Podcasts

Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and Welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ. I have with me today Dr. Tracy Brower, welcome.

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Tracy  

Thank you glad to be here.

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Ross  

So I met Tracy because we are on a same panel for Hacking HR coming up soon for next year's conference. And I was just fascinated by your background and work, not least, because you worked at a place where my chair that I've had for over two decades 20 years, my air on chair, Herman Miller, you were there for a long time. But you're an author of two books, The Secrets to Happiness at Work, and Bring Work to Life. So somebody who's at the final stages of second book, I can fully appreciate the deep, very hard work that was put into there. So I'm excited for our conversation.

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Tracy  

Me too, I'm looking forward to it such important topics today.

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Ross  

So why don't we start off with what was life before Herman Miller, for you? And where did you begin your kind of journey and career?

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Tracy  

Oh, boy, I haven't been asked that question in a while, I actually started out working for a vice president of organization development at a first-tier automotive company. And that is where I fell in love with organizational culture and organizational development and where I started thinking about people and work and the sociology of work, how we affect our work and how it affects us back. And he was an amazing boss. And I feel like a lot of times that first experience can be so formative, either you learn what you want to emulate or you learn all the things you don't want to emulate. But either way, that reflection is really happy.

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So yeah, I started there. And from there I went to Herman Miller, as you mentioned. From there, I went to Mars and then now I'm at Steelcase. So really I've had a wonderful journey of thinking about people, thinking about work, thinking about that sort of human connection and how we get fulfilled, through the work experience that we're able to be a part of.

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Ross  

And it's interesting, isn't it? This what work used to be, what were our social contracts and how we go and then we come back for life. And it was about balancing these two things, almost as if well life was separate to what work was. And we have holiday to go and do the things that we like doing and enjoy, and do the work so that we can afford to do those things. Whereas I think that's flipped beautifully to actually where we are now in redesigning what the social contracts of work are, we spent so much of our time in that environment, we choose the people, like you said, the formative years of who we spend our early years around, helps refine what we think good should be or shouldn't be. And then we spend I guess the rest of our lives trying to expand and execute on what we learn.

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What were some of the highlights of perhaps, spending 20 years in one organization, might have been many years ago, quite normal. But now that seems wildly rare. So what happened? You must have gone through so many adaptions, so many changes both in the marketplace, but you as well. Perhaps give us a few of the highlights of that?

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Tracy  

Yeah, yeah. Another really interesting point to reflect on. I'll never forget, I got a recruiter who called me towards the latter part of my 20 years. And she said to me, “Tracy, after 20 years, do you think you'd be capable of making a change?” And I thought, “Oh, my gosh, of course, the answer is yes.” But there is perception as well as reality. And I think, one of the things that I've always found so interesting is in the work that I've been able to do, I've worked with so many different organizations on a consultative basis. And I feel like each of those has been its own opportunity for learning. So yes, adaptation over time, even through a long term career but also being able to look at different organizations, look at different markets, look at different leaders and how organizations are adapting. I think that's been a really, really interesting thing.

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I think, too, it's important to point out your point about work and work in life, right? I was doing a workshop and I asked someone, I asked the group, “What's your favorite thing about work?” And somebody yelled out weekends, and somebody else yelled out PTO paid time off. I think we have this myth that work is drudgery. And like you said, work is the thing we have to do and we go off and we march to work and then we get to have the rest of our lives. But in reality work is a place that we experience fulfillment, we all have an instinct to matter. And that opportunity to express our talents, to express our capabilities, to contribute to our community. We do that through work. And we connect with people through work, even if we're introverts, right? We need those connections. And so work can be context for so much fulfillment.

