Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott Allen

Dr. Deborah Helsing - Minds at Work

February 12, 2022 Scott J. Allen Season 1 Episode 108
Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott Allen
Dr. Deborah Helsing - Minds at Work
Show Notes Transcript

Deborah Helsing, Ed.D., is a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). She teaches courses in adult development, Immunity to Change, and she co-teaches a course titled, Practicing Leadership Inside and Out. She also provides individualized executive coaching to high potential educational leaders as part of the Doctor of Educational Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program. In addition to her faculty appointment, Helsing is a co-director at Minds at Work, an organization assisting individuals, teams, and organizations in making personal and collective change. Helsing is published in leading academic journals and is a co-author of the following books: An Everyone Culture (2016), Right Weight/Right Mind (2016), and Change Leadership (2006). Helsing holds a B.A. in English from Grinnell College, a master's degree from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate from HGSE.


A Few Quotes From This Episode

  • "I've been lucky enough to follow my own questions...I never had a map of what I wanted my career to look like. I felt like I could follow my interests and I've been lucky enough to connect with people I could learn from, grow with, and continue on."
  • "(The Immunity to Change Exercise) is a little bit like a Trojan horse...maybe your improvement goal was very focused on one thing, but if you get to something powerful…it does start to impact other areas of your life."
  • “Development is one important factor in someone's effectiveness as a leader."


Resources Mentioned In This Episode


About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference Online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or Onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.


Connect with Your Host, Scott Allen

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate 

Scott Allen  0:00  
Okay, good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to the Phronesis podcast. And today I have Dr. Deborah Helsing. And she is a lecture on education. And she teaches adult development, Immunity to Change, and co-teaches a course, practicing leadership inside and out at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She also provides individualized executive coaching to high potential educational leaders as part of the doctoral of Educational Leadership, Ed LD program, in addition to her faculty appointments at Harvard Graduate School of Education, she is co-director at Minds at Work in organizations assisting individuals, teams and organizations to make personal and collective change. There's more. She's an author, she has been a part of the teams that wrote and everyone culture, right weight, right mind, and change leadership. And she's published in some of the best academic journals. One of my favorites, I'll put a link to this in the show notes (and I think Google Scholar will help us get there) Understanding Leadership From the Inside Out an article that was in the Journal of Management Inquiry, she holds a BA in English from Grinnell, a Master's from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate from Harvard. You just moved your way east, didn't you?

Deb Helsing  1:18  
I started east, I started a Jersey, New Jersey. So I was coming back, you know, coming back to the northeast. 

Scott Allen
Oh, that's great. Well, Deb, what blanks do we need to fill-in? What else should listeners know about you that may not be in your bio? 

Deb Helsing  
You know, it's so funny. That's one way to tell your story. And there are, you know, so many different ways to tell your story. I would say, maybe the thing that has driven me and that I've been lucky enough to be able to do is kind of follow my own questions follow my own sense of, oh, that helped me explore, you know, having that experience helped me explore some topic or, or get to a place where I felt like, oh, I can kind of see another horizon I want to explore. And so I never had some map of what I wanted my career to look like, I felt like I could kind of follow my interests and be lucky enough to connect with people I could learn from growing with them. Yeah, kind of continue on. 

Scott Allen
And isn't that a great way to just explore what you want to explore? I love that about academia as well. I'm taking a course with you right now. And I have the space and the freedom to write what I want to write to explore the questions that I want to explore, I absolutely feel so thankful that that's what I can spend my time on. And if I'm unhappy, no one's fault. But mine.

Deb Helsing  
I hope first of all, that you're not unhappy.

Scott Allen  2:45  
I am very happy. I'm very happy. So tell me real quick, before we move on, I love the name probably one of my favorite names of any organization ever minds at work, especially when people explore the organization and better understand what it is all of you do. And there'll be all kinds of links in the show notes. What's the origin story of that name?

