The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:11 - 00:00:35:14
Kevin Eikenberry
The title of this episode is the Art of change. Chances are you have a variety of thoughts and feelings about change, including when you have to lead it. And so I want you to realize that you've thought about this a lot, and everyone around you has thought and experienced a lot about this. And you may be thinking that you've studied it and you've led changes and you feel like you're missing something.

00:00:35:18 - 00:00:56:03
Kevin Eikenberry
You may be thinking that you'd like to find the Rosetta Stone to help you figure all this change stuff out. Or maybe you feel like it's just too complex to master. It's just part of the job. If you feel any of those things, you're going to love this conversation about how the art is at the heart of change efforts.

00:00:56:05 - 00:01:23:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations, and the world. If you're listening to this podcast in the future, you could join us live on your favorite social media channel. You can find out when those are happening, and get information about those live episodes, and interact with us and get the information sooner by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups.

00:01:23:13 - 00:01:47:14
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to Remarkable podcast, eCommerce Facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linked in. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership. Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever.

00:01:47:16 - 00:02:09:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders need a new perspective, a new set of tools to create the great results their organizations and team members want and need. That's what flexible leadership provides you. You can learn more and order your copy today at Remarkable podcast.com/flexible. Now with that I'm going to bring in my guest. And I'm going to introduce him. And then we're going to dive in.

00:02:10:05 - 00:02:35:19
Kevin Eikenberry
My guest today is Doctor Jeff de Graaf. He is clinical professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the author of coauthor of the Art of Change Transforming Paradoxes in To Breakthroughs. Known as the Dean of innovation, he has spent four decades helping organizations from fortune 500 companies to the US military lead change from the edges, not the center.

00:02:35:20 - 00:02:39:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Jeff, welcome to the show. So glad to have you, Kevin.

00:02:39:10 - 00:02:40:14
Jeff DeGraff
Thanks for having me on.

00:02:40:16 - 00:02:55:21
Kevin Eikenberry
We had the chance to chat before we went live. We have some things in common which we probably won't get into today, but I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to wave to Melanie and you can do the same. No one else will know what that's about, but we know, and we'll try to make sure she gets a chance to watch or listen to this.

00:02:57:02 - 00:03:18:10
Kevin Eikenberry
So, Jeff, when I got the book in the mail, I certainly knew who you were. And I loved the title, which got me to dive in, which almost immediately had me say, yeah, I want to have this guy on the show. But before we get to the book, I want to know a little bit about your journey that leads you to do the work that you do every day.

00:03:18:12 - 00:03:46:23
Jeff DeGraff
Well, it's interesting, I, I was, I'm from Michigan, I from Western Michigan, and grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. And through a series of almost forced gub like, opportunities, I ended up being a pretty young PhD. And at 25, I met a guy who had a small pizza company. And five years later, at 30, we sold Domino's Pizza to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.

00:03:47:01 - 00:04:09:00
Jeff DeGraff
And then I was 30 and didn't know what to do and did a little stint with, Apple and, Steve Jobs and all that. And Michigan asked me if I wanted to come back and teach, MBAs how to be creative. And I remember telling Bob Quinn, they're dull, drab and awful. You can hear them think.

00:04:09:04 - 00:04:30:23
Jeff DeGraff
And he said, yeah, you know, that's why we want you to do it. So I thought I would do it for a little bit of time. It's been for almost 40 years. And over the years I built these consulting practices. Two of them, one not for profit and one for profit. That's what brought me into the military because of the work I'd done at Apple and Google and GE and everybody else.

00:04:30:23 - 00:04:44:03
Jeff DeGraff
Right. So it it it became an issue of how do you build really sustainable dynastic innovation ecosystems. That was my interest.

00:04:44:04 - 00:04:53:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And so that at least at some level leads to this book. Why why this book? We're going to talk about the title and a lot of the ideas in a second. But why this book, the Art of change?

00:04:53:23 - 00:05:12:07
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah, it's interesting because it actually came from a frustration. Some of your listeners may know or may not know, I worked on the Covid vaccine. I have a patch for rapid X. I actually start the book with it. I start the book by saying, when your country calls and says, we have a problem, we need some help with this.

