was that 70% of enterprise transformations, enterprise-wide transformations, fail. 70% This is something that we're very familiar with. Jeffrey, I know you want to jump in. There was a couple couple keywords that that I know you want to speak on. I like that you said it's learning development cuz to to me, cuz that's my background and our organizational structuring and that type of stuff. But um but it always amazed me that's what companies do cuz you figure if you're going through change, that's something you need to help people through the change is that, you know, learning development.

You know, and and I'm [clears throat] and I'm shocked, but I'm not shocked at that number of that 20 some odd who only believe, you know, that 27% believe their leaders can get them through this crisis. I think people are used to what they're used to. And they worry anytime, oh, there's a change, can this person actually help us through that change? Well, and you know, because if you look back 10 years ago, 2016, on average, there were two major enterprise transformations a year that were planned.

Now, fast forward 10 years with a with a with the incredible amount of change that we're seeing through technology, that's turned up to 10 a year. So, what happens is you get all of these different enterprise projects that are showing up on people's plan for the year, their strategic plan. And let's be honest, we all have memory, too. And we all remember when our last time we heard the presidents of the company or our leadership chain come down and say, hey, this thing is happening this year, and this is all of the things that are going to change.

And then we remember that success rate that I gave you? 30% success rate? Yeah, most of them failed. So, what do people have in their short-term memory or even in their long-term memory? It's the last time you showed up and told us this change was happening, we did not actually go through this well, and things broke, and massive changes happened, and now the worst part is I don't trust you anymore. And so, that now has a huge challenge for our leadership out there. So, anyone that's listening that sits in an executive position or a leader in any form in an organization, you need to hear

this seriously. The companies that are going to be left behind are the companies that do not pay attention to their people and help that transformation and that shift. Because if if you were if you showed up to your board, and you said, hey, we did our due diligence, we decided to go with this software company to implement the following things, and here's our anticipated ROI. Here's the value proposition of why we're doing this. And if they ask the question of, "Okay, well, what's your anticipated success rate?" And you show up and say, "Well, I cut the costs on training, and by the way, I didn't

think it was that important to have a change management strategist in place, because you know what? We'll just have Bob, our CEO, on a video camera for 30 seconds, and that should do it." Poor old Bob. Bob Bob is People love Bob. And so, we don't really need all that stuff. That's the place where we cut. Well, if they actually could get the numbers, and that's I think what we're missing, gentlemen. We're missing the language and the numbers and the data points that draw the line for people to say, "Guys, this is only going to lead you to a 30% success rate." I think people

would be making better choices. After doing this from for 19 years Yeah. Is when you were doing this for? So, after doing this for 19 years, what what was the shift of now I'm going to go out? It's a great question. And I think the impetus of me wanting to take this message and broaden it is because it truly feels like a mission for me. Being inside the walls of any organization and seeing the fact that these are problems that are industry agnostic, it's a human problem that we're all facing, and especially because a lot of the things that we're we're facing in organizations and

the trends are that we do have to move faster. There is a lot of urgency. The economy is forcing us to make difficult decisions. The biggest thing I think we can do is to help support our decision makers with the right information so that they can offer their service or product and do their work while still maintaining the human-centric care and emotional intelligence within their organizations. And that's why I felt this really strong compelling urgent feeling that I needed to get on a broader stage to help people.

This is This is not just Okay, well, Jackie's helping this company on this project. This is Jackie needs to be able to talk to the leaders of our biggest companies out there and help them get the right information. Because I believe that when they have the right information and they can see the data trends, but if they were able to think about human centricity from a leadership point of view to enable some of these other tech solutions and digital or other transformations in the organization, they would be able to make better decision making and it would protect our employees and ultimately would make This is

going to sound like a big leap, but it would make people more happy in the work that they're doing. People would be more empowered. You'd see less burnout. And when you think about humans, we do not compartmentalize. People say sometimes that we do, but we just don't. So, you think about the ripple effect that that has on our families and our children and the next generation. I think it's our responsibility to be helping people make better decisions, especially as people are moving through change. So, that's why Jeffrey and and Jay Mem I I felt that this was a a calling.

