226. Embracing Change and Adaptability with Mick Spiers

Unlock the secrets of transformative leadership with insights from our enlightening conversation with Adeline Tiah. What if reinvention is the superpower you need to thrive in today’s fast-paced world? 

Adeline shares her journey from a corporate career to a purpose-driven path, offering a roadmap for aligning your actions with the legacy you desire. Discover the REINVENT framework, a tool for fostering a risk-taking mindset and entrepreneurial thinking, supported by groundbreaking research from Harvard Business School. Connect the dots between quiet quitting, finding deeper meaning in work, and inspiring innovation and adaptability. This episode promises to equip you with the insights and strategies you need to lead a more meaningful future.

As we navigate the era of AI, leadership is evolving from traditional knowledge-based power to new superpowers like systems thinking and human creativity. AI democratizes information, but how do you turn that into actionable strategies? We discuss the essential skills leaders need: interpreting AI insights, leveraging emotional intelligence, and embracing a growth mindset for continuous reinvention. Join us as we challenge you to reflect on your growth journey, embrace the unknown, and take bold steps towards your vision. 

Stay engaged with our community through multimedia platforms and connect with us on social media for ongoing inspiration in your leadership journey.

Chapters

• 0:02 The Power of Reinvention in Leadership
• 11:40 The Future of Leadership in AI
• 19:57 Building Leadership Through Multimedia Platforms

