A Word on Words; 2705; William Jenkins & Richard Oliver

building in i am john cinnabon once again welcome to word on words i guess there are two were distinguished academics are small vice chancellor william jenkins of the university and professor of management your instrument vanderbilt richard oliver welcome back to our own words i hear a nice to have you talk about the ebola lamont off label a fable this is a this is seven principles of how low to make successful change quiet begin with a fabled don't know if we are horrific early on when we out to tackle this subject a successful change we talked a lot of ceo's as you know originally started as a business book and i want the ceo's said was this is a good

subject this one that affects everyone in the organization so write a book that engages everybody about successful change though begin by talking to us about it that's rod gently don't don't do it you know to live both earn a management school built course boston is current academic an illustration and i had many years of business before becoming an academic and i guess you know what most of the books about change to their written for sort of the ceo senior manager and today in and maybe ten fifteen years ago that's what changes about in corporate but today changes but everybody making change right from the top right through the entire organization and what seals are sent to us is what caused the old connor boyack the textbook he kind of thing is just not to work we need something everybody can read and we looked at a lot of different books that had really made a difference in

people's lives in an inn allies were musicians and we found that the storytelling road was very successful people like to read a story so we decided we'd try writing engaging stories about this we lived frugally i have losses on here written fiction and most fiction writers have for those who are into mysteries are rows of look for also thought oh henry ending and at the very least they looked for a building to a climax and sometimes failing know right now belong to explain why they didn't get there i hear you read a fable heirloom appointed been is in his innocence to get the reader to understand this festering sore toledo mark way clashing an emerging into

cultures and then not the only answer but to seek ways to find the manson eyes at that fare is that was that your intention really that was our intention because if you look at the principles their principles the need to think about work and trust and they're not cookie cutter kind of things and so at the end we really want a predator around back to the reader and say okay where it were you stand in making successful changes in your purse a lot or in your when you're in your business profession well again thinking seven both with james looking warily is truffaut it's come from or what their daily work is about trying to influence for the most part they are trained candidates in the academy for the corporate world and i said this is a fatal as direct the

ceo's non through a couple terms it is in fact directed that to everybody and then there are lessons their fervor by the principals were wary your role in life is even a hall our outlook and the questions to be answered but you leave to be answered our questions different people my father francis absolutely and one reason we left it open to go back to earlier question was because and emphatically for the young people that we deal with that are reading a book tour right now are our students are or reading it and in the the world that they're going to enter the world that they will have to deal with is it is a world where there are no easy answers were the rules are to change rather dramatically where whatever they weren't today they'll have to re learn tomorrow that they will be into a world where there's not going to be the nice stable that has a happy ending or at least an ending and undone most of them will be an in

in careers that will have maybe six or seven different jobs six or seven different companies maybe three or four different re incarnations of what they are in terms of professionals and career so we like ozone form because we wanted to learn that this world that were entering his world is going to cost which and so you saying that this is a world profound pervasive ongoing change there is no escape from an eagerness of i'm in it but i have some proposals for god pushed to take you through quite as he knows the rules you know as a result of that says here's the do this now do next and what have you that's not the way it's cooperate things are changing to dramatically so that's kind of the idea of not ending the story and the other thing of course is that there we have by the time we finished we had lots of people asking us to go back and do more about you know various to the principles and that we had we thought we had a wonderful for new and we hope that we can continue on so we've we will so part of the

mystery of al ahmed is it rick talked about young people going around changing careers of work it's really true you pursell life to end the story that i carry like the coyote was an aha to me as i was doing a book signing in lafayette indiana purdue and this woman came up and she one in thirteen books and i said she was about seven years old and i said who are these thirteen books for shared a list of names she said they're for all my nieces and nephews and every single one of them is going to change and i like their change to be successful while they're hot for me it was we're all going to change all the time so that's why we think the application the book has gone way beyond but beyond the business world let's go to the dia be metaphors and begin with those cities to symbols

