Find the Fractures Before Performance Breaks: Measure Change Resilience & Human Connection in the AI Era

All right, everyone. Welcome to today's program with Achieve Engagement. My name is Zach Doms, president at Achieve Engagement and the Ex Leadership Network. And thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate you taking time of your busy schedules, navigating all the changes out there, which we're gonna talk a lot about today, to sharpen your craft and connect with your peers, and continue to develop yourselves so that we can rethink the ways and make a bigger impact on the world of work. And that's what we're all about here within this network. So thank you. Thank you again for joining. I'm really excited about this today's program because I think we can all agree, uh, there's some changes happening out there in the industry happening out in the world and society, and that impacts our organizations in so many different ways. There's changes in the footprint within our organizations. We have some of the most culturally diverse organizations in the world of work than there ever has been before. The most generationally different, uh, organizations out there today. Uh, people coming in, uh, younger generations, uh, older ones staying longer or moving on retiring, and then you have some of these industry shifts. I mean, the change is ever, ever changing and never stopping. So I'm really excited, like, how do we navigate that? Like even at achieving engagement, we've done a ton of changes and we've had to also support our network on the changes that are happening within the industry. And I'm always thinking like, how can we really start to perform at a higher level? How can we navigate these changes with resilience and if anything, thrive through them, uh, and how do we do that at a high level with all of you? So I'm excited to dig into some of those things. Um, some announcements as well as we go through this is, and you're gonna learn a lot about this today throughout the program, but I would love to also support you in better understanding where you all can start to understand like how you navigate change, where some of your gaps are, maybe some certain skills that you need to go to work on individually as well as an organization. And one thing that we're actually partnering on with CTU IQ and Maureen, which I'll introduce in a second, but we're gonna participate our network in this basically limited release research back skills assessment that will help benchmark all of you and your leadership across really two main critical dimensions. So I'm gonna mention 'em, but you're gonna learn a lot about 'em today, which is one, change resilience and your ability to stay steady, flexible, and really forward focused. But also then the human connection piece. Like how do you communicate, build trust? How do you create a sense of belonging with others as changes happen? I mean, these things are happening all the time, and they can be really disruptive to the relationships, to your connection to the strategy, or what even the strategic direction is. So change, resilience and connection are some of the most important aspects of this. So when we do this with our network, which I'll share some instructions in the chat here in a second, but we're gonna give you a report of these things once you take that which will uncover certain growth areas, help also uncover certain best practices and coaching prompts and opportunities for you all. Uh, it's also a little bit of us to do a little bit of like research on the industry since we do have this amazing population in the HR people leader space. We kind of want to get a sense like, how are HR leaders and people leaders navigating change and where are their gaps personally within this function of the organization? Uh, so to do that though, uh, we are offering this up to our network members in a few ways. One of the big changes that many of you may or may not have seen this year is with the launch of our ex leadership network, which is really that peer-to-peer community space beyond these webinars and seminars that we're hosting, where we get to go a little bit more deeper dive strategic, uh, conversations. We unpack things at like a tactical level with toolkits, uh, playbooks research, and it's also peer-to-peer driven in the sense that like, our members are actively driving these conversations. So one would love to get you in that network, but we're offering this report for free to all of our network members that are part of that. So, two ways that you can get access to this assessment that we're gonna talk a lot about today. Obviously, you're gonna get a lot out of the program and the content in general, but if you wanna get that deep dive benchmark and the assessment for free, which is typically a couple hundred bucks, um, join the leadership network and you can even start with a 14 day trial to kind of get in there. That's where we have our masterminds and masterclasses and stuff like that. So one, I've just put in the chat a link where you can sign up for the leadership network upon completion of sign up, I'll take your information, we'll plug it into the program, and then you'll actually get a link back to take the assessment. Otherwise, you can also email me directly, uh, and I put in there Zach d@achievee.org and just put like, yes, in the subject line, yes, change assessment, maybe put something like that. And I'll, I'll email you back some instructions on how to take it from there. So that being said, uh, excited to kind of dig into this and support you on navigating that change, but, uh, really get to the value of today and the mean and bones of how we do that, and like, what does that even look like and what are the key components and skill sets and things we should be working on. We have