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Ross  

And it is that ability to reflect and design it the way you want to, as opposed to, “Ah we go, we get educated, we then seek to apply that knowledge,” to now this perpetual learning culture to continually learn and part of the mastery and part of the expansion, as you said, to contribute, to feel valued, to feel part of a belonging. All of these are key parts of fulfillment. And I guess it's about the flow and pace of one's individual journey together with the team and organization that when they're in flow it could last, when they're out of flow when something's not right when it hasn't adapted to its environment, that's where we get some of the friction. And I wonder whether you've seen expectations shift on what fulfillment means because I know in different generations fulfillment might have had a different definition of what that is, what do you see fulfillment at work has been defined now?

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Tracy  

Yeah, I think it is being redefined. I think we're seeing people who have greater expectations for meaning in their work, like the complete disruption that we've been through, we've had the rug pulled out from under us. And that causes us to think really consciously about the work that we do and why we do it, and with whom we work, and for whom we work and the places we work and the times that we work. And I think one of the things that's been completely flipped is we used to have this whole dialogue about work life, and it was about keeping work at work, keeping work at bay, keeping work away. And we have had so much sort of personal, sort of cocooning that's gone on.

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And now a lot of the conversation is, I love my people, I love my small world, my world has gotten smaller. But I could also use some distance. And so I think this really interesting reflection on boundaries, we need work, and it serves different purposes in our life, we need time away from work, and that serves different purposes in our life as well. And I think we have this moment to think hard about identity. Belonging isn't just being with our people, it is a shared sense of identity. Work is a primary way that we express our identity. But in order to move toward the future and stay agile, we don't want to become too entrenched in our current identity, we want to be able to move and shape and adapt and stretch that identity. So I think those are some of the things that we're grappling with as individuals, and as groups and societies today.

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Ross  

And it can be quite, you know the same coin has on one side excitement and on the other side fear. From wanting to belong, seeking that through stability and then being fluid of not being defined by my identity, my job role or whatever it may be, and that that might be disconcerting, and fearful for some. Because I've talked about it on many interviews, it's sort of the second thing we ask somebody after their name. “Oh, so what's your next or what do you do?” And it's so much part of our identity if that is shifting, or forming, or in this fluid state now of perpetual shift and change? What would the future identity question be if it's not what do you do? What might that look like?

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Tracy  

Right, exactly. And I think there's some neuroscience that applies here, too, right? We are wired to prefer predictability, to prefer consistency. We're wired to avoid ambiguity or uncertainty. And so it makes sense that we would look for something that's consistent over time. I think the other thing to think about is that correlated with happiness is stretch and growth and new learning. And so I think one of the things that's interesting is, how do we have a sense of psychological safety, comfort, confidence, so that we start from a firm foundation and a firm identity, and that firmness allows us to be that much more open to something that might be different, allows us to ask questions, allows us to inquire, allows us to open ourselves up to something that seems really foreign or really different. I think the more we're confident about where we are, the more we can be curious about where we're going if that makes any sense.

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Ross  

Absolutely, doesn't it? Got me thinking about something Keith Ferrazzi mentioned about Lego brick job roles, Lego brick tasks. And it was this concept and thought where we have an identity, i.e. job role, a title, and then we list all of these tasks underneath it, the skills we need, the capabilities we need, and all of these things. And to a certain extent, most of them are looking for unicorns, right? We want all of these wonderful things wrapped up in a title to do as many things as we possibly want. The reality is that half of them will be competent, a few incompetent, some really unique ability and some light us on fire.

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And this view of maybe we come as a set of capabilities and desires and what we’re learning that can be applied in so many different ways that well, “Am I a learning designer? Am I an educator? Am I a coach? Am I a designer? Am I a mentor? Am I?” And it's probably yes to many of these things but does that fit under a traditional job role? And then how are we performance measured? How are we rewarded, when we're gonna be I think, much more in these grays of how we overlap. And so I think the challenge in the future of work is a new way of collaborating, where it's not just about multidisciplinary of different departments or different job roles, but it's allowing people to contribute in a way that might be outside of what you would perceive their normal contributions. And people to surprise themselves. If like you said, you have psychological safety, you have this base, you have this almost playground to explore. And I feel that's what we're going through is this transformation of exploring what work really means.