I had to get out there. I have to help people understand this in a more intimate way. So, could you pinpoint it to like a specific day or moment where you were like, this is it. I have to. I'm called. Like this is what I Like what you said, you were inspired to do it and I can hear the passion in your voice. You're like, I have to This wasn't enough. It wasn't enough and I have to Was there a moment where you just said, okay, now now's the time?

Or where did it Where did it begin? Yes, I think that it began it began as a slow burn. And it began about a year ago. We hear that a lot, actually. Yeah. Yeah, and as that slow burn started and I started to feel this need for stepping into my actual power and feeling that I don't need to have that title or I don't need to be given permission to share the information that I know and to help people. And that slow burn started to really enable me to say, "Okay, well, I have two I have two vectors to go in here.

I either continue the corporate road and keep trying to support the organization in the way that I can or I I step out and it gives me a broader landscape to help. And so, for a long time, when I think we're in a place where we're comfortable and we say, "Well, what's what's the risk versus the benefit or the reward?" A lot of us will take the stance A lot of us, not all of us, will take the stance of "I make a great salary. I have great benefits.

This just feels like too much work and it feels, by the way, uncertain and scary and stressful. And so, why would I do that?" And until that pressure starts to build where you either feel like it's a mission-driven belief sort of a purpose or there's something else that I think adds to the mix you can stay stuck and just kind of float. And actually, I think that's the majority of what people tend to be. They tend to be kind of just floating. And um and I'm not a floater.

Um I actually credit a lot of my physical activity with this. So, Jayman and I first met um in a workout clear class what? Like 10 years ago. And I think there's one consistent thing with the personality profiles of the people in this class is that we were all showing up to challenge ourselves. And Driven. And we're driven and I don't love stagnation. When I start to feel stagnant I start to question, "There's a reason I'm here. There's a reason why I'm in this world. Am I doing what I should be doing?

And when I'm 80 years old, will I look back at myself and my decisions and feel proud of what I've done? Or will I feel like I could have done more? I could have stepped out or I could have helped more people. And so that is truly the decision-making for me. It was a slow burn plus the belief system of self-reflection. I do a ton of self-reflection. And the timing of this, we're recording this now in June. The timing of this really started the beginning of the new calendar year.

And I think the timing of the year had something to do with it as well. Like a new beginning. Yeah, new year, new me. Well, more like how am I elevating myself this year? You know? Elevate, I like that. Yeah, not new. It's still the same core. It's just an elevated version. A better you. Yeah. So So let me jump around a little bit. What What was the feeling of like, "Hey, I'm doing this for someone else." And now, talking about organizational restructuring and how they do it within their companies, and now I'm doing it myself, to myself.

For myself. To myself. I'm restructuring myself. Well, that that That's what you did. You You restructured your what you're doing. That's That's Yeah, what what was that like? Cuz I know literally walking through helping companies help their people through that is one thing. Doing it yourself is, you know, It's like almost like the shoemaker's shoes, that that old line. Thank you for asking this question because I think it's a really important one. And I think a lot of times, when people are looking from the outside and they see someone that takes this leap, they think, "Well, but they're just like that." And so they would

be good at that. They are so strong and happy and successful that they'll make anything work. But the reality is that when you're shifting something so significant, especially when you go from making money to no money. And let's be honest, that's one of the biggest reasons that people don't step out of the corporate box. It adds such amount of stress, and you also are going through this phase where you've had an identity, and now you're moving into a new identity. And that transformation psychologically has a lot it takes a lot on you, and it is very stressful.

It's very high anxiety. And you you probably heard a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome of being you know, how are how am I able to embody this new self? And I think what that really is stemming from is how do I create my new identity in this way that I'm working? And so, because this is my second time stepping out, you would say, "Oh, well, she's done it before and this is easier." I actually think this time around it was a little harder because I had built a system and a and a business before, but this was a different version of what this

is going to look like, and I was really rebuilding a new business. And some things that had not gone well in my first round started to pop up in my fear complex. Like, "Oh, no, I hope I don't redo that." Or I hope this doesn't show up again. Um I think also the anxiety of making that step, not every step is created equally. Some steps are easier than others. And that step of moving out after that adrenaline subsides, and you're left with the reality of what you have to now climb, is difficult.

