HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Tips on how to prepare your business for change with Natasha Todorovic-Cowan
- To prepare your business for change as a leader, team member, or marketer you need to realize that people are people. Figure out what’s alive in them, what’s motivating them, what’s driving them, what they’re passionate about, what stands in their way, and what they are experiencing angst about
- To prepare for a change look at where they are and where they are going and how they are feeling about it.
- You need to understand what your customer is stuck on and what they think they’re stuck on and what they’re actually stuck on.
- From the data, 70% of changed projects fail…and it could have been avoided if they implemented it earlier in the cycle. Usually, they don’t do it [implement] soon enough.
- Results need to come with heart.
- Try to see more in other people than they see in themselves.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
SHARE THIS EPISODE: – HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
To prepare your business for change figure out what’s alive, what’s motivating,
what’s driving you, what’s standing in your way, and the angst you are
experiencing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Well, welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing, Real Fast. Today, I’ve got a very interesting guest who’s going to probably share a few ideas, who’s going to stretch your brain a little so I would suggest that you listen closely. Joining me in the studio, I’ve got Dr. Natasha Todorovic-Cowan. She’s an MBA. She is the CEO of National Values-Centered Consulting. She is the owner of Spiral Dynamics. Whether it’s resistant to change, cultures in conflict, strategic partnerships, dysfunctional teams, incongruent leadership or strategic implementation, Natasha’s experience includes unraveling the people side of the organizational problems from sea suite to shop floor enabling leaders to informed change choices. Natasha comes from a country that no longer exists. She lived in three countries before she was the age of 7. Her industry disappeared overnight and as a part of two acquisitions, she is no stranger to change. Rooted in 70 years of research in application in the mid-market global fortune 500 organizations and government agencies, Natasha has had more than 25 years of experience applying her proprietary Spiral Dynamics cultured DNA and change readiness indicator to predict hurdles to change. She has delivered over a hundred Spiral Dynamics programs in 14 countries and five continents. She helps leaders, teams, and organizations around the world to become change ready, getting to the heart of what stands in the way of organizational goals. I’d like to welcome you to the podcast.
Natasha T.C.: Thanks so much, Doug. It’s great to be here with you.
Doug: Well that is certainly a mouthful in terms of what you do in helping people. With today’s environment and technology changing as quickly as it is I can’t imagine you being positioned in a better place to help people with change.
Natasha T.C.: Well, change is fast, it’s rapid. Just as soon as we get the hang of one thing it’s already gone and over with and the next thing is with us and we’re just perpetually feeling like wibbles wobbling.
Doug: It’s interesting because working with larger companies when you’re working with a team of more than one like you’re working, you said, the mid-sized businesses, there is so many people involved in the team. I looked at your background and the two sides of your business that you’re focused on in terms of the leadership side and then the navigating change.
Doug: I was hoping we could talk a bit today about the kind of navigating change and understanding who you are and the people you’re working with.
Natasha T.C.: Right. Well, I’m working with people. I don’t really see people very differently because whether it’s C suite or shop floor, people are people. If you can figure out what’s alive in them, what’s motivating them, what’s driving them, what they’re passionate about, what stands in their way and what they are experiencing angst about, then as a leader you actually become a leader.
As a team member you actually become a good functional team member, and as a marketer, you actually become a really great marketer because if you’re not tapped into that then it’s very difficult to market, or to lead, or to work on a team.
Doug: Looking at your background, the amount of change that you’ve experienced. I mean, for a lot of people that would paralyze them or they might blame their current company or their situation on, well look at my background.
I’m not saying that your background is good or bad but what I’m saying is there’s obviously a lot of change there and we’re seeing massive, massive changes in industries that used to exist that are gone, technologies that used to work that don’t exist. Can you walk us through a high level, kind of some of the work that you do and what the major take away points are?
