PAPod 517 - From Kansas to the World: Todd Conklin’s Journey and the Evolution of Human Performance

WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.360 Music. 00:00:13.623 --> 00:00:17.803 Welcome back to the Pre-Accident Podcast. I am your temporary host, 00:00:18.083 --> 00:00:19.863 Jeff Lith, and I am sorry. 00:00:20.183 --> 00:00:23.123 I am sorry because I'm Canadian, so I'm predisposed.

00:00:23.783 --> 00:00:29.363 But I'm also sorry because everybody's expecting to tune in to their favorite, 00:00:29.683 --> 00:00:32.723 favorite podcaster out there. 00:00:33.363 --> 00:00:37.003 We get to do something very special today, I think. 00:00:37.203 --> 00:00:40.903 And I get to interview a very special guest. 00:00:40.903 --> 00:00:43.703 Guest as a friend of the pod i get to 00:00:43.703 --> 00:00:46.543 interview the probably the most special guest of the pod 00:00:46.543 --> 00:00:49.303 and that is todd conklin am i saying that 00:00:49.303 --> 00:00:53.083 right conklin that is that is a that's a european pronunciation but yes that's 00:00:53.083 --> 00:00:58.923 correct awesome man no i'm excited to talk to you about this what a great beginning 00:00:58.923 --> 00:01:02.643 i didn't even know that was going to happen that was amazing well we never know 00:01:02.643 --> 00:01:05.863 what's going to happen on your cast well that's true turnabout is fair play 00:01:05.863 --> 00:01:07.123 that's true that is It's true.

00:01:07.503 --> 00:01:13.283 So listen, I want to talk to you like I now I get to feel with these tables 00:01:13.283 --> 00:01:15.883 turned as a as a as a listener, right, 00:01:15.983 --> 00:01:17.723 as a champion of the listener out there, 00:01:17.763 --> 00:01:22.663 not somebody who has a lot to say intelligently on your podcast. So. 00:01:24.463 --> 00:01:29.983 Let us begin, Todd, you, you know, in this podcast, you've you've created such 00:01:29.983 --> 00:01:34.203 a body of work and we feel like we get to know you through your work and through your discussions. 00:01:34.203 --> 00:01:39.283 But i'm curious and wondering if you're willing do you think i talk too much about the weather, 00:01:39.923 --> 00:01:44.003 i always worry that i talk too much about the weather well weather and food 00:01:44.003 --> 00:01:47.603 are two things that are food i don't worry about i don't i don't worry about 00:01:47.603 --> 00:01:50.183 food you can't talk enough about food.

00:01:51.903 --> 00:01:58.463 Though lobster rolls so i'm just saying that for halifax's benefit and not dallas's 00:01:58.463 --> 00:02:01.003 benefit And not Dallas. Okay, there you go. 00:02:01.163 --> 00:02:07.503 Listen, what stood out to me in no particular order was that you do mention 00:02:07.503 --> 00:02:10.503 Kansas a couple of times in this book. 00:02:10.603 --> 00:02:13.703 And I think that's really fascinating.

And I wondered... 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:21.100 Have you ever given everybody just a very brief summary of how a guy, 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:23.740 now we know from a small town in Kansas, 00:02:23.880 --> 00:02:30.100 whose dad gave you that great footnote, how does a guy from rural small town 00:02:30.100 --> 00:02:34.560 Kansas make his way to being interviewed on this amazing podcast? 00:02:34.760 --> 00:02:36.300 The amazing pre-accident podcast? 00:02:36.600 --> 00:02:42.260 Yeah.

Well, Jeff, that is the sweetest question. So I grew up in the middle 00:02:42.260 --> 00:02:46.640 of the United States, and I grew up in both Kansas and Colorado, 00:02:46.720 --> 00:02:50.240 but not very far apart from the two cities I grew up in. 00:02:50.300 --> 00:02:54.020 I grew up in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. 00:02:54.400 --> 00:03:00.820 And some would say there is no difference between eastern Colorado and western Kansas.