00:05:12:07 - 00:05:38:06
Jeff DeGraff
You you do what you can do, right? The challenge of all of this was, I had some of the brightest people I've ever met in my life. Kevin. And the one thing that actually stopped everybody is they could not handle the ambiguity of, of the future. They could not handle paradoxes, which, of course, are central to changing innovation, because there is no data on the future.

00:05:38:06 - 00:05:55:18
Jeff DeGraff
And the number one form of resistance is excessive data gathering, sort of getting stuck in the planning cycle. So I wrote the book saying paradoxes and ambiguity are not just a side effect of things. They are the essence of change. If you can't deal with it, you're probably not going to make change happen.

00:05:55:20 - 00:06:14:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So, I mentioned at the beginning, that this episode is brought to you by my new book, Flexible Leadership. And for a long time, Jeff, the working title had the word paradox in it, so which I think maybe drew me to your subtitle a little bit. And there's so many times I found myself as I was reading, nodding.

00:06:14:02 - 00:06:31:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're going to get to all the paradox stuff in a minute. But I want to actually ask you about something that's in. It's like the last thing I read in your intro, it says that helping people lead move to change from the edges, not the center. What do you mean by that?

00:06:32:03 - 00:06:52:13
Jeff DeGraff
Well, innovation doesn't move inside out. It moves outside in. And what? I have a rule that I call the 2080 rule. It's not the 8020 rule. The 8020 rule says it's, you know, Detroit. Well, let's turn around. The 2080 rule says it's easier to change 20% of an organization, 80%, than it is to change 80% of an organization 20%.

00:06:52:19 - 00:07:11:14
Jeff DeGraff
What your listeners need to think about is a bell curve. And think about when people really change. They're in a crisis. Well, why do you change the crisis? Because the risk of trying something radical and the reward of where you're at is reversed. It's not just people think about the first trillion our companies company I've been associated with forever, which is Apple, right?

00:07:11:16 - 00:07:36:07
Jeff DeGraff
Apple is basically going bankrupt in 1997. And when you're in that kind of state, that's why when people get a divorce or they lose their job or somebody passes way close to them, they're likely to change. And the same is true when you're on a roll, when you're on a roll, we have what's called risk capital. So the right off the bat, the reason the edge matters is it the middle you're protecting the rent right at the edges.

00:07:36:07 - 00:07:54:07
Jeff DeGraff
You're not. And most people, when they start trying to launch change from the middle, they're really just doing project management. X marks the spot. If you can hit it from the day that you started, it tells you that the change that you've made is very incremental and probably not very significant.

00:07:54:09 - 00:07:58:15
Kevin Eikenberry
That doesn't mean there's not a place for that. It's just not that it's not. Let's just not call it what it's not. Right.

00:07:58:19 - 00:08:09:15
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah. And then we have a we have a nice term for that. And in the innovation we call it the long tail. Right. So the long tail means once we figured it out then there's a whole bunch of stuff you get.

00:08:09:17 - 00:08:32:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. So, the book is called the Art of change. And in the, in the writing that I did to hopefully encourage people to come join us, I talked about I talked about that word art versus science. And so let's just talk about that for a second. Like there is some science to change. And I find that that's where a lot of people want to focus.

00:08:32:10 - 00:08:36:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet that's where they still get stuck. So talk about the difference between art versus science.

00:08:36:22 - 00:08:58:02
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah, I think there's two parts to this. And think of it like training a real artist. I mean, there's a part to anything that you do that has to do with tradecraft. You're learning to play the piano. You have to learn the, you know, the white and black keys, the squiggly lines where your hands go, this is a mazurka versus a Polynyas or whatever.

00:08:58:02 - 00:09:17:16
Jeff DeGraff
So the stuff you have to learn and the same is true for change. One of the big issues is organizations actually function in some very rational ways. All organizations. And this is my other favorite one. No, the military's different. No, it's not right. It's not. And health care is different. No, it's I mean, the last 5% is, but most of it exactly the same.

00:09:17:16 - 00:09:35:17
Jeff DeGraff
Not that's the science. And you do have to learn that the art is. What exactly are you seeing? So let me give you some things about art that almost all I think almost all leaders get wrong. Number one, the problem's never the problem. You come in, somebody tells you what the problem is. It's never. The problem's like going to the doctor.