Natasha T.C.: Let’s chunk it down so your audience can really walk through their own change process. I said we need to understand our change experience or we need to understand the change experience of another person. One of my clients is experiencing that right now, and we have a tool, it’s called the Spiral Dynamics Change Readiness Index. What it revealed was that she was feeling stuck. We’re on a call and my retainer clients can call me anytime on my cell phone. She asks me, “Natasha, how do I make this change?” She wasn’t really pulling the trigger on change because she was in that precarious place between the old and the new so she was feeling trapped and stuck. Just imagine being between two buildings on a high wire with no net, and that’s how it felt like for her. Going back wasn’t an option, going forward looked impossible so a lot of people feel trapped between places like that. Given the data, I had her look at four things. First, we’re looking at the present. I had her look at how things are for her now. The second piece, how are you feeling about that? What that did was it gave her clarity about her situation and why she wanted out of it and what she was feeling. Because if you’re not in touch with where you are, how can you get to the next place because that’s going to hold you back.
Doug: True.
Natasha T.C.: The second piece was we looked at the future. How did she want things to be and what was she going to feel like when she got there. Doing this really highlighted the gap that she was experienced, her frustration at not being where she wanted to be, and it clarified the destination. It unraveled and unleashed some of the blocks. What we did was we planned her specific custom change trajectory and built her custom change game plan according to her change readiness scores and preferences.
Doug: You’re not taking on the responsibility of making the decision when somebody is stuck. You’re helping them, like you said, to identify where they’re at, why they feel the way they feel now and then project into the future what it’s going to look and feel like if you make that change. Is that correct?
Natasha T.C.: Absolutely. All too often what we do when we see another human being is we project on to them what we think is best for them. That never works because they’re going to be motivated by what they are motivated by. We get in the way both of communicating and helping them with their change. If we can step back, find out what’s true, alive for them and what the next iteration of their next best self is, then we can support rather than drive, and then it’s congruent.
Doug: You sound like you’ve been in my house before. I do that out of love and sometimes ignorance that people say, well why don’t you just do this?
Natasha T.C.: It would be so easy if you only did blank.
Doug: Just do exactly what I do and then … but of course, we know that’s not true. That doesn’t work because everybody has got a different personality style.
Natasha T.C.: Exactly. You got it, Doug.
Doug: I guess this applies in a couple of ways. First of all, as business owners or management and were making decisions and leading ourselves, and then when we can overcome this we can better lead our team, but looking from a pure profit motive, if you understand the solution to the problem that your customer has, your customer is probably stuck as well.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah, absolutely. You need to understand what your customer is stuck on and what they think they’re stuck on and what they’re actually stuck on.
Doug: Now, you shared a little bit about a couple of case studies. I wonder if you might just share some details on that that might shed some more light in that direction.
Natasha T.C.: From a marketing perspective, understanding what the marketing problem is, is really important. You’re actually matchmaking as a marketer. You’re trying to marry the customer need with the product or the service. If you can do your messaging through your psychographics, deeply understanding the needs of your audience then you’re more effective. We are working with the Venture Capitalist, use funding the text startup, and they were trying to understand their customer. Before meeting where we were trying to bring the leadership together and get some team integration happening, he asked me and he was really frustrated. He said, “Natasha, this is a great product. It’s going to make a huge difference in the market. We’ve got the customer figured out, it’s in the right price range but they are not buying. What’s wrong?” They thought they had the demographics of the customer figured out. What they didn’t have was the psychographics. Basically, it was an art software package and it was designed to help kids understand art. The way they were marketing it was “See Art, Say Art, Do Art,” which totally makes sense. We looked at it and said, what does the average parent think when their kid comes home and says, “Mom, dad I want to grow up and be an artist?”
Doug: True.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
SHARE THIS EPISODE: – HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
To prepare your business for change figure out what’s alive, what’s motivating,
what’s driving you, what’s standing in your way, and the angst you are
experiencing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Natasha T.C.: The first thing the parent is thinking, oh my god, my kid is going to be broke, they’re going to be in my basement forever, things are going to work out poorly, how are they going to support themselves, we don’t need them in the street.