someone, uh, an expert that's really been working in this space for a long time, been doing a ton of research benchmarking strategies with organizations on how to navigate this. And that's the amazing Maureen Mo, uh, Bergner boy, welcome up here. And, uh, really excited to learn from you. And thank you for being here. And it's so great to see you. Yeah, I'm excited. Um, uh, uh, it's really interesting, Zach, that what you've built with a chief engagement is a lot of what we're gonna be talking about. So, um, and I'm really excited for the benchmarking and what we're gonna find out from y'all in terms of for ex leaders, kind of where your skills are. But first I'm gonna dig in, um, and probably scare you a little bit first, and then give you a path forward. Um, I was your nightmare actually as an employee. I haven't been an employee for a long time, but, um, I started my career with a really fast growth organization out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jeffrey. Um, I was in a management training program. Um, when I started at this company, I think we had, um, 3000 people when I left, we had over 15,000. And I was in a program where I reported directly to the CEO. He's been written up in business books. Um, I had a ton of opportunity. I was tagged as a high performer. I met my husband at this company. I had a great friend network at this company. If you had taken me down the Gallup 12, um, I would've, it's a Gallup 12, Gallup 10, I can't remember how many Gallup has in there. Like, I have a best friend at work, that survey, you would've thought that I would never quit. Um, and actually I was about to, uh, be promoted again, and I did leave. Um, and why I did that, um, gets to kind of the heart of what we're gonna be talking about in terms of some skillsets that were missing in me and some skillset sets that were missing in my coworkers that made it, uh, feel like not a great place for me to work. So, um, what I wanna do first is, if you would in the chat, um, I wanna know how are you feeling? Um, are you, and obviously this is not a validated scale, right? But how much change fatigue are you personally feeling today? One is like, what changed? Nothing at all. And five is I'm absolutely cooked, right? Like, I just, there, I can't take any more change. Um, and what is interesting, um, Zach, you're gonna have to tell me, oh, I couldn't see the chat. Or three, yeah, two, I'm glad to see a, a two in there, Christina, and a 3 5, 3 0.75. That's funny. Yeah. Um, it's been, it's been a lot. Um, Zach and I were even just talking about this, um, before we got started, right? Just some of the things that are, are happening, um, external to our organizations. I think one of the things that it's really important to level set on is what your employees are experiencing in terms of change. Um, is not just limited to, um, what's happening at work. Uh, you are not imagining it. Things are feeling for most people, a bit like a dumpster fire. Um, it's really testing our, um, human capacity. So the, uh, the looking at just the rate of change, uh, if you can take yourself, transport yourself back to pre C, um, and then COVI and everything that's happened since. Now, let's add AI to that. So in, in the last, since chat, GPT came online, right? And the explosion and speed with which things are changing, um, people are feeling really overwhelmed. Um, 73% of employees are reporting change fatigue. People are saying, I can't do it anymore. I won't support anymore. Most change initiatives fail. That is expensive, right? So we have people that are exhausted, and in many cases that change fatigue is tipping over into burnout. Um, and the change is not gonna slow down. Um, right? We, there's no magic wand that we can wave to say, you know what, let's go back to, uh, even just six years ago, most organizations planned two changes per year. That's up to 10, right? So the pace of change has this, uh, burning out. Here's something that's really fascinating, our brain, and y'all, I'm about to wonk out on neuroscience because it is the root of why people are feeling the way they're feeling, and that we can't move the dial on a lot of this, our brain experiences change as a threat. We crave certainty, uncertainty for us, for our brain. It feels, um, it feels like danger. Why is that? Listen, we spend most of our days on autopilot. I mean, if you've ever shown up, you've driven somewhere and you're sitting in the parking lot and you don't even remember driving there, or you're standing in your kitchen with a cup of coffee and you don't remember if you, you know, took your meds and right. Getting ready and any of that stuff, we do that to protect our brain. So although our brain only takes up a little bit of our body mass, it takes up the lion's share of oxygen. And so we stay in habit because habit doesn't take that oxygen. We have a finite amount of energy in a day, and we're doing everything that we can to send that energy toward our brain. So the neuroscience of change, there's a lot of words on here, y'all. What at the, uh, nuts and bolts of it is our brain lights up and not in a positive way. When we're faced with change, I uncertainty. I can't preserve that oxygen for my brain. It's a threat. I'm trying to do everything that I can to get back to that certainty and the way things were. So I don't have to think as much, but you put me in change and suddenly I go into my lizard brain, my cortisol is raising, um, I'm in fight or flight, right? So, and, and the brain keeps the score. Uh, it is in hyperactive mode. If I've been through past bad change, again, it does not matter if this is actually positive change. It doesn't matter if I'm excited about the change. It doesn't matter if this is change that's internal to my organization or external in the world. So we have people walking around with their brains lit up with this pace of change that's happening. We can't be in habit too much of the time because the world is always shifting on us at work, at home, out in our communities. So we're experiencing this as a threat. Now, think about for your organizations, you, I call this, um, strategy season, right? Um, so when you think about what you have planned for 2026, how many changes do you have planned? And are your people equipped to deal with that, right? Because you're gonna put 'em even positive change. You're gonna put 'em into that amygdala hijack. So I told you I was gonna scare you a little bit. Disengagement and exclusion are at record highs, and it's breaking people, um, looking at Gen Z and millennials, and when they're hitting burnout, the age of that, um, Gallup, different organizations have been tracking engagement for years. Historic lows. Um, we've got 82% of people feeling burnout risk. That's up from 65 2 years ago, and way less than that five years ago. Uh, there's a recent, um, study that just came out. I didn't include the stats on here, that 95% of younger employees, um, are considering an AI companion, um, at work because they're feeling desperately lonely at work and disconnected at work. People are willing to take a 20% pay cut to work at an organization where they feel a culture of connection and feel like they can have strong relationships with the people that they work with. I go back to the 95% are considering an AI companion to, to feel seen and heard. That's software, y'all. That's not a, that's not a real human being. Why are those numbers like that? Exclusion feels like physical pain, literally, when we do not feel like we belong, when we do not feel like we are connected to other human beings. The same neural pathways fire up as physical pain. Same regions of the brain are lighting up as with change. Again, lots of words on here, but I am back into my lizard brain because I don't think of this as a nice to have. I see it as survival. We like to think that we are these rational human beings, right? That we've evolved so much. We haven't, um, from the feeling of I need to be with a group of people so that the lion doesn't eat me when I feel like I am not in a group. When I am excluded from a group, it means I could die. So a microaggression feels the same physically, what's happening in my brain? Same neural pathways as if I am getting a, the fear of being attacked by a lion. Uh, so we have folks walking around in that amygdala hijack. We have regions of our brain lit up. We're not our, our IQ drops. Uh, um, we move from thoughtful reason frontal cortex, where I can be curious and creative and collaborative into survival mode. And that's what a lot of people, right? If you look back to those stats, that's how people are feeling. People are feeling like they're in survival mode. When you have people in survival mode, they certainly can't do their best work, and they certainly can't be great coworkers, right? So when we're thinking about the overall employee experience, how can I show up and be full and whole and present for the people that I work with when I'm feeling threatened and not safe? So human connection is just flat out neurologically rewarding. Um, right? This is where I'm getting dopamine, I'm feeling safe, my reward system so that, again, I can move into my prefrontal cortex and I can do good work. So when we think about change and connection, these are not nice to have things in our workplaces, right? People that are change, resilient, people that understand human connection, they're absolutely necessary. Excuse me, I'm just starting, uh, to, uh, get a bug. So when you think about your strategies, again for 2026, what I wanna share today is kind of a new way of thinking about this, that, um, we are not talking about change management. We are not talking about different engagement. What employees are actually needing are muscles skills in change, resilience, and how to create meaningful connections. And a leader's role as you think about the work that you're doing in your organizations is, what am I doing to make sure that this, the neuro pathways, right? The neuroscience behind this. How am I putting things in place to reduce that threat response? How am I as a leader looking forward to understand when are people starting to hit these limits? When are we starting to see disconnect, burnout, change, fatigue, and how can we actually build capacity and skills before we hit crisis? So this is a shift in thinking, right? Where we're moving from change management to change resilience. Uh, let me be very clear in the shift in thinking this isn't, this is, and, um, this is not either or, this is, and so change management, that's about systems, that's about process, that's about people understanding where they are getting a what's in it for me? Change resilience is a skillset, employee engagement, and all of the things that you do around employee engagement, uh, to make sure that you, from a system standpoint, right? Pay and comp and, um, right. Different things that you're doing for feedback loops and human connection skills, right? Having people understand that those are skill sets from measuring just sentiment, um, and having process to measurement of skills. Um, so thinking about the, getting to the root cause. So I'll talk just a second about change management as, uh, because that's where we tend tend to spend a lot of our energy when we're thinking about all the change. Change management is systems and process. It's time bound. We have this new software that we're gonna put in place, who's responsible? Let's get our change team in place, right? What are the timelines? All of that critically important. In parallel to that, uh, I need change resilience skills because let's say, right? A great part of Kotter's work around change management, if you follow that, is having people understand what's in it for them, right? If I am excited about a change, I am, um, ready and, and willing. If I don't have the skills, it doesn't matter if I know what's in it for me, I still can't, uh, turn the wrench in the way that the wrench needs to be turned in terms of change, resilience skills, and I'll get into the framework, right? So human connection skills, it's not, we often say that people are NBC, uh, they're nice, but clueless. People don't wanna show up and be a jerk at work, right? They don't wanna be a bad coworker. These are the people that they work with day in, day out. You tend to care about the people that you work with. I might just be missing skills, right? To, instead of I've got a bad attitude. Um, I, I am, I have a skills gap. So that skills gap, the good news in all of this is these, what we are talking about in terms of, it's not change management, it's change resilience. It's not just employee engagement, it's human connection. These are skills. They are measurable, they're learnable, um, and they finally get to root cause, right? If you look at probably even your own numbers, it's so hard to move the dial, right? Those disengagement numbers are at historic low, but they've never been high for Gallup, right? There's never been more people feeling wildly engaged than disengaged and actively disengaged. That might be the case at your organization. Maybe you're doing pulse surveys around sentiment, how people are feeling. Um, let's dig and get to root cause so that we can move people out of that pain response, right? Out of that threat response. I wanna talk a a bit about when and how to measure. Um, so my, uh, brother and sister-in-law were on a bike trip in Cuba. Um, and they were having a great time. It was for their anniversary, and they were biking along, and my sister-in-law was upfront, and she wanted to point out to my brother that there was, uh, that the side of the road, the ditch drop was dropping off. Now she's biking along and she looks over her shoulder. Now, what happens when you're biking, you've, you've probably, it's terrifying when you're in a car, right? When you're biking and you look back, right? It tends to pull, it tends to pull your bike. She crashed, broke her collarbone, right? What she was telling my brother, right? As she was looking back, it's kind of what we call rear view mirror data. Um, if I am looking in the rear view mirror, which is what a lot of engagement surveys are, turnover data, um, looking at support, um, or, or, or sentiment around things that's already happened. I want you to think about how you, for these skills and really any skills that matter to you internally and any, um, data that matters to you internally, what are windshield numbers? How can you track things that are predictive of what's to come? So, C two iq, and, and this is, um, Zach mentioned this. I I kind of nerd out on things. I do a lot of research. I've been doing this work, uh, for a long time. And we started to dig in around how do you, how do we get to root cause? And we looked at different research that was out there, um, around the skills of, of change, the skills of resilience, the skills of human connection. Um, and this is a validated skills framework. We validated it with, uh, a US-based population representative of the population. And this is actually, um, the assessment that you're gonna be able to take. So the, the framework is this. There are C one skills and C two skills. So C one are your change resilience skills. C two are human connection skills, very narrowly, right? Defined to what are those skills to stay steady, flexible, forward focused, especially when things are certain in transition. That's the overarching skill. And then the sub factors, emotional regulation, adaptability. And you can, I'm not gonna read these out loud to you, problem solving, confidence, optimism, persistence and change, literacy and personal agency. Now, think about your organization. Think about some of the leaders in your organization. Think about yourself. Imagine if I as an individual, I'm going through change constantly. I'm given a roadmap on what my strengths are and what my growth areas are around change, resilience, even just understanding and having the awareness that this is a skillset that starts to give me a sense of control that starts to give me a path forward. I'm not just a drift in this. These are, this, these critical skills are something that I can get better at. The skills that I am already strong in. I can lean into those in my career. And by the way, these two skills change, resilience and human connection are what make us uniquely human. They are two skills that are necessary more than ever in this rapid change environment, particularly with ai. These are what we call sort of table stakes. It doesn't matter your industry, it doesn't matter your company size, it doesn't matter your role to be successful in your career. These are two core skills to get good at. And then these sub-skills, again, okay, now I feel like I've got a path forward. I, if I can get better at change resilience, I can move myself through that amygdala hijack that threat response faster. I start to have agency overall. I'm getting good at it. There are people, like I've always said, not always, I should say I've have, uh, learned over the years, right? I've built up these skills. Would I say that I am off the charts on all of them? Absolutely not. Right? All of us always can be skill building. I think one of the things when, uh, the story that I told you around why I quit, I lacked some skills and change resilience. We were a fast changing environment, human connection, these skills, right? So the need to communicate effectively, build trust, and create engagement, right? So key to effective collaboration, productivity, especially across difference. I had many coworkers that were lacking in human connection skills. So I spent quite a bit of time, often the only woman in the room feeling othered, right? So I'm into that amygdala hijack, I'm not feeling safe, right? 'cause again, my brain can't tell the difference between the tiger attack and, uh, a microaggression. So because I lacked skills and because some coworkers lacked skills, it wasn't an environment where I, uh, I, right? I was, I was feeling burnt out, and I was feeling othered. That's why I quit. So when you look at these human connection skills, right? Social warmth, empathy and listening, conversational engagement, psych safety, inclusion awareness, and inclusion in action. Very interestingly, um, when we were doing our research, when we were putting this together, right? We're making sure that it was, we were really measuring the critical skills for today. I just wanna call out conversational engagement. Um, this was not originally one of the things that we thought was gonna be in the framework until we dug in and started having a lot of conversations and understanding. One of the big skills gaps, uh, that fall under human connection is even the ability to have a conversation, particularly for younger generation, and particularly for a set of younger generation that got whacked by CID during some very critical developmental phases for them, where you learn to have a conversation. You learn how to, um, uh, chitchat. You learn how to adjust your tone and pace and different things depending on your audience. Those are just missing. Um, so we're measuring those as a part of human connection. That's just me pulling out one of them. So, in the chat, um, what I would love to know is what do you think your top two C two IQ skills are? So you could say maybe I've got, um, two, both of them I think are in change resilience skills, or both of them are in human connection, or I have one of each. Um, what do you think? What do you think your top skills are? And I'm really good at waiting. Hmm. Jesus, I love that you have emotional regulation in there. Um, and I'm just gonna assume that, that you're in a position of leadership. Some of these, for example, emotional regulation and psych safety, um, for managers and executives are even more important, right? If I'm an individual contributor, and I, I don't have emotional regulation, the impact on the people around me and the impact on myself, it's very different than if I'm a frontline manager and I don't have emotional regulation. Um, I'm loving seeing, I'm, um, sort of the, the variety. Um, I would say, when I think about myself, when I was younger, emotional regulation was certainly one that I needed to work on, right? That was a skillset that I was lacking. I would, I could get, you know, really frustrated or I could get really angry, right? Until I learned some of those emotional regulation skills. Um, oops. Um, uh, I'm seeing some people saying kind of the bo like a both C two skills. This is great. So I think now I want you to fast forward, um, and have this report in your hands. So Zach, um, shared this. And Zach, feel free to come off, um, mute if you want, or on camera. I really hope you're all gonna join us in this benchmarking. Um, I think the front line that we're all in right now in terms of leading our organizations through the dumpster fire, um, it's hard. It's hard, y'all, and for us to be able to get this benchmark that then we'll be able to really think, um, through, gosh, what are, what are some resources, right? That achieve engagement can, can help. I love even just, you know, when we talk about human connection, um, this whole organization is built around, um, human connection, which I think is super cool. Um, so again, it's only open to the ex members. Zach, I don't know if you wanna say anything else, but, uh, we're really excited for the benchmarking piece of this. Um, and, and some of the ideas that we're gonna be able to bring back to this community, um, in terms of, okay, here's the baseline. 'cause we're gonna, oh, and by the way, I should mention, everything is anonymous, right? So data, you get your report, we don't see those results, right? All we see is a number, right? And you're gonna get a report that is, you're gonna get your top skills, you're gonna get your top growth areas. You're gonna get the report itself is like 32 pages long. It's got coaching prompts and best practices. It really digs in. Um, and then we're gonna be able to do this benchmark, um, where Zach and I are gonna be able to walk out on the data and dig in and really be able to see by company size and by industry, are we seeing any differences? My assumption, Zach, and you can jump in. I think that, that this group, uh, just by nature of the work, are probably gonna be more high skilled than the general population. I, uh, well, yeah. I, I definitely hope so in many ways, right? Because I often think if you are signing up to be a people leader within an organization, these should be skillset that you are the best at internally because you are the one that has to navigate the executive leadership changes. And when, I mean changes, changes in their own opinion perspective and views on the direction going forward, and then taking and rolling out those changes and aligning the people strategy and helping with the change management, the training, the communication, the tension that comes up from those conversations when leaders are saying, well, you just asked me to do this. Now you're asking me to do this. Like, the emotional regulation piece that we're just talking about, the adaptability, like while maintaining optimism that you're gonna have a supportive, amazing culture going through change. Like the people leader, you're at this like middle point intention of experiencing whatever changes are happening first, and then leading and guiding the organization through those changes with the people strategy. Well, and I think what's interesting, right? If we go back to the very first poll that I did when I said, Hey, what do you think you, how change fatigued are you feeling? Imagine if you could be feeling really change resilient because you are now, you have an awareness of the, your own skills gaps, even if you're higher than the, the average bear, right? All of us. How do we continue to get better at these things? How do we hone our skills? How do we lean into the things our strengths, right? So that we can be aware and cycling through change in a very skilled, change, resilient way? 'cause we need y'all. We do. We do. And it's, you're in a really tough position, right? Because you as a, as a leader, have to navigate these things at an individual level, which I would say if there's one thing you should probably work on over the next 90 days to close up the year would be like level up your skillset around change. Because guess what? It's gonna get even more intense next year. And it's, it's not so, Yeah, no, I mean, right. Like we're, we're in it. Yeah. Um, I, I added these questions because I do think that this is right to be able to, Zach and I were talking about this before we started about kind of the ability to, um, be future focused. Um, and when we think about being ex leaders, it's really thinking about, you have to, I like the way you said that you're kind of in the, in the middle ground. Hey, do our folks have these skills to be able to execute on, on our strategy? And do they have these skills that also create this strong, healthy culture? Mm-hmm. Right? So it's both about business results and, um, the strong healthy culture that actually allow us to have those business results. And then, do you understand where your skills gaps are? Right? Do you under, and then do where that presents risk for you? Um, because you might have a whole part of your organization, for example, that if you've got, they're lacking problem solving confidence, um, when things start to get hard, right? They're, they're gonna be, you're gonna have a culture of people checking, you know, I, I'm just gonna ask five different people. I'm gonna ask permission. I'm not gonna take that risk because I'm not confident about, right. The the next step to take, I don't think I can fix this. Um, right? So change is gonna stall. Uh, that's a, that's a heavy risk area. And then are you giving individuals, I would say the gift of understanding that these are, that they are skills that they can get better at these, right? That it doesn't have to be this hard. They don't, they might not understand the neuroscience of it, but they know that they're feeling change fatigue, and they're feeling burned out, right? Or they're feeling disengaged, or they're feeling othered. So, hey, you can get better at this. It's gonna make your life easier. And oh, by the way, in the age of ai, critical, right? When organizations are deciding who gets cut, who the humans in the loop are, right? They're, they're gonna choose the folks that understand, right? That are, are helping cycle through change, right? Are really resilient. They're not getting burnt out, that are helping build a team atmosphere where people can be creative and innovative, right? And do good work. I'm choosing that person over the person that is burnt and not engaged and right. So again, I say these aren't, are table stakes. Yeah. I would say something I, I'll just bring up another point just 'cause uh, it's kind of this season for many of you, or maybe you just got through like annual performance reviews and, uh, you might be even looking at performance management practices for next year. And some of the stuff that you even just mentioned made me think about like, because we just had a session on this recently of, of like, how can we reinforce a better performance management practice that also centers on key values or behaviors that we look for within our leaders outside of just KPIs, OKRs, or whatever metric thing you use. And I would connect some of these things to that, right? Like, okay, if we know as an organization we're gonna be experiencing huge waves of change going forward, period, you know, um, then that means we are gonna need leaders who can navigate change at a high level. And these are the behaviors that they need to have and the competencies and the skills to thrive within a leadership role at this organization. So let's now start to benchmark where our people are. So one, from like a succession planning, a talent identification standpoint, you can start to connect the dots of being like, whoa, this person has high levels of problem solving, optimism, empathy, and listening. They are well set up to help us navigate the change as a leader. Totally. We should put them in the pipeline, you Know? Right, right. And being able to look now, and one of the things that we've done, because we wanted people to really be able to lean in with honesty, uh, that's why it's anonymous, right? And then it is the culture, right? You get the aggregate data, but then it's the culture of, okay, Zach, you and I, like you report to me. Let's say I'm coming to you and saying, Hey, let's talk about your C two iq. Like where you don't have to tell me your scores, but what, how, what do I need to, what skill up do I need to support you in? Yeah, yeah. Right. Like, it's a, um, and so I think it is, I, I love kind of the through line of, you know, how does this fit into your overall ex people strategy? And I would say, let's say, you know, that you've got tons of change coming up and oh, by the way, your employees are experiencing tons of change out in the world. Or let's say, let's say you've been, your, your engagement numbers have been just persistently not where you want them to be. Mm-hmm. Right? Or you're seeing turnover in key roles, right? Where, or, or in certain divisions, or Right. You're getting these, okay, so what, what do we need to do around the human connection skills there? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I, I'm just opening this up, Zach, I don't know if you have other questions or if, if people have questions, I'm super, um, that's kind of my favorite Yeah. To ask. We have, we have time crew, so if there's any questions, put it in the chat in the q and a. Um, I, I did have a question that kind of I was curious about as we think, okay. Like, you know, first let's say, you know, for you listening, you all get your benchmark report. You get your own report on where your gaps are right now, we want to go to work. Do you see any connections of working on certain competencies or skills that will have an impact on another skill in some way? Like in a positive? Like are there connection points you ever see that? And one example that kind of came to mind when I was thinking about that, and you're talking about problem solving, and then I saw like, optimism on there, and I'm just, it's more of an assumption of mine. But like, I think about my own experience of when I am actively investing into problem solving within my business, I become more optimistic about the future of it, right? Like, if I'm navigating the change and I feel lost, and I'm like, I gotta really figure this out. I don't know what's gonna happen if we don't figure this out. Right? And then again, the problem solving mode, I maybe talk to people how they would prob solve these things, and then I'm kind of flexing that muscle. I'm building that skill. And as I worked through it and I gave momentum on it, I'm going, you know what? I'm actually feeling pretty good about this. Like, I'm feeling now my optimism's actually growing with this as well. So it's a long, it's a long tail, right? It's a long tail. Um, versus like, there are people that, um, people we don't often think of optimism as a skillset, right? Yeah, Yeah. Um, but there are people that like, they know and they have the skill and the ability within the worst of circumstances, right? To be thinking about, okay, what am I learning in this? What's the upside of this? What's the right? And those are, those are behaviors. So you get the feeling of optimism from problem solving. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's the natural skill for you. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Which it reminds me of like a saying that I heard from a high performance coach that I follow Brendan Burchard, he always says like, the, the power plant doesn't have energy. It generates en energy. Yeah. And I think sometimes we, things really to like optimism. You don't just have optimism. Like you have to generate it. You have to build the skillset, you have to work on it and the practices and behaviors that you need to engage with to do that. You don't just wake up. And especially if your impulse is to open up social media or open up email, those things necessarily don't spell optimism right away. Right? So like, uh, how are you engaging with certain action to behaviors that build kind of the skillset de link towards those things versus allowing the outside pressures of change direct that. Right? And, and if you think about, think about the people that you know, um, that are, let's say they're really, really good at, you think about them as they're kind of your, your cultural glue. Mm-hmm. Um, those people have really high human connection skills. Yeah. Right? That's not, that's not a chance, right? They're good at these, they're good at empathy and listening. They're good at inclusion awareness, right? They are, they are good at social warmth. Same thing. If you those people that they just seem to skip through all the change, it doesn't bug them, right? They're, it doesn't mean that they're not going into that amygdala hijack for a moment, right? But then, okay, I've got agency within this change. I'm confident in my problem solving. I'm very persistent. I'm not gonna give up on this thing. They're good at it. Yeah. It's like watching somebody that is good. Think about, like, I always, I love going to any sort of, um, uh, arts, right? Like I went to the Lenny Kravitz concert a couple weeks ago and I was just watching every single member of his band and obviously Lenny Kravitz, they're so good. And those are skills. Mm-hmm. And so when we're thinking about the people that are skipping through change, or the people that are your cultural glue, it's 'cause they have those skills. They're good at those skills. Now imagine knowing that, right? And, and upskilling that. So whether you measure or not, I hope you walk away understanding the neuroscience behind this. Why, why, why we are in the dumpster fire. Um, and then think about these as skills and what can you do, right? Yeah. What can you do to upskill your people in these things to put out the dumpster fire? I think we can all agree we want to escape the dumpster fire. That's So nice. Yeah. It's why we do, it's why we do this work, right? Like that's the, like how do we make work work for everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate the fire flames coming up. Uh, and we were just talking about this before we started kind of in the, in the back room before we opened up the, the webinar today. Um, what I think is really exciting, if you can reframe some of these changes for you mentally as well as for your organization, is you can actually come out of change in difficult times at a much stronger, in a much stronger place, both with yourself, but also the relationships and the culture if you are working on it. And, and navigating that change in the right way. And I think those are great skillset sets. Like if you're navigating it from a place of growth and problem solving of empathy and listening and social support, like you better believe when you get on the other side of this change and this difficult moment, that culture is gonna be such in a strong place. Like we know that our relationships deepen when you work through difficult times at a a deep level, right? Yeah. And if not, then you might come out of it like not in the best place. So it's like, but the optimistic view is like, hey, if we actually do this right, we're gonna come out even higher and on top of this than we've ever been before. I think. I think that's it. And I think it is, there's a part of this, um, like I think we have a moral obligation as leaders. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, we know, we know the health outcomes, me, like mental and physical health outcomes that are tied to toxic work cultures, um, to burnout, to fatigue. Like if, if we can give people the skills right, to be able to move through this ethically and morally we should do that. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Right? Like, especially like people, again, you all this community, you do this work because you're trying to make, uh, workplaces and cultures where everyone can thrive. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, And so like it's, again, you all are, you're in the, it's like you're in trying to prevent the dumpster fire. Um, and the dumpster fire came to us, right? The rate of change and with, we didn't even talk about it. I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on, right? The political divisiveness that's, that's come through, right? So we're, we're living through this time that is, um, so treacherous and I, I hope that we can all like, have the flashlights to help people forward. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like a great closing thought for all of you is one, I would say give yourself the gift of, of the rapport and uncovering some of these things for yourself so that you can really just put yourself in this like amazing, empowered, centered space to then thrive within the context that you are in. Like as a people leader internally, like, like she just shared, you are at the forefront of the dumpster fire for your company. Like, these things get placed onto you to deal with and delegated to you as a people leader, to, to manage that for your people internally. And that is such a difficult position to be in, which is why it's like such an honor always to work with you all on these things and strategize and have a community to kind of collaborate with because it's extremely hard to do alone. Uh, so it, it is always like an hour to work with you all on this. Uh, but let's not ignore how hard that is for you individually. So give yourself the gift of like uncovering what that is for you. Like how can you put yourself in the best position to develop these skills, to be really rounded out as a people leader so that you can thrive through change and guide your organization forward on this. And you're gonna be in such a better place mentally for yourself and more fulfilled, but also in the world of work, you're having such an incredible impact. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you all for all you do. And um, Zach, it's gonna be super fun to do this benchmarking. Yeah. We can't wait to come back to y'all with kind of what, what it looks like and what it means. And I can't wait to even unpack that and riff on what we see. And again, remember that it's all anonymous, so I won't be able to see your report results. Nobody on my team will. We're gonna get the aggregate. You're the only one that gets your report, sees your report. So we say, think of this as a mirror, not a microscope. Um, so be really honest with yourself because then you'll get coaching nudges right around what are those, you know, what are the things to be thinking about? Um, so, and then yeah, the benchmark's gonna be super cool. Yeah. So that being said, uh, you'll see in the chat there again, um, I'll put it one more time. Email me directly and just let me know you're in, if you wanna be part of this benchmarking report, you want your own report for it as well. And we'll send you the details on how to get signed up for the network so you can access the link. Otherwise you can go directly to the ex leadership network space link that I provided there as well, you know, at a minimum sign up for the 14 day trial that gets you into the community. There's much more beyond this report, but this at least guarantees you get it for free. Like this is just on top of what the membership is. So, um, super excited to do this as a community, to kind of benchmark ourselves, empower you all as executive leaders, but then also get a pulse on like, where's the HR community at? Like where is the gaps within the industry? That will also direct for me as a community leader, the content and the programs we build in the future. Totally. Yeah. It's, uh, it's really important to do this together. So that being said, Maureen, thank you so much for Yeah, And I hope y'all would love to connect on LinkedIn too. Love this community. So, and I'm always up for a good conversation about how we make work, work for everybody. Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent. Let's give it up for Maureen for doing this. Thanks everybody, and uh, we'll connect after that. But thank you again for joining everyone. Appreciate the time and we'll see you at the next one. We'll see you soon. Bye Everybody. Bye everyone.

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