And I have had to spend a lot of time working on my mindset to make sure that I'm solidly talking myself up, reminding myself of my mission, going back to the core of why I'm doing it. So, when I'm faced with a challenge or feeling overwhelmed or anxious, I always go back to the foundation. And then I take the next best step. What's the next best thing I can do? It doesn't have to be solve the world's problems, it's solve this little thing that I can take care of today.

Well, you mentioned fears and you said like things I was afraid of from the first time that I stepped outside. What what were some of those? I think when you reflect on work you've done in the past and where you do kind of a lessons learned and you realize, well, when I took that when I spent my time here this didn't add value to the business mission. Right. And sometimes when you are separated from an organization because we're humans that want community and tribes. And when you're a founder, you're a founder of one.

And so I've had to be very careful and mindful of where am I spending my time and energy so that I'm still mission focused but I'm doing it in a way that's balancing the time and the ratio of my time appropriately. The other thing is when you're a founder, you have so much um latitude in what work you're doing and how you decide to do it. And I think the the other challenge there is that you have to be mindful of where you're focusing again your service or your product or whatever you're doing.

And you've got to build boundary conditions around that to protect it because otherwise it will get watered down and you'll end up doing things that were outside of the scope of what you hadn't initially anticipated. Now, of course you should flex because sometimes you don't realize that there's a need where there is a need, but you also still have to have that foundation of your mission Mhm. and your values and what you're trying to achieve at the core of everything that a request comes in, you're checking the corner on.

So, I'll give you an example. In my previous business I built my business on really consulting and going into organizations and consulting with organizations on change. And that's what I did within the walls of my other agency. But then I started getting requests for executive coaching and personal coaching. And of course I love doing that, but that wasn't the original mission. And it actually took a lot of time away from what I was trying to do. And I don't know if either of you gentlemen have spent time executive coaching, but it's a it's a very time-consuming work.

And if you're only one person, you can't scale. Yeah. So um so that was something that when I looked back at now rebuilding this new version of my business, I had to be very mindful of how am I taking in every request? Every request cannot just be a perfect fit and a yes. So you were afraid of losing focus and being intentional. Yes. Just wanted to summarize it up. So she was afraid of based on past experiences being intentional with her time and losing focus on the wrong you know, focusing on the wrong things that are aren't exactly with within her niche or or specialty

or expertise. So how how does cuz a lot of people listen to this are wanting to move from that corporate box or they're in the corporate box and want to do their own thing. So how how do you how do you make sure as a lone founder if it's a real estate agent that they're lone real estate agent, like that they're doing the things that they sh that they should be doing the things that they excel at instead of all the other noise and fluff that's around them.

Yeah, it's a really really good question. And I think the key there is you have to spend a solid amount of time internalizing and creating your core mission. And you hear different people call this different things. Sometimes you hear it referred to as like a transformation promise or what is it that you're doing with your business? But that's the filter of every decision that you make. And so the way that I look at my calendar, so I come from an operations background. And I think the first thing you can do is manage your calendar.

So, when you look at your week's calendar and you say, "Okay, what are the five major priorities that I have to do in order to maintain my business?" Some might fall into the category of lead generation, business operations, you know, fill in the blank. Then, you really have to understand what are the subtasks and how much time does it take and how much do you want to scale your calendar to manage those elements. You're one person. How many hours a week are you going to work?

Now, as a founder, you're probably working a lot. But, it also gives you great visibility into two things. It becomes the filter of helping to manage how you're doing work that's absolutely aligned to what your core goals are. But, the other thing it does is it showcases what's your resource allocation across those different functional responsibilities and priorities. So, if you're starting to see, "Well, I'm just one person. The math's not mathing. I cannot make this work." This then starts to open your eyes to, "Okay, do I need to reprioritize?" Which as a founder, when you don't first First, when you're trying to work on building

revenue, that's probably what I would recommend. But, shortly following that, it would be, "What kind of support do I need to get? And how do I do that in a cost-effective way?" But, the key is you've got to balance those priorities. And I I think I think a lot of people, like when you're a founder, you want to try to do it all yourself. And I think they're afraid to a certain extent of going outside and and like, "What people do I need?" Either they hire people too quickly as a founder or they don't bring someone in quick enough and then they and then they

falter for And then they falter. Yes. And you know, I think that's why, going back to if you create the core of your brand and the core of your mission, that is a really solid um cornerstone of how you could even bring people in. Because when you're onboarding, you should indoctrinate them into your mission and strategy. And that way it takes some of that risk down so and the fear probably as well of releasing and relinquishing the control and having people support your business. Let me tell you about one of our founding partners, Subi.