Doug: Sure. Yup.
Natasha T.C.: What we had them do was change the entire messaging. What do people really want? They want creativity. They want innovation. They want this new approach to things. They want things moving, and so they shifted the message, and they shifted the approach. Suddenly people started buying, they got some awards and they were picked up by Apple in Apple Stores. Understanding, again, what is alive in that customer, what are they thinking, how are they reacting gives us the ability to flex and pivot to what the customer is actually interpreting around your product.
Doug: Hearing you say that totally makes sense. I’ve been in enough meetings where sometimes that’s given lip service and other times it’s totally ignored but even when it’s discussed, okay that’s fine so let’s get our Google ads set up, we need to go back and do a little bit more homework. When you’re working with someone in helping them go through this process, what does that look like?
Natasha T.C.: Well, it could take a variety of forms. One of our basic approaches is we have a set of proprietary tools and we look at what is the customer or the leader or the team or the members of the team actually thinking, feeling and experiencing. The closer we can get to that, the more accurately we’ll be able to get messages out. We were working with a couple of candidates in a political election locally and same … well, not same candidates, but the same neighborhood, the demographics and approach and socioeconomics, and one candidate had a particular message and the other candidate had a slightly different message. We sat with one and said, “Look, let’s poll and find out what’s happening with them. This candidate said yes and they were open to it. We ran the polling through the different demographics and asked people how they were perceiving this particular candidate. That enabled us to allow that candidate to really hone in on their message. The other candidate, we said, let’s poll, let’s ask these questions, let’s find out do they perceive you as a leader? How are they reacting to your message? Who were they reacting more favorably towards? The other candidate said, “No, we got it. We got it covered and we don’t have the time to do this poll. We know what’s happening.” The one who was willing to look at their constituency, understand the data and pivot, won the election. The one who figured they had it covered and didn’t want to listen lost and actually lost really badly.
Doug: It’s interesting because I think we can apply that to so much of what we do. I mean, even thinking of, we met at the New Media Summit and we looked at all the social media and all the way the people are engaging, but even there we’re really asking the question of what does my audience want or what does my audience think of me or think of my brand when I’m communicating, or are we just thinking, hey this is … I want to post this or I want to post that so I said about what I want with zero or very little consideration to what they want.
Natasha T.C.: Well, sometimes posting what I want makes me happy and sometimes there’s an audience for that. When there is an audience and when there isn’t feedback you have to decide, who do you want to make happy? You? Or do you have a larger vision-mission goal purpose in life and how do you flex to communicate to the people who could best benefit from that?
Doug: Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s the key there. It’s posting what I want is one thing but if I’m using it as a business tool and holding it up as a business metric then I have to have some strategy or at least some vision for what I want to do and be respectful of my audience.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah, and that’s about clarity about who you are, and what you want to do, and what gives you happiness and satisfaction in life.
Doug: Well, that’s a whole another topic which is quite … Absolutely, yes.
Natasha T.C.: Right?
Doug: Yeah. Now, in terms of when you work with a company, can you give us an idea of what the best way is to leverage what you do? You’ve said you’ve done some work with Venture Capital before and you’ve worked a variety of clients. If somebody is listening and saying, hey I’m dealing with my company, my team or my management or I’m looking at a new direction or taking a company new direction or launching a new product, how would that process look and how do we start?
Natasha T.C.: Well, the first thing we’re trying to do is understand what’s going on. What’s going on in the client, what’s going on in the team, what’s going on in the leaders? We’ll do some needs discovery. If it looks like we’ve got trust and we’ve got some give in that system and our approach is to look at the human systems, then we’ll apply our assessments. Our assessments tell us how ready people are to change, what the hurdles will be if certain changes are implemented, how resilient are they, how change ready are they, how do you need to present it? Big chunks, little chunks? Does it need to come from a higher authority? Does it need to come from peers? Do they have to figure it out themselves? Once we’ve got that data, then it tells us what we need to do from a strategic perspective in terms of constructing whatever that marketing plan or that change process and how that needs to be executed. We custom create for that particular organization, or for that particular team, or for that particular client and approach that will work for them. No two are alike and it really needs … you can’t do one-size-fits-all approach. It has to be tailored for what is happening, what’s alive in the leaders, what’s alive in the teams and their particular motivational and psychosocial flows.