00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:08.260 It's the Great Plains, the High Plains, the very same ones that go up to Alberta 00:03:08.260 --> 00:03:12.500 and Calgary and to a great extent Saskatoon and that area. 00:03:12.940 --> 00:03:18.360 That's where I grew up. And it was a really fun place to grow up. 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:20.200 And I had, you know, sort of a normal upbringing.

00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:28.200 I worked in a Alice Chalmers implement dealer, my first job, my little kid job. 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:32.900 And then I transferred from there I went there to the veterinary clinic, 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:38.800 which was actually quite an education because my veterinarian was – that I worked 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:40.240 for, there were actually two of them. 00:03:40.640 --> 00:03:46.880 They specialized in large animal because it's a large animal kind of place, so cattle and horses. 00:03:47.580 --> 00:03:51.220 But then they also did small animal because that's how you made your money.

00:03:51.220 --> 00:03:57.360 So if you wanted to eat and buy a new car you had to take care of mrs. 00:03:57.420 --> 00:04:01.280 Johnson's poodles more or you know mrs. 00:04:01.420 --> 00:04:06.800 Jones's cats that kind of thing and then I graduated from there to the grocery 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:12.400 store and I don't know Jeff would you where did you grow up North Vancouver 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.920 okay so growing up in rural North. 00:04:17.278 --> 00:04:20.798 Every little town, and my town had about almost 3,000 people in it, 00:04:20.818 --> 00:04:23.538 so it was tiny, although there are smaller for sure.

00:04:24.118 --> 00:04:27.858 The cool place to work when you were in high school was the grocery store. 00:04:28.278 --> 00:04:31.958 That's where all the cool kids worked, like the quarterback of the football team worked there. 00:04:32.418 --> 00:04:35.938 Not like the fast food joint. We didn't really have a fast food joint.

00:04:35.978 --> 00:04:37.518 Like we didn't have a McDonald's. 00:04:37.578 --> 00:04:42.778 We had a burger place called The Jet, but that was run by one family. 00:04:42.778 --> 00:04:47.538 So to work at the jet, you had to be the child of the person who owned the jet. 00:04:47.678 --> 00:04:50.478 I mean, they didn't bring outsiders into that community.

00:04:51.078 --> 00:04:54.358 And so I then worked for the grocery store. And in the midst of that, 00:04:54.538 --> 00:05:01.718 I got a job at a place called Philmont, which is a big Boy Scout camp in New Mexico. 00:05:02.318 --> 00:05:08.018 And that kind of opened my eyes because at the time I worked there, 00:05:08.058 --> 00:05:14.878 there were about 700 college-age kids that worked there. It's the largest outdoor camp in the world.

00:05:15.338 --> 00:05:20.558 And I just met all these people that grew up in, you know, like New York City 00:05:20.558 --> 00:05:24.618 or went to school at Stanford. I mean, they did all those big things. 00:05:24.798 --> 00:05:27.498 And that sort of enriched me. 00:05:28.418 --> 00:05:34.598 Enriched me seems wrong, but that definitely showed me there's more to the world 00:05:34.598 --> 00:05:37.038 than my little part of the high plains.

00:05:37.478 --> 00:05:40.398 And so that's how I got to where I got to. 00:05:40.398 --> 00:05:46.178 The reason I talked about it, I think, in this book is this book feels like 00:05:46.178 --> 00:05:50.438 I feel like I owed this book to people. 00:05:50.438 --> 00:05:53.238 And it really became really clear to me 00:05:53.238 --> 00:05:56.198 when we did that meeting in Australia and had 00:05:56.198 --> 00:06:00.998 these big discussions that the one part of this conversation that people haven't 00:06:00.998 --> 00:06:07.678 talked about was how to manage and facilitate change in the process of getting 00:06:07.678 --> 00:06:13.538 an organization to move from seeing safety as a noun to seeing safety as a verb. 00:06:13.538 --> 00:06:18.898 If we can kind of coin Eric's idea, moving from safety to safely, 00:06:19.178 --> 00:06:20.878 I think is how Eric says that.

00:06:21.458 --> 00:06:27.978 And so I thought I should probably just write down some things that I've always 00:06:27.978 --> 00:06:32.498 thought were really important and see where that sort of lands. 00:06:32.718 --> 00:06:35.918 And some of those things definitely came from growing up in western Kansas. 00:06:37.258 --> 00:06:40.598 So Kansas to meeting all those folks. 00:06:40.718 --> 00:06:45.818 And I hear what you're saying there.

That's kind of like the effect travel has going anywhere. 00:06:45.978 --> 00:06:51.138 Right. Yeah, totally. And, and I happen to know that some lifelong friendships 00:06:51.138 --> 00:06:53.278 were cemented there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 00:06:53.738 --> 00:06:58.658 I'll have great friends, but we skipped a couple of steps from that camp to Wollongong.

Yeah. 00:07:00.309 --> 00:07:05.589 How can you fill in a bit between that camp experience and Los Alamos, maybe? 00:07:05.709 --> 00:07:11.209 Well, yeah. So I was teaching school in Denver, teaching university in Denver.

00:07:11.429 --> 00:07:15.649 So because I worked at this Philmont place, I wanted to have my summers open. 00:07:15.969 --> 00:07:20.889 And so the one way you can guarantee your summers are open is never stop going to university. 00:07:21.489 --> 00:07:27.009 And quite honestly, Jeff, between you and I, I think I would have stayed in 00:07:27.009 --> 00:07:29.549 university. university, I'd probably still be in university.

00:07:29.929 --> 00:07:33.349 They kind of kick you out after a while. They make you take a degree and leave 00:07:33.349 --> 00:07:34.449 because they get tired of you. 00:07:34.709 --> 00:07:39.969 But because I wanted to stay in university, I just kept working on my degree. 00:07:40.609 --> 00:07:45.309 And so when I finished my bachelor's degree, I went right into a master's program.

00:07:45.429 --> 00:07:48.169 And partially, I think, because I didn't want to get a job. I mean, 00:07:48.229 --> 00:07:54.449 the idea of owning something that wouldn't fit in my car was really unappealing. 00:07:54.909 --> 00:07:58.489 I mean, really unappealing. Because I think my vision for myself, 00:07:58.849 --> 00:08:04.689 and I'm not sure this has changed much, is that I would probably just always 00:08:04.689 --> 00:08:07.729 kind of be mobile.

I would always be moving. 00:08:08.209 --> 00:08:13.689 And that every place is interesting. And no one place is interesting enough to hold you there. 00:08:13.809 --> 00:08:16.349 I've changed my thinking on that a little bit now.

00:08:16.769 --> 00:08:20.829 So I was teaching in Denver because that was a really good job. 00:08:21.109 --> 00:08:23.989 And it was very fun to work there. 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:29.709 And I was having a great time. And Los Alamos National Laboratory had a big 00:08:29.709 --> 00:08:35.669 labor strike with actually with their protective force, with the security people.

00:08:36.109 --> 00:08:39.469 And so I made a phone call to the labor person. 00:08:40.009 --> 00:08:43.189 And I really to this day don't know why I did this. 00:08:43.589 --> 00:08:47.689 But I asked them what their plan was for restoration. 00:08:48.089 --> 00:08:51.649 Because I remember on the phone with this guy telling him, you know, 00:08:51.649 --> 00:08:53.929 every strike eventually gets over.

00:08:54.469 --> 00:08:57.409 It doesn't feel like they're going to get over, but they always end. 00:08:57.769 --> 00:09:01.129 And when they end, what's your transition plan? And he said, 00:09:01.169 --> 00:09:02.069 we don't really have one. 00:09:02.369 --> 00:09:04.729 And I said, that's something that you should be thinking about.

00:09:05.069 --> 00:09:09.649 And probably that sort of fit into what I was teaching at the time because I 00:09:09.649 --> 00:09:14.589 was working a lot with that kind of business communication around significant 00:09:14.589 --> 00:09:17.289 events like labor unions and stuff. 00:09:17.509 --> 00:09:21.469 And the guy said, well, come up and see me and talk to me. 00:09:22.049 --> 00:09:25.809 But then he just said, but this isn't a job interview. And I said, 00:09:25.829 --> 00:09:27.669 well, that's okay, because I'm not really looking for a job.

00:09:28.309 --> 00:09:36.029 And so I went back to New Mexico, which I'd spent every summer for 13 years in New Mexico. 00:09:36.709 --> 00:09:40.489 I went up to Los Alamos and I talked to the guy and we were supposed to talk for an hour. 00:09:41.270 --> 00:09:44.830 And we ended up talking for like the whole afternoon, so like five hours. 00:09:45.190 --> 00:09:50.290 And by the time I left, he had offered me a job and I had accepted the job.

00:09:50.890 --> 00:09:53.710 So then that brought me into Los Alamos. And I really did. 00:09:53.790 --> 00:09:57.910 I came in on the labor side, the labor relations side. 00:09:57.910 --> 00:10:07.650 And actually worked to help provide transition from the very, 00:10:07.770 --> 00:10:13.270 very toxic environment that a strike creates to an environment where you could 00:10:13.270 --> 00:10:14.790 actually perform mission.

00:10:14.970 --> 00:10:18.870 Because Los Alamos is a real mission essential place. 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:23.050 I mean, and security is a really important part of that. So that went really 00:10:23.050 --> 00:10:29.950 well. And out of that, I ended up doing a lot of work with leadership training.

00:10:30.610 --> 00:10:35.850 And then very early in my career, this guy, John Sung was his name. 00:10:35.970 --> 00:10:40.270 He came up to me and he was an important name in the Department of Energy. 00:10:40.610 --> 00:10:43.850 And he had been in Washington, D.C. a long time.

00:10:43.910 --> 00:10:46.910 So he was quite influential. influential he came up 00:10:46.910 --> 00:10:50.810 to me and he said what do you think about this human performance 00:10:50.810 --> 00:10:54.410 discussion that's happening within the 00:10:54.410 --> 00:11:00.130 doe and i'd not heard anything about it so what i did was act like i heard about 00:11:00.130 --> 00:11:04.150 it because that's how i mean it's work so i mean you know exactly so i said 00:11:04.150 --> 00:11:09.090 well you know i i've i've been listening to it and i'm super interested in it 00:11:09.090 --> 00:11:14.170 but i don't know you know i I don't have a lot of details on it at this point in time right now. 00:11:14.530 --> 00:11:17.210 And he said, I think it's something we should be looking into. 00:11:17.710 --> 00:11:23.230 And that sort of started the journey on the human performance part.

00:11:23.410 --> 00:11:27.590 And we met with a couple people at the time. 00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:33.430 The names that sort of – there's a bunch of names that I should list here because 00:11:33.430 --> 00:11:34.690 I hate to leave anybody out. 00:11:34.790 --> 00:11:38.450 But like Shane Bush had already started –. 00:11:39.227 --> 00:11:43.467 He was a little ahead of Los Alamos at his laboratory, and they had started 00:11:43.467 --> 00:11:46.007 the journey probably a year before us.

00:11:46.207 --> 00:11:49.527 And so they had a little better understanding of what was happening, 00:11:49.707 --> 00:11:58.467 and we almost immediately took a trip to INPO and sat with Tony Moshara because 00:11:58.467 --> 00:12:02.387 that's when he was at INPO, and we started talking about these ideas. 00:12:02.387 --> 00:12:05.987 Is and it became it became 00:12:05.987 --> 00:12:08.927 well it obviously became what happened is 00:12:08.927 --> 00:12:12.007 that it sort of caught some traction but it 00:12:12.007 --> 00:12:14.927 was a very interesting journey because we knew so little 00:12:14.927 --> 00:12:19.547 back then and we were learning and we were definitely getting information from 00:12:19.547 --> 00:12:26.647 some scholars the names are almost the same you know back then jim reason was 00:12:26.647 --> 00:12:33.187 kind of the the granddaddy of everything and And so a lot of stuff came from Reason's work. 00:12:33.767 --> 00:12:38.467 And we started looking, you know, really across the disciplines for things we 00:12:38.467 --> 00:12:40.707 could pick up on. And it was a pretty interesting journey.

