Change Myths: Separating Sense from Nonsense

In this episode, David is talking with Tricia Kennedy (a member of the OR). Tricia is the co-author of a book called Change Myths, The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense

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Tricia Kennedy

Tricia Kennedy is the co-author of the book ‘Change Myths: The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense’ and also a proud member of the Oxford Review. She is the founder and principal consultant for Kennedy Consulting Services LLC (TriciaK.com), a boutique organisational change and leadership consulting firm that helps businesses excel through inclusive, human-centered, and evidence-based strategies and practices. She is known for her inclusive and collaborative style, inquisitive and reflective approach, and humble commitment to challenging the status quo in a quest for continuous improvement.
With over 15-years’ experience, she is a seasoned enabler and facilitator of organisational change who specialises in a holistic change approach and a creative blend of art and science from multiple disciplines to deliver sustainable results. Clients she has advised and worked with over the years include Microsoft, Medtronic, BNSF Railway, Lexus, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Goldman Sachs, among others.

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• LinkedIn
• Website

The book – Change Myths: The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense

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• Paperback version

Transcript

Change Myths: The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense with Tricia Kennedy

Change Myths with Tricia Kennedy
[00:00:00] David: Hi, this is the Organizational Success Academy from the Oxford Review, bringing you the very latest research in leadership, management, organizational development, design, transformation and change, human resources and human capital, organizational learning, coaching and work psychology from around the world.
[00:00:20] To make you the most up to date and knowledgeable person in the room. Welcome back. Today I’m talking with Tricia Kennedy. She’s the co author of a book called Change Myths, The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense, which is this. And it’s a really good book. Tricia is one of our, oh, there you go.
[00:00:40] There’s another copy of it, is one of our members. She wrote the book with Paul Gibbons, who I’ve known actually for a long time, and is also one of our members. Now, Tricia is the founder and principal consultant of Kennedy Consulting Services. And I’ll put the link to that in the show notes, which is a boutique organizational change and [00:01:00] leadership consulting firm that helps businesses excel through inclusive.
[00:01:04] Human center and evidence based strategies and practices. She’s known for inclusive and collaborative style. She’s inquisitive, I shouldn’t affirm to that, and has a very reflective approach and is very humble. She’s got this humble commitment to challenging the status quo in the quest for continual improvement and keeping with the evidence.
[00:01:26] She’s got over 15 years experience and she’s a seasoned enabler and facilitator of organizational change and specializes in. A holistic change approach with a creative blend of art and science from multiple disciplines to deliver sustainable results. Clients, the kind of people that she’s advised and worked with over the years include Microsoft, Medtronic, BNSF, Railways, Lexus, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Goldman Sachs, among others.
[00:01:57] Welcome Tricia. How are you?
[00:01:59] Tricia: Thank you. [00:02:00] Thank you for having me. I’m doing well. How about you? No,
[00:02:03] David: no. It’s an absolute pleasure. Real pleasure. And as I say, you’ve been a member for some time, and this book is, as people will say, let them experience it as we go along. So, Tricia, can you just explain a little bit to the listeners what your background is and what it is that you
[00:02:19] Tricia: do?
[00:02:20] Sure. So I am an organisational change practitioner or professional. I’ve been, as you mentioned, I’ve been doing that for about 15 years. I’m currently doing it more independently. Yeah, contracting and independent consulting. I got when I first started in this field, I was doing more of the consulting firm type path.
[00:02:38] So I’ve worked in different sort of environments, but I’ve been doing it for 15. Gosh, I think it’s actually closer to 17 years now. I got into this field from my undergrad studies. I studied communications and journalism. So it was always it. Thinking in that kind of mode and always interested in people.
[00:02:54] I went back to grad school. I found myself in a place in life where I was trying on jobs after [00:03:00] college. Like I was trying this and I learned, I liked a little bit of this, not that, and definitely not that made probably learned more what I didn’t like. Didn’t what I did like, but nonetheless, it was a.
[00:03:09] Younger persons learning journey. And I decided to go back to grad school, but I wanted more of a career path, sort of a direction and less of this, like, let’s just try what comes up and learn as we go. So I did some sort of self analysis, self reflection, and I came up with this idea of what I call the space where people in business overlap.
[00:03:29] Had no idea what that meant in terms of a job. Do you work in HR? Do you do this? Do that? Not a clue. So I decided to go back to grad school and I just, and figured that would give me a really strong educational foundation in which to go in this direction, but also give me time to learn what does that even mean?
[00:03:45] What does that even look like? What kinds of jobs are available to someone that’s interested in that space? And I ended up getting a master’s in general psychology immediately followed by an MBA with the idea that it’s putting those two pieces together and [00:04:00] that’s a strong educational foundation for that direction.
[00:04:03] And it was during my business school program. That I came across a mentor. He’s in the acknowledgments of the book for sure, because he is almost wholly responsible for me being on this organizational change path at the time. He was the executive director of the MBA career center at my university where I was getting my MBA.
[00:04:21] And he had also started, this was like his retirement role, and he had earlier in his career started a small boutique organizational change firm that he had subsequently sold to Deloitte. So with him being the executive director of the Career Center for MBA students, we became really close, and the more we talked and the more he understood about this sort of space I wanted to be in, it was harder and harder for me to take this organizational change path, because it seemed like that perfect blend of like people, it makes them tick, psychology, behavioral sciences.
[00:04:50] but also in an organizational and work business setting. So that’s what got me on this path and that’s what I’ve been on since. I live in North [00:05:00] Texas in the United States. I’m really passionate about this space, but I’m also a, like you mentioned, very inquisitive, which, and I believe that inquisitiveness comes with a healthy dose of skepticism, right?
[00:05:11] You have to, I think, in life, you have to have at least… At least a healthy dose, you know, there’s certainly, you can go too far into paranoia and things like that, but a healthy dose of skepticism. And in my very first consulting job doing OCM, I found myself really enjoying it and learning so much, but at the same time, I was having these questions.
[00:05:31] That the people that were in my same profession, but above me hierarchically, couldn’t answer. And that, you know, of course, drew my curiosity and my inquisitiveness, and I just started digging around, like, for the answers myself. And that actually led to me to start. I never did finish, let’s be clear about that effect.
[00:05:48] But it led me to start an online PhD program in Organizational Psychology. Because I was going to find the answers myself if no one else put them into them for me. That’s [00:06:00] very me. And so again, like I said, I didn’t finish. I ended up leaving that program while I was writing my dissertation and a long story of why that would bore you to tears.
[00:06:12] But my intent there was never to be an academic anyway. It was to get those answers and be better at the job I do. So it was a hard decision, but I did end up life happens, right? So I don’t, so don’t call me PhD because I did not finish and I don’t want to claim anything that I am not due credit for, but that’s really, and so over the course of that learning, I was also working, still working in the field.