Doug: Wow! Yeah. It makes sense to be accustomed for each team and, I guess, what it is they’re trying to achieve. Now, if there’s going to be a major shift, if a company is going to go into a new market as an example, how far in advance would they want to start this process to make sure that they have their best chance at heading a grand slam?
Natasha T.C.: Well, it depends on where they are in the process. Usually, the earlier the better. If they can start thinking about this and thinking in this way, way in advance it will be less costly and it will have a greater likelihood for success than if they’re in the middle of it and realize that the wheels are falling off and that they need to put the train back on the tracks. It will be even more costly on the other end because really it looks like, from the data, 70% of changed projects fail. Most of the time people get to the end of it and then they’re looking back and going, “Oh well, in hindsight we should have done this, that, or the other.” Most of the time, they’re looking back, it was this person or that person or this group or this interpretation and it could have been avoided if they implemented it earlier in the cycle. Usually, they don’t do it soon enough.
Doug: Yeah. I guess the point, though, is getting … I mean, if you’re a larger organization, you can afford … Your balance sheet will take a couple of hits to projects that don’t move forward. If you are a relatively lean company or bootstrap or a startup or launching a new product, 70% might take you right out of the business.
Natasha T.C.: Yup, it can. I’ve been doing some work with some mergers and acquisition folks and about 85% of CEOs by the end of the merger and acquisition process say they wish they paid a lot more attention to the people factors. Only 15% of those mergers and acquisitions realized the value that they were intended for. I asked a group of deal makers, well 40 years ago 65 to 70% of mergers in acquisitions failed, and today we’ve got the same results. Why is culture coming up and why aren’t we doing anything about it? It really has to do with that lack of awareness to the people factors. In our own research and in our own studies, we’ve noticed that people think they’re listening and they think they’re hearing what’s happening with others but that same number, about 65 to 70%, tend to be missing what’s happening with other people.
Doug: Wow! That’s such a huge number. I had done something similar to it, a disc, years ago and all of our kids have done it as well. It was interesting looking just at the different personality styles of how we operate and how each of us defaults under stress and how different everybody was. My youngest daughter got this down very well. She goes, “Well dad, you’re this style so I understand that this is your approach when I’m showing a problem with you. However, this is how I need to have your support.”
Natasha T.C.: Yes.
Doug: She gets that and she’s got enough grace when she shares it to say, “Hey hang on. My personality, not yours.”
Natasha T.C.: What a gift for you guys to be able to have that kind of a conversation and how forward thinking that is to be doing that, noticing the differences in one another and asking for what we need and hearing one another and flexing towards one another to try and support one another that way. That’s amazing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
SHARE THIS EPISODE: – HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
To prepare your business for change figure out what’s alive, what’s motivating,
what’s driving you, what’s standing in your way, and the angst you are
experiencing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Yeah. I guess it’s called style shifting and it has worked for us. It was interesting. I was surprised at how eager the kids were to participate. I mean, my youngest daughter is in a leadership role. She does it not for profit, and so they had all of their staff do this. I said, “Hey, that’s the same assessment that I’ve done.” We basically bought the assessment for other to adult kids and everybody did them and we sat down and compared to see where everybody was. For me, it was really an eye-opener. What I want to get to really is a question and that is, why do you think that the numbers haven’t changed?
Natasha T.C.: I think that there are a couple of things.
Doug: Because you said awareness, but I don’t know if I totally agree with awareness.
Natasha T.C.: Well, let me see if I can phrase it slightly differently. I’ve watched people in our programs. They nod, they go, “Yeah, yeah. We got it. Let’s go on” and then when they’re really asked to do it, it’s a different story. When they do it successfully, they see incredible results and realize what they thought they understood wasn’t what they understood. It’s a fairly simple formula. If you can articulate somebody else’s experience in such a way that they recognize themselves in it, they’ll continue to reveal themselves because they want to be seen. If you’re important to them in any way and they’re important to you, they want to be seen. You both want to be seen by one another. In articulating that experience, what I mean is you’re articulating how they’re feeling and what they’re thinking. If you can reflect that back-
Doug: Okay. That’s why I’m wondering, is there a certain personality style that tends to be common in leadership where they don’t necessarily take into consideration how other people process information, how other people deal with change, and how other people will respond to that pressure?
Natasha T.C.: Well, there are few and I’ll just keep it very simple. There are those who think that there’s a right way to do things and if it doesn’t line up with this “right way,” then they’re going to try and hammer in the right way. Then there are those who are just so self-focused. Sometimes we call them ego driven or selfish; I’m calling it self-focused because their locus of control is about where they are, what they need, and what they need to do so it’s difficult for them to get outside of themselves to see what’s happening with others.
Doug: Okay.
Natasha T.C.: It’s an oversimplification, but it’s the way that they’re naturally processing the world. They’ve got to put a little bit of effort into finding out what’s happening with others. Some people are more people, others are more analytical and that analysis gets in the way. Those who are more people make it easier.
Doug: Well it makes sense especially if you’re going to be communicating, as we all do, with customers potential, customers, and our peers, to have that understanding and appreciation. I think the biggest eye-opener for me was going to the actual training to have people go through this assessment and breaking the room up into different groups and then having each group report back on the other style how they felt. For me, it was like, wow people think that I’m arrogant and I’m pushy and I’m aggressive and I’m just thinking they’re lazy and they’re slow and they need to get going. I’m doing it because everybody is watching or thinking about it and it needs to get done.
We got some pushback and they’re going, “Well I take that as arrogant and pushy.” I said, “Well, I just take it as your lazy and you’re sitting there, so somebody has got to pick up the ball and run with it, so I picked up the ball and run with it.” It was an interesting exercise to have people be honest and share how they feel about the way that each of us operates.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah. We all have blind spots, and in a world that is fast-paced, moving as quickly as it is, with so many different things happening, we can’t work in isolation anymore. We have to get people working with us, fitting together like puzzle pieces so that we can see those blind spots because we’re blind to the blind spots.
Doug: Absolutely. How long typically are you engaged with the company you’re a client? Is this ongoing where they work with you for years or is it typically project focused or what sort of relationship is established?
Natasha T.C.: It varies based on the client and the scope of the project. We’ve worked with clients over four and five years, sometimes more. We’ve gone and done some simple projects, we do the analysis, deliver a training, deliver some insights, do some research, and we’re out in under a week. It just really depends on the problems that they’re facing, the complexity of those problems, how much attention they want to give to it and can give to it, the resources they can throw at it, and what’s coming up in terms of the research.
Doug: Yeah, turn off the facts. What do you think the biggest myth is about this tactic and the services that you provide for your clients?
Natasha T.C.: I think the biggest myth for us is I’m a person so of course, I understand people. Then they go to demographics and all millennials think blank, and all boomers are this and they go with stereotypes. All boomers don’t think the same way and all millennials don’t think the same way so what they’re missing is really the richness of, again, what is alive in another person? What is driving them? What’s motivating them? What’s exciting to them? What crashes them? It’s very easy to destroy another person and really tear them down. The most difficult thing in the world is to see what’s pushing them, what motivates them, what uplifts them, and what helps them to become the person that fulfills all the potential they never even saw in themselves. I think all of us have had that boss or that person who saw more in us than we saw in ourselves. If we can become that for one another, then we can break through some of those boundaries and filters that stop us from seeing that.
Doug: Wouldn’t that be just such a great environment to work in to have people that are working beyond their own beliefs because they have been encouraged in an environment that, like you said, sees more than you think you see in yourself and encourage you to expand and to go in that direction.