00:12:41.387 --> 00:12:46.607 Wow, that's fascinating. So many of us have gone back and sort of learned all 00:12:46.607 --> 00:12:49.967 that stuff because ultimately you did, you know. 00:12:50.347 --> 00:12:54.407 And then you took that forward and, for me at least, created that curiosity 00:12:54.407 --> 00:12:56.707 back and looking at that. 00:12:56.707 --> 00:12:59.587 That so going through that 00:12:59.587 --> 00:13:02.587 work at some point i mean the five principles were published in 00:13:02.587 --> 00:13:05.987 what 2019 right probably something 00:13:05.987 --> 00:13:09.407 like that yeah i don't have it in front of me but maybe and so 00:13:09.407 --> 00:13:14.467 but this this notion of you know this thing they call hot sort of evolved out 00:13:14.467 --> 00:13:17.927 of that space and i think that's an important call out the most i think a lot 00:13:17.927 --> 00:13:22.287 of people out there might think that it that notion kind of began with the publication 00:13:22.287 --> 00:13:28.667 of that book but in fact you were spending all all this time back in the roots of this HP piece.

00:13:28.987 --> 00:13:30.567 And at some point in that. 00:13:32.412 --> 00:13:37.552 You brought yourself to it and wanted to evolve it, it sounds. 00:13:37.712 --> 00:13:43.452 And that evolution process probably began sometime before it manifested into 00:13:43.452 --> 00:13:44.492 the Principles book, yeah? 00:13:44.652 --> 00:13:47.992 Yeah, oh, for sure.

Like the Five Principles book, that's wild. 00:13:48.152 --> 00:13:51.372 I never thought about people thinking that was an origin document. 00:13:51.732 --> 00:13:56.892 The Five Principles book is really, first of all, it's the summation of the 00:13:56.892 --> 00:13:59.272 journey we had been on that far. 00:13:59.272 --> 00:14:03.812 I don't think it's the final summation by any stretch, but it was sort of – 00:14:03.812 --> 00:14:10.172 it became really clear that over the last 20 or 25 years that the principles 00:14:10.172 --> 00:14:13.752 that we began with had morphed.

00:14:14.092 --> 00:14:17.192 No. Yeah, no, morphed. I guess I don't really know what morphed means, 00:14:17.312 --> 00:14:18.392 but that's what smart people say. 00:14:19.072 --> 00:14:26.992 They had changed not because the principles were wrong, but because we had become so much smarter.

00:14:26.992 --> 00:14:29.692 Smarter and so many people had learned so 00:14:29.692 --> 00:14:32.992 many things i mean the one thing that i think it's 00:14:32.992 --> 00:14:36.752 worth repeating a million times over and over again is nobody 00:14:36.752 --> 00:14:44.172 has individual ownership to an idea in the space like human performance because 00:14:44.172 --> 00:14:49.872 it's a multi-disciplinary kind of holistic view there are no single owners to 00:14:49.872 --> 00:14:55.172 ideas it's really a result of the community And the larger community, 00:14:55.412 --> 00:15:01.712 the bigger and bigger and bigger community, that these ideas have sort of taken root and matured. 00:15:01.872 --> 00:15:06.912 And so the book in 2019 – and the funny thing is I wrote that book because I 00:15:06.912 --> 00:15:10.072 was kind of angry, not at anyone. 00:15:11.059 --> 00:15:14.539 But I was really angry that we were drifting away from the first principles. 00:15:15.619 --> 00:15:22.659 And so I ask, why am I upset that lots of places aren't doing the fundamentals training?

00:15:22.979 --> 00:15:27.439 They're just jumping right into tools. Because we know, after 25 years, 00:15:27.539 --> 00:15:28.879 ask anybody who's been on this 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:32.799 journey a long time, that if you just start with tools, you will fail. 00:15:32.959 --> 00:15:37.799 You have to shift the thinking. It's really moving safety to a practice.

00:15:38.179 --> 00:15:42.379 We used to say it was a philosophical change. And it is a philosophical change, 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:49.319 but what it really is, is moving safety from a program to a practice to something that you, you do right. 00:15:49.459 --> 00:15:53.559 And, and that's so obvious now, but at the time that was not that obvious. 00:15:53.739 --> 00:15:58.739 I mean, that was, people were, that was a big deal and it gave people little heart attacks.