[00:06:36] At least the majority of the time. That was also during the stress of the Great Recession here in the U. S. Where jobs were really tight and hard to get and I was on a brand new career path. So there were stretches where I was just studying, but I was doing both. So it was just that combination just put me on this very strong path.
[00:06:53] Especially in organizational change, when you’re talking about people, there’s so much nonsense, right? I mean, just old wives [00:07:00] tales, colloquial knowledge. You name it. Combined with the fact that, you know, in this information age that we’re in with the internet and mobile devices and wireless, the gluttony of information that we come across is just mind boggling.
[00:07:15] And that really put me strongly on this path towards what you and I refer to as evidence based practice. Got me really interested in it, really passionate about it, really sort of thinking and exploring, or what are some of the things That we can do to make or the field of the discipline of organizational change more evidence based for many reasons that we’re not wasting our clients money so the work that we’re delivering to our clients that they’re paying for has something behind it, not just I heard it from so and so or I saw it on a slide from McKinsey or bit like some meat on the bone, but also for the change recipients, right?
[00:07:52] I really truly see my job as being Thank you. A representative, the representative, although unelected, in all fairness, [00:08:00] the representative for all those people that are in an organization that are expected to receive the change, those change recipients. We tend to follow them, call them impacted stakeholder groups, like they don’t have a seat at the table in when it’s a project or program that’s putting, going on and occurring something that they’re expected to change their behavior on.
[00:08:18] They don’t necessarily have a seat at the table or say, I really see the OCM rule. When I say OCM, Organizational Change Management, that’s my preferred term over change management, because in project management, there’s also change management. Hence, I prefer that. The verbiage O. C. M. So if you hear me say O.
[00:08:35] C. M. that’s what I’m talking about, but they deserve a seat at the table. I really see my role as being their representative, giving them a voice, giving them a seat at the table, and me looking at what’s going on in the project or the program and what’s coming down the pike, and doing everything I can on their behalf to make it as easy as possible for them to do, to give them that voice.
[00:08:55] I forgot where I was going with that.
[00:08:58] David: This is critical. It’s [00:09:00] actually what one of my colleagues call the victims of change.
[00:09:04] Tricia: Less diplomatic fair, less diplomatic, but very, very fair. And I take that responsibility very seriously. Mm-hmm. And that’s another reason it ties all back to the why have the meat on the bone of the evidence-based practices.
[00:09:16] Yeah. I’m getting paid to do that on their behalf for the company, but also for those victims of change. Right. Or recipients there. Uh, and I take that very seriously. And since I’m the person that’s representing them and has the seat at the table, I also think it’s really important to lift it from the medical practitioner, but like first do no harm or minimize harm at all costs.
[00:09:39] And without that evidence, you don’t know. You’re doing some kind of workshop, say with Myers Briggs or whatever, and maybe it appears on the surface to make a difference because people enjoyed it. You get your typical smiley face satisfaction, but that doesn’t tell you smiley faces in training or a workshop.
[00:09:57] They don’t tell you how it’s actually impacting just how [00:10:00] the person feels in reaction to the experience. And I think if you take that role of the representative to avoid as much harm as possible. For those recipients of change, you have to have some evidence, at least some kind of evidence based vision behind it, then you don’t know if you’re causing harm.
[00:10:17] Same thing for the people that are paying you. You don’t know if you’re truly earning that money and getting the results you’re claiming without some kind of evidence behind it. Now, then, I’m totally not following your question, so please tell me if you want
[00:10:30] David: me to start my search. No, no, it is because, no, no, it is because one of the problems with, well, with change consultancy particularly, is that quite a lot of people within that space, A, aren’t up to date, don’t understand what the research is saying, and start peddling myths that are, at the very best, we’ll come on to this a little bit later, at the very best, misinformation.
[00:10:53] Um, and at worst disinformation and actually toxic and understanding what the latest research is [00:11:00] saying is critical in this space for all of the reasons that you’ve said and actually, and it’s not just about their money, peddling those kinds of myths can do immense harm to an organization and, you know, so you’re getting the money, but actually the impact, there’s also a lot of negative
[00:11:19] Tricia: impact.
[00:11:20] Yeah. And we have a responsibility for it, but it’s certain the money is. Certainly not the only one, certainly not. I mean people’s, people’s mental well being, you name it. Yeah,
[00:11:32] David: so do you want to just explain what led up to… You writing the book and publication of the book because it was interesting because I knew you and Paul very differently I hadn’t realized that you were connected until I saw the
[00:11:45] Tricia: book.
[00:11:46] Okay. Yeah, I actually this is a fun story for me Because this is my first book it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a child like I’ve always been a big reader and Always wanted to have writing be a part of whatever path I [00:12:00] took hence the communications of journalism degree that I mentioned earlier But this book particularly, like I said, I’ve always wanted to write one.
[00:12:08] I’ve been really, spent years reflecting on and thinking about evidence based change and trying to put it into my own consulting work and just never quite had the time or never got around to really turning it into any kind of written publication because I’m usually very busy working for my clients.
[00:12:24] And I’m a huge fan of Paul’s book, The Science of Organizational Change. I came across that when I was doing my PhD studies. It was first published in 2015 and he reissued it, a new version of it, in 2019. And I had just reached out to him on LinkedIn. I wanted to use some of the figures from that, but for a client presentation that I was working on and just wanted to do the right thing and ask his permission first, even though I didn’t really anticipate any problems with it, I did want to ask, so I just sent a message and was like, great, if he gets it, then I’d feel much better using them with his permission and we’ll see what he responds.
[00:12:58] And very [00:13:00] quickly, he responded and of course was fine with that, but very quickly, we sort of established a dialogue and a friendship and started talking more and more, and at the time, he was already thinking about this third way, because this changed, this book is the third in a series of leading change in the digital age.
[00:13:15] He started with that first book. I was not involved with those other than being a fan. And he was already working on and thinking about this third one and we just got to talking and very quickly it turned into a collaboration. So I literally went in a matter of weeks from having always wanted to write a book as a kid and trying and kind of accepting in the back of my head that I probably never get around to it as every year goes by more and more quickly to I was co authoring a book with an already published author that is in the same mind.
[00:13:47] And this evidence based practice and really, you know, leading with curiosity and helping those skepticism and that change. The OCM profession and discipline is an area that’s much need of that, having that same shared mindset. And the next thing I [00:14:00] know, we were writing a book. So I’m writing. I’m also learning how to write a book from Paul, from my co author.
[00:14:06] He’s done it before. Like, what do I do? How does it work? How does editing work? What do I need to think about? And most of the writing I’ve done has been very academic. So many of my first drafts, he was just like, Oh, Tricia, what? How much? This is the part of you having to help me learn if you’re gonna, when you brought me on as a co author.