Deb Helsing  3:05  
Oh, good. I am not sure about the name itself. I'm sure it was a Bob Kegan, Lisa Lahey brainstorm that led to that particular name. But the idea of it, you know, is that Bob Kegan had been doing a lot of, you know, academic research, building out this theory of constructive developmental theory, how we grow and change in adulthood, and was beginning to make a lot of connections to like, what does this mean for the real world? Initially, he was thinking about implications for counseling, but that began to grow and expand. And then if you believe their stories, Lisa challenged him to say like, can't we say more about how you support that kind of development? Can't we develop something that has a little bit more of a structure to it a kind of a curriculum that would assist people who are suffering in some way because they're stuck, because they haven't been able to grow? So that gave birth to the Immunity to Change model? And then how do we get that to people? How do we support people who want that help, or organizations who want to do a better job of supporting that kind of change? And so creating an organization where that could happen, was the original motivation for developing a company like Minds at Work? And you can probably see the connection there. That whole idea of putting people's minds to work helps them work in better ways.

Scott Allen  4:30  
Yes. You mentioned Immunity to Change. I was saying before we started recording that. I think it was 2006. I just had this really powerful experience with that activity. I was at Harvard doing Ron Heifetz, his art and practice of leadership development. So kind of in the middle of this, I forget, was it seven or eight or nine days something of that to that effect? In the middle of that experience? Bob came in and ran us through the immunity to change process. And I was also saying to Before we, we started recording that probably Bob Kegan to see me cry more than any other human. Because I'm in this activity, and I kind of got my results. And I called him over. And I said, Is this what it's supposed to look like? And he looked at me and he said, and I just, you know, I was super ripe for this experience for this insight for this knowledge, this understanding. And it fundamentally in moments transformed, I immediately, you know, after this program was done, my wife and I met in New York City. And we were, I think, on top of a building near Columbia's medical school, and we were having a glass of wine. And I just showed her this map. And I said, What do you think? And she said, "yes!" And that process, because I was then trained in it about a year, a year later, maybe around 2007, that process has just been so fundamental to not only my work but also just my own development in my own growth. And so as you think about that, because that's a large portion of what you do, how have you thought about that work in recent years? Because is that a common story you hear all the time?

Deb Helsing  6:19  
It is a common story, just amazing and exciting, and something I feel incredibly privileged to have heard and gotten to kind of witness that experience for people or assist them in having that experience. Because I think a couple of things. One is, I think that because what the process does, it helps you uncover very deep, very powerful ways that we have been probably unknowingly looking to protect ourselves from loss or from danger. And that has also led to us resisting change resisting growth, you know, because there's some part of us that feels like if we do change if we do grow, we are going to experience this loss of some kind, or, or some danger, the things that tend to come up for people, how they, you know, the dangers, they may feel that they're in of, like, you know, people will think I'm an idiot, or I'll fail and disappoint my entire family, or to feel like, I'm not the kind of person who can do that. That's just not who I am. And you have a very limited idea of their own potential and to see people identify something like that, to put it into words, and then to begin to consider what if that's not true? Yes, both create a very powerful sense of connection. It's so human, you know, there's almost nothing someone can come to that I feel like other people don't resonate with that they don't see, like, it totally makes sense. Like, there's some part of me, that immediately sees the sense of that. Yeah, as well as I think what's possible, then, to see people be able to move past that. And, you know, if you think about, like, sometimes I look at the careers people choose, and like if I were, let's say, a police officer, what are the experiences I'm having every single day? And what does that lead me to think about what people are like, you know, or if I chose in a very different kind of politics, or whatever it is, like how everything you're experiencing day to day leads you to see the world in particular ways, and other people and maybe yourself, but having been a coach, and had that experience with so many people and see people, you know, come face to face with something that has had such a grip on them? Yes. And then be able to say, Wow, it starts to loosen its grip, I start to see new possibilities, I start to consider like, I could be completely different I could, I could grow in some way I would never have thought possible. That also changes me that leads me to think, Oh, my God, like so so much as possible. I, I raised the bar for myself, I think, oh, I should be getting more goals for myself because I see so much power in what happens and what, what people can do. And it's data to support beliefs that were often I think, too shy and too careful. And we don't ask for enough in terms of what our lives could be like,