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Tracy  

Yes, I think we are absolutely exploring what work really means. And I feel like we were at this interesting moment of you know, we've talked about gig economy for a long time. But usually, we think about a gig economy outside of traditional organizations. And I wonder how we think about a gig economy inside of an organization? How do we create cultures where people can volunteer, take initiative, swim slightly outside of their lane, try something new. I think the other thing that is interesting is that we will choose work for its content. And I think we will increasingly choose work based on who we get to work with, I think it's going to be about networks and connections. And that can occur within organizations and outside of organizations.

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And I like to say, as we're thinking about our current identity in terms of our work, and the place we want to stretch, it's really smart to think about like a 70% rule or an 80% rule, you figure out the percentage you like. But go for the thing where you have 70% of the capability, your future of work is probably building on the competence, skills, talents you have, and then being able to stretch. So maybe I'm brilliant at HR. But HR is fundamentally about understanding people and creating context for success. Well gosh, I could probably apply that in marketing, I could apply that in sales, I can apply that in a communication role. So I think it's interesting to think about, what's core to my skills and my talents, and my suite and then what's core to the work that I want to do and the direction that I want to grow. So we're not always looking for the perfect match on day one, we're looking for a 70% or 80% match and then we're going to stretch from there and grow from there. And that creates organizations where people are learning and where the organization is learning, growing, adapting and moving toward the future as well.

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Ross  

And then guess that points towards this challenge of both reskilling and upskilling. So upskilling in terms of getting better at what you're doing or reskilling in terms of a horizontal move to maybe both of these stretch, but they're in different directions. And the shift from where, this massive list of skills, I've seen some lists that list skills out in the tens of thousands down to others that just get really tight and then they talk about hard, soft, all of these things essentially and we try to label everything.

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And this challenge of well, “Ah the future of work, what are the skills we need?” And we see all these big companies given out these reports whether it McKenzie or World Economic Forum or various things coming out with what are the skills we need. In your view if we boil it down to some of this sociology of what is fulfillment, what is happiness? What are the skills that are going to help us achieve that irrelevant of what might be going on in our economy, our environment of, “Hey, we need data scientists now, we need this,” if we come down to our human nature of what fulfillment is, what happiness is. What are the skills that are going to set us best up for success in that kind of context?

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Tracy  

Yeah, yeah, that's really great. Because it's not any one job, it's not any one type of work. It's the condition around that. And if we strive for happiness, we're statistically less likely to accomplish it, right? It's like sand through your fingers, because it focuses you on not having enough and it focuses you on you, which is negatively correlated with happiness, focusing on others is positively correlated with happiness. But I think if we look at creating, instead of pursuing happiness, creating the conditions for happiness, purpose is critical, right?

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So there's a skill about seeing the big picture. And there is a competence in thinking about your role toward the big picture, your unique contribution to the big picture. And thinking about that value chain, I contribute to him, and he contributes to her and she contributes to them and in and on to the final person who gets the value of our collective work. So that skill of looking for the big picture and then being able to think toward how we contribute to it. I think that's a skill, almost like a skill of relevancy, or a skill of being able to articulate your own value in the context of the bigger picture of value, that's one.

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Another way that we create the conditions for happiness is through connections with other people. I mean, it is fundamental to our well-being, it's fundamental to our physical well-being, our emotional and our cognitive well-being to feel connected even if we're introverts and we just need a few deeper connections. And so I think there's a skill around empathy. I think there's a skill around building rapport. I think there's a skill around openness to others and openness to others points of view that may be really different than mine.

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Another element that's correlated with happiness is learning and stretch and growth. And we've talked about that, right? How do you find, how do you have a skill of looking for that next opportunity, looking for that thing you don't already know, a skill of pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones. I think those all matter in terms of the future of work that we find to be most fulfilling.