If you've ever felt like the transaction side of real estate is where your time just disappears, Subi was built for you. It's your AI transaction genie from contract to close that keeps everything organized, your timelines on track, and all the details accounted for. Their tagline says it all, your work is my command. Check them out at oksubi.com. Link in the show notes and be sure to tell them J-Squared sent you. So you you had said I we've said this before, too, is going through this yourself opposed to coaching a coaching an executive how to do this or consulting with a company on how to do

this. What's what's it like moving through that like uncertainty is this actually going to work? Cuz I think that's a big question our audience has is like is this going to work? How do I like So I know that goes in everybody's mind. We'll have a positive attitude, yeah, it's going to work, it's going to work, it's going to work, but somewhere down deep inside there's always that little question of like you said, the impostor syndrome or, you know, the the someone else has said the golden handcuffs where I'm doing so good and making I have this title, I have this money.

Now I'm going to go do it to myself. How do you work how do you work through that yourself? Well, there's really two things to that, I think. The first is that when you start to have those thoughts, I think you have to go back to your strategy. And when you're building your strategy, you should make it time bound. By making your strate- strategy time bound, you have sort of gates or milestones in which you're checking in to see how your progress is, well, progressing. And I think that's a healthy way to take the stress and the thoughts that can sometimes create noise and quite

honestly distrust within yourself and put it into data on paper. Because remember when we're founders and when we've stepped out on ourselves, we don't have a whole team that can give us the check and balance of thought process. We're a lot of times fighting our own internal dialogue for better or for worse. So the more you can make it as professional and opera operationalized as possible, putting it down on paper, building it into a presentation, having quarterly check-ins with yourself. Right. So typically what do we do in a quarter if in an organization?

We do a quarterly business review. Do a quarterly business review. See how you're performing towards your goals. And keep your deadlines solid. That's the other thing I would say. You have to make deadlines for yourself and you have to keep them and honor them. So if in a simple way to bring that all together, I would say this. You kind of want to use your imagination a little bit and pretend that all of the functions of the business world that you've seen that work. Like you think about all the things that we do.

Mhm. Weekly status check-ins, quarterly business reviews, presentations to the board. You should mimic those kind of cadences well because they exist for a reason. So if you don't have that in place, that's a really first best step to take is to organize your calendar for the for the quarter for the year and and start to put that down there. That really helps I think alleviate a lot of that internal dialogue that can throw you off. So now you were you were the expert from the outside.

In What did you get Sometimes I was outside, sometimes I was inside. Well, that's the so so the expert from from Outside the organization. From from yeah, from expert from outside the organization, expert that they brought into the organization to do this. What did you get wrong if I can ask when you were doing this for yourself? Like was anything you got wrong that you would advise like a CEO or somebody who was going through this that you might have said, "Yeah, probably wouldn't have done it that way." Um that's a really hard question because if you're asking me to compare the advice I've given

inside of a large enterprise organization versus right now I'm just a founding company of one. So, that's really hard because change management inherently is about moving people through change. Um but if I were to say speaking to the highest level of an organization when you're trying to move through change and you're making massive transformations the biggest thing I would suggest and I don't think that this is anything that I've done wrong. I think I would have leaned more into it. I think I would have leaned more into the humanity side of it and said, "Look, I know we have board pressure.

I know we have money we have to hit." But what I didn't say were the things that I said at the beginning of this conversation. Which is your success rate is directly correlated to how you're caring about your people. And and and not just caring but how well do you know what this transformation is really going to affect your business? You know, it reminds me of um do you guys remember uh Teddy Roosevelt? Obviously, you remember him as our president. Um but he used to do this thing called the midnight rambles when he was the president of the police commissioners in your city.