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Music is reinvention. The modern day superpower. The future of work is now upon us. So how do we need to adapt and reinvent ourselves as the world keeps changing around us, will flexibility and adaptability be the key? What about the role of critical thinking skills and human skills in today's episode of the leadership project. It's a solo cast where I reflect on our incredible conversation with Adeline Tiah. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, I highly recommend it. Adelines perspectives on reinvention and the future of work are inspiring, transformative and deeply practical. Welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm your host, Mick Spiers, and today we're reflecting on our conversation with Adeline Tiah. Let's start with a profound question that Adeline posed, what would your 80 year old self? Thank you for today. This isn't just a theoretical exercise research from the field of positive psychology, including the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, shows that reflecting on our future selves helps us make better decisions in the present. It's a question of aligning our actions today with the values and legacy we want to leave behind. What legacy do we want to leave behind? How do we want others to speak about us in the future? Do we make generational change as leaders? This means asking, Are we building something sustainable? Are we making decisions that we and those who depend on us will be proud of in the future. I like to think of this in two dimensions. One is very long term. Which is, what legacy Am I leaving behind? What will future generations speak about our generation? Will they see our society as the one that finally got past institutional and structural racism as an example, will we be the society that finally takes care of the planet in the proper way? I like to think about when people are getting together in the future for key meetings and they reflect on leaders of the past, what will they be saying about us, us as a whole, not us as individuals, US as a whole. What will they be saying about us? Then I like to think about micro actions, very short term actions. And I think about Back to the Future. Here, one of the greatest movies, back from what is it, 1985 and in these time travel movies, people always think about small, little actions in the past that have a big impact on the future. And they worry about, if you travel back in time and you sneeze at the wrong time, that you can change the entire future and your current future that you know won't exist anymore. But it makes me stop and think no one thinks about what little action could you take today that changes your future? Forget about the fear of changing the past impacting your present. What action could you take today that impacts the future that you want to have? A really great quote that nails this for me is, when is the best time to plant a tree, it's 10 years ago when's the second best time to plant a tree, it's today. Adelines own journey provides a roadmap for reinvention. She shared how she left a successful corporate career to write reinvent 4.0 her book and build her coaching practice. This wasn't an impulsive leap, but a deliberate, intentional choice rooted in purpose. Her story echoes what we've discussed in past episodes such as Episode 209 with Ishan Galapathy, where we explored the concept of quiet, quitting and aligning work with deeper meaning. Or we can go all the way back to Episode 179 where we spoke about navigating career and personal fulfillment with lon Stroh shine and what he called normal 40, where a lot of people reinvent themselves around this age. 40 is not old. In fact, I'm 51 and I'm still reinventing myself every single day. You can make changes, and you've got a whole life ahead of you, and connecting to purpose and values was the secret ingredient of two of our most popular guests that we've ever had on the show. Back to Episode 115 with Dr. John Demartini, who shared with us the secret behind the secret, behind the secret, when we speak about manifestation, where it is connecting to values, what you care about most, and connecting to purpose and having that prolific focus, that's what manifestation. Action really is. It's not just dreaming. It's having prolific action connected to your values and purpose. And then back to Episode 31 with Zach Mercurio leading with purpose and meaning. Zach studies purpose deeply every single day, if you want to find your purpose, this is the episode to listen to. Episode 31 with Zach Mercurio to find your purpose and then connecting it with your values and manifesting your future. Episode 115 with Dr. John Demartini coming back to Adelines pivot. Her pivot reminds us that reinvention often begins with a willingness to ask bold, uncomfortable questions about what truly matters to us. One of the standout moments in the conversation was her reinvent framework, a powerful acronym that offers practical steps for thriving in the future of work. Let's break that down in detail. R risk taking mindset. Adeline emphasized that not taking risk is a risk. This aligns with research from Harvard Business School, which highlights that calculated risk taking is a hallmark of successful leadership, leaders who foster a culture of experimentation, encourage innovation and adaptability. Think about you and your team. Are you creating a safe space for them to take risks, to make mistakes and to learn from them? Consider how past episodes, like episode 208 where we discussed reducing interference to unlock potential connect with this principle. Risk taking is about clearing the path for growth. E entrepreneurial thinking. Adeline described this as the ability to view challenges as opportunities. It's about approaching problems with creativity and resourcefulness. This mindset is increasingly critical in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous the famous VUCA world. Studies in Organizational Psychology reveal that entrepreneurial thinking not only drives innovation, but also boosts team Engagement and Resilience. So how are you fostering this mindset in your organization? Reflect on past insights from Jason Anthoine in Episode 211 where we explored the connection between employee experience and innovation. So do you have an entrepreneurial thinking and do you foster entrepreneurial thinking in your teams, I stood for intentionality. Reinvention doesn't happen by accident. It requires clarity about what matters most, and a commitment to align our actions with our purpose, very similar to what we talk about with Dr. John Demartini in Episode 115 this concept also reminded me of Carl Jung's work on individuation, which we explored in Episode 212 with Irene Riad. Intentionality involves integrating all parts of our ourselves, our values, our goals and even our shadow, to become more authentic leaders. Are you taking the time to reflect on your deeper motivations? Are you creating space for your team to do the same? And are you taking the time to decide how you're going to intentionally show up as a leader every day? What role are you going to play? Are you going to show up? Intentionally with purpose, intentionally with clarity, intentionally with curiosity, each day, in each meeting that you go into, if you spend some time before you go into that meeting go, how do I need to show up today? Is it with curiosity? Is it with vision? These are things that can really unlock your leadership and stood for navigating change. The ability to adapt and thrive admits uncertainty is vital. This ties into Deloitte research on adaptability as a key leadership trait. Are you equipping yourself and your team with the tools to navigate change effectively, and as we discussed, the world is now changing faster than it ever has before. But the scary part is it's changing slower than it ever will again. V is visioning. Adeline highlighted the importance of having a clear vision for the future. A compelling vision provides direction and inspires action, fostering alignment across your teams and organizations, giving them that North Star to head towards, or that mountain that you all want to climb because it's the right thing to do. E is for empathy. So. Reinvention is not just about self growth, it's about understanding and supporting others. Empathy is a cornerstone of effective leadership, enabling