Today, Maria is not messing around! Learn why change is hard, even when it’s a good thing, and what you can do to break free of past habits. When infusing more empathy into your leadership, culture, or brand, you may face internal or external resistance – but that has nothing to do with whether you are going in the right direction or not. It’s a sign of transformation.
Hear how our brains work and why it is so painful to learn new skills and habits even when they benefit us. She shares what her brain injury recovery taught her about building new skills and strategies to get to success, how adapting to change is like learning to drive, and why the status quo is just easier on our brains. You’ll leave this episode fired up to evolve your leadership style and bring your organizations along with you to adapt and thrive in the modern business era.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- You have to appeal to both emotions and logic. Logic and data are never going to be enough to get people to take action.
- Change requires us to use the more conscious parts of our brains and does not allow us to operate on autopilot.
- The friction you feel during change is not because you’re going down the wrong path, it is that your brain is trying to take you down familiar, habitual paths.
“If logic were enough, we would all embrace positive change with open arms.” — Maria Ross
References Mentioned:
The Empathy Edge Podcast, Episode 117 with Melina Palmer, What Your Employees Need But Can’t Tell You
The Empathy Edge Podcast Episode 77 with Melina Palmer, Why Your Customers Can’t Tell You What They Want
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Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
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Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Okay, for us, humans, change is so hard, even when it’s a welcome change. But why? Well, understanding how the human brain works helps solve this puzzle. I had the chance twice on the podcast to talk to Melina Palmer, an expert in behavioral economics and brain science. She shared research on both episodes, which I’ll put in the show notes about how our brains consist of the elephant and the writer. The writer is our conscious, logical data driven part of the brain. It knows what it needs to do and where it needs to go. But the elephant is more our subconscious and at times emotionally driven brain, it may decide where to go based on how it’s feeling, or what flowers smell nice, or hey, there’s a nice puddle to trudge through over there. Knowing that we have conscious and unconscious parts of our brains is nothing new. But when we apply that thinking to how people make decisions, how they can be moved to action or to new behaviors. We understand what’s missing when we unveil a grand new change on our teams and organizations, even when we try to sell others on a new idea.
Through my brand strategy work, I’ve long talked about appealing to emotions as well as logic, and that we overestimate how compelling logic can be when persuading someone on a new idea. If logic and data were enough, no one would smoke, overeat, use drugs or drive drunk. And if logic were enough, we would embrace positive change with open arms. Who wouldn’t want to experience more joy and less pain? Who wouldn’t want to make their workplace more diverse and inclusive? Who wouldn’t want to choose collaboration over stalemates and infighting? And yet, see something Molina said in these episodes resonated so much with me as a brain aneurysm survivor, she talked about the fact that any behavior change, even ones that benefit us require us to use the more conscious parts of our brains, we have to pay more attention when we change habits. We have to learn new skills and rules. We don’t get to operate on autopilot anymore because we’re taking a new path. When I was in recovery after my ruptured brain aneurysm, I learned this lesson well. Things that had previously been so easy for me prioritizing, assessing inputs juggling multiple tasks, even memorizing names are now suddenly out of my grasp. Those executive functions had been impacted based on where in my brain that nasty little aneurysm burst, and where the bleeding had destroyed brain cells. That’s why fatigue is such a long lasting and common side effect of brain injury and stroke. But our brains, they’re miraculous. You’ve heard of neuroplasticity, this is where your brain creates new connections and pathways to get the same job done. But the result is that you’re no longer on autopilot. Your brain works harder because it’s learning again, for all intents and purposes, a new skill. Just like when you learn to drive right. You gripped that steering wheel you stared unblinking at the road. You diligently put your turn signal on, counted how many cars lengths were in front of you to keep your distance consciously check your mirrors. And you juggled all of this while still navigating to where you want it to go. It was a lot of work, and it was exhausting. And then it got easier and became second nature. Muscle memory I like to call it now for better or worse, you don’t think is hard when you’re behind the wheel anymore. It’s not as taxing on your brain. But get yourself into a bad Midwestern ice storm and it all comes back to you. Change is like that even good change. We know through research that empathetic leadership is good, empathetic cultures, leaders and brands find tremendous success regardless of industry. We know our writer, that seeing hearing and valuing our employees and creating more inclusivity reaps Countless rewards to our business decisions and performance.
We boost innovation, we increase engagement of both our employees and our customers. We collaborate better, we lead the market, we create a sustainable business that can weather harsh storms. We may even boost stock price or generate great PR along the way. And yet, change is hard. Even when we know what’s good for us, we need to acknowledge that the behavior change required for some is a big ask. That’s not to say it’s not worth it or shouldn’t be expected. It’s just to say, hey, we hear you, we see you, we know you’re trying and you may stumble and fall, and that’s totally okay. So don’t be surprised when your leaders balk at going through emotional intelligence or empathy training and skill building. They spent years decades operating in one way to get them to success in their careers. And now they’re being asked to change their ways. There’s that word again, change. For some, it’s like being asked to skate backwards, it’s harder, and expect that in times of stress, they will fall back on familiar patterns and habits, even negative ones. Know that transformation takes time. But the effort and patience are so worth it in the end. That friction you feel is not because you’re going down the wrong path. The friction you feel is status quo, trying to claw you back into familiar patterns. Don’t let it when speaking at marketing conferences, and to my own clients, I often tell them to face the fear. When you’re blazing a trail, that means there’s no trail there. So it’s okay to be afraid.
Embracing empathy is a core leadership skill and business strategy is the new way of the modern workplace. We’ve evolved, thank God and so things change. We’re called to rewrite old rules to strengthen or master new skills. It doesn’t matter what the workplace used to be, or how we used to define leadership, even if those rules got you to where you are today. As a successful leader. We also used to ride horses and buggies, and dump our toilets out of windows, but we’ve evolved and so to must our organizations, our leaders, our cultures, brands and workplaces. Your job as a leader now is to adapt and to make things better for those who come after you to transform and succeed beyond your wildest expectations. Thank you for tuning in to this hot take episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked it, please share it with a friend or a colleague, get them fired up to transform. And of course, please rate and review if you haven’t an opportunity. Until next time, please remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care, and be kind.