Do you know anything about this? Mhm. Okay, tell you a little story. So, when um when Teddy Roosevelt became the president of the police commissioners at the time in New York City, the police department was a mess. They didn't have any kind of solid performance measures and they were really living in a way that they weren't standing on their posts, they were being bribed. I mean, it was a real it was a real problem. And so, he came in and he did this thing called the midnight rambles where he actually dressed in a big coat, a floppy hat, and he walked out at midnight to

find where were the police officers? What were they doing? And as he did this, he was able to build at the ground level, number one, see what was really happening, but number two, he really built that trust in people that I'm here to make this change. And I will show up to see if you're at your post or if you're if you're engaging in bribery. And so anyway, that was one of the ways he was able to transform the entire police department. And I think about that story, and I think about our CEOs and our executive leadership, and I think if they're not showing up

and doing a midnight ramble, they don't know what the actual transformation that one needs to happen, and two, how they can support it in the best way. Cuz a lot of times you get someone talking up from the top trying to do their best job, but they have bad intel. And it's so watered down that it sounds like nothing when it comes down the line. So that would be my recommendation back to myself would have been I had to be more specific on how they would fail if they didn't really care about getting down to the dirty details and understanding really what are you asking

of your team and your people? And what is this going to do for the business? Because I think that there's a huge misunderstanding of how culture impacts performance. And I don't think our executive leadership teams across our organizations truly understand what that means for the business in quantifiable ways when they're making these these transformational changes, whether it's restructuring, cost cutting, whatever it is. Sometimes things need to happen like that, yes, but the way that you do it is really important. So let's talk about what this becomes on the other side, right?

You said something in your intake about every leader in our audit every leader in our audience needs to hear. Um organizations that thrive in the future are the ones that know how to help humans move through change well. Like break that down for us. Because again, like it could be the solopreneur, the founder. It could be a small team, two to four people, me and a couple assistants, or I'm building my team, larger team, as I build an organization and and I think every evolution of of that organization, there's change.

Right? From one to two, there's change. From two to four, it's like So break break that down for us. And like how can we help them with that? So I think the biggest thing to understand is that change is here and is constant. And change is moving faster than ever. So I gave you the stat earlier of just even 10 years ago two major changes would happen versus 10 now. And I think what we're going to see is that within probably two to three years because of AI, we're going to see change even more rapidly.

Yeah. And so the best thing we can do is to enable our people to truly become adaptable and not have a couple of things happen. You don't want to lose the their willingness to support the change. Um if that happens your success rate drops even further down, believe it or not, because the more change that starts to show up and the more failures that you have on the back end of those changes unfortunately, it's a down trending curve. So my suggestion would be this. You've got to understand where your people truly are in that change curve.

Do they already have extreme change fatigue? You have to do kind of a diagnostic. If they already are feeling like, "Hey, we've had 15 change initiatives. How did you think that they went? Well, they didn't go well. They failed. And by the way, what's the morale of of of the environment right now through employee engagement surveys? Well, it's low. Okay, so the key here is you cannot just look at that and think that's fluff. I have to say that again. You cannot look at employee engagement scores and think that means nothing if it's low.

You have to look at that and say, I need to prioritize this. Because at the end of the day, if you believe every person is just replaceable, that's fine, but that's going to have a cost on your business. It's going to be more expensive to bring new people in. It's going to have really huge impact on your culture. And quite frankly, it's going to hurt your reputation. And right now more than anything, the language of reputation of organizations are pretty profound and easy to get to.

So, you have to consider these elements when you're making decisions. And if you're not building an environment for your people and having that as a point of responsibility where they can thrive and be empowered to help move your business forward, you're going to be left behind. Sam Altman has been quoted, and I think a lot of people say this, right? So, it's not the AI that's replacing people, it's people who know how to use AI that's replacing people. Well, I want to take it one step further, and I want to say it's the empowered people that feel motivated and feel like they can add value

to the business that will actually stay and make a significant impact and change. But that third piece only happens if you create a place of psychological safety for your people and you're actually are focusing on those enablements. So, your morale, great communication, training and development, you have to have these things at the forefront, not in the back end, at the forefront. Yeah, and so hearing you talk about that, do you think then like part of the onboarding process or the culture should be like, "Hey, we're going to be changing constantly.

We're going to Truly, right? Cuz we're going to need to adapt and overcome. That's part of what we do here with AI. Every so often, we're going to change." And so now they're like, "Oh, yeah, Jay man said that when I first started. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go." And so they're they're evolving and adapting because that's part of what was uh what they were taught to expect. If you will, like building that expectation. Yeah, there's something to that around how you're profiling your hires.