illegal do clearly and in the context of his book american symbol the american symbol of an envelope clearly and clearly asian probably japanese there are worthwhile while ebola mark well one of the things that that bill and i believe very strongly is that the world that we're we were trying to describe that we were trying to create this metaphorical story about is a world that's very very much globalizing and we we felt both of us from our experience that neither the traditional western experian traditional western approach to change nor an easier approach to change was going to be sufficient in a world where those too are merging and so we wanted to create i kind of global off a fact and yes it's an american it's a japanese and those are two very dominant cultures today but i it's just as applicable to people in western europe but to canadians to people in south america because

what we're trying to get some worldviews merging in the us so that's why we created these these two characters and of course they were in the hereafter it sold just a mystical some weaknesses of gasoline at that we never infection or and some people said you know killing off your main characters the first chapters doesn't work in people seem to accept the fact that these characters are dealing with some things in it and i think it helps people first step aside for motive to watch these other characters dealing with it they don't have to they can learn without personalizing it too much so it seems to me that it's a i thought a initially as a a mixing of cultures almost a clashing of culture then as i learned i came to think of a blending of cultures bum it does seem to me that the

seminal point is when you have eleven among working together everything begins to turn his out of my clothes no i think you're right on i would i would call the blending of cultures really getting the best from each other and one plus one an equal to that one plus one equals ten or twenty two or whatever that the number might be so i would i would say the lending is a very good word well and there was a clash at the beginning and and there there's no question that these two characters clash of service sets up the value of the blinding as opposed to the fighting of the year the world views if you will and and you know if we talk about the single sense but a lot like what what we're about and you know in effect was created by our experience or condition buyer experience working with a lot of organizations both in the us and outside the us

and people that we dealt with and so that even though we don't talk about particular companies or what have you and those bees bees all reflect they kind of the experiences we've had that we've kind of taken through the skin if you will in the end and try to come back with these two characters talk a little bit about so lowe's what the models are i mean it's one thing to talk about the deal among the sage the nest the wind off some wolves that have an impact on the story about out there beyond the fabled there is a real world out there beyond the potential change there is dynamic change and there are and our own egos and their monks out their operating on their own intellectual moved talk about some of those villages when our audiences of a sense of the year of the of the of the corporate cultures were talking about you know one of the things that i find most interesting my

students to clean them when they first earnings come into the class with me they'll last asked this a lot faster over please help us understand the difference of approach is between say an american company the japanese company or a german or a bridge and one of the things it i try to get across the very quickly of early on is that those ideas of nationality for companies are no longer very appropriate everybody's operating in such a dynamic global economy that the real differentiation and companies are those that are fast and flexible and are very oriented the change they're open to it than embrace change versus those that kind of close their hands to a glorified it and we found many many organizations where up and down from the top to the bottom they're fighting changed their there are trying every way you can imagine to avoid change and there have been very successful we found that other companies that are very open to change our are doing everything they can two ought to change everything about their own way they're dealing with the world an internal an extra oil and other been tremendously

successful and that seems to be the distinguishing characteristic of some of these organisms and i spoke in companies and build bills do a lot more work with not for profits and four with the academy other universes unlike and i think that would be the same you know i'm not defensive foundation real or are not surprise bill nonprofit he probably small corporation entrepreneur large ah you see it everywhere i think as written i have i gone around and work with companies and spoke of his book we've even seen more as it is is really evident to us in fact one of the schools that i use a lot of company examples but western carolina university is as well i just visited an was working with them on some of the things that we talk about in the book and it's amazing to me here's a school a hidden away in the hills of north carolina ten years ago was in and just in the doldrums are distant population was going down everything was working and negatively enough for them they have a new cancer in their sky as excited