Scott Allen  9:21  
Yes, mine was all my limiting assumptions. And my competing commitments were, you know, avoidance of rejection. There were some themes around that. And a boy, I got back to Cleveland, Ohio. And for listeners, we have to have you explore this content because it's so much fun. In some ways. Some of this might make a little more sense after but there's a challenge after your kind of identity may be something that you could be, could be working on. There's this notion of designing some safe, actionable experiments, how can we push back on some of these limiting assumptions that we have that truncate our ability to see those opportunities and take take advantage of potential things. And so for me, one was, I was very committed to not being rejected not putting myself out there. And debit was I put myself out there and I would say "good job." Every time someone said no or I got rejected, at least I was putting myself out there because I kind of interesting in a way, I kind of got mad, not obviously mad and angry. But I thought, Oh, these things on this paper that I'm looking at right now are holding me back from who I know I can be. And so, you know, I kind of pushed back on him and, and to this day, even, I'll put myself out there and I'll be rejected. And in my mind, it's a good job you're pushing, you're pushing on that. Now? Of course, they're safe, actionable experiments.

Deb Helsing  10:54  
Right? Yes, sir. Yeah. And that's going to be different for different people. But no, I think your example is actually a really beautiful example of, you know, the kinds of things we can learn. Because it could be that at some point in your life earlier in your life being rejected would have been terrible. And you're unable to say, like, I'm proud of me for trying. Or it could be that like if certain people have rejected in me rejected me, that was so devastating that I felt like I can't possibly put myself at risk of that with other people. And so, you know, a lot of this is unconscious. And we just kind of preview, it's just building a little wall where it says, if I'm getting close to the possibility where I could be rejected. Well, that's way too dangerous. Yep. So I, I gotta back up and stay safe.

Scott Allen  11:45  
Yep. Stay. Yeah. In the meantime, hold me back from what we talked about when we started exploring all these cool, wonderful things that are out there. But I wanted to stay safe, right?

Deb Helsing  11:57  
Yeah. And so you might surprise yourself by finding what lots of people don't reject me. And maybe there are ways I can be clear about, is that risk just a lot smaller than I thought it was? Yep. But also, like a whole other assumption is, and if I do get rejected, that's the end of the world. Yeah, like, I can't survive that experience. And then finding out well, actually, I can, and not just survive it, I can actually feel good about it. Like, really glad I tried that I, I take strength from being able to try something risky. And to not feel like my self-worth depends on whether that other person gives me a thumbs up or thumbs down. But whether I'm giving myself a thumbs up there for moving out of my comfort zone for pursuing something I care about for making progress in a way, you know, that matters to me. And so it's like that ability to kind of update your ways you've been protecting yourself to say, maybe that was true before, but that's not true anymore. And safely testing it out, allows me to learn that,

Scott Allen  13:04  
Yes, well, and Deb, maybe you've heard this, maybe you haven't, I don't know. But this is an interesting kind of nook and cranny of this conversation. But then it set me up to be a better parent. Okay, so I put myself out there for a couple of things this fall, I did not get them. But my children knew that I put myself out there. They knew that I hadn't gotten it, they knew that I had put myself out that I had really gone for something and didn't have it happen. But that's part of the process. And then I couldn't share that with them. So because in their own ways, as children, they're putting themselves out there, whether it's a chess tournament, or a speech and debate tournament, or something new that they've never tried before. And maybe when it doesn't go well if I can be modeling that for them. Then how beautiful is that? So this little piece of paper I filled out in 2006. It's living, in my mind and in my family.

Deb Helsing  13:59  
Yeah, that's fantastic. And that's also, you know, something we see that in fact, I think when the beginning of the book Immunity to Change, Bob and Lisa talk about it is a little bit like a Trojan horse, you know, so maybe your improvement goal was very focused on one thing, but if you get to something powerful here, the fears and worries and hidden commitments and big assumptions, holding me back from making that change, if those things you uncover are powerful enough, it does start to impact all other areas of your life. So the horse gets through the gates based on one commitment and then look out you know, all kinds of new things start to emerge and, and there's a lot more power than just that one, that one map.

Scott Allen  14:43  
Exactly, exactly. Any core insights and doing this work even in recent years, maybe the last four or five years. It seems as though even some of the language is changing slightly in how we communicate. And again, I might be working off of a 2000 And seven training, which means I may need to come back and get more, more training. But yeah, what have you been learning in recent years about the process?