00:09:35:18 - 00:09:54:23
Jeff DeGraff
You know, you read a web MD and you think, you know what's wrong with this person's? The more experience. They've seen thousands of patients and they actually went to medical school and they they have they finesse what the problem is. And they understand that the problem is something that kind of emerges. That's art. It's not science. Second thing is the solution.

00:09:54:23 - 00:10:14:04
Jeff DeGraff
The people who get blown up first in change efforts are those people have those things like go big or go home. I can't tell you in my 40 year career, all those guys go home. They eventually go home because that's a gamble. Most of us, the art is we sort of wade into it. We figure stuff out as we go along.

00:10:14:04 - 00:10:37:07
Jeff DeGraff
As my colleague Bob Quinn says, you build the bridges, you walk over it. So there's a lot of aspects to this that are aspects that are intuitive, aspects that you're learning along the way, aspects that experience brings into it. That's art. Anyone can figure out where your hands go on the keyboard, but not anyone could be a jazz improv improvizational musician.

00:10:37:07 - 00:10:39:07
Jeff DeGraff
That's a special skill.

00:10:39:14 - 00:11:02:06
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that. So, the book is really about these paradoxes. And before we get into the paradoxes, I'm going to let you pick the one that's your favorite to talk about, and then I may pick one as well. We'll just see how that all goes. But I really want to talk first about the role of paradox and change before we get into what they are specifically.

00:11:02:08 - 00:11:08:18
Kevin Eikenberry
But why is paradox so important to this art that we're talking about?

00:11:08:20 - 00:11:31:11
Jeff DeGraff
Paradox creates tensions and tensions. We create generative energy, which is required to make anything better or new. So if you don't have a paradox, if something is basically just wrong, right, then step one is fix it. If something is ambiguous, then step one is wade into it. Figure out what it is. If step one is it's a paradox.

00:11:31:11 - 00:11:55:09
Jeff DeGraff
We need to we need to both, cut costs and raise sales at the same time. And how do we do that at the same time? What's happening is in that paradox is the very energy that is required to get to a higher point of view, a different point of view, a better point of view, not compromise, not trying to solve for X, but trying to figure out how to use that tense of energy.

00:11:55:12 - 00:12:18:06
Jeff DeGraff
So a great example is right now in America, everybody's going, oh, the the out of the world's new civil war. It's not that at all. The death of changing innovation is apathy. When everything's over aligned, everybody agrees. Everybody's happy with what they do. Nothing moves. There's no reason to move it. There's no energy. When people have different ideas and they're good, there's good change and there's bad change.

00:12:18:06 - 00:12:30:01
Jeff DeGraff
We don't want, you know, we don't want anything bad happening, buddy. But that tension, that paradox, provides the actual energy that's going to required to make things better. And you.

00:12:30:03 - 00:12:40:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I say to people all the time to, to expect there to be change without resistance is like it's just not possible. And the rise and resistance is ultimately just energy to your, to your exact point.

00:12:40:16 - 00:13:02:14
Jeff DeGraff
And the more somebody resists something and this is important for your for your listeners to understand this, the more somebody resists something, the more they believe their protect something sacred. The more somebody resists, the more they believe they're protecting something sacred. And that's why great change agents are almost always invisible. They're almost always people who give credit to other people.

00:13:02:16 - 00:13:15:19
Jeff DeGraff
Right. That's why because those people believed they were protecting something sacred. They gave up something that was very important to them. How do we accredit them with the change that I made things better in New.

00:13:15:21 - 00:13:36:23
Kevin Eikenberry
So. So how does that relate to the idea? Kevin's already off script. How does that how does that relate to the idea of facilitating change? Because when I think about the word facilitating, it simply just means to make it easier. And that's what I heard you saying just now. So do you use that phrase? How does that phrase facilitating change relate to the point you just made?

00:13:36:23 - 00:13:59:20
Jeff DeGraff
Jeff, my work is basically based on a number of other people's work through history. You know, you're going to find Quinn's, Bob Quinn's model of competing values, a large model of car composites. Remember, I'm I'm at the Ross School for 36 years, so obviously my elders. But the older brothers had an influence on me. But my contribution is that there's creative power in constructive conflict.