he's changing everything he's challenging in an interesting thing is that he's just crazy just been the catalyst for change is laying of the faculty instance changes themselves and they're within the last three years there are every every scene characteristic is going up up up every yeah factor that they measure themselves is going up into two students are present papers that they had to from western carolina university and the schools like and this was an academic conference where harvard yale when i really got one these guys had to because it's in these dunes are just excited about what's gone in there and then you just come away from squeeze get so excited about how much changes going on and doesn't matter is a small school had no announced that they feared out the changes what really makes a difference and they're going let me ask you about you about your race writing saw i mean first of all no i'm worried because the academy there is the question of the helen blaze is the fun time subtly

a new fat or where you come from and knowing something about personalities the whole issue of how he ever get together and say got time to get together i ever get together on a theme was to get a legal animal that's pretty far as a pre far step from your classrooms are barred from lobbying a vice chancellor our being there are a city where the world that these two syllables come from wasn't always the medieval alone it was not always going to be eating a lumpy really came from rick and i getting together a brainstorming and being as courageous as we can hire and it was it was kind of amazing we made some decisions early on ah because of parlor why sen carl because we just wanna do something different that we were gonna do something on the engine that's were new generated the fable and i think our one of our

first ideas was mr lunchbox meets this decision and so our we came a long way from that but that it all legal was an easy one and then we struggle a little bit more with the eastern eye character but a really really good weed is generated and we use gonna get talking we show rick weekday afternoon we shut the door and made her work so the saudis are buses around you know we we're we actually we talked about this for a long long time before we actually got words on paper and it i think the whole process was about two and half years of discussion of barbers experiences that we weren't sure where was roy and i guess a degree of cooperation like this you know maybe shirt in the at the beginning where it's going but it just came out from that family from the interaction and one of the things from my perspective is that we were writing about people working together and we were working together and all a sudden we started living it too

and you know i was very very instructive because we would sense that well hey what are we doing is working so well how come one one equals three or four because i don't think either one of us along could've done this and and you don't think you want to be all gone on enormous could've been a long and in fact somebody said to us at one point when it when one of you guys have your first big fight over this or you know i mean to people integrated in one welty before you tell me where they drove on cortisone that's been interviewing me and she said if this book it ended when it did my marriage what if the president wants to raise the curtains you know the fear is that the president now it didn't know when it would never have never had a crossword and weave and the book's been around for years and berber well we've had lots of situations like this and it's just worked for jack lew islands and i think we we started to not only write about the principles that we start to use the principles and we believe them and it's become both

unruly really did and as someone said to me the other day you know i read a lot while record remedies got another book coming out i read what you've written it and some who wrote this and there was a seamless way the the writing which surprises me i'm always tempted same road for it right now but are not heard by but but but that is a phenomenal if the novel the two of you we'll collaborate in this way and white as one that proves the principles in the book because as i said we could have done it on our own and it was a it was a back and forth that was a collaboration that sometimes a little more something a little more in images work that land has worked exceptionally well so where did you find her nights we've been through a lot of laughs sunday afternoons sitting down a lot of evenings and unlike because we both have busy schedules i was working on another book about those responsibilities so we

we're you know whether they were watching today we're riding as the towel is more of the fourth hour talking about war but that will get it will get to the principal for all of this from our perspective it seems to me you took the limo and you put in a very tough situation and i take it you thought that through so that being in that position the seven principles and application and i wonder if you thought that through before you created the story of the label you knew you would have to take and through that series of events where the principles were blocked oh well you told the story and then a lot of that we really created the principles first based on our

knowledge and expertise in working with companies would need both of us working in real situations of where we've seen people successfully change and not successfully change and then so we had although they owed they continued of all as we continue to work on the story really weak hand we had a framework out of the principles the seven principles only and i think the other thing too is that we we tested on and i guess if your write a novel maybe have some close associates which might test things with that weak we do not sort of a wide circle of people in various situations or a nurse in a hospital or a teacher or a consultant to the ceo and the interesting thing that says they'll set this book about us which tipped us off at the beginning of it that it wasn't just about business so we're very careful with the language to stay we were from a lot of business trilogy but we did interact with a whole group of people i can remember between thirty and fifty people and i would say cause you know this doesn't this partisan workforce it's