I think that that's a key a key point. I think the other piece is though, as organizations become larger or larger organizations, it's not as I think simple to do that. Although you do have a culture. So if you look Actually, if you reference the CEO of Uber, he talks a lot about this. He talks a lot about how when they bring people into the organization, they're very clear on the culture and the mission. And similar to what you're saying, Jay man, goes back to your mission.

How are you guys showing up and what kind of people do you want that to work there? And what kind of people are successful working at the place where you are? But on a broader state stage, I would say that a leader's job is to help create safety and certainty. And so your decision-making on what changes are happening. And by the way, if something doesn't work, you should be saying, "That didn't work. How do we move forward?" Don't try to make a story. Don't try to run a campaign around it because people see right through that.

You've got to have a little bit more honesty and transparency with your people. And I think that does a lot, too, in in keeping that that connection to the human to the human employee base. I think one of the things that pointed out that that hit me that you said was the whole, you know, AI because we're being I wouldn't not going to but things are moving so quickly now than they were years and years ago. Um What was that? We organized in a way. Systems are changing because of AI.

It is because it's not It's like, "Hey, I'm doing a job right now, but with that AI, do I still have my job? Do I still need my job? Or is my job totally altering?" Um so, I think anyone that can advise to people or or companies on that is having a huge benefit. And I think the way from reading everything, learning a little about you, is the your work is really human-centered leadership behavioral change. Um it is probably the best way that anyone could use to describe it.

What like What do you actually do with a team? Say I'm a team, I'm going through a change. Say I'm I'm I'm a team. Um a team inside a brokerage. I have a team leader, you know, there's three of us that run the team, but one person all of a sudden is going to step out and no longer to be part of the team, but they're one of the leaders. Like, how how do you how do you walk somebody through or that team through a process where it helps them instead of breaking apart the team?

Yeah, it's really really great question. So, I developed something called remember to shine. It's a framework. And it really is based on a couple of different things. It's based on the philosophy of sound change management principles, but also human behavior. So, the first step in that is see it. So, the S stands for see it. So, first thing is first, so you have to help people Yeah. by telling them the story. People become paralyzed when they feel fear. It's a human behavior reaction. The amygdala starts to fire, and we either have fight or flight.

So, when change is happening, all of a sudden, the first thing that happens is we think, "Wait a minute. This is different from how we've done it. What does this mean for me? Am I safe?" So, when I talked before about creating safety, psychological safety is a component of this, but the other piece is just you have to help people understand the circumstance. And that's a step people miss a lot of the times. They think, well, if I just say the system's going to be implemented, they don't need to know all this other stuff.

It's fine. But the But the reality is they do because it helps regulate their nervous system. Yeah. So, the first thing is is fair. And by the way, awareness, being aware, strips fear of its control. So, that's a really key first um sort of see it step. And I would say things that you might hear if you don't do this first step is I'm behind, or I'm not good enough. If that person's leaving and that's changing, now I'm going to have a new person. Am I going to perform well enough?

What is this going to mean for me? And I had a bonus structure. And ah. Those thoughts are what show up, right? I think we can all relate to this. New New boss, what is this going to mean? So, then that's the S. So, the next letter in SHINE is H. And this is honor the shift. Absolutely. A lot of times organizations and leaders, they try to force this confidence on people before people have really processed the reality. And so, we talked actually a little bit about this, but we have to honor this transition of identity shift.

Because it's deeply emotional. When something's shifting, they have to imagine themselves in this new team. And a really good tool for this, by the way, is an expert communication person would help paint the picture. So, think of a movie. If you want the team to perform, let's talk about sports. It's an easy metaphor. If you want the team to win, you start to talk about when you dunk that ball in the net, when you cross that finish line. I want you to hear the sounds. I want you to smell the things.

What you're really doing is you're creating a shortcut to creating a new identity because they're visualizing this new identity. So, honoring the shift helps people move from where you were to where you want to go. And you also need to acknowledge the grief for uncertainty in this step because that exists. And that for founders is a big piece, too. So, the SHINE method, by the way, remember to shine, is something your founders could really use, too. Um and by the way, accept that hard does not mean impossible.