00:15:59.179 --> 00:16:03.199 What is it? They say that the path is always obvious when you look back at it. 00:16:03.239 --> 00:16:04.279 Yeah. Yeah.

I'm a genius. 00:16:04.479 --> 00:16:08.819 I'm a genius in retrospect. Your whole journey started by that one business 00:16:08.819 --> 00:16:13.399 principle there when that fella directed you to the HP stuff. 00:16:13.539 --> 00:16:18.039 And that is what interests the boss fascinates the shit out of me.

It's totally true, too. 00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:26.419 And the funny thing is, is that I wasn't I genuinely was not interested in in what I thought it was. 00:16:26.579 --> 00:16:30.919 And I was genuinely not interested in the moving full time into safety. 00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:34.559 Safety and i realized in retrospect that that 00:16:34.559 --> 00:16:37.479 was the leadership saw something 00:16:37.479 --> 00:16:42.919 there that they wanted to tap into and so they and i remember saying well you 00:16:42.919 --> 00:16:47.299 know when they asked me to go over full time and do it i said well you know 00:16:47.299 --> 00:16:51.099 i thank you for that offer but right now i'm and they're like oh you must be 00:16:51.099 --> 00:16:56.959 confused we didn't mean to say this was optional this is your assignment, bingo.

00:16:57.259 --> 00:17:03.439 And that was a pretty good move. And what's funny is that the Five Principles 00:17:03.439 --> 00:17:10.439 book is really a maturation of the principles based upon all the. 00:17:11.248 --> 00:17:16.848 Incredible work, both practical and academic, that was being done around these ideas. 00:17:17.008 --> 00:17:21.128 And some things, well, for instance, the one I would use as an example, 00:17:21.208 --> 00:17:24.428 Jeff, is that humans are fallible.

People make mistakes. 00:17:25.148 --> 00:17:31.368 The original understanding of that 30 years ago was that if we could identify 00:17:31.368 --> 00:17:39.548 every error-likely condition and remove or replace it, the outcome would be reducing error. 00:17:40.128 --> 00:17:43.508 And what's funny is that back then that was really compelling. 00:17:43.988 --> 00:17:49.648 But now everybody realizes that error is really normal and it's not a choice 00:17:49.648 --> 00:17:52.528 and you could have the best system in the world and still have mistakes.

00:17:52.988 --> 00:17:58.248 And so now instead of reducing or replacing error, we're really much more prone 00:17:58.248 --> 00:18:03.368 to talk about error tolerance, recovery, resilience, a lot of David Wood stuff, 00:18:03.668 --> 00:18:05.128 which is brilliant stuff. 00:18:05.468 --> 00:18:12.828 And we needed to retool our principles so that it was more reflective of those ideas. Yeah. 00:18:13.488 --> 00:18:17.088 It's amazing.

You're right. You know, the lineage of all this conversation and 00:18:17.088 --> 00:18:21.848 then, you know, folks come along and add context or bring themselves to it or 00:18:21.848 --> 00:18:25.128 tie in other facets and the space evolves, right? 00:18:25.248 --> 00:18:29.288 Yeah, totally. So where in this journey did your PhD happen then?

00:18:29.628 --> 00:18:34.248 Oh, so pretty quickly after I got to Los Alamos. 00:18:34.508 --> 00:18:40.808 So I never thought I'd won it. I mean, the idea of getting a PhD was super unattractive, 00:18:40.828 --> 00:18:45.008 but it became a smarter thing to do. 00:18:45.268 --> 00:18:50.448 And part of the thing at a place like Los Alamos is that everybody had a PhD.

00:18:51.648 --> 00:18:56.588 Now, that didn't mean I felt peer pressure to get one, but what it did mean 00:18:56.588 --> 00:19:00.248 is that the community I was working with, my peers and coworkers, 00:19:00.548 --> 00:19:07.148 were incredibly supportive of it and knew what it meant and what it would do 00:19:07.148 --> 00:19:12.668 and how the journey would be really significant and fun for me. 00:19:12.748 --> 00:19:13.628 And they were exactly right. 00:19:13.768 --> 00:19:18.808 I mean, I had a great time. And so I got the Ph.D., but I totally lucked out on that Ph.D.

00:19:19.428 --> 00:19:25.608 Because I'd actually aligned with a program at the University of Texas and was 00:19:25.608 --> 00:19:27.648 going to commute to Austin. 00:19:28.408 --> 00:19:31.808 Actually, this was all kind of set up to commute to Austin. 00:19:31.908 --> 00:19:34.528 And I went in for a final interview with the department chair, 00:19:34.708 --> 00:19:38.928 and the department chair said, why aren't you studying with Everett Rogers? 00:19:38.928 --> 00:19:46.808 And I said, well, because he's at Annenberg at UCLA and the chair said, 00:19:46.928 --> 00:19:50.028 no, he's in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico.

00:19:50.976 --> 00:19:54.696 And I said, I did not know that because that is not my community. 00:19:55.156 --> 00:20:00.016 And he said, you ought to talk to him. And so I immediately flew back from Austin, 00:20:00.256 --> 00:20:04.156 made an appointment, and went to Albuquerque and met with Everett Rogers. 00:20:04.836 --> 00:20:11.856 And he was incredibly supportive, and he encouraged me to apply.

00:20:12.076 --> 00:20:15.516 And you should know that the first year I applied, I didn't get in. 00:20:17.116 --> 00:20:20.476 Actually, yeah, just the first year. I think I got in the next year. 00:20:20.976 --> 00:20:25.616 But he was very encouraging, and I think he did that kind of to humble me a little.

00:20:25.976 --> 00:20:33.176 So then I got in, and that was really lucky because Rogers is – he was amazing. 00:20:33.596 --> 00:20:39.956 So you know where I'm going with this is that you do show the curve. 00:20:40.196 --> 00:20:44.216 Yeah, the diffusion current. And what's fascinating – and I wanted to just – 00:20:44.216 --> 00:20:48.516 thanks for doing that.

I wanted to do a bit of the backstory because this is 00:20:48.516 --> 00:20:53.116 a hop-adjacent organizational change book. 00:20:53.816 --> 00:20:58.216 Yeah, and I think that's – so that's true. And that was kind of the goal. 00:20:58.556 --> 00:21:05.116 That's the thing.

I really felt like I owed this to the gang. 00:21:05.656 --> 00:21:10.496 It's timely. Just because everybody was saying, well, you know, 00:21:10.536 --> 00:21:12.636 how do I make this change happen? 00:21:12.736 --> 00:21:15.396 How do I make it stick?

And I would always say, well, you know, 00:21:15.396 --> 00:21:19.276 there's a whole body of knowledge around this. I mean, you don't have to reinvent this. 00:21:19.376 --> 00:21:23.296 There are people who, you know, Peter Senge and Everett Rogers, 00:21:23.476 --> 00:21:27.216 there are people who really understand how organizations function and they understand 00:21:27.216 --> 00:21:29.996 a lot about change. Yeah, buddy.

00:21:30.736 --> 00:21:35.236 So putting the curve in the book and speaking to that. 00:21:35.356 --> 00:21:39.796 And so can you talk a bit about, and that's so on point, right? 00:21:39.896 --> 00:21:42.416 With everything kind of comes full circle, right? 00:21:42.576 --> 00:21:45.656 Right.

from that experience. So talk a bit about that. 00:21:45.676 --> 00:21:49.416 Talk a bit about that curve of diffusion and what that's done to your thinking 00:21:49.416 --> 00:21:52.336 here in helping folks successfully integrate. 00:21:52.536 --> 00:21:55.796 So Everett Rogers grew up in Iowa and he's a scholar.

00:21:55.936 --> 00:22:00.556 And if you want to look him up, you should. Everett Rogers, his most famous 00:22:00.556 --> 00:22:04.596 book, and he has many books, but his most famous book is called The Diffusion of Innovation. 00:22:05.036 --> 00:22:10.196 And it's a really important book. It's hugely popular among academics.

00:22:10.536 --> 00:22:14.496 It's incredibly well written, which is one of the reasons it's such an important book. 00:22:14.676 --> 00:22:21.736 And he basically spent his lifetime researching how hybrid seed corn, 00:22:22.616 --> 00:22:29.776 was diffused among farmers in the middle of North America, both Canada and the United States. 00:22:29.936 --> 00:22:35.496 So any place that grew corn, he was able then, because the data set was really 00:22:35.496 --> 00:22:41.876 easy to get hold of, he was able to sort of study how new hybrid technologies. 00:22:42.757 --> 00:22:49.217 Types.

I almost said models, but I don't think it's models. Hybrid types of corn were diffused. 00:22:49.417 --> 00:22:54.597 And so corn is really interesting and it's always been hybridized. 00:22:54.637 --> 00:22:59.597 I mean, since prehistoric times, I mean, it's a really interesting plant.

00:22:59.977 --> 00:23:05.637 And he was able to do that. And in doing that, he was able to study this idea 00:23:05.637 --> 00:23:09.777 of how new ideas move amongst groups of people. 00:23:10.117 --> 00:23:13.857 And if you're not I'm not familiar with the diffusion curve. 00:23:13.977 --> 00:23:18.597 It's kind of an S curve, sort of.

And it starts with innovators, 00:23:18.717 --> 00:23:23.637 and then it has early adopters, and then it has the middle people. 00:23:23.737 --> 00:23:25.997 I don't remember what the middle people are called, like normal, 00:23:26.277 --> 00:23:31.417 early normal, late normals. Is that it? I'm making that up kind of.

Oh, no, majority. 00:23:31.877 --> 00:23:37.697 Early majority, late majority. And then the last people to accept a change he calls laggards. 00:23:37.937 --> 00:23:40.837 Right.

And folks that still have a rotary dial phone. Right, exactly. 00:23:41.137 --> 00:23:44.557 And none of those places are necessarily bad or good. 00:23:45.137 --> 00:23:49.617 They're just predictable.

And what's so interesting is you can see that very 00:23:49.617 --> 00:23:55.357 same thing happening within organizations, certainly happening within industries. 00:23:55.637 --> 00:23:59.337 I mean, if you look at oil and gas or you look at steel construction, 00:23:59.797 --> 00:24:05.877 you can tell who the early adopter companies are, who the innovator companies 00:24:05.877 --> 00:24:08.757 are, because they're out there in the front trying new stuff. 00:24:08.757 --> 00:24:11.837 And then they bring with them the rest of the community. 00:24:12.037 --> 00:24:16.397 Well, that same thing holds true in your organization is that you have those 00:24:16.397 --> 00:24:18.877 very same people and they're kind of predictable.

00:24:19.017 --> 00:24:22.737 And his data shows that you can count on those. 00:24:22.837 --> 00:24:29.657 What Rogers then did with that is say we have to have different strategies to 00:24:29.657 --> 00:24:32.817 facilitate change for those populations. 00:24:33.617 --> 00:24:40.017 So innovators need very little convincing because they're always willing to try the newest thing. 00:24:40.137 --> 00:24:43.597 And everybody listening knows somebody who's an innovator.

They have the newest 00:24:43.597 --> 00:24:45.197 phone. They have the newest watch. 00:24:45.457 --> 00:24:47.977 They have the newest camera. I mean, everything's new.

00:24:48.842 --> 00:24:54.702 But their strategy is different than it would be for the late majority or the early majority, right? 00:24:54.802 --> 00:24:59.482 And so you're able to sort of strategize and manage change through the organization 00:24:59.482 --> 00:25:01.342 by sort of understanding where people are. 00:25:01.502 --> 00:25:06.442 And it was really, really helpful. He then took that on to the whole idea of 00:25:06.442 --> 00:25:11.982 social networks and then eventually went to the whole kind of six degrees of separation, 00:25:12.242 --> 00:25:17.822 that there are only six people between you and a fruit seller in New Delhi, 00:25:18.022 --> 00:25:21.722 which is the original thesis for the six degrees of separation.

00:25:22.162 --> 00:25:28.242 And then they're able to do that network study and understand how that connection works. 00:25:28.562 --> 00:25:30.742 And that connection is really fundamental for change. 00:25:31.102 --> 00:25:35.262 That's amazing. I had no idea Kevin Bacon was from New Delhi.

00:25:35.362 --> 00:25:37.962 Yeah, Kevin Bacon is