[00:14:23] I really like that story because it sort of came out of nowhere and out of the blue and just all of a sudden I was writing and it took us longer than we thought it was. I’ll take most, most of the fault for that in my learning and experimenting and learning and Making mistakes and learning from those mistakes process, but it’s very exciting because I had sort of on some level mentally Just figured I’d never get around to it And so now I have this friend and now I have who I fondly refer to as my professional partner in crime We’re looking at and talking about other projects and I have my first published book So I really could tell the story of [00:15:00] how Paula and I met and how this book came about
[00:15:03] David: Yeah, well done.
[00:15:04] Well done. It’s a biggie. First book. Definitely. Brilliant. So let’s get into the book. So you start the book with a kind of a brief look at critical thinking. Do you want to just explain in your own words what for you critical thinking
[00:15:18] Tricia: is? Sure. And even let me, before I do that, let me say one of the things that Paul and I really intended with this book is while it’s absolutely written for OCM professionals, all the myths we examine and explore are OCM.
[00:15:30] But that overriding message of how important critical thinking is certainly not restricted to OCM work and OCM professionals. I even recently did one, a speaker series for a staffing agency that I have a relationship with, and the audience was not change practitioners. So we really got to focus on that overriding important critical thinking, which was really interesting.
[00:15:52] And I think it just makes the book a little bit more interesting. Yeah, you might not read it cover to cover if you’re not an OCM person, but that message is still [00:16:00] there. That’s very important across the board. So what is critical thinking? There’s lots of formal official definitions that I’m not going to bore you with, but you can look them up.
[00:16:08] There’s a really good one, I will tell you, if you’re listening to this and you want to do a quick Google search. The University of Louisville, the Delphi Center has a good, it’s a good one.
[00:16:24] But really the way that I describe it and try to be as simple as possible is it’s about guiding our beliefs and actions with critical and careful thought, but also careful evaluation and reflection from multiple different angles and perspectives. So it means proactively overriding some of our natural human instincts, mental shortcuts, and biases before we jump to any conclusions.
[00:16:48] And I know I’ve mentioned this already, but I think it really involves starting from a point of curiosity. Along with that healthy dose of skepticism.
[00:16:56] David: Yeah, and a kind of a learning orientation rather [00:17:00] than knowing orientation.
[00:17:02] Tricia: Yeah, you can definitely add to that curiosity, the idea of lifelong learning and openness, right?
[00:17:07] Openness and flexibility. You have to be willing to discard ideas that were maybe very cherished and deeply held. But if you’re following the evidence and you’re being flexible and open and things change, we learn new things every day, right? And think of like just the brain alone in the last 10 years, the explosion of knowledge that we have around that, that we weren’t even close to 10 years ago.
[00:17:27] That comes with the flexibility and openness of discarding things if new knowledge and new evidence come about that points in the other
[00:17:34] David: direction. Yeah, and there are studies that connect cognitive flexibility with the development of both evidence based practice and with the development of critical thinking, and there’s been quite a few studies showing that those two things start to kind of develop together.
[00:17:51] Brilliant. So, you and Paul have got an interesting mnemonic or process as a heuristic for critical thinking that you use in the book, and the mnemonic is [00:18:00] LIAR, L I A R, which stands for logic. Thank you. Intuition, authority, and research. So, could you just explain a little bit more about LIA and kind of its purpose and how people can use
[00:18:13] Tricia: it?
[00:18:13] Yeah, let me start out by saying it is not our mnemonic. We got that from a researcher and professor named Jenny Duke Young. I don’t want to take credit for the mnemonic itself. That is her. But we think it’s very powerful and very useful. So we did borrow it and it’s what we use throughout the book. But basically we see liars like a quick and easy to remember one and quick and easy way to get started with critical thinking, right?
[00:18:38] It’s, can you go deeper? Of course you can. But if you want to just get in the habit and start building those skills or you’re come across something in the news or online that makes you sort of your healthy dose of skepticism makes you sort of like, Oh, wait a minute. Hmm. It’s a quick and easy way that you can just think it through.
[00:18:56] And then if it’s something that’s worthy of your time and worthy of the effort to go deeper, [00:19:00] sure, you can absolutely go deeper, but even just having that sort of habitual routine of like, think about it from these four things, as for any information you come across is definitely going to set you on a path towards critical thinking, and it’s right off the bat going to improve your skills of doing so.
[00:19:15] So again, it’s not ours, but it’s a good one. So we did use it and in the book, each of the myths that we examine. But that’s what we do. We take each one and we break it down by each one of those four aspects, the logic, intuition, the authority, and the research evidence, and then we go a little bit further into like potential costs and consequences because many people say I have a myth.
[00:19:35] Or if it’s something that’s been around and all the OSEM practitioners use, they say, so what? It works, right? So we also had to add a section that sort of examines those costs and consequences. But it’s really valuable and it’s so easy to remember. So logic, so let me start with intuition actually.
[00:19:50] Intuition, you’re asking yourself, or it asks, appear to make sense subjectively. Does it resonate with you? Does your gut lean towards, yeah, that sounds right to me? [00:20:00] Whereas authority is all about the source, right? Does it seem to come from a credible authority, a credible expert, a reliable source? And then logic is really all about logical reasoning.
[00:20:10] Does this make sense logically when you’re applying logical reasoning? Does the conclusion lead directly from its premise or is that conclusion, is it guilty of any logical fallacy? So that’s definitely the logic and the R of that, the L and R are two of the areas. that we’ll talk a little bit more about because they do actually require some base core knowledge, right?
[00:20:31] Authority and intuition, you don’t, you can pretty much do them on your own, but logic, you kind of have to understand what some of those logical policies are. What are the basics, core knowledge? I’m not saying go out and become a, you know, a method research methodological expert or a logical philosopher on logic.
[00:20:47] You do have to have some core basic knowledge there, but that’s what you’re looking for with Alice. The logic is like. Are there any logical fallacies? Does the conclusion actually lead, you know, work, lead from its premises? And then the research evidence [00:21:00] is all about the scientific literature and studies and research.
[00:21:03] And what does it say? What is it, what is, what direction does it point in for a certain claim or idea? And that’s, again, another area you kind of have to have some basic knowledge about the scientific method and you have to have some basic knowledge about Different research methods, because every research method has inherent strengths and weaknesses, right, as simply, I mean, at its most simple and basic level, a purely qualitative study, and I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but just giving an example, is really about description, it’s not intended To provide any kind of mathematical evidence of a relation, causal or correlational relationship.
[00:21:39] It’s all about the description and meaning making and things. Whereas on the opposite end of that spectrum is the quantitative, which is really about those mathematical relationships. And then everywhere in between, right? Because it’s on a spectrum, but you really kind of have to understand, no matter where you are in that spectrum, there are strengths and weaknesses of every research design method.
