Leading effectively and leading change.
These topics are always linked.
Working on one without the other will always leave us wanting.
With less than great results.
Today we are talking about a mind shift that helps us do both better.
This should be of interest to every leader in every organization.
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,
where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally
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And now I'm going to bring in my guest Mindy Vale.
And then I'm going to get my notes here so I can tell you all about her
before we dive in.
Mindy has more than two decades of experience in leadership development,
change management, education and public speaking, working
with and emerging with emerging leaders to veteran executives.
Her focus is cultivating a growth mindset and fostering resilience.
Her new book, The Mindset Effect
where change management is redefined
and Leadership is refined, provides a wellspring of inspiration
for leading meaningful organizational change.
And today, she is my guest.
And I'm glad that you're here. Mindy. Welcome.
Thank you.
Kevin, what a nice introduction.
Thanks for having me. I love your show and I'm honored to be on it.
I am glad to have you, and I'm glad to have read this book.
In preparation for this conversation.
So let's start here.
Let's start with your journey. I mean, you hinted at it.
We hinted at a little bit in the in the open, but like tell us a little bit
about how you end up doing this work
and how you end up writing this book.
It's a long story and I'll try to make it short.
I started it, you know, start with I was born at.
Right. It's now.
No, we don't want to go back that far, but we can start.
when I started my career in K-12 education, I was in junior
high in high school, English teacher for nearly 20 years.
And then I left the the,
teaching world and went into corporate world.
And the transition was very awkward
for me because it's a very different environment.
And yet over time, I realized there are a lot of similarities
and a lot of skill sets that I had that I could take with me and transfer,
which is great.
And I speak with a lot of teachers who are looking to transition outside
of the world of education into corporate, not knowing what they don't know.
And so then I became,
over the last ten years, VP of Culture and engagement
for Papa murphy's pizza here in the Pacific Northwest.
And I oversaw human resources and learning and development for,
field training, corporate communications.
And I loved my job.
I adored the people I worked with.
It was super rewarding.
And then we had a mass layoff, and I was part of that in February.
And so part of that was another transition
for me to say, where do I want to go with my career?
With my life?
I have decisions I can make for myself now.
I have a clean slate.
What do I want to do?
And so I started journaling and
my journals started
turning into reflections of
what good leaders looked like and what the toxic leaders looked like.
And as we navigated change through a merger
and acquisition, what did that look like and feel like?
Right.
And and as many people who are listening
have been through that change is tremendous.
And it impacts employees in many different ways.
And if we aren't aware of how that change is impacting
their thinking and their behavior, we can really be behind the eight ball.
And so then.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then and then that turned into writing a book.
And I wasn't intending on writing a book, but it ended up that way.
And here I am. Yeah.
Here it is.
So, you know, I ask almost every guest, Mindy, that question about their journey.
And people take a different, different directions, and that's fine.
But what I love about how you framed it is that probably everyone
who's watching live or watching later or listening whenever,
can, can
identify with at least part of what you're saying.
Maybe they weren't in education before their incorporation.
Maybe they're still in education. So that part's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about having lived through change and transition.
Some that went better than others.
And that's really a big part of what this book is about.
The book is titled The Mind Shift Effect.
So it seems like that's where we should start.
What would you say is, in fact the mind shift effect?
I would say that it is an approach
to how we look at our personal and our professional lives.
It's how we approach our own level of self-awareness.
It's how we approach our interactions with those around us,
our teams that we lead and our coworkers.
And it's how we approach that thought process of I don't care
what other people think, when really I do care what other people think.
My success is driven
from what they think and how they perceive me as a leader.
So I want to know what drives them.
I want to know what motivates them.
And so every time I have a chance to think differently, to have that mind shift
and to challenge the norm and
to really expose my own self
conditioned limitations
that I put on myself, I become a better leader.
And I always try to challenge my clients to do the same thing.
Push yourself,
you know, step outside that little comfort zone that we love to live in.
Yeah.
in the in the introduction to the book, you talk about the fact
that there are lots of change models and certainly there are.
And you're certainly not saying here that there's a problem with them,
but you do say something on page 11.
I'm not going to ask you to tell me.
I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to have you respond and comment on it.
Okay. So you said,
there seem to be a gap avoid avoid waiting to be filled with a resource
that was not only informative and insightful,
but also approachable, relatable and actionable.
I'm taking a slightly different approach to change management.
a more humanistic, bite sized approach.
I prioritize empathy, communication, and collaboration, aiming to understand
the emotional and psychological aspects of change for individuals.
There's another way of thinking about this.
And then you finish.
My focus is to create a supportive environment to facilitate
smoother transitions and garner greater buy in from stakeholders.
Anything about that you want to say before we go on.
I love that you brought that up,
because I don't want to take anything away from the change management
frameworks that are out there that exist and that really provide us
with the structure that we can work from.
They provide wonderful resources for us
when we take that, and then we add on a humanistic approach.
That's when you get your winning ticket.
It's not one or the other.
It's a combination of both.
And for me, time and time again, I've seen leaders
who just don't do a great job validating other people's feelings and emotions
and the things we bring with us every day to work.
And it's not about coddling people, it's about just showing empathy
and understanding.
And like, I get that you've been places, I get that you have your own experiences.
I get that you maybe even have trauma around this kind of change.
I get it, and I understand that.
And because of that recognition, we can then take those change frameworks
and then our
empathy put it together and it really works.
And that's really is the big picture of the book.
Everybody.
We talked with, Mindy Vale, the author of The Mind Shift Effect.
And you early in the book, you list a bunch of myths, right?
things that are sort of, in the popular parlance that people talk about.
And, and many people sort of take it's true.
But you say they're myths.
There's one of which I agree.
I want to talk about one of them specifically
because I think it's it sets the frame for where I want us to go today.
But I also think it's a really important one.
So here's one of Mindy's myths.
the myth is that resistance to change is a sign of negativity or defiance.
You say, not so fast. My friend.
So let's talk about that a little bit more.
Isn't that true?
And it's I also speak about failure
and how we are conditioned to believe that failure is bad.
It's kind of the same thing here of change when somebody says,
I don't want to do that and they resist, we immediately say,
oh my gosh, they're being a rebel and they don't want to go along.
And what a pain in the rear.
And that's not it.
That's not it at all. I mean it could be.
But okay, true. You have. The power.
Let's be clear.
Everybody could be that.
But if you've worked with those people to write.
It's not enough. Right.
Right, right.
And and I think that having those conversations,
just taking the time to say,
what is it that you're fearing the most about this change?
What is it that you're most uncomfortable about?
And just being real about it
and you'll realize, is it being defiant?
Is it just that person,
or is there something else to it that you can help them work through?
And you don't need to be a counselor.
You don't need to be a coach.
It's just having a human conversation with someone.
Yeah, I always say that, you know, resistance is naturally occurring.
Doesn't necessarily mean there's all sorts of sources of it.
but for us to be surprised by it, and oftentimes
leaders get indignant because of it. Why?
Because, well, I came up with this change idea, and like, I've got it
all figured out and they just are being difficult, right?
It's not that at all. It's just a natural occurrence. To your point.
but it isn't necessarily defiance, and it certainly isn't only negativity.
I just really, really love that.
So, talking about that human conversation
and what are some specific things that we can do,
to help
people through the resistance, like, it's going to happen.
It's already here.
You're feeling it. They're stating it.
What are some what's some advice you have about what we can do with it?
How do we help?
So one of the things that has really helped me
over the years and I, I majored in psychology.
So this is kind of part of my dialog anyway.
but recognizing the psychological
fundamentals of how people respond to change and a little bit
of just that basic neurology, that neuroscience behind it of
what is the amygdala doing, right, that fight or flight system?
when does that kick in, and how do we see change as a potential threat
or as a potential adventure?
And knowing, like if you're leading a team,
what team members respond to different ways and why
it can really help them alleviate their stress
because they see that you hear them and understand them.
But we also have to just realize that it's our brains way of protecting us, right?
Going back thousands and thousands of years. Right.
And when we recognize that, wow, this is just my brain processing
this stimulus.
We're at an advantage as a leader.
Right? Right.
And we can then control how we then process
that information coming in and how we can then respond to it.
If you're listening or watching, when she said something about,
I don't know, maybe two minutes ago that I think is worth remembering.
And so here's, here's your here's your verbal highlighter,
she said, do we see do we how do we help people see change as a
do they see it as a threat or do they see this as an adventure?
And I love that frame because most everyone loves an adventure, right?
And if we can help people say, okay, and adventures aren't always 100% rosy, right?
But we we, we approach them with, with,
a sense of purpose.
We, we approach them with a sense of, desire and intrigue and,
and I think that's a really healthy way for us to think about it.
You mentioned fight or flight, right?
And like everyone knows, fight or flight,
but you really talk about five F's, if you will.
And I'd like you to sort of unpack these a little bit
because we don't just go into fight or flight, but really
fight flight, freeze, fun or flop.
And I can see here that I left out of comma.
so let's
would you just walk us through like people pretty much understand fight and flight?
Would you help people understand these other three reactions that we might have?
Because I think when you listen, everybody, you'll get you'll see that
I've seen that or I've felt that that's been me.
Yeah. Isn't that interesting?
Because over the years we keep adding an f word.
I have to be careful about that.
Yeah.
Hey, you said it, not me.
So really careful about that.
I'm going show back.
Right, right, right.
I think we're all familiar with fight or flight.
When we fight and we're confronted with change,
we tend to react in a confrontational,
maybe even assertive manner,
and we're trying to challenge the situation that's in front of us.
So we're fighting it.
The flight, obviously, is what it sounds like of we.
We withdraw, we escape, we run away from it.
We fear it, so we run.
And that may be we actually physically run or it may be mentally.
We check out. Right.
And we remove ourselves from what.
Ourselves we avoid we we deny all those things, right?
Yeah.
And we can see that come up in passive aggressive behavior.
So people who are listening
may go, oh yeah, I know people who do that or that's me.
The freeze is that instinctive reaction
where you just become immobilized or paralyzed
and you just don't know what to do because you are truly
in a state of that paralysis of, oh my gosh, what's just happening?
I don't even know what to do.
And your brain almost shuts itself off right?
We see this often in a bystander situation
where there's been a horrible accident
and people just stand around and they don't know what to do,
right?
It can that can happen in a very traumatic change environment.
Then we have fun.
And fun is one of those kind of newer F words to the amygdala responses.
And that's really, seeking to please others and appease
the situation, wanting harmony, wanting to maintain the status quo.
And I, I love thinking about people
who do that because you identify them right away.
Well,
I'll say this about about that one and that is that
I think there are a lot of leaders, especially early in their career,
a lot of front line leaders, that this is where they end up,
because, I mean, it can be lots of reasons, but
I think one of the biggest reasons is that they
they're still figuring out this new role of being a leader.
And so they try to like, you know, protect their team.
They try to, sort of be in solidarity with their team against,
you know, the leadership that they are now a part of.
And that's just a really important thing for it.
If you're a if you're a leader of leaders
to be aware of and, and coach your folks on, but also for yourself,
if you're there in that spot where you're you're you're sort of
pointing the finger as well. They want to change.
I'm kind of with you here.
We just got to be really careful with that one because that can have long term
be the long term detriment for us, for sure.
Yeah.
You're making me think of
of previous leaders that I've worked with and that it really can be
I know that their intentions are really good.
Right?
They're absolutely they're they're kind hearted, good people.
but you're absolutely right.
It can be detrimental in the end when that's done, when it's over.
Done. And then the last F is flop.
Flop. Yes. Flop.
just that sense of resignation,
of helplessness, of I give up.
I'm just going to lay here and just let it happen.
And I have no control over the situation.
It is what it is.
I'll let somebody else figure it out.
And that is dangerous, obviously, because that can create a sense of apathy.
100%.
We know one of the things that you talk about, in the book is our biases.
And, you know, I think in the last 15 years,
a lot of us have become a lot more aware that we all have a lot of biases.
There's a couple that you talk about here.
and I think as we think about this
in the change context, it's useful for you to help us
think about, okay, if we know we have them
now, what do we do about that?
Can you talk about that just for a second?
Yeah.
Conscious and unconscious biases. Right.
We have conscious biases.
We know we're very aware of certain things that we tend to generalize stereotype.
We may even have prejudices about them based on our own experiences.
Life does that to us.
We then know have.
Well those are easy.
First off, those are easy to identify
for the most part and then work on because I can say one, two, three, 4 or 5.
These are the things that continue to come up for me
as I work with different people, diverse populations.
I can see myself reacting differently when I'm with ABC.
Right.
Through coaching.
That's pretty easy.
Now, our unconscious biases, those are the ones that have been ingrained
and sit back here and we don't really even recognize that
they're alive and well, and yet they speak loudly
in our actions towards others.
And that may be, just kind of that
going with things that feel familiar,
tending to lean
towards the things we want to believe to be true.
Yeah.
Right. Confirmation bias.
Oh, I hear that.
It aligns with what I think is right.
So I'm hanging on to that.
Right? Right, right.
And then I get I stop exploring the other options.
And that's definitely.
One of the things I like that you said there's a role shouldn't
be to try to eliminate our biases, but to understand them and to work with them
and to use them to help us better understand
and not even to judge ourselves about them, but just to do recognition.
And I think that as, as a leader, we can do that for others
as well, through the kinds of questions we ask, some of the kinds of stuff
we've already talked about, certainly, particularly,
one of the things that you talk about in the book
quite a bit that I really like, because here's here's my observation.
My observation is that everybody talks about change is hard.
and then people say we need to be we need to be innovative.
So yeah, change gets looked at as sort of like a necessary evil.
and yet innovation is lauded as this wonderful thing.
And yet
they're the same.
Like, you can't innovate without there being change involved.
So talk about that.
Talk about that connection if you would.
And what we need to be thinking about as leaders
in relationship to that.
We can't.
You're absolutely right.
We cannot have cultures of innovation that thrive in today's world.
If we don't embrace this idea that change is good
and it can be beneficial.
And yes, it can be scary.
And yes, it can feel like a threat.
And yes, it can be messy.
And that's okay.
Same thing with failure.
When we go through change,
when we try to innovate, we're going to fall flat on our face.
That's okay.
That's a part of the process.
God knows I've fallen on my face enough time.
I'm still here.
So in order to get your culture as one of innovation,
you have to work on building that psychological safety.
It is so critical,
and it is something that is more than a just a buzzword.
It is the foundation of any innovative culture.
Employees who feel like their opinions matter,
employees, you know that they can shoot out a crazy idea
and they won't have that fear of judgment or criticism hovering over them.
That's everything.
Yeah.
And, you know,
if we go
right down to blocking and tackling, I think that sometimes leaders forget.
We forget that the people doing the work know the work better than we do.
and, and there
in terms of sort of what I would call micro innovations, they're the
they're the best source for them because they see them,
they see the issues, they see the bumps, and they get
they're the ones who get the bumps in the bruises and and yet, you know,
if they are, if they don't feel like it's safe for them to share
or they don't think they would, those ideas would be welcomed,
or they don't think that
even if they were welcome, they would never, ever be implemented,
then you're never going to get to your point to this culture of innovation.
And it's this idea that part of the mind shift is that change
is good, change is necessary.
Change is valuable.
Change doesn't have to be.
It doesn't have to be fighting.
We don't have to be fighting for homeostasis.
Right?
We can be we can be moving toward ala stasis, which is like that.
This is that we evolve.
And that's a good thing, right?
That's that's a great way, I think, for us to think about it.
So I want you to talk.
There's another thing that you talk about in the book
that I think is really useful, because you talk about
you talk a good bit about collaboration.
And so what's how do you want to connect
collaboration and change.
So collaboration came for me from a place,
it was very personal because I
in different jobs, certainly wasn't just one career.
It was teaching and and corporate franchise.
I saw the dangers of people working in silos and
the dangers of
people who hoarded information.
A lot of reasons for that.
A lot of it comes from the insecurities that the, the job
security of if I hoard this information, they can't get rid of me.
also just that pride of I did this, it's mine.
But that really
inhibits the ability to collaborate and innovate.
And so cutting down those silos and being a leader who
really promotes cross-pollination
as much as you possibly can, so that people who aren't
used to working with one another can get to know their styles and get to know
other departments and teams and dynamics, the more you can do that
and integrate that into your culture, the better
your collaboration is going to be, which will then impact your innovation.
Because
if I can just for one second say that, you know,
one of the reasons people don't want to change out of the myriad,
one of the reasons is like they don't see the why,
but if they know the people in the other groups
and this is now going to really impact those people in a positive way,
and they know those people, that changes the why for them drastically.
This isn't just isn't. That interesting vision.
Now I, I, I'm going to help Mindy.
This is going to help George. Yep.
That's huge.
And we don't think about that nearly absolutely.
You hit the nail on the head.
Absolutely. It's no longer the guy in accounting.
It's George 100%.
And I'm in George's radio room doing the show today.
So there we go.
George George won't do this,
but I'll be so, so here's the,
here's the thing.
Everyone that's on this, this, this watching, listening whenever
is dealing with some change, whether it's themselves,
whether it's organizational change, whether the leader,
whether it's being thrust on them doesn't matter what you're dealing with it.
And so I'm going to ask you the most unfair question I could possibly ask you,
based on what you've learned and what you've written,
wherever we are and change, what should we do next?
Like, do you have something that wherever we're at in it,
if you could whisper in our ear, what would you tell us?
I would tell you to celebrate
your small wins as you get them.
I would say for every step forward,
even if you take three steps back after you took a step forward
and and celebrate those small wins,
even if it's at a self high five for a pat on the back
or if it's with your team, let them know that was a that was a win.
It may seem insignificant, but it was a win.
We're going to take it.
Because what that then does is it it's that dopamine endorphin rush.
It it fuels our brain to want more.
And and
so we cannot forget we're not giving trophies out.
We're not giving awards.
We're not giving gift cards.
We're simply saying that was a win.
That was a win.
We moved forward.
And I think that sometimes,
as leaders, we discount the wins.
But also we assume they see the win that we saw and they don't.
Right. Because their perspective.
And that's not that people are aren't smart and wise experienced.
It means that they have a different perspective than we do as leaders.
It's important
not only for us to remember to do it in general and to do it for ourselves, but
as leaders don't assume they see it
right. Don't assume they see it.
Don't assume you're absolutely right.
Mindy. Is there anything that
I didn't ask that you wish I would have?
I think the only thing that we didn't talk a whole lot about, that I really love
to focus on, not just in my book, but with my clients as well.
Is that issue of self-awareness, of how do we increase
our own level of self-awareness to become a better leader.
And to that I would simply say, you know, really, really be intentional
about knowing what kind of a leader you want to be
and then understanding how you are perceived by those around you.
And you can do that. I'm a Hogan leadership coach.
I do that through my coaching.
You can do that in multiple different platforms with different people.
But to understand reputation
versus perception and identity,
that's critical in in really
building your a leader brand and getting people to understand
who you are showing up consistently every day.
As you
become more self-aware, you will become a better leader.
There's a there's no doubt about it.
I mean, unless you become more self-aware and just ignore it all,
but then you're really not self-aware.
so I've just got a couple more questions for you, Mindy, before we finish.
And the first and the next two are things I ask everybody.
what do you do for fun, Mindy?
I actually love to hike.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, where we have beautiful hiking trails
and lakes and, for us, Mount Rainier, Mount hood.
That's one of my absolute favorite pastimes.
now that summer, I like to get out on the lake
and paddle board, which we're doing this weekend.
So outside, outdoors, my dog goes paddleboarding with me.
it's it's all about the outdoors for me.
And the only thing you knew I was going to ask you is this question.
What are you reading these days?
So, oddly, I am rereading a book.
that may sound funny to some people, but others
who know me will totally understand this.
And it is, Dave Grohl's from the Foo Fighters.
The storyteller and I have audio listened to it,
and now I'm going back and reading parts that I really enjoy.
And the reason for this is not only
is it a personal narrative, which I love, I love nonfiction.
There's insights into the music industry,
which is fascinating, but it's also really funny.
And, and, and there's a sharp wit to it.
And there's universal themes that anybody, regardless of
what music genre you love or what industry you work in, it resonates.
And so I'm going back and kind of picking things out
that I remember I love the first time and seeing if they still resonate.
Awesome.
I everybody I ask this question of every year
because I my whole life I've asked people I look up to people
that I think are really smart, what are you reading? And then forever.
And when I started the show, I started doing it.
And I love it when I get,
a book that, we've never had on the show.
I mean, sometimes we have books that have not been mentioned. Mindy.
Several times, this book has never been mentioned.
Oh, there you go. I love that.
I love doing different.
And everybody, you know,
I read every one of the my guests, I read their book, I read other stuff.
And then I get these new recommendations from all these smart people
that are on the show. But anyway, there you go.
but, Mindy, let's not just talk about somebody else's book.
Let's talk about yours before we finish.
where do you want to point people?
where can people learn more about you?
What do you want to tell people before we start to finish up here?
Thank you for that.
The mineshaft effect is my book,
and you can go to Amazon, purchase it on Amazon.
And then I also have my website which is the mineshaft effect.
Com and then you can find me on LinkedIn as well, either Mindy Vale
or at the Mineshaft Effect.
The mind shift effect.com.
Everybody or any place fine books are sold.
you can get your copy and I hope that you'll do that.
now I have a question for all of you who are watching or listening.
you've had the chance to listen to Mindy, and I have this conversation
for about the last 30 minutes, and that's wonderful.
But what's more wonderful is what action will you take as a result?
So my favorite two word question is now what?
What will you do now that you've gotten the new ideas that you've just heard?
What actions might you take?
What what notes did you take?
And maybe you're biking or you're driving or you're cooking.
What what mental notes did you take?
You need to take a minute now to say, what action will I take as a result?
Because if you don't,
this will have been entertaining.
Perhaps inspiring maybe,
but not adding great long term value.
If you don't happens when you take action.
I hope that you will do that.
Mindy, thanks so much for being here.
It's a pleasure to have you.
Thank you so much for having me.
It was great. I had a lot of fun.
It was my pleasure.
And so, everybody, if you liked this, you should come back next week.
and if you like this and you are thinking of someone else
that needs to have heard, this, will then please invite them.
So wherever you are watching this, we'll be back.
If you're on the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, we're here every week,
so come back next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.