Natasha T.C.: Absolutely. One of the questions we’ve asked our audiences and audiences in London and Los Angeles, in Melbourne, in Sydney, and in Johannesburg responded the same way. We’d asked them, how many of you give 30 to 40% of yourselves to your jobs? We get about 75% of the room. That is a waste of talent. Then we’d follow up with the question, how many of you have managers or leaders who are happy with that, and 100% of them put their hands up.
Doug: Wow! That’s amazing.
Natasha T.C.: That is how much potential … Go ahead.
Doug: My favorite question to ask my suppliers is, and I often ask this question and then people go, “How do you get such good results with the guys you’re working with?” One of the questions I ask them is what are all the great ideas that you’ve had that your bosses never let you implement before?
Natasha T.C.: Yes.
Doug: They go, “Well, I think we should do this, and I think we should that.” I recognize that their boss is going to need to approve it, but I’m paying for it so I’m like, “Okay, well let’s do that,” and the boss goes, “We’ve never done that so I think it’s a great idea. I’m willing to write the check for it, so let’s do that.” I think not only does it uplift the employee to have their, like you said, be able to do more and perform at a higher level and give more of themselves but for me, as a client to them, it gives me more value because I’m asking a different question.
Natasha T.C.: Yes.
Doug: I’m not asking you do the same thing you do for everybody else; I’m saying, based on my circumstance what else can you bring to the table that other people have not accepted?
Natasha T.C.: That’s how you get breakthroughs and innovation and avenues of service that you never expected.
Doug: I think so. I don’t know why people don’t … I recall a conversation couple years ago with the supplier in the Midwest and I asked her this question and she said “Nobody has ever asked me that before. Everybody just comes to us and buys this. Nobody has ever asked me that question.” It opened up, like you said, innovation breakthrough and a brand new opportunity because you asked the question. My expectation is that people … we’re all smart people. We just need to be given some encouragement and ask the right questions to perform at a peak level.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah. You’re an out-of-the-box thinker and you’re willing to ask those questions rather than accept the fact that that’s the way they do it.
Doug: Yeah, I guess I’m weird but I wasn’t always that way. I’ve always been that sort of question asked in terms of what can we do more but when I said what’s the biggest myth about the tactics, here’s my confession time. If I had talked to you 10 years ago, I would have said woo-woo, waste of time.
Natasha T.C.: Right … and now?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
SHARE THIS EPISODE: – HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
To prepare your business for change figure out what’s alive, what’s motivating,
what’s driving you, what’s standing in your way, and the angst you are
experiencing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: That’s where my thinking was and now I’m going, “How silly was I.” My only regret would be I’m looking at my daughter who’s 21 who understands this now and has been using this tool for a couple years when she’s dealing in leadership, and she’s doing counseling, and she’s out speaking and thinking, wow how much more could I have helped people and been successful if I had only stopped thinking of myself and my personality and my style and taking time to understand that I was offending people and hurting people by just charging ahead because that was my foot to the floor, push the nitrous oxide button, go as fast as you can approach.
Natasha T.C.: Yup, get the result. I’ve had a client call, potential client actually, and they were saying, “You know what? Every time we do this acquisition process, we leave behind the body count and we brought on this company. It’s a decade later, we’re still in silos, we’re still fighting. It’s that body count.” We are moving into a world that is getting increasingly more and more sensitized to the people stuff. Those who focus on relationships and understand how to build connection and relationships will be the ones who succeed as this world emerges. Results need to come with heart, and you’ve realized that. We’ve all gone through the pain that somehow causes us to break through because without those lessons we wouldn’t have those breakthroughs.