Deb Helsing  15:08  
So I would say, particularly related to deliberately developmental organizations, or DDOs, which is easier to say, I think, initially, Bob and Lisa, and then as I began to work with them, you know, I'll include myself in that. I think we were very curious to see, who does this help? And under what conditions? And can you have a bunch of people together in a conference room doing this and having a powerful experience? Is there enough safety and trust and curiosity to explore something and get to powerful results? And the more we started to see all the different contexts in which this could work? And how much readiness do people need to have? Or how much can you help them get ready all, moving it to a place where we began to see how it could be useful inside organizations with people who work together on a daily basis, where not only are people sharing, here's what you could get better at, or here's what I'm working on, but also much deeper internal issues around speaking up. And if I share an idea in a meeting, and it gets shut down, I will feel like I don't belong here. And that's what holds me back. And if people are having those kinds of conversations with each other, what does that mean for the organization? What does that mean for the ability of a culture to support people to explore those grow past those kinds of assumptions? And I think that enough of the work on Immunity to Change had to happen to see, yes, that is possible. That is this can be a powerful engine in organizational settings, where people can develop the kinds of relationships, ways of working together, which means, this kind of work is possible, exciting, where it leads to great shifts in individuals and in the organization itself. So that's one thing I would say the other thing that I have noticed, in terms of my own understanding of immunity to change, the more I coach people is how to bring in different theories or lenses, ways of understanding the kinds of factors that could be involved for people. So for example, let's say, I continue with that possibility of if I, if I raise an idea in a meeting and it gets shot down, then I'll feel like I don't belong here. You know, on one hand, you can just take that as an assumption, context-free, but you can also start thinking about other lenses that might help you complicate that assumption, like, well, what if I am a woman of color, and everyone else on the team is white and mostly male? How does that impact my assumption in a more particular way? So I might bring something like a theory of racial identity and power and politics are something like, like, does that help me work with someone or sort of see, is that part of what's going on here? Or, like I might? And I would say, in particular, when we work with people around issues like food, you know, trying to change habits, like not relying so much on social media, you know, like little habits like that, which we're in right wait right mind is, when we began to explore those, I find myself often drawing on kind of Buddhist psychology, the idea being that we often think that we will prevent our own suffering, by attachment to something, if I do this, if I believe this, if I repeat this behavior that'll prevent my suffering. But from a Buddhist perspective, that kind of clinging is actually the thing that causes suffering. And so with those little kinds of habits, well, if I eat this chocolate cake, I'm going to feel better, right? But seeing, Oh, that's actually not going to leave me

Scott Allen  18:59  
Better for five minutes.!

Deb Helsing  19:02  
Right? Like, that's a pretty simple example. But we do that all the time. When my email one more time, oh, what's on LinkedIn? Ooh, what's on Facebook, you know, and it's, it's probably not a conscious decision that I'm thinking this will make me feel better. But I'm just indulging in the part of me that doesn't want to be bored, that wants to feel less lonely and click a little first of whatever that is oxytocin in my head, you know, and all the ways that I think, aligns really well with the faulty assumption that I'm preventing suffering. And that the more I do that, the more I cling to that habit, the better off I'll be as opposed to seeing how that is actually creating suffering like all this to say, the more I can kind of bring in different theories to see how does this all connect here? Yeah. What are the ways that those can help me uncover more that could be going on for someone that's been really fun for me and helped me I think, better meet people? where they are, help them put into language? What's really at the heart of the matter for them have you different ways of talking with them about it and experimenting with it? How could we find out if that's limiting you when it shouldn't?

Scott Allen  20:12  
Well, and that's so fascinating, I never would have even thought about this line of conversation. So you're seeing connections in other theories, other ways of thinking other domains, that if you have access to you feel like you can be a better coach, and helping that individual make sense of what they're experiencing? Is that accurate?

Deb Helsing  20:36  
Yeah. And just being able to see how many of these different theories give us a window into the ways that we are protecting ourselves, and then help us name things to help us see if there are safe ways to explore those and find out, they don't need to limit us in the way that they have or when they don't need to limit us.