not getting the idea crust and so weak or the course of about a year i guess that were really riding high or off which is still out having focused review focused with all we've we had a sort of informal focus group never brought them together at one time about we got lots of input from a lot of people a lot of different professions and when you were on to it when people said gee i'm glad some responding taught writing a book about what happens in the classroom in a public school we said holy smokes this this we really got something here let me before we stroll user those of principled the latest esoteric i'm an alleged cover and eschewed the two of you making them in a little bit closer to work but at any right out there when you think of the younger you think of the mountain eagle in a tree there lashed to litigate against the wind you think that graphic tells the story does for me i was so excited about when i saw it i said because we had thought about

what the what the car would look like if we really felt the cover would be important and because it was a different type of nominee is author of the end and the fact that it's black and gold bangles block we have nothing to do but we do think that i might write yeah that the that the picture really kind of grabs a story because each one of those the wind in the island and that you and the monk in that tree become so important in the end i was i was amazed at the years was able to capture that well let's begin with the virtually certain schools in the time that's left and i think we have not fun to be with but also on the beep beep you put the first three together a sort of it seems to me a foundation and worth trust and empathy and try the first for a week already and its principles getting ready project worth believing in your own work leaving you have

were telling yourself you're doing well you know people that old they say i'm not any good i can do this are not have a great civil war and then the second part which is really important part is believing in the words of others and a lot of companies is you know had a fall the philosophy in the past the second novel turned quickly and then rick in error we can come back to this trust really two components of trust being trusted but also being able to trust others which is also a new concept for a lot of business and the third one which is in some ways a litmus test for the first two is really having a learning environment in your organization or in your relationship in your family and if you think about it why so it's a litmus test if you don't have it you don't have that you probably don't believe in the work of others and you probably don't trust says in the first three that we call readiness so we'll call him in the book but we as we go around and talk to various counties we say those of the readiness principles really embracing

and you set up these immigrants most upfront than the back beyond the fable you raise the question was that first confrontation right and make you think through just how the limo dealt with but jane doe talked a lot about the failed but towards the end we we put some questions and some discussion guides for people who would want to use it in a church group for in a business context we find that people are using it that way actually it seems to me you take a lead into the most from the other thing and back on my own career the ability to embrace change and it seems to me is i think most corporations most managers are of a generation that embracing change is not easy and i guess that's true elsewhere the corporation certain is true on the assembly line bracing change is not is not

easy but it clearly it is its final rebel you know you're here but your whole career is i understand it's been one that's really bristle a change in the civil rights movement and all the things that you've been involved with the fur four for those of us who are in the business community some of those things we're kind of isolated of for us we were insulated from them they were not something we have to deal with on a day to day basis at least in those early days and and i think you probably are more attuned to those changes for people and in a lot of organizations that was joyous a sinecure but we had a bit of a sinecure in the sense that big corporations big organizations help insulate us from those activities and those things were going on the changing lots of lots of social cultural things and today that's not happening those barriers are broken down big organizations are exposed the government's exposed to at big universities everybody's exposed to the change and so now it's not something that gets dealt with by a few people at the top it's something everybody deals with a database so for a gunman were about to unleash its energy discover champions

liberate decision making briefly talk about how those factory and well unocal was probably the results of principles of embracing change and alisa energy is a one plus one equals two and the way we talk about there's so many stories you could talk about other nineteen a hockey team amateurs go over and winning the gold medal i mean how is that that happened alm masters sages and leaders and champions aren't what we're really saying is that typical pyramid in organizations is breaking down and people are taking different roles and these may not even be the right word a champion is one that has passion for some remember when i talked to the young and housekeeping at an opulent hotel she says i loved her that's right