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And the last thing I would say is, I think there's a skill of reflection, because no choice is perfect. I think we have this myth about if we choose the right job, we'll always be happy, it'll be bonbons and butterflies, right? Well, happiness ebbs and flows, of course. And the biggest thing is alignment. What do I love to do? What do I have to do? And the more alignment there is between those the better. So there is a skill of reflecting on what's most important, and then an ability to kind of look with real sort of objectivity at the place we are so that we can align and adjust for greater alignment over time.

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Ross  

It's interesting when you talked about happiness and the view. Dan Sullivan's my coach, and he talked about the challenge of the pursuit of happiness. Just in that language and statement is saying that it's something you don't have and it's elusive, rather than the expansion of happiness, it exists inside of us. And I took that to heart about many of these things that you talk about, that they're already inside us and what we're looking to do is release them. So whatever that may be. So if I'm releasing the empathy that is already there, I'm just looking to bring it forward to understand it.

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And you made a point about to serve. And when we balance all of these things when, “Ah I've got to reflect, I've got to do that right, I've got to get up, got to my meditation, got to do my yoga, all of these things that I now have read about, I've spoken to Tracy. Now this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to go through my list of these things.” And it puts this sense of self and you mentioned that it's not just about self but connection and to serve. So it can be this serendipity happenstance that we find things that matter to us by serving others rather than going after it ourselves.

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And I've certainly experienced that when I've got, “Okay, right now I'm going to find my purpose, I've got to fill out these boxes, got to do it.” And then at the end of the workshop, I’ll have it. Whereas when we go off and connect, when we can off and serve and we go and hang out with others. We try these things on, and we try them on in our mind, we try them on through language, we try them on in a dream and reflection, and then we might go and practice it a little bit. And those sorts of things, I think is what happiness is, is to explore. And this doesn't have to be every day. So this, as you said, the mind and the human needs a level and it's bent towards predictability and certainty. But we also like the odd bit of uncertainty, just on our terms, right? And not too much of it.

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Tracy  

Yes, on terms our own terms. Yes, it's like the concept of surprise, right? Attention is one of the most scarce resources. So surprise tends to attract us, surprise tends to delight us if it's a good surprise, right? Surprise tends to be the thing that sticks in our memories. And I like to say along the lines of your comments, that we can take the pressure off of ourselves. We don't always have to be happy. We don't have to follow the long list. I mean even self care, I think sometimes can be that way like, “I got to do my yoga, I got to take my bath, I got to be mindful, I got to do my meditation.” And I think we can just wake up in the morning, be grateful, and do what we do. 

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There's this beautiful concept Ikigai, your reason to wake up in the morning. And there's the story of the Japanese grandmother. And her reason for waking up in the morning is because she makes soup for her family. All you got to do is make soup for your family, we don't have to solve real peace, we don't have to solve world hunger, by applying our gifts, by just bringing what we do well, that is a contribution to the community. And I deeply believe that all work has a dignity. And so whatever work we do, if we're doing it to the best of our ability, and we're doing our best, even on down days, that's good, that's good for the community. And that's good for our sense of self and identity as well.

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Ross  

And it can be this complete sensory overload of rush the world that we're in now, of noise, of people like me to say, ‘Ah you've got to run fast just to keep up because technology is doing this, this is happening. And hey, if you don't, you're going to become irrelevant.” And you talked about relevance to be able to reflect and find my place in work that matters and how I contribute. And sometimes that's a moment of stillness, to look left instead of right to look up instead of down. And so we can be, it's a bit in my mind, this balance between “I've got to be running to move somewhere,” compared to “Well, if I was on a plane that was traveling at 500 mile an hour, I can still be still.” So if our team or our organization at certain points, or the plane that's moving, I can be still, if other points is on the tarmac, I need to be walking, I need to be in motion.

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So that really helped me in my thought between, I need stillness, and I need pace. And if I'm still and everything around me is still I might suffer irrelevance. But if I'm in an environment that is still moving forwards and I can create a moment of stillness. So you mentioned about creating these environments and sort of fostering an ability for people to stretch, to learn, to expand happiness. What are some of the practical things you've seen that work really well? It could be inside the companies you've worked for maybe the first one and you went, “That was awesome.” What are the sorts of things that people can do to create that environment that allows that to happen?

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Tracy  

Yeah, I think there's a lot that we can do, I think the first thing we do is create cultures where we super value and respect people, they can bring their authentic selves. I think that helps us to stretch because it creates a sense of psychological safety. And then from that point of strength, we can reach out and kind of take a risk, we can go out on the branch, because we know the tree is really strong. So I've seen organizations that really work on asking people for their opinions, seeking diverse opinions, really having leaders who demonstrate value of all different kinds of employees by giving them flexibility or flexible options. So I think that's one.

I think another thing we can do within organizations is I've seen an organization, it's actually a manufacturing organization. And they have this very cool system where you can kind of enter what you're interested and passionate about, and they will match you with a mentor. And they will have that mentor kind of lookout for interesting opportunities that you might be able to volunteer for which might ultimately turn into another role. So I think that's another really good idea that I've seen as well.

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I think there's another way that we can stretch and learn and grow. And that is by even doing volunteer work outside of the organization, one of the things we know is that when we're happier in our work, we tend to perceive more happiness outside of our work and vice versa. If we do things outside of work that we really enjoy and are fulfilling, we perceive that our work is making us more satisfied.

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So there is something to about feeling connected to our communities, not just our community within our organization, but outside as well. So organizations that provide those opportunities for people to do volunteer work as a team, or to do volunteer, take time off from their workday to do volunteer work once a quarter. And the last thing I would say too is organizations that create the opportunity for people to come together and support each other. I mean, the old-fashioned way to think about this as like affinity groups. But more and more, I think we're seeing that as organizations see that well-being is more central and more strategic and more holistic.

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And as we're seeing mental health challenges over the last couple of years, associated with distance and social isolation, we're seeing more of those groups springing up. Like it's the young parents group who are losing sleep with an infant making support each other over a quick lunch hour. Or it's the employees who are struggling to support elders who may be facing dementia, those groups that bond us with each other, those groups that help us create social capital in terms of the webbing and netting where we're supporting each other. I think those are also organizational ways that we can reinforce happiness and reinforce some of the conditions for happiness.

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Ross  

It led me to little idea listening to you there. For many years I’ve worked to help organizations in their innovation program. And I'm sorry, I've got a real tickle in my throat this evening. And one of the kind of the first steps as you said, was this, “Okay, we want diverse ideas. We want to hear your voices.” What they then struggled with was, what do they do with those voices and ideas? Because it's almost this double edged sword of “Ah great we want your stuff.” But then what happens in the tumbleweed after if that idea, if that voice didn't hit the mark, if you didn't frame it correctly in order to invite what you wanted in, all of these challenges is that you can almost isolate more by saying, “We want your ideas and do nothing.”

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So I wonder if linking that idea you mentioned about this wanting to connect with a community with similar views, similar thoughts, whether it was about a particular disposition. What if it was about thought processes or things that mattered to them, like you mentioned, mentors or various things that when they're contributed, there's ways in which you can connect people who are thinking the same thing. So if it might not be the right time, or hasn't given hit the mark to what might get buy-in from management, or whatever it may be is it could gain more momentum, through those conversations of voice that would spark off, whether that sparks off into a startup somewhere else, because they just weren't listened to happen so many times, whether that's Netflix or Blockbuster or whatever it may be. To actually being able to connect those voices that might just go unheard, I think could whether it's even acted upon, would that help with happiness to be heard around other people that have similar ideas? Or would that make it worse if it then didn't happen? I'm interested in your thoughts.