Scott Allen  20:56  
Well, you had mentioned briefly, deliberately developmental organizations, you had met with me and one of my co-authors recently. And I think our paper is going to be called deliberately developmental degrees. Yeah, I haven't run that by him yet, but we'll see if it lasts. But anyway, I finished that book recently, I was a little bit behind having a podcast, everyone always says, Hey, this is a great book. This is a great book. And so I've been reading all kinds of incredible things. I had not gotten to this one yet. But I love it in for me. We're going up against some levels here is the organization that that holding environment, that container, and the culture for growth? Is it helping to promote growth? Is it helping to foster and facilitate growth? Going back to that thinking, and for those of you who may be not familiar with their work, an increasing amount of research is suggesting that generally speaking, people who are working at higher levels of mental complexity will be better prepared to serve in some of these very difficult roles that they find themselves in when they're leading. And that goes back to Kegan's in over our heads, and Keith Eigel and Karl Kuhnert. And some folks from CCL, Torbert, they've done some research to really begin to building this base of scholarship to suggest that empirically, deliberately developmental organizations, now it seems like we're moving into how do we create that culture to facilitate that growth so that our employees or team members can tackle these demands better? Did I explain it halfway decently?

Deb Helsing  22:45  
I mean, the thing I would say is, you know, development is, is one important factor in someone's effectiveness as a leader.  So there are things that it can help us with, but it won't necessarily mean you're going to be a nicer person, or happier. But it might, you may have no more expertise. So it might be more useful to think about it in terms of like a necessary factor, but not the whole picture.  Because, and I think in In Over Our Heads really is the first place where Bob lays this out the whole idea of mental complexity, which is what we're really talking about when we talk about developing is really important if you are facing complex demands. So if what you're facing does not require you to grow and change, then there's absolutely no need to but for many leadership positions, there are demands, we are expected to be able to create a kind of vision of what we're trying to bring about. And we're expected to be able to prioritize what are the highest priority items? How am I going to decide among those? How am I going to set boundaries to make sure I'm protecting those protecting my time? How am I going to be able to handle disagreements? Can I offer a dissenting view and can we engage in disagreement productively all those kinds of things are pretty hard for many adults to do and require a lot of practice and require a lot of growth in being able to understand the world from what Kegan's language, and within his theory would call it a self-authoring capacity, a self-authoring stage of development. Yes, most adults do not enter into adulthood at that stage. So the more we can develop the complexity to meet the challenges of our roles, the more effectively can be in them, in addition to all the other factors that will be important. Yes. What's also I think, useful to understand and to consider then is If you look beyond the individual to the context, the world is not getting simpler. You know, we are faced with more and more complex challenges to navigate the need for people to develop faster, or to go further in their development, to allow us to successfully address some of the real challenges we face, you know, at the largest scale that is not easy to solve, but also the ones we're facing in our day to day lives and in our organizations, that also then increases the need for people to develop. And then finally, I think one thing that's really interesting to me, particularly now, as we're, you know, seeing the great resignation and the ways people are making different decisions about their work during the pandemic, some of which is probably based on, you know, can I work remotely? Or do I have to commute? You know, things like our salary, but someone which is really motivated by? What do I want in a job? And does my job allow me to feel like I can be fully myself and be realizing more and more of my potential? You know, do I feel like I can flourish here? Yes. And so having a job, maybe is increasingly less about some of the factors of what's my job title? And how many hours a week am I working? And, you know, what are the stated benefits that I get, but also more of a sense of like, what are the internal or interior rewards I'm getting for doing this work? Do I feel like my contribution matters, and that I'm continually experiencing my own growth, and working with other people where we can create a community to welcome that kind of growth, to challenge each other gently, but also support each other? You know, all those kinds of things? I think we're starting to see how much those factor into people's decisions about where they work and what they do and what they're looking for.

Scott Allen  27:02  
Yes, well, in these DDOs, seems like there's an intentional effort to build a culture where that growth can occur. Would you talk a little bit about that? What are some of the ingredients in the DDOs, that as you were doing, the research stood out for you some of the foundational elements of these DDOs, and maybe even some misconceptions? I think that that you've heard since the book has come out, or as it's been interpreted by various sources.