That's the other piece with honor the shift. Um and working out teaches you this constantly. If you feel hard in that last set, remember next time you might be able to do another rep. Um the next letter in SHINE is I, and this is initiate action. I love this idea because it's this idea of readiness is created from momentum. So, you have to start to take some moves even if you don't feel ready because that's going to help build that momentum. And that could look like a single conversation with a person that's feeling challenged.

So, Jeffrey, to your example, you have that new leader coming in and you know John is nervous. Jeffrey should go and talk to John. He should say, "Hey, I'm sensing there's something going on here. Tell me, what are you worried about?" Now, take some time to build trust and openness and conversation, but a single conversation can help build some momentum and action. And from a personal standpoint, taking a single uncomfortable step is key. I think what you're also noticing maybe in this language here is that the agency lives within yourself.

Right. This is not an external source of power or control. It's actually you. And that's what I teach constantly. You have the power, you have the authority, you have the agency. Then the second to last is is navigate together or navigate. That's the N in SHINE. And this is really this idea, we're humans were never meant to change alone. And when you sit in a meeting and you pretend that yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's fine and I'm not worried and and it's it's good. Maybe I'm the only one struggling, but you're totally pretending.

You've got to remember that actually everyone's thinking these things and stressed. And so, the more we build trust within our team units to talk about these things, the better we are at getting them on the table and moving forward, coming up with solutions. Which leads us into the last step of shine, which is E. So, when you stop surviving the change and feeling like change is done unto you, and you start growing through it, again, that workout metaphor, which is always so good to use. You now are able to work together differently.

You're actually, if you do this correctly, you're going to build stronger bonds within your own team. Because remember that last step about navigate together? Imagine building that trust within your group and everyone just sort of putting their feelings on the table and saying, "Yeah, I'm stressed. I don't I'm worried about this guy that's now shown up to lead this new team." Well, in a proactive way, if you all can be on this remember to shine mindset, you now can transform as a team and elevate as a team.

So, that's really the order of operations and that's the framework that I I work with people on. And it's Yeah. really industry agnostic, it's team agnostic, but obviously, if I'm working within a specific problem, I would do more diagnosis and I would come up with something very specific for the situation. But at a high level, this is a really good tool that you can use as you're moving through change. Remember to shine. Okay, Jackie, quick quick fire round. First honest thing that comes to mind. Jeffrey and I are going to trade off.

Are you ready? I'm ready. Go ahead. And I I know you like this cuz you're this is like Okay, go. Best leadership advice you've ever received, 10 words or less. Perfection is the enemy of greatness. Now, I'm going to ask this question, but I think I know the answer. Um book that changed how you see people. Can't give you one single book. I read over 50 books a year. So, I will say that every single book has given me um empathy for different perspectives. The thing about corporate life you actually miss, be honest.

I miss seeing all of my friends and all of the people and there's something where you can go and have a cup of coffee with someone and learn about what they're doing and by the way, all these sort of things solve themselves together that that I really miss. We're not meant to be alone. What do most leaders underestimate about change? How it is the the human piece is the most important actually successfully have change and adopt change. One word that describes where you are right now.

Transforming. If your next chapter had a title, what would the title be? We rise together. All right, last question. And it's the same one we ask every single guest on the show, it rotates, but what would you go back and tell yourself on day one? Take a deep breath. Everything will not be done overnight and trust yourself. That's exactly where we need to end. Jackie, thank you for this conversation. This is the stuff that makes this show worth making. Really appreciate your time and effort. Yeah, thank thank you very much.

I mean, the the whole organizational psychology is right up my line, so I saw this, I was like, oh, this is so cool, this is so cool. So, thank thank you so thank you so much for for joining us, really appreciate it. I think the audience and I got a lot out of it. My pleasure. Thank you both for having me. Really appreciate it. Thank you. And if this conversation hit you the way it hit us, everyone, please share it with someone that you care about.

Send it to some Send it to somebody who's in the middle of their own moment right now. Subscribe if you haven't already and next Monday we're sitting out with another great guest living outside the corporate box. You don't want to miss that one. But before we let you go, we want to say thank you to our founding partners Wise Agent, Subi and The CE Shop. They make this show possible and they're building tools that actually help people in this industry. Check them out. All the links are in the show notes and thank you again, Jackie, for spending your time with us and thank you to

everyone for listening. That's not something we take lightly. Now go make it happen.