00:13:59:22 - 00:14:23:16
Jeff DeGraff
I'm a huge believer that you have to put very different ideas together in a room, and the reason for that is when I started studying these innovation, what we call creativity clusters, what we noticed was that the only thing that was really different about them, which produced almost all the electrical property around the world, these big creativity clusters, is that people have different ideas and they know how to engage in these conflicts in a normative way.

00:14:23:18 - 00:14:50:01
Jeff DeGraff
So it's not personal, it's not prejudice, it's not destructive. It's I'm challenging your idea. So the first how it relates is the first thing is you're trying to actually create the difficult conversation. Or as I like to put it, the dinner party. You put the two people that you do you don't want. The people are going to be nasty to each other, but you do put the two people next to each other who have different ideas, and you kind of shake, shake the box a little bit and you say, what are we going to get from there?

00:14:50:02 - 00:15:15:15
Jeff DeGraff
Now, if they're if they're purposeful, if they're really what they're really at the intentionality of doing good things, they'll respect the other person. But that idea will move forward. And so that becomes the key of that. That becomes the key. Don't try and destroy the person. They have a belief system. And that's not why we're here. Why we're here is to challenge an idea and to see if we can get that idea to grow.

00:15:15:17 - 00:15:25:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And that growth will come by us, by us both understanding the other person's perspective and seeing it from their lens, even if we still don't agree, right?

00:15:25:20 - 00:15:47:21
Jeff DeGraff
Agree. And we have to encounter the other, the other problem, the problem with the internet and with social media is it's an echo chamber. All you know what, forget politics and religion. You know, look at somebody whose interest is all bands or something. You know, they they believe all the same crap all of us do. And you get the likes which are, you know, you get the, you know, adrenaline going.

00:15:47:21 - 00:16:06:03
Jeff DeGraff
Well, those people aren't very helpful. You're not going to get to the next place. A lot of times they're liking bad ideas. The only way you're going to get to the next place is you have to encounter the loyal opposition with the concept that you're both trying, or all of you are trying to get to this better place.

00:16:06:05 - 00:16:25:07
Kevin Eikenberry
So you talk. We've been hinting at what you call the paradoxical mindset challenge, but can you outline it a little more specifically because it's sort of forms the concept of the rest of the book. And the idea is I want us to talk about. So go ahead.

00:16:25:10 - 00:16:43:14
Jeff DeGraff
And interrupt you. Sorry. Yes. Covered that. It really came from what I noticed about people who are able to deal with paradox. And I think I'm somebody who's okay at that. I'm pretty fluent in that. Well, the first step is we tell ourselves a lot of stories. I don't know if you do it, but I do all the time.

00:16:43:14 - 00:17:03:22
Jeff DeGraff
And sometimes I tell them out loud to myself, right. I'm like, TVA in Fiddler on the roof. I'm always talking to myself about things, and they tell the story to tell the story and tell the story. And a lot of times I'm looking for what's the right way to tell the story. But a lot of times when I tell the story to myself about something that happened, I notice there's something that doesn't quite fit.

00:17:04:00 - 00:17:24:03
Jeff DeGraff
It seems like there's things that I normally don't do. So let me give you an example that I've given the book I love trees, I'm a tree guy and I live like a hobbit on the Huron River. I'm surrounded by these 200 year old trees, trees everywhere, and I love them. We had a terrible snowstorm a few years back, and a lot of the big trees lost huge limbs.

00:17:24:03 - 00:17:42:15
Jeff DeGraff
And I'm not talking about I'm talking about limbs that way, you know, three tons. I mean, these are large trees. Well, there were some trees, some apple trees, some apple blossoms that were going over my sunroom. And while they're cutting down these branches that needed to be cut down, a guy asked me, do you cut this tree down?

00:17:42:15 - 00:18:00:19
Jeff DeGraff
Because I just wanted to trim it up so it didn't fall on the sunroom. And in a moment I said, yeah, cut it down in the mini, cut it down. I thought, oh my God, why did I do this right? I love trees, I'm normally not, capricious like that. So that would be a story that I'd say there's a paradox.

00:18:00:21 - 00:18:22:05
Jeff DeGraff
I love trees, but I love them. Cut it down. Well, the second step is you got to find the paradox. You tell a story and tell the story and tell the story to find what's the paradox in here? And that takes time. That's not easy to do. If your listeners are trying to figure out how to do this, I can tell you the one area where almost everybody gets to think about a relationship that you want it to work, that didn't.

00:18:22:07 - 00:18:43:03
Jeff DeGraff
It's a perfect way to find them, because you'll find I thought it was this. But these two things happen together, and I couldn't quite figure out what was at the center of this. Right. Yeah. Well, that's part of the next piece. The third piece. What simple rules can you divine from this? What can I divine from my let the guy cut the tree down, or I asked the guy to cut the tree down.

00:18:43:03 - 00:19:01:15
Jeff DeGraff
When he asked me if I wanted to do it. Well, the simple rule would be, you know, count to ten or ask your wife or, you know, develop a way to say, I give me 5 minutes or 10 minutes to go through this. So that's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a little it's a little, a little device, if you will, a cognitive device.

00:19:01:17 - 00:19:20:04
Jeff DeGraff
And then finally, what's the experiment? Well, I tell in the book, you know, we are out east one time with the family and the car broke down. This wasn't far after the tree. Issue. And now the issue became, do you know. Oh, we got to fix your car, and it's going to cost $1 million. And here's how we have to do it.

00:19:20:06 - 00:19:40:00
Jeff DeGraff
And you say, wait a minute. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take I'm going to try this step of giving myself some time and looking at some alternatives. And I did, and I found a very different way to handle the problem. So now all of a sudden, I'm able to make this change as a habit because I was able to deconstruct and reconstruct the paradox.

00:19:40:02 - 00:20:11:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So that is how you encourage us to think about the paradoxes that that you outline in the book. And I found myself as I was reading, even just reading the titles of the chapters for each of the paradoxes, I found myself smiling, in some cases, because those were things that I already recognized, those paradoxes, and in other cases, things that like, okay, I want to learn more about those, and I'd just like you to pick one of them to you.

00:20:11:22 - 00:20:32:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Maybe it's one of your favorites. Maybe it's the one that you just feel led to talk about today. Maybe it's the one that you find people getting stuck on the most. I don't care which one you pick, but, like, pick one of them, to help us get an insight into the art of change. Number one and number two, to help us see how this idea of paradox can help us as we're guiding change.

00:20:32:06 - 00:20:53:00
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah. One of my favorites is we use facts to change people's minds. But facts don't change people's minds, right? And I'm around these really smart people all my life. And, you know, my wife will come home and she'll start talking about how something was explained. Remember, she's the coauthor of this book. She's very my wife's extremely intelligent. Right.

00:20:53:02 - 00:21:15:05
Jeff DeGraff
And I'll have to stop her and say, yeah, but facts don't change people's minds. So a perfect experiment. You know, example of that I think would be global warming. I have, I do a lot of work around the country, and you go to places they don't believe in it. Well, what's happened over time is some of these places have had category four hurricanes.

00:21:15:07 - 00:21:37:22
Jeff DeGraff
Some of these places have had their houses washed away. Some of these places live up in the mountains, and they've had fires that they couldn't put out there, things that didn't normally happen to them. And we don't wish bad things on anybody. We wish good things. Pray for good things, but these bad things happen to them. And when the bad things happen to them, all of the sudden they understood because they had an experience.

00:21:38:00 - 00:22:01:21
Jeff DeGraff
Facts don't change minds. Experiences do. And I want to point out to you, and I'm not trying to be controversial, but I do start the book with my work on the Covid vaccine, and one of the things that was very difficult about that now depends on whether you look at the Johns Hopkins study or the Brown study. Right out of the first million people who died in the United States, 25 to 40% of them died with the vaccine available to them.

00:22:01:23 - 00:22:23:16
Jeff DeGraff
Now, here's the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to make a political statement at all. I'm trying to make this statement what people believe is so powerful that they're willing to die for it, literally, and that it is only through experiences. And some people say stories and other stuff. I'm not sure that's even true. I think people have to have an experience.

00:22:23:16 - 00:22:42:12
Jeff DeGraff
So what? What? I suggest my suggestion is, rather than waiting to somebody, has the terrible experience, let them have a small experience. So this is my this is the father in me. I have three children. My wife and I have a very different parenting style. My wife style is don't do that, don't do that. She sounds like Minnie Mouse.