Deb Helsing  27:34  
Okay, so I would say, you know, the way that we write about DDOs in the book is by profiling three, mature DDOs, three organizations that have been at this long enough to get to a place where you can really see dramatic differences in the cultures of these organizations, from most organizations. When we looked across these three organizations, we saw three main things in common one being they do a lot of work to create a sense of home. Yeah, enough psychological safety, a sense that you are welcome, your whole self is welcome. You don't need to kind of check your personal life at the door, but the deepest concerns you have about yourself as a person and what matters to you, most all of those are welcomed in the organization. And how do we create a place that welcomes that while also, and probably because we have that safety, creating a place where people experience what's called Edge or challenge? Yep. So that you also are getting feedback about? Well, here's what I think is limiting you, here's where you could become more effective. Here's where I see a pattern that's holding you back. And so people have a lot of, I'm gonna say opportunities to kind of run into the ways that they have blind spots, the ways that they're screwing up the ways that they're behaving in a way that's undermining the culture. And I'll come back to that because I think that often gets people's attention first. But the third feature then is what we call groove. And that basically means you have many, many opportunities to be practicing creating that culture of safety working on your growing edges. And so it's not like every six months we have a retreat, or, you know, where there's an off-site, there's a particular program just for the high potentials. You know, it's how do we build this so that people are daily and weekly, regularly experiencing this while they're doing their jobs, not as something separate? And that it is shaping the way they work together?

Scott Allen  29:42  
Yes, a word that you all use in the book that I love. That pen developmental. And as I recall, Pan-developmental was, regardless of where you are, and what stage you're at. You have an opportunity to learn, develop, grow.

Deb Helsing  29:58  
Yeah, and that's like That's a fundamental key part of how these organizations define themselves. That's as much a part of their mission to be those kinds of places as it is to make a profit to succeed, you know, in terms of excellent work products. So and those things go hand in hand, how does the creation of excellent work products depend on everyone growing and developing? And how does that also provide the meat and the tools and the fuel for that growth and development and so, so they work very much like in an intertwined kind of way? I don't know if it's a misconception, but I would say what people tend to what grabs their attention tends to be the ways the edge part of things, the ways people get feedback on their blind spots, or in Kenya run into a brick wall where they, they experience their limitations. You know, people, very understandably try to put themselves in that situation and think like, Oh, my God, that's so painful. And I would hate that. And I'd be offended if someone said something like that to me at work. And I would never want to work in a place like that. Because people do get painful for you, they get feedback, like, you're really just looking out for yourself. And that's selfish, you're not really trying to help other people grow and develop or you're unreliable. And I don't know if you're going to be there when I need support. And you need to know that. So you know, people focus on those kinds of things and think, Oh, that'd be terrible to work there. I would say that tends to remove that piece of things from the other context of incredible community incredible amounts of support so that those painful experiences are something I can actually explore productively. And I feel like maybe that is one of the biggest personal takeaways I've had. Because in studying how it happens in these cultures, I think it has really changed the way I respond if I get painful feedback, or if I'm aware that I didn't handle that the way I wanted it to, and that I'm much more likely now instead of trying to not think about that,

Scott Allen  32:06  
or, or just scraping the backburner. Yeah,

Deb Helsing  32:10  
myself here, it wasn't that bad. Instead to say, oh, I can see that it's painful to turn to that, and painful to really say, tell me more about that. You gave me some feedback that I think I can learn from, but I need to understand it better, to have a sense that what's after that pain, what's after that initial sting of what I like to think of myself as and how this person experienced me, seeing how people get to the other side of that, and how that changes them, and how they rise to new levels of excellence in their performance or compassion in the way they work with other people. It just that horizon seemed much clearer to me. I feel like there's almost some excitement I have in painful feedback or failure or big mistakes. I mean, hopefully not, you know, it's not like I'm going around, intentionally putting myself in these situations. But there is something about, hmm, here's a little there's an opportunity here that I'm much more aware of than I think I used to be,

Scott Allen  33:18  
or at times, it might be how someone's experiencing you. Which, okay, that's important for me to know that I can be experienced this way. And I can either if it's not how I'm trying to show up, I can at least be aware that that's how I can and I can either explain the behavior better, or I can communicate in a different way. Because I imagine it's not for everyone. How would you respond to that question that being in a DDO? Do you probably have to be somewhat open to that experience? Because yeah, for someone who isn't seeking that out or so isn't interested in that. What have you heard on that front?

Deb Helsing  33:56  
Yeah, it's so interesting. And I think each of the organizations handles that issue differently. Next Jump, which is one of the organizations we profiled them, they had a policy, I think they still do that we don't fire people because, you know, fire family, you know, that's, that's part of the source of everybody's growth is the challenges you face in the family dynamic, you know, and so, and that doesn't mean that the person just gets to continue doing whatever they're doing that's difficult, or that doesn't seem to if they seem to be not welcome, no welcoming feedback, not looking to learn from it. They have lots of practices that the person is expected to continue to go through. Now. I'm guessing that for many people, they're like, Okay, enough of this. I, you know, I'm not gonna keep doing this because I'm not getting anything out of it. And I kind of refuse to and so it's not a good fit. Yeah. So that's one. That's one possibility at, for example, Bridgewater. They said it often takes about 18 months for people to kind of what they call turnover. corner to see that initially, what seems like you all are crazy, and this is so hard and oh my gosh, I can't believe that I keep getting confronted by these kinds of issues coming up about how I'm holding myself back holding other people back getting in the way, you know. And often so often it's about 18 months that people either see, wait a minute, this is actually all incredibly helpful if I can make good use of it. Yeah, and I can, I can like just in the same way that you have discovered, I can handle rejection and grow from it and, and still trusted myself like that turning of the corner, happens for some people. And for some people, they don't get there, and they start to feel like, I just can't keep putting myself through this. And that could be for all kinds of reasons, you know, it could be like, I don't have all the features of the rest of my life, I don't have enough support, or my wife isn't healthy enough, you know, where there's just too much drain. And some people, it's probably just too odd. It's too different from what they're used to. And they struggled to really understand this very different paradigm of what work could be like, and who knows how many factors but they tend to experience it and address it differently in different organizations. 

Scott Allen  36:19  
But even some of the results that you suggest, and again, these are initial results, unless there's something that's come out in the last five years that I've missed. But there were some significant differences. In some, at least in one organization, you discuss, look this, this group of executives went through this experience, this group of executives did not. And there was a large difference in the productivity of those executives who'd been through some of the workshops, training, learning that you all provided.

Deb Helsing  36:55  
I think anytime you have a fairly complex, I'm gonna say intervention, I'm not sure that's the right word. But any kind of experience people is going through that has a lot of parts to it a lot of different experiences process over time. You know, it's hard to say exactly what causes what you're, you know, what, and, you know, I think, over and over again, we've seen that having experiences where people do surface, the ways that they've kind of limited themselves, start to explore new possibilities, that leads to incredible possibilities of what they can do. And sometimes it does, it does lead to surprising results, where someone will say, I realized I actually need to change careers because now I'm clear about what matters most to me, or, you know, things that wouldn't necessarily, you know, you can't predict or you can't say this will be the impact this will be the results. So, you know, I think interestingly, that these organizations, some of them build that it like for the third organization Decurion, they often hired high school students to work in their movie theaters, knowing these are not going to be lifelong employees, they'll go off to college, and they'll maybe their college students home for the summer. And so part of what we're doing is helping grow them and prepare them for the whole rest of their lives. 

Scott Allen  38:10  
And so thinking of it that way, but having to your point that home, psychological safety, the space, the holding environment, when it caught might call it, yes, to go back to the debt back in the day. And then having that the groove, which is I understand the resources, the support, all those mechanisms, whether that's peer mentoring, whether that's opportunities for coaching, just all of those types of experiences, and then that edge, right, we've got the challenge and support, hopefully beautifully balanced, so that we are keeping people at their edge. They're developing, they're growing. And again, that's pan developmental, it might not just be how their function is, but that's part of it, that maybe their the scope of their job is growing, they're kept at their edge of that way. But then they're also processing and making sense. And developing that mental complexity side as well. I think it's awesome. I think it's wonderful. And to think about it at a cultural level is, it's so much fun. It's just really cool.

Deb Helsing  39:14  
Yeah, I agree. I think it's, for me, it was so exciting to kind of see what's happening in these organizations and how people experience that culture differently. And there, they're very open to experiments. They're just let's try this. Let's try this. You know, and I think a lot of people outside those organizations think it sounds crazy, but you can't do that. If you want to do that. Let's see what happens you know, and, and I don't mean that in a kind of irresponsible cavalier kind of way. Sure. I mean it into like, how do we know that people aren't gonna grow and learn and can't handle this in a way that will really spark something exciting. And you know, what we've tried so far leads us to think this might be the way to do it. I love seeing how they try things out how they learn from them, how people interact. In those kinds of environments,

Scott Allen  40:01  
We'll have I'm going to place a number of links into the show notes so that people can access the book and access other resources from mine at work. And, you know, as we wind down our time today, what have you been reading or streaming or listening to? And it could have something to deal with what we've discussed or had nothing to do with what we've just discussed. But what's caught your eye in recent weeks or recent months?  

Deb Helsing  40:25  
Oh, that's a great question. And like a few different possibilities come to mind. So I'll say one thing I'm doing and this will be a nice plug for them, I hope there's a program called Positive Intelligence, it's a process that has some similarities to Immunity to Change, and that you identify what they call your Saboteurs. Okay, and they through factor now, they've kind of narrowed it down to like, of all the possible things that could be holding you back, we've got these like nine categories. So it's interesting. And but for the thing about the program that's most interesting to me, is the idea that, after you have an insight, let's say, for example, in Immunity to Change, I uncover a really powerful big assumption and start to see like, this is crazy, this is not true, this has been unnecessarily holding me back, you do need to keep kind of practicing, keep testing that out, proving to yourself that there are not any data to support this, that this is inaccurate. One thing that interests me about this program is the ways that they talk about just building your muscles to kind of train yourself to kind of let go of some of those saboteurs. And be in a place where you're more fully present, where you're able to kind of calm the part of your brain that's on high alert, and instead function, you know, with like a more clarity where you're drawing on more of your more complex capacities. And so I've been sort of thinking about that in connection with the ways you know that as people have new insights, they continue to test their big assumptions. Yep, maybe not to lead to a whole new powerful insight, but to solidify to build those neural networks so that those pathways get stronger than the old pathways. You know, I guess it's like the whole more of a neuroscience perspective, and bringing that into the ways that, you know, it helps me be a better Immunity to Change coach and help people continue to feel like the changes they're making are going to last and they're not going to be in danger of a kind of falling back into old patterns.

Scott Allen  42:27  
Well, but it's another I mean, you had mentioned Buddhist psychology, it's another lens through which you can, okay, this could connect here this way, which might, I view it as another tool potentially, to pull from, to help people make meaning of their experiences and help support them, right.

Deb Helsing  42:46  
And neuroscience is fascinating because I feel like every time you pick up a journal or a book, there's some whole new way of, you know, we now we see this about the brain. And now we understand this about the incredible plasticity, you know, and so I feel like it's, it's a great lens to be bringing into the work to

Scott Allen  43:02  
Deb I have, I have great respect. The work is rooted in just such incredible thinking. And then we're taking that incredible thinking and moving it out into the world, and seeing how this interacts with the world. On the individual level, the team level, and the organizational level. And just much respect. I have so much respect. And obviously, you know, that it has meant a lot to me personally. And allegedly my family. Little do they know, I'm just I'm so thankful for all that you and the team do.

Deb Helsing  43:38  
Well, thank you. I love doing the work. I mean, it's I feel like it's this incredible gift to get to spend my days and my life doing this work. And I've had a lot of fun talking about it. So I appreciate all your good questions and your energy and enthusiasm, which I think allows me to have a lot of fun while we're talking.

Scott Allen  43:57  
Well, be well stay warm. It's cold in Boston, I imagine right now. Yes, it is. It's very cold in Cleveland, Ohio. But I look forward to seeing you in class next Wednesday at 6:00 a.m.!

Deb Helsing  44:09  
Me too. Me too. Until then. Okay, be well,

Scott Allen  44:13  
bye-bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai