Pod Insights Change Wired From Lofty Visions To Daily Behaviors: the Behavior Change Blueprint every leader needs in 2026 to turn Strategy into Lived Results with Andrea Belk Olson, CEO of Pragmadik. From Lofty Visions To Daily Behaviors: the Behavior Change Blueprint every leader needs in 2026 to turn Strategy into Lived Results with Andrea Belk Olson, CEO of Pragmadik. Change Wired
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About this episode Big goals are easy to write and hard to live. When strategies promise transformation but leave people asking what do I do on Monday, momentum dies and the execution gap widens. We sat down with Andrea Olson - behavioral scientist, Harvard Business Review contributor, TEDx speaker, and founder of a change agency that works with companies from $300M to $36B. She's helped some of the biggest organizations in the world figure out why their strategy looks great on paper and dies in execution...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast, podcast dedicated on a mission to make change more approachable, more consistent, and more strategic, in a sense that so it actually gets us somewhere where we want to go. Guys, I cannot be more excited to have an amazing guest joining me on today's podcast episode.
0:37 Speaker 00 If you've ever walked out of a strategy offsite, feeling inspired, or if you did some personal goal planning and a month, two, three months later realized nothing actually changed and stuck with you, this episode is for you. It's a strategy season ending. We are at the beginning of our year and there is still the spirit of goal setting, of strategizing, of envisioning things that we want to accomplish to make real, to improve our lives, our workplaces. What are we going to create in this world? Companies are setting bold five-year visions, ambitious growth targets, culture,
1:22 Speaker 00 and technology transformations. You can be setting your own goals for to transform your work-life, career, relationships. Many ambitious and transformative words are flying around. But here is something that research and real-world practice shows us. A lot of our aspirations on a personal, but especially on the organizational level, we have great strategies and visions and plans. That's not where we lack. But somehow, those transformations barely happen. They fail because we never make them executable.
2:04 Speaker 00 We never set ourselves and other people that need to make the change for success. And guys, today's guest, Andrea Olson, well, she's the person who lives, breathes, and works in this...
2:22 Speaker 00 Strategy execution gap, helping leaders, helping individuals to make the vision not just something we talk about, but something that we live and something that creates impact in the world. Andrea is a writer, professor, founder of Change Agency, contributor to Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur Magazine, and the World Economic Forum. She's built and scaled a tech company from scratch to 10 million in revenue, led digital strategy inside global corporations, and for over a decade has helped organizations activate real strategic change. So what's envisioned is actually executed and then creates positive impact. She's also
3:07 Speaker 00 the author of a new book coming out called Execution Drift. This phrase alone tells you what we're going to be talking about and what Andrea's work is focused on. And this conversation will unpack things like why abstract goals like hire the right people, collaborate better, or any of your personal abstract goals don't end up being executed on and realizing your vision, your aspirations. We're going to talk about how to translate high-level strategy into concrete mindset and behaviors from CEO to janitor. But again, you can also apply it to your own life. Why empowerment without clarity creates confusion,
3:51 Speaker 00 not ownership? How to reduce resistance to change by defining what actually needs to be done differently? What leaders might do to build confidence and believe in their teams, especially in ambiguous AI-driven environments? And why strategy and culture are in separate things, but intertwined systems of behavior? One of my favorite parts of this conversation with Andrea was the idea of creating kind of Rosetta Stone for your organization to, for approaching change and turning strategy into execution. Again, a way to translate these lofty visions and intentions into something people can live, breathe, and act on every day.
4:39 Speaker 00 Something we talk about also is that people don't resist strategic intent or vision. They resist confusion that often comes with it. They don't resist change. They resist cognitive overload that also comes with a lot of strategic stuff. People don't need more communication. They need more clarity to know how to do differently. If you lead a team, run a company, sit in the middle management or just feel stuck between be more strategic and just get the work done. This episode will give you the language, the structure, a new perspective and hopefully a tool ball court is the next step to start being a lot more effective in translating
5:25 Speaker 00 vision and strategy into what's done and the positive impact you want. Okay, maybe, just maybe, it will finally help you to close that gap between what's written, what envisioned, what's talked about and what actually happens inside you and inside the team that you lead, the organization you are part of. So let's dive in. Andrea Olson, welcome to Change Wired Podcast. So happy to have you here and yes, thank you so much for coming to the show.
6:01 Speaker 01 No, thank you for the invitation. I'm so glad we could get this going.
6:05 Speaker 00 Yes, you know, it's 2026, strategy season for the year and for a lot of companies for five years, right? And I think there could not be a better time than to talk about your work and what you're passionate about, excited about to bring into the world.
6:25 Speaker 00 To give our listeners a little bit maybe background, where are you connecting from? And what would you like listeners to know about you before starting the episode?
6:37 Speaker 01 Oh gosh, well, I'm technically connecting from the United States in the state of Iowa, which I'm located about two hours from Chicago, right on the border of Iowa and Illinois. Disappointing that the Chicago Bears did not make the playoffs for NFL football, but that's okay. They did, had a great season. I would say a little bit about myself. I do a variety of things. I'm a writer. I've published three books with the fourth and fifth one actually in the works right now. One is at review with the publisher and the other one is still getting typed out as we speak. And then I also write for a variety of business publications, Harvard Business Review, Inc.
7:21 Speaker 01 Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, World Economic Forum. I know Davos is going on right now, so that's fairly relevant. I'm also an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa, teaching applied entrepreneurship. I'd say that the other two things I do are having and leading a change agency. So it's basically a consulting firm that helps organizations navigate and implement strategic change. And then I also on the side, I have a nonprofit that puts on TED Talks here in the Midwest. So nice variety, something is different every day and all the time.
8:00 Speaker 00 Well, quite prolific. How do you manage all of this?
8:04 Speaker 01 As long as it doesn't all happen at the same time, it's fine. Those days where it does is are very difficult.
8:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, well, thank you so much for sharing a little bit of that background and what you're up to. How did you get to do this work? Where did you start? Perhaps maybe a passion in high school or college and a little bit of history like from there to fast forward today and all this amazing work that you do. How did that happen?
8:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, you know, in college, I mean, I actually was into a lot of art, had an art scholarship that I did not take into college and ended up just getting a liberal arts degree specializing in communications and psychology. That was kind of more my bent, but I still didn't know what I wanted to do as a career. And a friend of mine who had graduated at the same time, he said, hey, do you want to start a tech company? And at the time, everyone was starting a tech company. And I had nothing else to do. I, you know, I'm still floating around and I said, sure. And we built that company over almost 10 years from nothing,
9:18 Speaker 01 like just us in a rented office that was not in the best part of town, all the way up to having 25, 30 employees.
9:29 Speaker 01 You know, gosh, I'd say twenty to thirty million in revenue by the time I left. It was, it was a
9:35 Speaker 00 Quite something, success.
9:36 Speaker 01 It was fantastic, but we had so many pivots. We had so many terrible moments where you thought everything was going to collapse. You had to learn everything on the fly and, and you had to be, except making mistakes. But most importantly, you had to really have a vision, a strategy and your finger on the pulse of what your target audience wanted. Didn't really have the freedom to go do whatever you wanted and focus it on yourself, but it was more about growing the business. So when I left there, I actually went and worked at two different global companies. They're actually international manufacturers. So it was a, is a big shift.
10:20 Speaker 01 Heading up their digital marketing strategy and sometimes sales teams. So that was a very big job, but it gave me a new perspective on how corporate looks at strategy, how corporate implements that, how corporate understands customer needs. And I found that there was this huge gap between the scrappy startup and the two large companies I worked with, but the same goals and frustrations. They wanted to differentiate better. They wanted people to understand and implement strategy. They wanted people to identify, embrace customer needs and integrate that into the products and services they offered. So the challenge was, what is missing?
11:04 Speaker 01 What's the problem with getting people to understand what they need to do? What's the problem with getting people to accept and implement and embrace change? And so after all of that, I decided to start a firm and we've been in business for, I think almost twelve years now at this point. Doing just that for
11:25 Speaker 00 A decade.
11:26 Speaker 01 A wide variety of industries and, and companies.
11:30 Speaker 00 Oh, what a journey. And if you were to look at your work from now backwards, did you perhaps see some through line that was, you know, sort of theme through all of this journey that I still carry into today?
11:50 Speaker 01 I would say that the big thing with that, and it does carry through to today, is this dissatisfaction with the status quo. We can't just rest on our laurels. And when people wanted to make change, they weren't looking at some core, big picture. It was always very self-centered. This department wants to do this to look good. It was never really around the business. And even to this day, I find that so frustrating where we're all in the organization to grow the business. And the layers of confusion, the layers of resistance and politics, all thwart that.
12:33 Speaker 01 And I believe the big part of it is that people don't understand what is expected of them and how to take forward motion in a very ambiguous environment. And that is often shaped by ambiguous strategy.
12:51 Speaker 00 Yes, and speaking about ambiguous strategy, you know, this what I call strategy season, where a lot of companies gonna go away or just went away for their strategic offsets, and they're probably gonna plan the next five years. What would you say was almost certainty, most of the companies? What are the mistakes that most of the companies will still do while doing this strategic planning? What are some of those mistakes, maybe?
13:23 Speaker 01 You know, I think it works as a pyramid. And so as soon as you start with a mistake at the top, it trickles down throughout the organization. And I believe that core mistake is having, whether you call them goals, pillars, objectives, it doesn't really matter. If those are too abstract and obtuse and don't provide any...
13:52 Speaker 01 Basically mindset or behavior change direction for the organization, nothing will change. So a great example recently, I was working with a client and they said, well, we have our strategy. We have it ready for 2026 and we're ready to roll it out. You know, we want to make sure people understand it, see it, adopt it and start taking action. And one of the strategic pillars they had was getting the right people in the right seats, which is not uncommon. A lot of companies say that's what they want. And they may put metrics under that to support it. We want to hire 10 people first quarter, maybe their salespeople, you know, all these other measurable things.
14:35 Speaker 01 But the gap is, what does right people mean? What is the definition of right people? What is the definition of how that selection impacts the strategy? Impacts the organizational goals, whether that's growth, whether that's saving time and money, whether that's unique skillsets or knowledge and technology to help differentiate further. So these lofty aspirations without any context with them. Of course, people are going to say, well, I don't know. Have we not been hiring the right people? Have all these people been bad?
15:20 Speaker 01 And what do we mean by that? How are we going to measure what right means? And that often gets kicked down to middle management where now they have to decipher that. And oftentimes each silo in the organization will really interpret that differently.
15:40 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. And how would you suggest? Leaders to make, you know, the strategy less, I guess, abstract, ambiguous. So there is no this, I think you have this phrase, execution drift on different levels. And, you know, what, what, what can companies do to avoid it, to prevent it, or to, to do it well?
16:04 Speaker 01 Well, it, it's, it's very simple. And I, I, my intent has never been to try to change the strategic process of organizations. You have a methodology for developing your strategy. Maybe you've been doing that a long time. There's a, a ton of great methodologies out there that exist. So I, I don't want to reinvent the wheel with that. But once you have that strategy, you will have a series of, again, goals, pillars, objectives, that are incredibly high level. And what you need is a tool to say, how do we translate that from this abstract concept
16:46 Speaker 01 to moving that down to kind of the key things that we're not going to compromise on? You might want to call them, you know, core commitments. And then how do those translate into mindsets and behaviors for every single individual across the organization? Whether it's the janitor, whether it's the CEO, everyone in between. So you're translating, let's take the example of, you know, the right people in the right seats. What do we mean by right? And maybe that's two or three core things that are universal across the organization. And then what do those things mean in regards to the actions?
17:31 Speaker 01 And the way people think and the way we want them to behave? Because any change that you want to have in your organization requires behavior change. And behavior will change if people understand that something is not only different, but how they can participate and influence it. So if you don't have that map, you just keep yelling into the void of, I want, I want this to happen. And no one truly understands what that means.
18:00 Speaker 00 Yeah, and how would you perhaps do it on the implementation side? In a sense that, okay, you define this behaviors that you can now.
18:11 Speaker 00 Cascade through different levels, like how the process of cascading it, how can leaders implement that, right? So everyone to especially large organizations, so everyone to the level of janitor actually knows that this is what they're supposed to do.
18:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I think there's two parts to that. One is that that architecture needs to be communicated and shared with the entire organization. That's fairly easy and tactical. But that also has to be rolled out in a way where you have exercises that people start to go through and understand, how does this apply to me and my area of responsibility? So you might roll out that framework and say, okay, janitor, let's look through this and find out how does this apply to you? What do you think you could do in your area to take action or do something different? Or support that strategy, given this framework?
19:10 Speaker 01 The second piece, and I think which is even most important, and I did write an article for Harvard Business Review on this, is that each department, or maybe it's a business unit, depends on how you're architected. They need to develop their own strategy to support the overarching strategy. And they use that framework, that, you know, core commitment, mindsets and behaviors to say, what are, what actions and mindsets are we going to apply to achieve what we want to grow our area? So if it's marketing, let's just say,
19:52 Speaker 01 instead of saying, we're going to just do three campaigns this year, and we're going to hope that we get this engagement number, or this click through rate, or whatever those tactics are, we're moving it up a little bit and saying, but given that objective, what do we want to actually do? What behaviors do we want to change? What mindsets do we want to change in our target audience? So let's say. That could be something like, we want people to understand that we are relentless allies for our customers. Well, what does that mean? That means maybe two or three core actions.
20:36 Speaker 01 And then what does that mean in regards to every single person's behavior? Now, using that framework, you can develop a unique strategy. You're leveraging that to say, that's the experience we want our employees to have. We experience we want our customers to have. And now it's not just about tactics, it's about approach. How do you create that? The tactics just support the approach.
21:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. It makes sense to have this overarching strategy and then allow autonomy, I guess, in different departments and on different levels of the organization to decide what that strategy would look like for that specific department and team, et cetera. And in your experience, do they then communicate or somehow align that to make sure that it is how they were supposed to understand it? And it's not something that they just skim up with and it might not be even the right translation?
21:42 Speaker 01 Exactly, or they might conflict, or they might overlap. So, the nice part about having a supporting strategy is that is the core document that you can now have a conversation around. Think about those meetings where you have multiple departments and sales says, we're going to focus on this geography. Or marketing says, we're going to roll out this campaign for this product or service. But there is no strategy there. There's a huge gap between whatever goal the company has and then the tactics that are being implemented. So if each department or business unit has their strategy, that's the discussion that you bring to the table. And you have those strategy discussions where you can say, oh, we're looking at that same
22:27 Speaker 01 thing, let's collaborate. Or, we're doing that, but this might be a conflict here, maybe we need to adjust that accordingly. So, instead of talking about tactics that people don't understand, fine, you know, promote this product, but how does that tie up to that bigger picture? Experience an objective that you're trying to create. So I think that becomes that gap filler.
22:55 Speaker 00 Yes, and do you think it feels like to me that using this approach allows to marry this strategic clarity and autonomy and contextual autonomy in different departments and teams because ultimately they get to decide how exactly they could, what tactics they're gonna use to implement this strategy.
23:19 Speaker 01 Right, no, you're exactly right. I think the intent is to get people not only to have ownership, but start changing the way they think and getting them much more business minded rather than just making widgets or checking boxes. So it is a shift, but it is much more impactful than just general empowerment. If you tell someone, hey, you know, we want new ideas from you and you can do whatever you want, just let us know. It is so broad and amorphous that is very difficult to have something of real substance and impact that comes to the table. You, you, you end up being and picking small things like
24:02 Speaker 01 let's streamline this process or let's have, you know, pizza day on Fridays. These are all very nice, but you want something that impacts the success and health of the business. So to get there, you need people thinking in a business sense. The only way they can start doing that is to start thinking strategically and connecting what they do to what the organization wants to accomplish and having some specificity to that.
24:33 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's, it's, you know, all this, it reminded me of like a few clients I had in, in bigger organizations who were on this like more or less executive positions and they would say, well, our Poses want us to be more strategic, but we don't really know what we need to be strategic about. Meaning like there is no clarity. And so they had, they were like locked in between this. Like trying to be strategic, but then never really understanding what biggest strategy is. And then having to come down to the level of tactics, because that's the only thing that they could, were able to do.
25:10 Speaker 01 Yes, yes. And I've seen this too. The, the challenge becomes threefold. First, the, the big strategy is, is so abstract. It's hard to understand what you're supposed to do different. And it's, it's not even just what you're supposed to do. It's, it's not about telling somebody, here are the three actions you need to take. Or forcing, let's say, business unit leaders to interpret what that abstract strategy means. It's about really helping people apply those concepts in a way that's relevant to them. But number two is hat, forcing people to have craft a strategy and have a tool to do so,
25:55 Speaker 01 helps them learn. That, that's how we learn in school. That's how we learn in, in just, you know, self-education. Where it starts with, here's a tool, here's how to apply it, here's how to apply it in your context. And we just keep this gap floating out there between something that's so high and broad. And then suddenly it will cross the chasm into here's what we're going to do different. And, and I think that's what I've heard is people struggle so much with. If you say, oh, we want to grow, or we want to hire the right people. But what am I supposed to be thinking about and doing differently than I was before?
26:37 Speaker 01 And that's often never articulated. So you need a way to get people to start thinking about what they could do differently without being prescriptive.
26:47 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. And you know, you also in your work, you're, in general, you talk a lot about language and how leaders need to be less abstract, less jargony. And there should be more clarity and precision.
27:04 Speaker 00 The question I have is very often comparing like different goals. Let's say you have SMART goals and then you have your aspirational goals, right? And aspirational, they're aspirational because they inspire you. And something like a SMART goal is not necessarily the most inspiring, even though it is a lot more concrete and a lot more actionable. So what is, I guess the question is, what is the way to approach the language? So it's still aspirational, it's still motivational, it still gives people this like bigger picture and something they can aspire to reach.
27:48 Speaker 00 And at the same time, you know, having that clarity about what I do on Monday.
27:54 Speaker 01 Well, I think the aspirational goal, let's start with that, is it still has to have something that you could read and go, this is how I connect to that. So if you have a goal that says we're going to improve the synergy and collaboration between departments in our organization. I'm kind of making this up on the spot.
28:22 Speaker 01 Okay, of course, we all want to collaborate better. Of course, we want to have synergy. But that declarative statement doesn't say anything. It doesn't say about what you really want to accomplish with that. You don't articulate what you want to change and why, and you don't articulate what you want to sustain. So if you don't have a reason and you don't have clarity as to what needs to be different. I mean, I don't, you can set up a SMART goal and say, okay, we're going to meet with all these departments once a week, right? It's measurable and ensure we communicate, okay? Then we're going to do it at this timeframe.
29:06 Speaker 01 That that doesn't solve the problem because we haven't defined the problem. So I think SMART goals are great. If you really have already backtracked into what the problem is. Thought through all the ways that you could solve it. Picking an approach. And then measuring that approach. So it's just so many steps away. From what a typical strategic goal is. Uh, it's very hard to to apply it there. So. I think it's not just about metrics and it's not about doing the measurement. It's first analyzing the problem and breaking it down to its core parts. And then you can apply a measure against that.
29:52 Speaker 00 I guess what I'm hearing is it's. Different levels. Like you might have. Still some abstraction and North Star goal. But then at the same time, you can translate it for each department. And then also you can translate it down to SMART goals and tactics and KPIs. That are yeah, just more concrete and and numbers driven and not as aspirational. As long as everyone, what I'm hearing, as long as everyone understand. Understands how it connects to what the company is ultimately trying to do.
30:26 Speaker 01 Yes, but there's two parts to that. It's connecting what the companies are trying to do and trying to achieve. But then also. It's your own individual context. So a janitor's context is very different from the director of marketing's context. To the uh, field salesperson's context. So you have to have that. Way, that tool to help people see those objectives and go, okay. How do I translate that? To my area of responsibility? That's what that framework is for. To help kind of bring them along. To say, all right, now you have a little more. Information and understanding of what we want to achieve.
31:10 Speaker 01 How do you see that applying to you versus? Something that just is so. You know, lofty that it has no relevance.
31:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, and the next question that came to my mind was around culture and values. Is it going to be the same process? Like you have your culture definitions and those values that are more abstract, lofty words. And then there needs to be some work done to translate it into something meaningful for each department and each level of the organization.
31:44 Speaker 01 Right. If you are in love with your value statements and you are, you know, really wanting people to embrace that, you could use that same framework for culture. The problem is, is that now you have two separate frameworks. And which one do I choose when I'm trying to make a decision? So I believe that strategy and culture are completely intertwined. And that framework, because we talked about mindsets and behaviors. If it's defining that universally, isn't that something that then becomes the framework for culture?
32:28 Speaker 01 Because we talk about values and we talked about them in a very abstract sense. We talk about integrity, communication. And maybe there's a sentence or two that says, you know, we always are, we always are listening and empathetic to our customers' needs. Okay, but what does that mean in regards to an outcome? What is the reasoning behind that? And what do we want to see in each and every person's behavior? So I'd say that that values can integrate into the framework. They're part of it. But you should think of your values as opportunities for differentiation.
33:14 Speaker 01 And that's why it ties to strategy. If we have to tell people that we have integrity, I'd be concerned about why we have to articulate that. If integrity in some form of that can be leveraged as a differentiator, then let's expand that and talk about what we want to see people doing and what shapes that integrity experience and why it's important.
33:46 Speaker 00 You know, there is this phrase, uh, strategy or culture, it's strategy for breakfast.
33:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:51 Speaker 00 So what I'm hearing is you you don't see them as like separate entities that exist separately. You see companies, like the company has the mission, has a vision, and then it got to be translated into more tangible uh, behaviors and more localized strategic moves for people to act on them. And then what you call it, culture and strategy, doesn't really matter.
34:21 Speaker 01 Exactly. So whether you have a formal strategy or not, you still have a strategy. It just hasn't been documented or it hasn't been communicated. And if you have a strategy, a formal strategy, you still have a culture. It doesn't mean that they are intertwined. It doesn't mean that they are complementing each other or working together, but they always both exist. Sometimes it's weak, sometimes it's counterproductive, sometimes it's just misunderstood. And they operate independently, but they always exist. And I think that they always influence each other at different levels and at different intensities.
35:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, and that makes sense. Because, yeah, at the end of the day, you still just have people doing things in a specific way. And then however you call it, it's still the same process that's happening.
35:18 Speaker 00 And then, uh, speaking about behaviors in general, people tend to do the thing that they've always done and don't really like changing the thing. In your experience, uh, what did you find, like in your experience with working with companies, with leaders, with teams? Uh, what did you find work for changing certain persisting behaviors that are not necessarily desirable behaviors? And in fact, maybe hurting the future vision that the company now has? Like, how to change what people do without much resistance and struggle?
35:55 Speaker 01 I I think that sometimes it all starts with the fact that certain things were tolerated for a very long time. So let's say those behaviors, we don't want to see them, we want people to change. But we had been accepting that for 15 years. So now we suddenly think that because we are now making a statement saying this is now not tolerated. The next day, people will come in and behave differently. They won't. Because we really need to look at it more from a behavioral science, human psychology perspective. You know that any change is, you know, brings a cognitive load. Think about when your IT department rolls out a new software.
36:37 Speaker 01 You've been kind of doing things a certain way and you have a certain rhythm and now you have to stop. You have to really think and process. And it's not that people are against challenges. It's not people that are against new things. It's, it is a cognitive burden. And the part is that sometimes the change that is asked of them, they don't, again, kind of goes back to the beginning. They don't know what is expected to change. So if you say, we are going to be again, more collaborative. Well, what is expected to change? Do we want more meanings? And then we start having more meetings and they say, no, no, we now we have too many meetings.
37:20 Speaker 01 So there was no articulation of what we were trying to accomplish with that collaboration. When we say we want to collaborate more, it's, it's why? And what we want to accomplish? And then we can start looking downstream of measurements of that. But it's, it's still something that's abstract, but you have to put a little more meat on the bone with it. Because otherwise people will not change and they will then continue to resist change.
37:49 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. Any other advice or tips? Because that's what I also hear from leaders, also middle management, team leaders who work with people. Like any other advice on incentivizing the right behavior versus, well, let's, let's take, you know, this big word AI. And adopting more AI and. Imagine, you know, whole systems and workflows and people really not liking it because, you know, there is like, it's gonna take my job or I'm just not comfortable with that.
38:24 Speaker 00 Uh, how, like, what are some of the best ways that that you know of so working to help people to to do to make this process working of adapting new technology or changing like what they do faster?
38:39 Speaker 01 Well, I I again, I think it goes back to, but what do you want the AI to do? What is, what is the objective of that? So maybe it's something where you small, where you say, hey, marketing, why don't you try using chat G P T? To speed up content development. Okay, that's one thing. There could be another thing where you say, we want AI to parse through a bunch of data that we have and pull some reports and give us some insight on problem A, B, and C. These are wholly different things. The marketing team, that to me is much more of a trial and error. That's a, everything will be status quo.
39:25 Speaker 01 Why don't you try working with it, playing with it, see what you like about it, see what you don't? And have an ongoing conversation about what benefits it's showing in that very small tactical space? And what challenges it's creating? And refine how you potentially can use that tool and you will see benefits of it. The other side, the, you know, data parsing, that is something that's much higher level and bigger. And those folks, when they get a report from that saying, here's what it spit out.
40:04 Speaker 01 Their role now is to assess, review and evaluate that and still draw strategic conclusions. So I think it's all, every change is very contextual. And I think you still have to go back to, but what are we trying to do? Instead of that sweeping statement of, well, we can have some more magic efficiency. Just everyone use AI to make your job faster and put out more. It's not always about. Quantity, it's often about quality. And you need to have a strategy to say, how are we going to leverage this? It doesn't mean that you can't do, you know, trial or pilot projects. But again, it goes back to,
40:49 Speaker 01 what are you really trying to accomplish?
40:52 Speaker 00 Um, yes. Fundamentally, I guess people will need to think more and decide more. And yeah, just own a lot more things. Which, you know, brings me to the next question.
41:11 Speaker 00 Decision making in ambiguity, in uncertainty. And with what I also am hearing often is, well, now that we don't need people to do a lot of like clicking the buttons, so to speak, but instead we need them to think more and decide more. And we need to scale this process like, but then things are always changing and we roll out one thing. And then, you know, next week, there is another thing that we have to allow. How do, you know, the leaders would ask, how do we teach people to make decisions in such a fast-paced change and ambiguity and certainty? When we're not even sure what's the next thing coming? Do you have any advice on that to leaders?
41:55 Speaker 00 Like, how do you navigate this space?
41:58 Speaker 01 Well, I, I think, you know, yes, I would agree that change is happening faster than it used to. But there's never been certainty in, in the history of the world, right? We all, we do want certainty, we love certainty, but we cling to that to ensure that we don't make a misstep in a decision. We don't make a wrong decision or a bad decision. And that's why we really want to have certainty. And when we use that as the barometer, we will not take action until we know 200% that certainly this is the right decision. But People don't change that quickly, right?
42:41 Speaker 01 We can want our leaders to make faster decisions, but those decisions have trickle down effects. If you say, all right, we have to make a fast decision that we're going to pick this platform and we're going to integrate it into our organization. It is a very long arc to have other people use it, adopt it, you know, work out all the kinks of that. Maybe there's changes to it. So sometimes speed of decision making isn't as important as the quality, which goes back to your question of how to get people to make better decisions. Again, I think you need to help teach people to understand how to evaluate a situation
43:24 Speaker 01 and how to weigh different options based on that bigger picture view. It's not just about your department. Let's say IT installing this software because it makes their lives easier. It's understanding the bigger picture of how does that change marketing? How does that change sales? How does that impact reporting? And start having those conversations. But I also believe the other piece is practicing this again and again and again, so people get comfortable with ambiguity. If you've never had to make an ambiguous decision in an ambiguous context, and then suddenly you're thrust into it, it's going to be fight or flight.
44:10 Speaker 01 So we have to encourage our teams to say, yes, make a decision and understand the context and ramifications of that decision. And the small things that don't work, it's fine. That's the way life goes. And the bigger decisions, it's not about telling people what to do, but helping constantly educate them on knowing and asking the right questions. So in essence, I think a leader's job to help their teams make better decisions is almost like being a parent, right? If you make decisions for your children, they never learn to make decisions. And if we assume all our employees have learned this skill.
44:56 Speaker 01 We're we're really overlooking the fact that it's very possible they never were taught this in their previous employer or or in their life, or they only have a small sample of experience in making decisions in ambiguous environments. So leader's job is to teach people how to do that and help through prompting and discussion and and asking questions that force them to think of different questions and and process things a different way. So to me, it's it's repetition and really true leadership that that can make that happen.
45:32 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
45:35 Speaker 00 A lot of this, eh, things like learning decision making process or teaching decision making process and helping people to take more ownership. A lot of these processes eh require a lot of psychological safety, a lot of trust. Have you like noticed in your work or learned through your work, eh, what are some the good ways to create this feeling, this sense that I don't know, culture or psychological safety and trust? So all of those things, all of these changes, all of this, you know, taking ownership and decision
46:12 Speaker 00 making, helping people to, yeah, to own more and to be more proactive without that fear to be punished in some way. Like, how do you install that? What would you suggest leaders do?
46:27 Speaker 01 Oh, I think I think a lot of the the frameworks that are out there for empowerment and change and decision making are are a little too academic. You know, people are are very emotionally driven. And I think that the thing we overlook when we say, well, okay, we're going to empower you, you know, here's here's a you get this much money and this much time to go.
46:51 Speaker 01 Find a solution for this and implement it. There's still a risk of failure because you don't know what the expectations are. I think the biggest key to getting people to change their behaviors is two things. Confidence, how can you instill and continually instill confidence in someone? By not just giving them feedback, but giving them honest feedback, really good candor, things for them to think about. And then number two is belief. Communicating that you believe in somebody really builds their confidence and strengthens that relationship. They will always come back to you for feedback, advice, input, and they will build their
47:34 Speaker 01 own self momentum in moving into spaces that are new and uncomfortable. I mean, if you think about a mentor or a person that you admire or a person that you have a great relationship with, or even maybe a previous leader. I think those traits are the biggest and strongest and most unique ones. That you really believe in that individual and that you support them in their education, learning and growth, and that you help instill confidence in them. And then over time, they will really become a fully fledged, independent person that is
48:14 Speaker 01 not afraid to go into, you know, very ambiguous environments where decision making can be risky.
48:23 Speaker 00 This reminds me of, not so much reminds me of, but makes me think about this fact that, you know, everyone is talking about what should be AI'd or more technology driven and what should be more human centric and humanized more. And I feel like we are actually entering this beautiful phase where we can outsource a lot of stuff to AI and different systems. But what got to stay, and I think maybe should be expanded, is this like human element of communication, of creating these moments for building trust and for instilling confidence in people.
49:04 Speaker 00 I feel like when, if it's done right, we actually can do a lot better than we could have before when you had so many things you, you had to actually do.
49:14 Speaker 01 Right, I I completely agree because I think that human to human interaction, there's that's something you really can't replicate. And when you have that opportunity to spend more time, I I think middle management, kind of going off on a small tangent here, is an essential role in organizations because of the human element, because they can talk with people, lead people, coach people, really help elevate the skills and talents of others. That can't be replaced, but they have so much work they have to do. Often, working managers is what we call them because we want their their time to be billable, basically, that we lose that value.
49:59 Speaker 01 And so maybe AI is going to give us that opportunity to bring that back, hopefully.
50:04 Speaker 00 Yes, I I'm also very hopeful that AI can actually make us more human. When we decide to put it in, you know, in the into the right usage and not try to automate everything that requires more human touch.
50:22 Speaker 01 Right.
50:25 Speaker 00 But that, yeah, the question that I wanted to ask next was, so your work is focused a lot on helping leaders to make strategy executable, right? So it's not just like some plan on the wall that we look once, I don't know, a quarter or once a year. Do you have a maybe high level step by step process that you could share with us right now? That we're just like, oh, yeah, like, you know, I can compare my notes and I'm not exactly doing that. Could you share this?
50:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure. So it really starts with that initial conversation. Now, what do you have a strategy today? If so, what is that strategy? What does that strategy look like? And start talking about, you know, what does that look like in action? We are most executive leaders always want to talk about goals. Okay, well, we need to grow 10%. Okay, that's fine. And we're maybe gonna let the sales team decide where they get that 10% from. You know, what industry, what product line, etc. That's fine. But when we talk about things that are a little softer, we want to fix collaboration, we want to fix communication, we want to fix customer engagement.
51:38 Speaker 01 They often struggle to really articulate, but but how do we do that? So what do we want to see different in the behaviors and mindsets of our employees? From top to bottom, that would make that a reality. And so that's where the conversation starts. Then the second step is we go through and try to find, and usually this is in a workshop with high level leadership, sometimes it's a mixed group with some middle management as well. Talking about what is that core differentiator that you want to build the organization around?
52:16 Speaker 01 That supports the strategy, that supports the culture, and that supports what customers want that separates you from the competition. Then that conversation builds out into what I had mentioned earlier, which was those core commitments. What are the three or four things that you will never compromise on? Meaning, never compromise, whether it's an economic downturn, whether it's a merger, whether it's a whatever. These are the things that we will always be, no matter what happens. And then we get down to those actions, those mindsets, those behaviors, what do we want to see? People do that brings that to life?
53:01 Speaker 01 And how does that tie to strategy? So we use that existing strategy as the starting point. We're not trying to rework anything you're doing. But what we're trying to create is a tool that everyone can refer to and say, This is how I should be thinking. This is how I should behaving, be behaving as well as I'm the head of marketing. Let's use that framework to develop our supporting strategy. That's the spirit of what we want to achieve. So I think that is that kind of Rosetta Stone that ties all those pieces together and helps people translate something into action. So it's a, in a sense, it's a very simple process, but it just takes a lot of thought and a lot of
53:44 Speaker 01 discussion to have something that's flexible, but rigid enough that it has staying power.
53:53 Speaker 00 Yeah, that actually sums up to that vision or the desperation that a company has.
53:59 Speaker 01 Right.
53:59 Speaker 00 It's amazing. If, as we, you know, going to be wrapping up our conversation, is there something that you'd like to, to tell our listeners, something maybe you wish I asked, but I never did, the, the, something that, yeah, you would like to share that is very important to your work. If not, that's okay. Yeah.
54:20 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Well, you mentioned execution drift. You know, that technically is a working title. The publisher may change that, but that is a book that I have out with Entrepreneur Press. They're associate entrepreneur magazine and they're an imprint of Simon and Schuster, I believe. So the intent of that is, is a lot of what we discussed, kind of some of the behaviors, leadership behaviors that really thwart strategy execution. And then how to really make your Rosetta Stone to translate that high level strategy into something that people can live, breathe and use each and every day. And then also how departments can translate that into their
55:02 Speaker 01 own supporting strategy action, as well as, and this goes back to your other question of how to measure the impact of that. So it's, it's the whole cookbook for that. We are planning on launching that in June or July of this year. So it's actually coming up very quickly. So we will definitely have announcements about that, but you can preorder that book on my website at andrea belk olson.com. So.
55:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, that sounds amazing. Like, where can I get this book now? There's still some time to wait. Is there anything else that you would like to share or? That we covered main aspects of your work that
55:46 Speaker 01 Ah, you know.
55:48 Speaker 00 Relevant to this conversation.
55:48 Speaker 01 If I had just had one word of advice for leaders, because sometimes leaders that are C suite or high level executive leaders, sometimes you just lose sight of what it was to be the, the person that was making the widgets or doing the job or, you know, creating the campaign and doing the hard work every day. I'd recommend trying to take a couple of days out of your, out of the month. Having a conversation with some of those people and not asking what, what can we do different? Or what can we do better? But just almost a day in the life of like the, I think it was this show called undercover boss.
56:31 Speaker 01 Where you went and had to work, you know, work alongside the people that did the job every day. I think it's very important to keep that perspective in the back of your mind. Understand the realities that employees have to face. And think about your time way back then in those roles. Because you're still in a position where you don't have the luxury of just simply sitting in the ivory tower and saying, you need to figure this out. The best, most successful companies are the ones that help translate that into action and genuinely empower their employees to do something. But they have to have the right tools to do that.
57:16 Speaker 01 You can't just really dictate or exalt that they are empowered and hope something happens magically out of that.
57:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think, you know, such an amazing piece of like truth that you can't really empower people if you don't really know what they need to be empowered. And you can't really know unless you develop a lot of empathy by somehow doing your best to put, to put yourself in their shoes.
57:43 Speaker 01 Right.
57:44 Speaker 00 Walking in those shoes a little bit, yeah. Such a brilliant idea. I remember I was reading in one article. There was something around, they were trying to figure out how to make the experience for students the best it can be. And what they came up with is they put a person into the shoes of the student and made them uh live through the day of a student, like run through lecture to lecture and you know, go to to have lunch, et cetera. And yeah, they, after that, they realized how many actually mistakes they were ma- making without realizing that that was a real hassle for the student.
58:22 Speaker 01 Exactly, exactly. You, you know when you see it. And I think a- as you said, with AI, maybe that will give us more time to go and see it.
58:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's such a beautiful, again, end to our conversation, Andrea. And as, yeah, to conclude our conversation, maybe you tell listeners a, a little bit more about your company and what you do and who you'd like to reach out to you. And yeah, and then also where our listeners can learn more about you, your work, connect with you.
58:54 Speaker 01 Of course, of course. So again, pragmatic, the pragmatic company is a, is a change agency. So we help you with basically activating strategic change, no matter what that looks like. Typically, we work with uh larger organizations that has ranged on the small end to three hundred million dollar company up to a thirty six billion dollar company. So sometimes people say that's mid-market. I don't know how people define mid-market anymore. And usually organizations that have a lot of different departments, excuse me, that they need to really get everyone on the same page, excuse me, and going the same direction. Sometimes it's
59:39 Speaker 01 something we can do where it's, it's a challenge in an individual apartment to make change or behavior change. Sometimes it's systematic. So I will say, excuse me for one second.
59:50 Speaker 00 Of course.
59:52 Speaker 01 Get that down there that you can connect with me directly through two ways, well, actually three ways. One would be my personal website, which has the book as well as a lot of articles and different content. That's Andrea Belk, B as in boy, E L K, Olson, O L S O N, com.
1:00:12 Speaker 00 I'm gonna link to Olson, the show notes, eh?
1:00:15 Speaker 01 Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Or you can go to the pragmatic company's website. That's P R A G, M as in mother, A D I K, com. Or of course, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm on there under my name. And of course, I'd love to connect with you. And if you've got questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
1:00:33 Speaker 00 Yes, yeah, we're gonna link all this in the show notes. Any other resources or things you'd like people to check out? I don't know, your books, articles that we should link?
1:00:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would say, you know, all the books are on my personal website, available for purchase pretty much anywhere. I would encourage you to check out a lot of my work. You can probably search it very easily on Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine as well. Or you can just Google me, honestly.
1:01:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
1:01:05 Speaker 01 I will give you a tip. Use my middle name, which is Belk. I said, B as in boy, E L K. There are many Andrea Olsons out there. And I think for me in the United States, the first one that comes up as a lady that teaches you how to potty train. That is not me. I'm sure it's lovely. If you need potty training advice, she can help you. But yes, that's not something I specialize in. So.
1:01:30 Speaker 00 But thank you so much, Andrea, for this beautiful conversation and all of your work. I feel it's needed more than ever that we can't really tolerate more ambiguity and fluffy words. We need actually start getting things done and making those visions realities. Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation, for your work. And I encourage listeners to check out your work, your articles, and connect with you. And well, all the best with your work. And till next time, let's make more strategy executable.
1:02:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, yes, you too. Thank you so much.
1:02:09 Speaker 00 Thank you, Andrea.
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