00:22:42:14 - 00:23:05:08
Jeff DeGraff
Don't do that, don't do that. My style is hurt. Didn't it hurt? Isn't it? Yeah. Hurt didn't it? What do we learn from this right now? Don't get me wrong. You don't let junior go play on the freeway. You go get them. But the notion is, I think as parents and as leaders, we have to have the ability for the people who are around us to have some experience, hopefully limited.

00:23:05:08 - 00:23:18:09
Jeff DeGraff
Hopefully not bad. We wish good things for people, but have some experience about the upside and downside of, what their thoughts are. They have to somehow take their thoughts and put them into the world.

00:23:18:11 - 00:23:31:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So go back to your point about experiences versus stories. I think stories can can plant seeds, but I'm with you that, or they can reinforce. But ultimately it's got to be what I experienced.

00:23:32:02 - 00:23:59:17
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah. And that's really hard. And it's really hard to watch somebody skin up their knees. It's really hard for somebody to watch somebody botch a presentation that could have been, you know, a deal. It's hard. But you also know if we're trying to go forward and if we're taking the long view with our children, our colleagues, the people who were responsible for or responsible with babies, by the way, putting it, if we have to, then we have to allow them to develop through their experience, the same competencies that we have.

00:23:59:17 - 00:24:18:17
Jeff DeGraff
Now. I don't know, Kevin, about your experience, but I've, I've worked for some people who are not exactly the nicest people in the world, but I really learned a lot because one of the things that they typically would do is they'd say, okay, this is this is screwed up. You're going to have a lot of fun the next two nights, staying up all night and trying to solve it.

00:24:18:18 - 00:24:21:10
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah, I'm going to try and figure it out.

00:24:21:12 - 00:24:42:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. One of the other paradoxes we're bumping up against one of the other paradoxes, which is I'm just reading it so I get it right. We attempt to avoid failure, but all learning is developmental and requires failure. Like, how do we get there without the failure, right? Like hearing about someone else's failure, to your point earlier is not the same as is experiencing it ourselves, right?

00:24:42:16 - 00:25:03:22
Jeff DeGraff
Absolutely. And all of a sudden I'm starting to see books that are I've wrote a book very early on, probably 30, 40 years ago called Creativity at Work. And, one of the things I try to point out in the book was that, learning to change and innovate is inextricably linked to learning. There's a learning that learning.

00:25:03:22 - 00:25:24:10
Jeff DeGraff
And it's the same thing because and there's a wonderful book by a colleague of mine, Dorothy, Leonard, called Deep Smarts and her husband, Walter, super bright, deep smarts. It's a brilliant book. She she's retired. She's a old Harvard professor, and she's just a old but retired Harvard professor. And what I love about the book, that's.

00:25:24:10 - 00:25:26:07
Kevin Eikenberry
All relative, by the way. Yeah, that's.

00:25:26:09 - 00:25:48:03
Jeff DeGraff
I know as I'm getting old, what I love about the book, though, is she takes you through and says, you know, look at here's here's how you develop actual tradecraft. I did a program, with, Twyla Tharp, years ago. And I love her. The great choreographer and some of this young woman got up and said, well, how do you learn to be a great choreographer?

00:25:48:03 - 00:25:58:12
Jeff DeGraff
I'm trying to be a choreographer. And Twyla Tharp said, what time do you get up? And she said, oh, between 9 and 10. She said, no, you get up at five. And she said, and how are you learning about this? So go to Google.

00:25:58:12 - 00:25:59:10
Kevin Eikenberry
No, you're.

00:25:59:12 - 00:26:13:08
Jeff DeGraff
What's all this? You haven't earned it. She her point was you haven't had you haven't gone through the the the the the experience that you need to go through in order to be able to really do this. You haven't earned it.

00:26:13:10 - 00:26:34:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. So. So, let's go back. I want to before we start to close up. And I know that you and I could go a have a long conversation longer. Maybe we will someday, but not necessarily on camera slash microphone. Because we can talk about all of these paradoxes. They're all fabulous ways for us to think in new ways.

00:26:34:09 - 00:26:59:08
Kevin Eikenberry
And I'm talking with Jeff Graff, one of the two authors of the new book, the Art of Change Transforming Paradoxes into Breakthroughs. And so but I want to go back to the pandemic, and I don't necessarily want to talk about the vaccine as much as that was a time when I think all of us now can have. We had experiences with change related to the pandemic.