[00:21:57] There’s no such thing as… One perfect design. [00:22:00] It’s only together that our knowledge really grows from that predictive and descriptive. So you do have, to be a really strong and skillful critical thinker, you do have to have some core basic knowledge about the scientific method, the different research methods, what their strengths and weaknesses are.
[00:22:15] But you don’t have to be an expert. And that’s the really, the important part, what differentiates the L and the R. from the INA. And intuition, right? Intuition, we all have it, some better than others, and some in certain areas. Like some of the research around expertise is that your gut is more reliable, your intuition is more reliable.
[00:22:33] In that particular topic area, if you are an expert that has years of experience and years of education and all of that behind it, it’s still not perfect. It’s probably the weakest. Or one of the leapiest forms of evidence, but it is still an input and it is still evidence. So the idea that you have this really easy to remember liar who can’t remember that right?
[00:22:53] Mnemonic. And that if you want to start down that path of critical thinking and build your skills, everything you come [00:23:00] across, start, create a routine where you’re at least just sort of running through those in your head. Some things you’ll decide, Not worth my time or effort to dig into that one any further.
[00:23:10] Not relevant or impactful enough to me. Others, especially if it’s in your professional space, like us with OCM, like Paul and I with OCM, do, it will point you in the direction of what you want to dig into, what is worth spending that time. Yeah. And what we just thought was so useful and easy to remember and critical thinking is so important in today’s day and age.
[00:23:29] That was a great way to structure the book. We didn’t want the book to be, these are myths, you idiot, like, what are you thinking? Like that was so far from our intention. And another big element of the book is we’re all human too, right? Nobody can read everything. She knows all the answers. And we didn’t want to come across this line.
[00:23:50] So we really embraced this idea of let’s take what we believe are myths and put them through that analytical tool. Let’s look at them from those four different angles. And sure, [00:24:00] we’re going to have conclusions, but as a reader, you might come to a different conclusion. You might have exposure to information that we didn’t and come to a different conclusion because our goal really is to help people become better critical thinkers because we think it’s so important in life and especially important in the OCM field, and that’s why we took that structure approach of like the chapters are examining.
[00:24:22] So there’s also a handful of chapters that sort of go into the basics of the different research beds in the scientific method, because we had to provide that support. around it, but the meat of the book is that examination of each myth by chapter.
[00:24:35] David: Yeah, and those chapters about the research methods are really useful for, particularly for somebody who doesn’t have a research background.
[00:24:41] It kind of gives you a nice overview of what the issues are within that space and what the issues are with studies that you come across. And the other thing that I would say about critical thinking is it’s a skill, and it’s a lifelong skill, and you develop it and keep developing it. And, you know, I’ve been in this game for 35…
[00:24:59] [00:25:00] Years are more and researcher all the rest of it, and I’m still learning becoming a better,
[00:25:06] Tricia: and the word skill is, which I often take for granted, that people realize is that like with my psychological background and your research background, that is very specifically means. Anybody can do it and anybody can get better at it.
[00:25:18] It’s not something you’re born with. It’s not something If you don’t have that natural athletic talent, you’ll never see it’s a skill That means whatever your desire that will effort you’re willing to put into it with more and more practice You will continue to get better at it. That’s a very important distinction I mean you still hear people to say an old dog can’t learn new tricks and things like that like Well, we know about neuroplasticity.
[00:25:41] Yes, you can, but it’s up to you, but it’s up to you how much, how much you and how much effort do you want to put into it, but you will get, the more you do it, the more you practice and the more you do it, the better you will get.
[00:25:50] David: Oh, definitely. Yes. Yeah. I’m 64 and I’m just starting another degree. So, I’ll do my last degree.
[00:25:57] So, yeah, but it’s not, but [00:26:00] anyhow, right. It would scare me.
[00:26:02] Tricia: Yeah, it’s scary. Sometimes I’m willing. It’s
[00:26:03] David: scary. The living daylights out of me. I’m good with stats. I’ve never done no kind of degree in math before. We’ll see how it
[00:26:10] Tricia: goes. I’m not bad at math, but my brain doesn’t naturally, quickly compute. And so, like, but sometimes I’ll run basic steps, something that I’m scared of.
[00:26:21] The PhD was that. Like, even statistics for, like, oh, that’s more math than I’m used to. It’s a little scary for me, but. Even in my business school program and my psychology master’s program before that, I intentionally took a teaching assistant job in statistics for both, because I was like, this is so important, I need to understand it better, but it’s not, these mathematical relationships are not, they’re just something that come naturally to me, easily.
[00:26:44] I have sat down and I’m like, okay, the relationship is this and this, I’m not bad at math, I can do it. I’m I, it’s slower for me.
[00:26:51] David: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s all about effort and the more that you do it, the easier it gets. It’s like with anything, any kind of skill is just a [00:27:00] set of skills and you, it’s like adding
[00:27:02] Tricia: language or anything else.
[00:27:03] And hence the assistant. And then ta and I actually, uh, research methods chapter that you just mentioned, your praising, I was, that was sort of one of mine. None of the chapters were written purely by me or Paul. We didn’t divvy it up way, but we each sort of owned one. Where we got to get it started and have sort of fun, say if there was a disagreement, but then we would trade off for revisions, right?
[00:27:26] That was probably one of the harder chapters for me to write, because I was taking that mindset of like, don’t go too deep, don’t go too deep, this is just a primer for someone who hasn’t studied it. But I’m coming for my PhD, I want to explain this and explain this and use this term and it means that, so I’m thrilled to hear that turned out well for someone who doesn’t maybe have, that’s what we were trying to do with it.
[00:27:47] David: Yeah, no, I think they’re a nice explanation, and it just helps contextualize what’s… People are just reading studies, or they’ll just look at the outcomes of studies, and they’ll be saying things like, science says, well [00:28:00] that’s, you know, part of critical thinking is, yeah, okay, how good is this evidence, and where are the weaknesses?
[00:28:06] And there’s always weaknesses, and just because there’s a weakness doesn’t mean it’s to be discarded either. There is no such thing as 100 percent perfect research, it just doesn’t exist, so…
[00:28:16] Tricia: That’s why the whole, like, scientific method is the accumulation of knowledge because there’s no one person. Do these studies accumulate over time and point in the same direction?
[00:28:25] David: Yeah, and we’re learning and developing new methods all the time and the things that we believed to be true 1, 500 years ago, we no longer be true. And say with the methods, the methods that we were using 1, 500 years ago, we would no longer use today. Plus the fact there’s new technologies, new ways of looking at things, and therefore, 50 years and a hundred years time, there’s going to be new technologies, new research methods, and they’ll look back on what we’re doing as going, oh, that was a bit naive.
[00:28:54] Part of the process.
[00:28:57] Tricia: That’s what we call knowledge progression. It’s one of [00:29:00] those very important concepts. I’m a critical thinker. Yeah. Winning scientific method. It’s all about accumulating and progressing that knowledge. There is no one perfect right answer. There’s no proof per se, right? Like I hire upon the line to term war it.
[00:29:15] Because there is no perfect proof and things do change and we learn more and that’s a critical thing to like not only accept but embrace to be a skillful critical thinker. Definitely.
[00:29:26] David: And keep developing that muscle. So, the book, Change Myths, just take us through a couple of beliefs that, from your perspectives, are myths, and explain why these beliefs are myths,
[00:29:40] Tricia: would you?
[00:29:41] Okay, sure. Well, everything that we cover in the book, our conclusion, like, none of them, You can pretty much say they’re all myths, or while we do examine them using that wire framework, that mnemonic of the four different angles of which to explore, none of them come out unscathed. We probably wouldn’t have [00:30:00] put them in there if they did.
[00:30:02] So I’ll just be honest about that up front. But not all for the same reasons. And that’s why I took that direction of let’s examine them and not just pretend to be that authority that say it’s not right. That was sort of went against like the whole idea principles of the critical thinking and All of that.
[00:30:19] So they don’t all have the same reasons and some more likely than others, but none of them come out unscathed. So just say that out front. So quick look at the chapters. Don’t expect any of them to come out unscathed. But like I said, for different reasons. So one example of that, there’s a chapter about neuroscience.
[00:30:36] And by putting it in there as a myth, we’re not saying that neuroscience doesn’t at all or never will. Have any relevancy or input to organizational change or OSEAN? The conclusion that we come to is it doesn’t yet for any practical applicable purposes. We know so little about the brain given its complexity that even though we’ve [00:31:00] come miles and unbelievably far in just the last 10 20 years in our understanding of the brain, it’s still very minimal.
[00:31:08] So our conclusion with neuroscience in general is Is that people that are trying to make neuroscience, we jokingly call it NeuroBabble, right? Neuroscience claims applying that knowledge to organizational change practices, you’re just a bit ahead of yourself. It’s going to matter, of course, how the mind works, how we think about things is going to apply to OCM, we just don’t think it’s there yet.
[00:31:30] And the other claim that comes from that neuroscience group is this idea that brains hate change or all change is hard. And we tried to dispute that as well in the book. So the other conclusion we come to specific to that topic area in the chapter is that that is part of my French garbage. When people say, all change is harder, brains hate change, it’s only based on our survival instinct, right?
[00:31:56] Like, you’re about to be a tiger’s lunch survival fight, [00:32:00] flight, freeze instinct. Not every change that we experience in life or an organization is equivalent to that truly existential threat. And if you think about it, it seems kind of absurd too, right? Like, I’m about to be a tiger’s next meal versus, oh, guess what?
[00:32:15] My company wants me to learn a new software application. You know, just that basic comparison sort of reveals some of that absurdity. Now, if it’s a true survival thing, sure. Like, I don’t want to dismiss anybody’s experience. If the change that you’re helping facilitate in a company. Is a downsizing and you’re talking about people’s well being and ability to put a roof over their head and feed their children.
[00:32:36] Yeah. Okay. That’s different. But when you hear about the majority of the neuroscience claims you hear around organization change, but change is always hard. Brands hit you. They’re equating that survival instinct, that traumatic response. This is the space of trauma. No, learning a new app is not the space of trauma.
[00:32:54] It’s not. It’s a little bit paternalistic and assumptive. To do the same way when [00:33:00] you hear, oh, just like kids, people that are experiencing it. It’s quite patronizing. Yeah,
[00:33:04] David: yeah. In fact, the question that I ask my students is, so let’s just have a look at some change. Would you like to win the lottery? And usually they say, yes, okay, hang on a minute, then I thought all change was bad.
[00:33:19] So, you know, all change was hard,
[00:33:22] Tricia: right? So for that particular chapter, our two conclusions are one. We have these very, very ridiculous generalizations that we seem to accept as a person that if you just with a little bit of thought don’t really make sense. But then the other conclusion is that neuroscience is a larger practice, like we’re just not far along.
[00:33:43] Knowing which part of the brain lights up in an fMRI doesn’t really tell you how to then facilitate a change and shape your own interventions and practices. It will, absolutely. The more we learn about the mind and the brain and absolutely, but our conclusion is it’s not there [00:34:00] yet. And then the second piece is there’s just these broad generalizations that are not.
[00:34:04] I mean, and we have the whole chapter about Kubler Ross’s research into death, right? Which is related in the sense that she theorized these steps for what it was like to experience dying, which were all very studied very qualitatively and not meant to be generalized. And it just sort of got a life of its own, morphed its way into a grief model, and then somehow made a leap into the organizational change that this is how everybody experiences change.
[00:34:31] We don’t know enough about the mind to bring it for that to drive actual practices and we yet we have these oversimplifications and generalizations that claim to come from neuroscience I should say like the brain state change and these grief curves definitely take us over that line into causing harm Definitely
[00:34:54] David: great.
[00:34:55] And if you got like a
[00:34:56] Tricia: favorite myth, I saw that in your questions [00:35:00] anything anything that I hear especially the I at least believe I could, I’m also vulnerable and can make mistakes, is, is wrong, sort of irks me. So I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I thought about that a little bit and I think instead of a favorite, the one that scares me the most or concerns me the most is probably this whole idea of burning platforms or a sense of urgency, because I feel like it’s one of the ones with the most potential to cause harm.
[00:35:30] You and me sitting in that third floor IT department, learning our new software. If we’re putting sort of false urgency and false amounts of stress on the people, because we think it’s going to make them learn that software faster, that can get really harmful. Like, work these days is already hard enough.
[00:35:46] We constantly have layoffs and people expecting to do more work with less. We had the whole pandemic in where people were working remote and it was brand new and that was a very… Some for some a very stressful change and then now [00:36:00] companies are wanting to keep life and work life They kind of put enough stress on you as it is.
[00:36:04] Is that really a healthy and fair? Way to try to make them change because one it doesn’t Right? What the research, at least the one, and you could probably speak to this even more than I can, that we dug into and have looked at, that stress, that sense of urgency, because it’s sort of related to that, to the survival instinct, right?
[00:36:23] It’s that, oh my god, right away, the adrenaline’s in your blood, only is very short term response from people. And when I say short term, I mean like hours, maybe if you’re stretching it, days. Well, that isn’t a recipe for an effective change program. If it, because not only is the response to the fear of that urgency so short, there’s a backlash effect where then they’re sort of checked out and exhausted, which we do know from the survival instinct, it’s that adrenaline and stress hormones flood your body and then as they come up, you’re exhausted.
[00:36:58] That’s one way that it can be very [00:37:00] harmful. You’re not actually expediting or facilitating this change. You’re just putting through people through unnecessary stress. Two, we know that prolonged, sustained exposure to stress hormones causes things like heart disease and cancer, like really bad stuff, not just, might get a cold, you know, be a little more susceptible to cold than like really bad stuff.
[00:37:20] And then there’s the very practical reason of if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So I feel like that’s one of the more harmful myths. There’s
[00:37:29] David: always, there’s also another issue about, and you kind of hinted at this, about false urgency is the trust issue. So when people find out that actually wasn’t urgent, what impact does that have?
[00:37:43] And it’s, and unfortunately there’s quite a lot of change. Yeah, yeah, well there’s quite a lot of change that have urgency in them or right at the front of them. And it, where you see managers trying to think of things in order to create the urgency. Yeah. [00:38:00] Um, right. You know, one of the consequences
[00:38:03] Tricia: of this, and it’s, and again, if it’s a real, a true survival, like the company’s not gonna make it fine, that’s great.
[00:38:12] But this assumption that it should be the upfront first thing for every single one has very harmful outcomes. Not only are you not gonna get the change that facilitate the change that you want, you’re hurting people. You don’t get what the results you want. Yeah. And think that right for morale, like, we’re just gonna lie to you and say it’s.
[00:38:31] a survival situation and cause all this harm. But just kidding. We just wanted you to get, try to make you do it faster. Like. That’s real great for retention and morale and it just ethically treat humans as people that deserve substance abuse.
[00:38:48] David: And actually this is one of the areas of critical thinking that’s often missed out or forgotten about.
[00:38:53] So a lot of models of critical thinking are about kind of following the evidence. Which is fine, [00:39:00] but there is another level here, which is what we’re referring to now is about thinking through the consequences also of the answers that we’re coming to. So projecting out and saying, okay, what’s likely to happen as a result of doing this, which is exactly what we’re talking about.
[00:39:15] That’s a core part of critical thinking is working through those consequences and then pulling back and going, okay, those are the consequences that we want or that we can afford. And quite often that gets, you know. People just end up with an answer and go, Alright, that’s the truth, we’ll head off in that direction without thinking about what the consequences are.
[00:39:36] Tricia: John Connor and Daryl Connor say it’s a requirement for any change, let’s go. Like, what? No, wait a minute. There you’re relying on only authority. Uh,
[00:39:47] David: and a lot of these models are really old. Yeah, and it’s like that, and you cover it in the book, and I’ve done quite a lot of, like I did a big piece on about the, you know, 70 percent of change results in [00:40:00] failure, which it doesn’t, and there’s a lot of evidence, but all of that came from a HBR paper, HBR, I say paper, it wasn’t an article, um, that was misinterpreted by an editor, and everybody’s taken the editor’s comments, As what Cotter was saying, and it’s not true.
[00:40:20] It’s just bizarre. Yeah, and this is how these things can start to propagate. And this is the kind of misinformation
[00:40:28] Tricia: stuff. And I mean, in this, we’re all human. There’s a lot of situations where that kind of propagation is probably harmless and innocent. You know, like, I believe, I don’t know. I’m trying to think of a funny example, and I’m not coming up with anything.
[00:40:42] Like, I heard. My cat is gonna live longer if I buy this toy. Like, as long as I can afford that toy. No one’s getting hurt if I just go, Oh, so and so said so and he’s a cat expert. Like, I mean, that’s [00:41:00] pretty, one of the questions that you and I talked about in advance is this recording is like, The whole idea of like, there’s so much out there.
[00:41:08] Nobody can read everything. How, if you call yourself an evidence based practitioner, how do you, how in the world do you keep up? Because there’s, no one really can. So how, what do you do about that? Like, how, one of the things you can do about that is choose your battles very carefully. Is that toy me believing Nycat’s gonna live two years longer because I bought a certain type of crunchy toy than another?
[00:41:32] I’m not harmless. Like, again, as long as I can afford it and the toys I’m just like, never. Like, let it go. We’re all human. We make mistakes. Nobody is ever gonna reach that perfect, I am the best critical thinker. I have everything. That’s not a reality. That’s not possible. But you try, you do your best, but part of that, but you choose your battles, where is that effort warranted?
[00:41:53] That’s the consequences piece, right? If there’s no really big consequences, okay, maybe just run with that [00:42:00] because we all only have so much time in a day, we all can only read so much, process so much. That’s one of the things, just let it go that you think you’re going to be able to read everything. Pick and choose your battles very carefully.
[00:42:12] And talk to people. Sometimes it’s not about sitting down with a pile of journals that I’ve only read two and we’re already into the next month and I’m about to have another pile of those exact same journals and I’ve already read the ones before. Pick and choose your bottles very carefully and talk to people.
[00:42:26] Maybe somebody read something that you didn’t or they just strike a chord in you that’s something you didn’t think about. One of the things I absolutely adore about the Oxford Review, even though I don’t go to as many as I would like to, are those members calls and the serendipity calls. Because that is an opportunity for me to talk with like minded people and just sort of hear what they talk about.
[00:42:48] There are things that I’m, it’s, there’s always like, I never thought of it that way. Or they mentioned an article that I wasn’t aware of, but that one is right up my alley. I’m gonna find it and read it. And not trying to read everything. [00:43:00] So just talking to people and having different groups of people, discourse and conversation.
[00:43:04] Social media? Tends to not be as much discussion, but maybe LinkedIn a little bit more loose from the others. That’s the only opportunity you have to have some discussions. Go with that. Even though I don’t find them quite as perfect, but because there’s so much, there’s so much nobody can know everything.
[00:43:20] You can choose your battles very carefully.
[00:43:22] David: I think social media is more social opinions. Yeah. But LinkedIn,
[00:43:28] Tricia: the idea behind it is discussion. There’s some minimal discussion, but I cringe when I suggest. But if that’s your only opportunity to, to have discourse, then do it, then go for it. Yeah. That’s, you know, only the individual knows.
[00:43:43] What is the right battles for them to choose what their time and willingness to put effort and they’re like risk averse in this. Yeah, I mean, you can only know that for yourself and you have to do it with all of it with
[00:43:58] David: one of the things that we’ve been talking about [00:44:00] and we’ve mentioned quite a few times this whole idea about evidence based practice.
[00:44:04] What does that mean?
[00:44:05] Tricia: So I think evidence based practice is that’s a really good question and a good one to talk about. Because I often come across the misconception that it is all about that academic research, the scientific literature, when indeed that is only one part of it. Yeah, it’s the hardest one.
[00:44:22] It’s the biggest one we talked about. No one can know everything. You can’t read every single article. Even if you just, and we’re all guilty of only reading the abstract or the outcome, like. Come on, we’re all human beings. It’s not just the scientific literature. Well, that is a huge input. There are three other parts to it, but it’s also very contextual, which I think, when I talk about the contextual piece, sort of, I see people’s eyes light up of like, oh, it doesn’t mean I have to have read every academic article ever about hard to social change, or I didn’t read Lewin’s original, too, word for word, like, is that what you’re telling me I need to do?
[00:44:59] Who has [00:45:00] time for that kind of response, right? Right, nobody, that’s the thing. So, that whole element of accepting and embracing the human condition is a big one for me. So, that means part of critical thinking is proactively overcoming those biases that we have. Because they’re not going anywhere. They’re like emotions, they’re part of the human condition, they don’t go anywhere.
[00:45:19] But what do you do with them? You feel jealousy. That’s not a bad thing. But what do you do with it? Do you go out and try to, like, sabotage somebody’s life for revenge, or do you just go, Oh, wow, I feel jealous, but that’s about my feelings, not them, or anywhere in between. Sookie? At least the cognitive biases, because learned biases are different.
[00:45:41] To me, cognitive biases are the same thing. That’s the way our brain evolved. They’re not going to go away to try to say you’re going to de bias or get rid of them. It’s not realistic. We did more like an emotion, like, what are you going to do with it? But because we have them, that’s part of thinking you have to be able to proactively think.
[00:45:57] This is probably a space where the [00:46:00] availability bias is clouding my judgment. So I’m really big on that human condition, but, and we talked about it with like, how do you keep up with all of this stuff? Well, you know what your time availability is, where you want to, and don’t want to put in the effort.
[00:46:13] You know where you should probably think a little bit further about consequences than others. That’s a very personal… Decision. But so the evidence based practice piece, the other three pieces, in addition to the scientific literature, it’s internal data, internal organizational data. So, probably data in your organization that you can leverage and help guide you on how to best do the change interventions for that particular organization.
[00:46:38] But it’s also professional practitioner expertise. Your expertise matters. What’s worked in the past? Is it a similar situation? But again, use your critical thinking. Just because it works there doesn’t mean it’s going to work here. So think it through. Things are pointing to you’re going to get more benefit out of trying it than not.
[00:46:57] Give it a go. Experimenting is [00:47:00] a valid way. Of approaching evidence based practice because you’re experimenting within the context of that organization. It doesn’t require the same rigor. That you’re talking about for publishing in a peer reviewed journal, it only has to apply in that context. So it’s not like doing a dissertation study.
[00:47:19] If you’re studying a group of stakeholders within that organization and you’re only doing so to design information in that context. And then there’s also the stakeholders that change victims or change recipients, their values and perceptions. Evidence based practice is combining all four of those things in a way that, again, it’s not perfect, but it is in a responsible manner.
[00:47:44] So when you’re designing interventions for a particular group or within a particular organization for a change program, it’s combining those four things in the most responsible manner. In medicine, I mean, the easiest to understand comparison there is medicine, but even our knowledge about medicine changes, a [00:48:00] doctor is going to go with the most.
[00:48:02] Best available, most recent information. Try knowing that his patient experiences symptoms different or might respond to a drug differently than another patient and combine all of those things for the hopefully the best possible outcome and the highest likelihood of not causing any harm. Same thing, whether it’s public policy, organization change, whatever, same concept.
[00:48:24] No one’s saying you have to have read every single article ever written about us and know exactly. And know exactly which one’s had the strongest methodology and not. Like, I mean, you should try to read some. Especially if there’s one thing you’re really, like, grappling with. Get a sampling. Another great service of Oxford Review culls through all those and sends you these summaries.
[00:48:46] And I’m going to give another prompt there. But it’s about combining those things in a responsible way. You do an intervention at a company, you find out three years later that there’s a study that came out that sort of points in a different direction. You can’t beat yourself up [00:49:00] about what was done back then, but you can be open and flexible and adjustable going forward, right?
[00:49:04] And even, as we said earlier, one study, and that’s one of my biggest pet peeves, always, always, always have a red flag when you read one study, singular, not plural, or points to, or one study is not a cumulated emitter. But you see it all the time in journalism. A new study tells us, if that writer is not giving you some of what the accumulated evidence behind that study is, there’s something you probably don’t have to read.
[00:49:35] Yes. Yeah,
[00:49:37] David: yeah. And it’s about, yeah, it is about the weight of evidence over time, particularly in terms of research evidence and not just, you know, the same here. And I see politicians doing this all the time, they’ll refute something based on one study and you go, hang on a minute, there’s 30 other, 30, 000 other studies, they’re saying something else.
[00:49:55] Tricia: So there’s a fabulous critical thinking and evidence based practice, always [00:50:00] raise the red flag. Are they really, unless it’s some massive, crazy meta analysis, and even then you should probably not rely on one study. Anytime you’re one study, singular, a study, raise the red flag.
[00:50:13] David: Yeah, definitely. So I’ve got to ask you a question.
[00:50:16] Okay, so we’ve been saying, you know, this new research coming out all the time, things get overturned, updated, changed all the time, and there’s also an awful lot of kind of misinformation, disinformation that kind of, the internet’s made it really easy for that to spread, and You know, even AI, large language models, get an awful lot of things wrong because of the way that they interpret stuff.
[00:50:40] And there are actually, there’s over 125, I don’t know whether people know this, 000 new studies published every month. This is in 2023, and that increases at the rate of about 9 percent per year. It was a really interesting study done by the Max Planck Institute a couple of years ago looking at the rate of change [00:51:00] through science.
[00:51:01] Now, that’s across everything, so, you know, medicine, engineering, and all those kinds of areas as well. And just in the areas that we operate in for the Oxford Review, things like leadership, management, organizational development, work psychology, DEI, and stuff like that, we get to see roughly about 300 to 700 studies that have been published just in the last 24 hours.
[00:51:24] That’s the volume that we’re talking about here that’s being published. Now, the question I’m fascinated to know is how you and Paul, both evidence based practitioners in your book, how are you keeping
[00:51:38] Tricia: up? I can’t answer for Paul. I don’t know what his day to day process is. I think we’ve touched on some of them, right?
[00:51:46] Like, choose your battles. Talk to people. Like, it isn’t just about reading all of the evidence. I’m going to go back and rave about Oxford Review again. There are exactly two things that I religiously try to [00:52:00] read, like, cover to cover, every time. And it’s your Oxford Review publications and The Economist.
[00:52:08] I mean, I read a ton more. I read a ton more than that. Obviously, I am a big reader and have been. But those are the only two that, like, I try for every issue. But it goes back to a lot of the things we’ve touched on, I think, how I manage that is. Realize that I’m human and there’s only so much I can do.
[00:52:26] Talk to people. Join things like the Oxford Review because again, it’s not just that publication that I so highly rely on because you will cull through all of those for us and pick out the ones that you think I mean, does that mean that I’m something you didn’t include in there? I might not catch my interest of course, maybe, but it’s a good starting point.