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Tracy  

Yeah, I love your thinking. I think it is all about being heard whether we're heard by small groups or another person, right? Like that one other person who can hear us and validate our ideas. There's some wonderful research on innovation that talks about how privacy is critical to the innovative process, because every new idea started out as subversive somehow, right? Like, “Hey, what about this? Have you noticed this? Maybe we're not getting all the way there with that.” Like, you need that quiet conversation, literally, figuratively, with a colleague to be able to say, “Hey, what about right?”

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And there's that testing process where we need trust and psychological safety, and I can kind of reach out to you and go, “What do you think about this Ross?” Like we all need that moment. And I think it's less about accounting or counting ideas. The very first company I worked for was super participative. It was this amazing culture of valuing people and valuing competence, and one of the ways that company manifests fasted that was through this Ideas Program. And so the Ideas Program was you would write down your idea and you would put it on a piece of paper with a pen, like in the olden days.

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Ross  

Send it off to Santa.

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Tracy  

Right, exactly. You would put it in a box, like with boxes on walls, right. And then there was this whole process of logging the ideas and tracking the ideas and getting back to people on the ideas. And it became this administrivia more than it was about a culture of sharing. And the culture was great. It really was about sharing as well. But I think we can get away from how many ideas? And how do you share? And what do we do with the ideas? And more toward a culture where we feel free to speak up, we feel free to challenge what's in the room, we feel free to bring new information that we might have uniquely from our point of view.

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Those are cultures of innovation where we feel free to bring our ideas that may be really different and maybe a little subversive either in the group or with some trusted colleagues. So I think there’s this close relationship between trust and innovation, between risk-taking and psychological safety and innovation, but you study that deeply so you can tell.

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Ross  

I'm interested in as the scale of ambition and the level of what matters gets us more and more fired up. So whether it's about climate change, or whatever the thing is, that fires us up. We then have diverse voices and opinion. And often that's where there's friction points, right? And so we talk about, “Yeah we want to do that, we want people to say what if and try these things on.” How can we get better at having those courageous conversations with people that are different to us. Because that again, is a huge opportunity for innovation but it's a lot harder. It's very easy to go, “Ah, Tracy, let's hang out.” And we're buzzing away because we think in the same abundance mindset, we have the same things of thoughts, of values.

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What if they're different? What if whether it's about certain issues of race or approach or things that are on the surface so seen that will give fraction, political things, whatever it might be? There's many others that are just under the surface that we might not… I want to challenge you about that, Tracy. I want to give a different opinion and not feel that I'm judging. How do we do that well because I think that is really hard. And often we then just vent to someone else about it, rather than the person who needs to hear it to help their thinking.

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Tracy  

Yeah, if there's anything that keeps me awake at night, it's this, it is this. Like we are too… Our algorithms work too well, and we tend to end up in echo chambers because our algorithms work too well, we hear what we already agree with, we are reinforced in what we already believe. We don't seek that point of view that is not just different, but troublesome. And I think that if we are in a world where we can't disagree and we're I'm afraid to be in conflict with you, constructive conflict with you, we aren't going to be able to move forward, right? Like we gotta have different points of view in order to move forward. And I think we're becoming more risk-averse, because we don't want to offend anybody, right? We have all the right intentions, but we have to reach a point where we can ask the hard question.

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And one of the things I go back to is kind of the sociological truth that proximity is one of the number one drivers of our relationships. The more we see people, the more we are in proximity to them, the closer relationship we have with them. The other thing that is a sociological truth has to do with familiarity, the more we are familiar, the more likely we are to be accepting towards something, someone, some new idea. And so there is so much value and just lots and lots of time with others who are different, with ideas that are different, with opening up to different kinds of situations.

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And I think we need to also think really expansively about our connections because when we're super connected with others and when we're building those close relationships, we release oxytocin, which is the feel good chemical, it's the thing that bonds us to each other. But the underbelly of oxytocin is that it binds us to our people and it makes us protective and it tends to push away people that we perceive to be different, or threats. And so the more we can not only seek to connect with people who are like us but seek to learn more about people who are unlike us, the better off we will be. And there's some evidence that sociologically we grow more as a society when we look for commonalities rather than looking for differences.

So it's this interesting dynamic tension, we want to look for ideas different than our own. But we also want to reinforce commonality so that we can hear each other, so we can listen to each other. I think that is one of our number one challenges, that is fundamental that everything else, everything else politically in terms of different points of view and you name it.

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Ross  

So if we are what we eat, in work we are who we hang out with. So if we're very conscious about who we hang out with that is feeding that part of us, that part of releasing oxytocin of going, “Okay, I'm familiar, we think the same all of those bits, but maybe we also need to…” like my wife at the moment is going for these cold showers right in the first sort of 30 seconds to try and wake up the body. And it's totally the opposite of what she loves, it's got to be a hot shower, it’s got to be a hot bath. And maybe we need to prepare ourselves and go and dip in the cold shower, and go into those environments because it will foster more acceptability from that immune system response.

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So if it doesn't look like us, doesn't think like us it goes pushed away to maybe going, “Ah, let's go into that. Oh, I do have some commonalities. I do have some things,” and we then might be able to see through different eyes. And I think this is an exciting area that is going to naturally form because we're becoming more aware, more connected and more questioning. Because we are in a sense forced whether it's through pandemic, to rethink playbooks, to rethink stuff but also from the sense of many of us are living in abundance. And we're becoming, living longer, retirement as a way in which to make space for the younger generation to have jobs, redefining what that looks like. What is our work plan if we're going to be all living to 120? What does that look like as our next iteration of who I might become and my future self could be totally different to who I am today.

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And I can figure that out by hanging out maybe with different people, by going and exploring but maybe sometimes I need to come back to regain that jarring cold sensation, and then go out again. And I guess that comes to stretch, right? Of being prepared, ready, do your warm-up exercises, before you go in the ring of that because otherwise, the immune system will slap you in the face, you'll end up in an argument and you'll go, “I'm off.” Whereas if you do stretching, do your work, get into that environment that allows you to work out just might be a little bit able to hear, or might be a little bit better at listening. Rather than jumping straight into, “You've got me thinking on it on a few ideas in a few areas.”

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Because our work is to make sure no one's left behind. Ensure no one's left behind. It's not about everyone being equal. It's about everyone having a future that's better than their past. Whatever that context is for each individual and their relevancy. And what I'd like to finish us off with Tracy is one of these things that we've been working on is this concept of unlearning. And to stop doing certain things that are no longer relevant might have been relevant yesterday, because this was the environment, this was the data, this is what was going on. But giving ourselves permission to make a new decision the next day when new data presents itself, and it's hard to do that when we've been in love with the success we've got from doing things we did before. When was the last time you did something for the first time? And what was it?

Tracy

Oh, boy, gotta think about that. You know, that is one of the things that I think we sometimes lose as grownups is we don't get to do things that are totally new. Our children both learned Suzuki Violin, they both started playing violin when they were young. And the thing I love about Suzuki Violin is there's always someone who's better than you. And there's always someone who's looking up to you. There's always something to learn and always something to teach. And you have to when you're in Suzuki violin, you do a lot of learning by listening, learning by doing and you do tons of performing, even when you're playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as the youngest Suzuki player. And that always puts you in a situation where you're learning something new and you are not already good at it. And that is the situation we need to put ourselves in as grownups.

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So one of the things that I did not too long ago is I went skydiving. And I love it. And it's going to be like a yearly thing. But I'll never forget, the scariest moment was when you're sitting on the edge of the plane and you're ready to go off like it's terrifying, it's utterly terrifying. And then the minute you jump, you are not afraid anymore, because the scariest thing has already happened, you've fallen out of the plane, right? And then you're just enjoying the freefall. And it's incredible. And so that's something I've done, literally, that's brand new. And I've done that twice now, we have plans to go again in December in Hawaii.

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And I think there's something to that literal experience, it does something in your brain, right? It puts you on the edge. I think another example of something I've done lately that's been completely new is I feel like sometimes in all the writing I do like I put new ideas out and they might fall flat or they might not. And sometimes you can't predict. And so I feel like sometimes there's a risk in putting new ideas out there. As far as doing something completely new, I don't know, I am frustrated with myself that I can't think of more examples, right?

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Ross  

It’s an interesting one.

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Tracy

That analogy I used or something right? I need more of those.

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Ross  

It's interesting because I've begun to ask this question in each of the podcasts. And we're 50 odd episodes in and it's interesting how people respond because it's one I don't prepare people for right? To think about it go “Oh, yeah, I've got a really good answer for this,” whatever it might be. And there's kind of two trains of thought that happen. One is this, “Ah what is an experience I've not had before. And what have I done?” Skydiving is a great extreme of that, that one of the common threads is the thought of something brand new is often more emotional, and more scary than actually the action of doing it.

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But also a few that have intrigued me is where someone's done something that they've done many times, but they did it in a new way. So we can think about, “Ah is it the extreme that we have to find to do something new?” Or can it be the same thing but we've put new glasses on, we've put new lenses on in the way that we've approached that, we've turned up in a different way. So that's similar more to about your writing. So writing, you do lots of writing these sorts of things, but I might do something new in my writing, I'll put a new idea in. So I think there's this idea of when we're children, we have the highest curiosity because everything's brand new.

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And as we get older, we sort of narrow to what we like, what we don't like, all of these sorts of things to go deep. To then jumping off to go in what a reskill might be, to an upscale might be, to where's the tangent in the middle? That might be something that surprises us that it was the same thing we did before, but in a new way. And I think that's where there's some real opportunity to rethink that it doesn't necessarily have to be the extreme that can help just with the immune system response to prepare us for, “I’m going to look at that and I'm going to reflect and find a new way. And I can explore that through conversation, through technology and to release us from holding on too tight to these things.” 

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Anything, is there a question that you would have loved me to ask you that you would like to ask yourself, for people who are dealing with change, dealing with leadership and teams going through this reimagination of what work looks like? What do you wish I would have asked you, Tracy?

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Tracy  

Oh, you've asked so many good questions. I guess the one thing, the one thing that I think is important that we remind ourselves of is how empowered we are to create the future. It's not about kind of waiting for the conditions, it's about creating the conditions. And I think to remind ourselves about our extraordinary influence. Sociologically the main way that we learn is through watching other people, listening to other people, experiencing other people. And so we all have such an influence on each other, on the future, on our choices. And so it's about agency and how I create my own conditions, but it's also about my responsibility, my obligation to the community. And that is a beautiful thing. That's not a bad thing, that's a good thing in terms of the influence we each have. So those are the things that I think are important to consider as we consider the future of work.

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Ross  

I think that's a lovely way to end in that this explosion of influence and influencers and the thought that these are these mythical beasts that magically get huge followings that then influence. To the reality is that we all have that power to influence, to influence ourselves, to the people around us. And that it is an obligation to influence in a way that we want to design what the future looks like. And those are choices that we make each day.

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It's been a real pleasure to get to know you a bit more, to explore your thoughts and I'm looking forward to our panel discussion with Hacking HR next year as well. And I've ordered your book already. So it's added to my huge reading list. And I look forward to doing that. Because I think this concept of what work is, how we design it, and the new contracts that we evolve. We're in this beautiful recreation phase. And that is a real gift for us to have. And I want to just express my gratitude and thanks for your time today, Tracy. And I look forward to building our relationship.

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Tracy  

Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful. I appreciate it.

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Voiceover  

Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive in the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo-yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill, and breakthrough? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ visit "AQai.io" To gain your personalized report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability for limited time enter code "Podcast65" for a complimentary AQ me assessment. AQ AI transforming the way people, teams, and organizations navigate change.

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Outro

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