00:26:59:11 - 00:27:08:12
Kevin Eikenberry
So, like, what are some things that maybe we as leaders can take from those experiences that can help us with changes moving forward?

00:27:08:12 - 00:27:25:22
Jeff DeGraff
Yeah. The first thing was, there were two parts. I would say right off the bat. First thing was when you don't know what something is, don't immediately jump to here's the solution. And that was the problem. The problem was what's called the forward position problem means there's a lot of ambiguity. And what we really need to do is hedge.

00:27:25:22 - 00:27:40:09
Jeff DeGraff
We really need to look at a diversity of ways of handling this problem. We closed the box too early, right. So all of us, there was a lot of other things that could have been done. And we saw this in some small places. That's the first thing that could have been could have been learned. Don't be so certain.

00:27:40:09 - 00:27:57:01
Jeff DeGraff
You know what things are right before you know what they are. And then the second thing is that which I think goes along with this, is that anything that's worth learning reveals itself over time. So you're going to change your mind. And people who said, well, you know, I can't believe we did this and we did this and we did.

00:27:57:02 - 00:27:59:14
Jeff DeGraff
I'm like, well, we did. We had incomplete information.

00:27:59:14 - 00:28:01:09
Kevin Eikenberry
That's how it all make sense backward. But it.

00:28:01:09 - 00:28:19:23
Jeff DeGraff
Is. Yeah. I'm like, you know, and you know, any fool can do that. The notion is as you're going forward, you have to adjust based on what's going on. And that was the whole thing. And once we got to that point, and once we got to that point, sort of collectively, did you notice how quickly everything went all of a sudden?

00:28:19:23 - 00:28:37:23
Jeff DeGraff
We were good at this. Right? But boy, it took about six months or seven months of, you know, and hang on, this is the way we this is the way we sort this out, you know, so that that I think is what we really could take from it. And I think the biggest thing that we could take from it is that change is inevitable.

00:28:38:05 - 00:28:59:04
Jeff DeGraff
If you read about pandemics or wars or natural resource, you can read about it in studies, you can read about Herod. It's the Bible. You pick it. The human condition, the basics. The centerpiece of the human condition is change. It's not something that happens to us or the homeostasis that we believe we have. That's the part that we're imagining.

00:28:59:06 - 00:29:10:03
Jeff DeGraff
The world is in flux. We are in flux. That is the key to the whole thing. Understanding the dynamics. It's not so much the structure, it's the dynamics that make the difference.

00:29:10:05 - 00:29:12:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Allah states it's not homeostasis.

00:29:12:05 - 00:29:14:01
Jeff DeGraff
There we go. Very good. You're right.

00:29:14:03 - 00:29:35:16
Kevin Eikenberry
You're right. So but no one wants to talk about that because they talk about so. So listen, Jeff, is there anything I mean, there's lots more we can talk about, and and I hope everyone goes gets a copy of the book and all of that. But is there anything we didn't talk about as this unfolded that you wish we would have or or looking back now, you wish I would have asked?

00:29:35:18 - 00:29:53:00
Jeff DeGraff
Well, I think the one thing I would just, I would just say is our people, people can't change other people. That the one thing I think that I'd like your listeners to take away from this is that the journey starts with you and you know whether or not you can affect another person. I mean, think about it. I've been married for a long, long time.

00:29:53:02 - 00:30:11:05
Jeff DeGraff
How well is that little change going? Right. You know, so the notion is the notion is how is it you're, keeping track of your own journey? How is it you're keeping track of your own growth? Right. That's the one thing that you can actually do. That's the thing I'd really like to emphasize on that. And we're all works in progress.

00:30:11:05 - 00:30:26:18
Jeff DeGraff
Forgive yourself for the things that don't work a lot of them, and forgive yourself for the hypocrisy. I'm a terrible hypocrite this way. I sit in the same seats in the stadium I've sat in for 40 years. I drive the same car I've driven for 15 years. People always ask me, why don't I change what to me? I don't want to change it.

00:30:26:23 - 00:30:38:10
Jeff DeGraff
So there are certain things in life that you want to change in certain ways. Life that you don't want to change. It's not a problem. It just has to work for you and the people around you that you love and care about.

00:30:38:12 - 00:30:48:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. So a couple of other things before we go, kind of shifting gears, I'd love to know. Jeff, what is it that you do for fun?

00:30:49:01 - 00:31:11:13
Jeff DeGraff
Well, you know, I travel a lot. I'm one of those almost 3 million mile guys on, Delta Airlines alone. But one of the things that's fun is, because I have a life that's very much like a Federal Express package around the world. I'll take an afternoon or a day off. And I love to, really immerse myself with the culture, eat food, go to their temples, go to sporting events.

00:31:11:13 - 00:31:24:21
Jeff DeGraff
I love sporting events. My wife now goes with me to a lot of these things. So the first thing is that I really like there's a hobby is just really, really embrace the world.

00:31:24:23 - 00:31:32:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. The only thing you knew I was going to ask you is this. What are you reading these days, Jeff?

00:31:32:04 - 00:31:48:07
Jeff DeGraff
Well, I just read the book abundance. I really liked it. I recommend it to people. I disagree with the part about the Covid vaccine, but that's just because I lived through it. There's a good book called The Shot That Saved the World by, Zuckerman of the Wall Street Journal. I think a little better, treatment of that.

00:31:48:08 - 00:32:06:17
Jeff DeGraff
But, I'm reading a book about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bethany. I can't remember her last name. She's the BBC lady, and it's fascinating. I like history, and I really think that history gives, really does tell us a lot about the human condition.

00:32:07:03 - 00:32:17:06
Kevin Eikenberry
More than a lot of people want to recognize. Yeah, in my opinion. So, tell people where they can reach out to you, where they can connect with you, where they can get the book. Where do you want to point?

00:32:17:10 - 00:32:36:21
Jeff DeGraff
I think the easiest thing to do is I'm one of the original LinkedIn influencers. So if you go to LinkedIn, you look for me on LinkedIn, Jeff de Graaf, you'll find me. You can also find me a a graph.com, but I think it'd be easier just to contact me on LinkedIn. That's the best way to do it. And and I'm also like hearing from people about, you know, I disagree with this.

00:32:36:21 - 00:32:50:02
Jeff DeGraff
Those are my favorite ones. Or have you thought about this? This might go a sites slightly different direction. I'm really this is the professor. I mean, I really like that. Let's get, you know, let's let's, what are the young people say? Chop it up. Let's chop it up.

00:32:50:04 - 00:32:55:14
Kevin Eikenberry
You can chop it up. You can do it at LinkedIn. You go to Jeff siggraph.com. You can go to Art of change dot net.

00:32:55:14 - 00:33:00:18
Jeff DeGraff
There's websites. Oh yeah. Yeah you can do Art of change. Not not yet. That works too. All right, all right.

00:33:01:05 - 00:33:19:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So before we go, before I let Jeff go and before I let all of you go before this ends, I want to ask all of you the question that I ask every single episode. And the question is simply this. Now what? What will you do now that you've heard this conversation? What insights do you take from this?

00:33:19:17 - 00:33:52:07
Kevin Eikenberry
But that's not really it. It's not really the idea. But what are you going to do with the idea that matters? I took a bunch of notes for me. But the question is, what did you take from this that you will apply? Because until you do that, this isn't nearly as valuable, as it, as a as using this as a collector of information is one level, using this as a, as a spur to or an inspiration to action is, I think, ultimately what both of us would prefer for you, and it's ultimately what will make this most valuable for you.

00:33:52:12 - 00:33:59:17
Kevin Eikenberry
So Jeff, thanks so much for being here. I've been looking forward to it. We had a bit of a fit and start before we got here. I'm so glad we finally got the chance together.

00:33:59:18 - 00:34:04:21
Jeff DeGraff
Thanks for having me on and thanks to your listeners for having me on. And thanks for the remarkable leadership for having me on. Thanks, guys.

00:34:05:02 - 00:34:24:08
Kevin Eikenberry
All right, everybody. And so I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching, you're listening. So don't miss any future episodes. Make sure you tell somebody else to join us as well, because that's a part of leadership is helping others move in positive direction. Hope you'll do that. Hope you'll be back next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:34:24:08 - 00:34:24:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Thanks, everybody.