[00:52:44] It’s the starting point to help sort of call that down to what’s the most relevant to read or learn about, or just know about what’s out there that’s being done, but you also have members only calls in the serendipity calls. Talk to people. You learn about new information and studies by just talking to people, [00:53:00] listen to what they say, share your ideas, see what they think, see what they, you know, did they bring up something maybe you didn’t think of, and just be open to the discourse and conversation.
[00:53:10] You touched on that earlier, more of a curiosity than a know it all type. Mindset, right? That’s so important because you’ll again, nobody can ever read ever anything. So I think that’s a big one liar helps If you’re going through those liar things you’re going through those in your head as you come across new information And they don’t match Very often they will contradict each other what logic says versus the right thing when they don’t match That’s what you’re like.
[00:53:36] Maybe I should look up a couple things. This this is a topic I’m interested in because again choose your battles. I’m choosing to be interested in spend some of my valuable time digging into this one That I found from liars, so therefore, I’m choosing that as one of my battles. Then I use where there’s contradictions there to maybe look up a handful of articles or, and I’ll start often with like, popular media, but just to get a feel [00:54:00] for the big picture.
[00:54:01] Because you dive right into those academic databases, which not everybody has access to even, right? You know? Because they cost money. I think I only have like one. I’ll start with popular media just to get a bigger feel of like what the conversation is and what people are saying. And then I’ll go to something like, then I’ll go a little bit deeper to a little bit more academic.
[00:54:21] Somebody that’s, it’s a sort of bigger picture blog maybe, but then I’ll have the references. Right? So I can start skimming those and seeing which one of those grab my, if there’s any of those that grab my attention. So it’s that combination, being curious. Habitually using liar, where does it point you talking to people, really listening to other points of view and being open and choosing your bottles?
[00:54:45] Yeah. Is it something that is what your own personal effort to dig further into? If not, there you go. You just read it sometime. If it is great, you’re pinpointing. Where you spend that time, your very valuable time in reading stuff, [00:55:00] but ask for recommendations too, right? Like people in your, now there’s an area that like LinkedIn, some of the other social media can be very helpful If you have a decent sort of network of people in the same line of work You’ll get a lot of garbage too, a lot of noise, but ask them say I’m interested in this topic Send me your favorite three articles about it See what people come back with.
[00:55:22] We’ll see. Yeah. Another step, but yeah. But it saves you the time of dinging, dinging and digging just to get to an article or two to read.
[00:55:31] David: Yeah. Yeah. And this is why some PhDs are full-time, you know this. That’s hard work, but being part of, oh yeah. a professional community, having a trusted source of information.
[00:55:43] Those things are good starting points. And everything that you’re saying here is also, but it’s the thinking, you know, does this ring true? Everything that you’ve got in liar, actually.
[00:55:53] Tricia: So another good one is another good one is some kernel articles. And some of what you do as well, [00:56:00] are just literature reviews.
[00:56:01] Right? If you find something that says, well, it’s just a literature, start there, and do the references there. That you’re sort of digging into something new that you’re not sure where to start. That’s another good one. Even if it’s an older literature review. Definitely. Like even if it’s back from like late night, it’s still the foundational information.
[00:56:23] It’s still a good starting point.
[00:56:25] David: Yeah, it certainly, it gives you the breadth of what’s, what was going on at that moment in time and it’s, it’s a good starting point. Brilliant. So, have you got any last advice for listeners about critical thinking, evidence based practice, or operating from a proper evidence based, things like that?
[00:56:40] I had,
[00:56:40] Tricia: I don’t know, I had written up a couple like bullet points that are like, My own little maxims. I think we’ve covered most of them, right? Like, accept and embrace the human condition. You are biased and you’re going to be. You’re gonna make mistakes. That’s okay. Like, refrain from judging other people.
[00:56:56] They’re just as human as you are. Don’t jump to conclusions and [00:57:00] careful with your judgments. Don’t be afraid to express things in terms of uncertainty, right? That is the scientific mindset. Even though our brains and our clients and our customers, they all want, this is it. This is the answer. You’re more accurate and it’s getting more familiar.
[00:57:16] That’s what our minds want. I get it. We claim it, right? But don’t be afraid to couch things in terms of uncertainty because there is no such thing as perfect certainty, except the human aspect of you can’t read everything. We’ve harped on that one quite a bit. We’ve talked about the being flexible, being open, being willing to discard things if new evidence points in that direction or warrants doing so.
[00:57:38] Think through consequences, but like one of the reasons I like LiAR so much, and we used it in the books so prominently, is that just habitually thinking in those terms, those L I A R terms, is gonna make you a much stronger and skillful critical thinker alone. Just creating that habit, just that sort of routine, that alone gets you on the path and is gonna improve your skills significantly.[00:58:00]
[00:58:00] And then, and expose all these other things that they then choose from when you choose your bottles. Is that worth digging into? Is that one that I need to be a little bit more careful about what those long term consequences might be? So I feel like all of them, my little sort of maxims that I was going to list for this last question, we’ve touched on all of them throughout.
[00:58:16] David: Well, that’s a really good summary. Thank you. So, this has been absolutely fab. Thank you so much, Tricia. If people want to contact you, how can they do
[00:58:25] Tricia: that? Sure. Probably the easiest way is my website, which is triciak. com. T R I C I A K. com. Because that has one of those forms that you can send me a message, there’s a link to my email and my socials.
[00:58:38] I also have a link tree, which is another, there’s online services where you just like put in all these different links. Kind of handy, though. So, that is L I N G. N K T R slash my name. So just Trisha Kennedy. Okay. And I don’t have, that has my LinkedIn profile. It has my website. It also has links to the book on both Amazon and [00:59:00] Apple.
[00:59:00] I book that’s sort of like a collection of that easier.
[00:59:04] David: Yeah. Okay. So that’s brilliant. I’ll put the links in the show notes anyway, and on the blog page. Brilliant. Thank you so much. The book, Change Myths, The Professional’s Guide to Separating Sense from Nonsense, by Paul Gibbons and Tricia Kennedy, is published by Francis Media, and is available now, and I’ve got to say it’s highly recommended.
[00:59:24] I really enjoyed reading it, and I think it’s a really important book, just to help people start separating out some of the nonsense that spreads out there, and there’s an awful lot of that. And there’s a link to the book. in the show notes. That’s great. Thank
[00:59:40] Tricia: you very much. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:59:42] I was so excited and thrilled when I heard you wanted to talk to me.
[00:59:46] David: Yeah, really good. Nice to talk. Thank you for listening to the Oxford Review podcast. For free research briefings, audio and video research briefings, research infographics and a whole lot more, visit Oxford Review. [01:00:00] com. That’s oxford hyphen, or dash, review dot com, and please subscribe, rate and review this podcast.
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