leaders to connect with their teams and foster a culture of trust and collaboration. I think it's one of Franklin Roosevelt's famous quotes that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Empathy is a superpower. N is for networking. Building strong, supportive relationships is critical in today's interconnected world. Networking provides access to diverse perspectives and resources, which are essential for innovation and growth when you know the direction that you want to go when you know what's important to you, you can surround yourself with people that can support those values and support that vision. And T is for tenacity. The journey of reinvention requires perspective and resilience. Leaders must embrace setbacks as learning opportunities and stay committed to their goals. So reinvent risk taking, mindset, entrepreneurial thinking, intentionality, navigating, change, visioning, empathy, networking and tenacity. Take a moment today to think about how you might embrace the reinvent framework as you reinvent yourself. Now, let's take a look at a broader shift happening in the world of leadership, one that Adelines framework complements beautifully with the advent of AI, the world is transition from a paradigm where knowledge is power to one where systems thinking, critical thinking and connecting the dots are the true superpowers. AI has democratized access to knowledge. The old days where people found that knowledge is power are over. Almost anyone can look up information or data in seconds, but the leader who will thrive are those who can go beyond simply knowing. Systems Thinking allows us to see the bigger picture, to understand how different elements within a system influence one another, and how to leverage these connections for impactful decisions to take advantage of the emergent properties of bringing these systems together. It's critical thinking skills and systems thinking that will now become the superpower the people that know how to connect the dots. For example, critical thinking enables us to question assumptions, evaluate evidence and synthesize insights from various sources, including those that come from Ai. Leaders who excel at this know how to integrate the intelligence that AI provides with human creativity and intuition AI rather than being a replacement, becomes a powerful augmentation of our intelligence. This is something we've touched on in the past, such as Episodes 215 with Christian Muntean, where we discussed how technology enhances, not replaces, the human element in leadership. Connecting the Dots is where true value is created. AI can analyze patterns, but it's the leader who can interpret them with a human context and translate them into actionable strategies. This skill is vital in a world that increasingly demands innovation and adaptability. So how do we develop these super powers? It starts with curiosity and a commitment to lifelong learning. It requires practicing systems thinking, seeing connections and relationships, not just the isolated parts, and it demands cultivating critical thinking skills to ensure we're making decisions that are ethical, strategic and forward looking. So with the future of work already upon us and evolving and changing every day, it's these skills that become the new superpowers, systems thinking, critical thinking skills, and the human side, empathy, understanding your relationship with other human beings, as we've discussed on the show in the past, the famous quote from Simon Sinek, all businesses are human businesses. And if you don't understand humans, you don't understand business. That will still be the case going forward in an AI world. It's humans at the end of the day. So it's going to be your emotional intelligence, the way you relate to other human beings, your systems thinking, your critical thinking, your curiosity, your ability to learn, adapt. And grow your growth mindset and the ability to reinvent yourself is what's going to keep you relevant as we go forward, as I mentioned in the show, the children that are graduating from school this year, 60% of them are going to end up in jobs that don't even exist yet. I can tell you, when I went to school, none of us were saying, Oh, I'm going to grow up to become a prompt engineer. A prompt engineer is the new job of people that train how to get the best results out of large language models in AI. That job certainly was not a dream of anyone when I went to school. So the world keeps on changing, and we need to keep on reinventing ourselves. The other thing that really stuck with me from Adeline was her stats about the longevity of companies. If you think about when my great grandparents, or even my grandparents, or even potentially my mom and my dad when when they were working, companies lasted longer than the average human lifespan. It's now the exact opposite. We now live longer than ever before, and the lifespan of the average company is getting shorter and shorter, with many startups lasting less than five years, with longer serving companies going for 20 years, and yes, there's still some companies like Siemens that have been around for 175 years, but they are few and far between. So the thought that you might work for the same company in the same role for your entire life is long gone, and we need to be able to reinvent ourselves, to be able to be adaptable and flexible, to learn a grow and adapt, if we want to remain relevant in a future workforce. And these skills that we're talking about the human skills, the emotional intelligence, the critical thinking skills, the systems thinking skills are what going to set you apart from everyone else. As you reflect on adeline's reinvent framework, consider how these skills intersect with her principles. System thinking connects beautifully with visioning and navigating change. Critical Thinking aligns with intentionality and entrepreneurial thinking, and the ability to connect the dots resonates deeply with networking and empathy. As I reflect on adeline's insights, I'm reminded that reinvention isn't a one time event, it's a mindset, a commitment to evolving, learning and stepping into the unknown to take action despite fear. It's about embracing discomfort and using it as a catalyst for growth, and it's about showing up every day with intentionality, courage and curiosity. So here's my challenge to you. Take some time to reflect on where you are and where you want to go. Ask yourself, what bold moves Am I avoiding? What would my 80 year old self thank me for then identify one concrete action you can take to move closer to that vision. Share your reflections with a trusted colleague, a mentor, or someone that you love and hold yourself to account. You can do this. Think about what you've been avoiding. Think about something you've dreamed about doing but have never had the courage to take the first step. What could that first step be? It might be a small step, or it might be a bold step. Take action. Take action. Today you've been listening to the Leadership Project podcast. In the next episode, it's going to be a special treat. I'm going to bring together some of the minds behind the Leadership Project. We're going to celebrate that we're at the end of season four, which is somewhat hard to believe. We're now 226 episodes into this amazing journey, one that I feel very privileged to have. I get to have this front row seat with thought leaders from around the world, and I get to ask them whatever question i like. I just feel very lucky and very blessed. In the next episode, we're going to ask the rest of the team, what have your learnings been? What have been your takeaways from four seasons of doing the leadership project with experts from around the world, and that will wrap up season four as we get ready for season five next year, where we've got some incredible thought leaders, such as Dr. Carol Parker Walsh joining us, and as incent Carl Scully and Mark Goodwin, we've got some incredible guests coming your way in season five, if you've been getting great value from the podcast. We would love it if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcast or your preferred podcast service. You can also subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you weekly videos, video podcasts and our live stream show, all designed to help you become the leader that you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.