Doug: Yeah. It’s interesting because, especially when you look inside an organization, I can understand how you may be aggressive, you want to use those words toward a competitor because you’re trying to grow your business or take their client or whatever you might be trying to do, but I don’t really understand why there are that in-fighting and the silos within the organization. I mean, the silos that I deal with in my business are tech, so the IT guys; finance because they have to write the check; sales and then marketing. We have four people that are working for the same company. At the end of the day, the company needs to generate sales to keep the lights on yet each of them is working as if the other group is a competitor. We don’t want to share information, we don’t want to cooperate, we want … Whatever it is. It’s just mind-boggling.
Natasha T.C.: Well because the other guys are getting in the way of their productivity and the goals that they think they need to accomplish.
Doug: Yeah. Well, I guess that comes down to varying what the goal of the organizations and making sure there’s some alignment.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah. Well, I mean they each have a separate system. If you think of this, departments have separate systems based on language, based on skill, based on talents. They’ve got these goals that you’re seeing them as interconnected. They’re not seeing that because they’re more in the weeds. If they are to talk to one another, you just go back to what makes us different, why do we fit together, what are we doing that puts us on the same page and how do we conflict in constructive ways that enables us to break out of the constrictions of the mind to come together to create something bigger and better than any of us could have ever done alone or separately.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. Yup. Well, I could spend the rest of the day talking about this because it’s a topic that I have a huge interest in. For our listeners, I think there’s a number of takeaways, too many dimensions but I’m thinking really about the team and I’m really thinking about messaging. How can we as business owners, entrepreneurs, marketing people or whoever go out and create messaging for our audience based on a survey of one? This is how I feel opposed to really understanding the people that are going to see your messaging.
Natasha T.C.: Yeah, yeah.
Doug: A couple of questions and I will let you get back to your day. I’m sure you’re enjoying the sunshine. I know where you are, it’s always beautiful down there. Who’s one guest that you think I absolutely have to have on my show?
Natasha T.C.: There is a guy, his name is TR Garland, and he’s just rocking it with the LinkedIn advertising. He’s a LinkedIn pro and I’ve been doing some work on my LinkedIn profile. That’s really become a way for people to connect in at least a business sense.
Doug: Yeah, I can’t agree with you more. LinkedIn has been huge for me. I got a lot of leads and traffic to that because I invest some time to understand the platform and use it. Now, last question, how do people find you? If they want to engage with you and get some more information to see if what you’re doing is a fit or how you can help out or if you’re running workshops or what plans you got coming up, where do they find you?
Natasha T.C.: We can be found on the web at www.spiraldynamics.org.
Doug: Excellent. With your permission, I will post your web and your social media connection so our listeners can find you, reach out, and begin a dialogue.
Natasha T.C.: Of course. Thanks so much for that, Doug. You’re a gem.
Doug: Well, I really appreciate taking the time. I had such a great time meeting you and so many others at New Media Summit. It was a great environment to get face to face with people that we often only talk to digitally and just to get a better feeling for what you do. My brain is somewhat ready to explode after our conversation and looking at your website and the opportunities I think that you can offer people. Thanks again for investing some time and sharing with our audience.
Natasha T.C.: Thanks so much for having me. This has been such a great pleasure to have a dialogue with you, Doug.
Doug: Well, listeners, that wraps up another episode. Look to our website for the show notes. We will transcribe all the show notes. We will make sure that all the contact information is there for Natasha and for Spiral Dynamics. I would encourage to follow up with her. If you enjoy this episode, please don’t be shy to subscribe and leave an honest review. We look forward to serving on our next episode.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
SHARE THIS EPISODE: – HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
To prepare your business for change figure out what’s alive, what’s motivating,
what’s driving you, what’s standing in your way, and the angst you are
experiencing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Get in touch with Natasha
Natasha on LinkedIn
Find out more about Spiral Dynamics:
- Spiral Dynamics on Facebook
- Spiral Dynamics on Twitter
- Web – spiraldynamics.org
Links to other podcast and or blog posts:
INNOVATION & LATERAL THINKING … CRUSH YOUR COMPETITORS
PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF EXECUTION
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BUSINESS FOR CHANGE
Share your thoughts, comments
and post your questions below: