Micheal Pacheco 0:00
All right again. All right. Hey, everybody, and welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have Dr. Mary Jo Burchard. Mary Jo is an organizational leadership coach, consultant, writer and speaker who focuses on helping leaders and organizations navigate their toughest times humanely. And effectively, her trauma informed approach includes resources for building trust, change, readiness, and belonging in and through disruption. Mary Jo, welcome to the remarkable Coach,
MaryJo Burchard 0:39
thank you so much for having me. I’m glad to be here.
Micheal Pacheco 0:42
Thank you for making time to join us. I always like to open up the podcast by inviting our guests to just tell us a little bit more about yourself, in your own words, and kind of maybe a little bit about what got you into coaching?
MaryJo Burchard 0:53
Yeah, so I originally started in higher ed. And one of the things that I noticed, in my work with leaders because my discipline is organizational leadership, like working with a lot of leaders, I noticed that people can know all the right answers, and all the theories and all the models, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to apply them, where the boots meet the ground. And that really kind of vexed me that that people could have an awareness I had knowledge of so called the right answers, but not know how to be a kind and still effective leader. It’s almost as if I saw people thought that they either were going to be good on outputs, or good with people, but they weren’t going to be good at both. And you had to pick one. And and so coaching is a way to kind of help people connect those dots, I see it as something where you’re able to instead of just telling people which it’s there’s a place for telling people how to do things and sharing new knowledge. But ownership comes when people have to answer questions. And and so being able to ask how and what questions instead of just telling people and showing people the how and what questions so that they have to answer those and then own their response. That’s kind of what got me going down the coaching track eventually,
Micheal Pacheco 2:25
like that. It’s almost a delineation between, you know, consulting versus coaching, with coaching, you’re often asking more questions than you are giving answers with consulting, I think maybe you’re, you tend to be coming in as the expert and giving answers more more frequently.
MaryJo Burchard 2:40
Yes, and, and so I mean, there’s always a place for that. But facilitating a process that enables people to do their own math, in a sense is I think, really the seats, the sweet spot, because whatever way people apprehend a solution is the way that it has to be sustained. So if you gave them the right answer, then the next time, if they don’t know how you did the math, then the next time, they’re gonna have to come to you for the right answer again. And that’s the opposite of what we want. We want to work ourselves out of a job, in the sense that we want people to become the own their own best voice in their head, you know, eventually. And so that’s yeah, that’s why I really like asking and facilitating, as much as possible, you know, sometimes you have to give answers, but minimum so that people can find them, discover them, and then own them.
Micheal Pacheco 3:35
When you and when you describe coaching in that way, I almost wonder if it wasn’t a pretty natural transition to go from teaching into coaching. Either way, you’re kind of teaching people how to come up with their own answers, how to how to figure things out for themselves.
MaryJo Burchard 3:51
Sure, yeah. And I would say, any good teacher is going to know when to take off the teacher hat and put on the facilitating hat and the coaching hat. And the more you know how to distinguish between those roles, the more mindful you can be in switching. And so so any any good coach at some point is going to have to say, hey, you need to read this book, or this is great resource for you come back and tell me what you think about it. And then we’ll we’ll strategize from there. So yeah, it definitely was a good transition. But I think you never, I think, put down a hat for good, you know, listening to what is needed in the moment and then kind of integrating as needed, whether it’s showing talling facilitating with questions or coaching. Yeah.
Micheal Pacheco 4:44
So Mary Jo, how do you personally how do you distinguish between coaching, facilitating and teaching between those all the different hats that you might have to wear in a given engagement?
MaryJo Burchard 4:55
Yeah, I think the entry point may be different sometimes. People ask me to come in and do training. And the more I ask questions about what they really need, I see that they really need a facilitated process. At the same time, somebody may say that they need coaching. And in order to really optimize the coaching experience, I’m going to have to give them some training so that they have a framework and some context and some foundational understanding, to build on. So the entry point may be one thing or another. But I see that only as the starting point. And then, depending on what the needs are, that come out, it’s kind of like, you know, you talk about sometimes those rabbit holes, once you start going down that rabbit hole, you might discover that the need is deeper in one area over another. And so you may start by coaching, but you may augment with training, or you may start with training, and then realize that it’s not gonna go anywhere until there’s some coaching involved. So the entry point may change, but it may, I usually ends up a hybrid, some kind of a hybrid.
Micheal Pacheco 6:08
Why coaching for you?
MaryJo Burchard 6:11
Because I don’t think people can own the deepest work without having some level of coaching. So, and that even includes in our own selves, we have to ask ourselves hard questions in order to really get to the deep, the deep issues. And if we if we keep trying to do the same thing over and over again, without asking those deep questions that the how and the why, and the what questions will just tread water. And so I think coaching is a crucial component to owning the deep things and the deep end sustainable core issues in life, whether we’re talking about organizations, or, you know, leaders in organizations, or just, you know, human to human functioning.
Micheal Pacheco 7:03
I love that. Yeah, we had, we had a guest on the podcast last year, who famously said that every every business coach, every executive coach, their dirty little secret, is that their life coach? And for you, Yo, you know, as an organizational leadership coach, you have you have a trauma informed approach. What is that? What does that mean, within an organization? What does that look like?
MaryJo Burchard 7:32
Really good question. So oftentimes, I am contacted, not when things are good as preventative medicine, but because things are blowing up, have blown up, and they’re in the middle of it, or it blew up, and they’re trying to recover. And so I think one key component is, if people think that things are fine, they may not be motivated to go, go there, wherever there is, because they have the option of thinking I can I can do this, I’m fine. I, I got this, I only want to talk about x. Today, I really only want to talk about x. But when people are pushed against the wall, suddenly, the they have to if they’re being honest, they have to admit that what they’ve always been doing isn’t working, and they don’t have the reserves to keep sucking it up. And so I find that there’s more of a, maybe it’s even a reluctant willingness, but but for whatever reason, the situation necessitates that they’re willing to go, were there other there otherwise would not be willingness to go. And so I think the storm presses people against the wall, and in a way that they really have to start answering what’s the most important thing here? Instead of what was the plan when we started? What is the bottom line and what is the most important and, and crucially, who matter here and and so seeing people becomes more important, because you can’t keep going as a team of all the team members disengaged or leave. And so if everyone is at risk of disengaging, or leave or they’re already disengaged, and you’re trying to do it all yourself, how do you reawaken engagement, so you’ve got to be willing to talk about the hard things. And and so a trauma informed approach requires that you recognize that it’s not business as usual. That haven’t setting the expectation on performance as if it were business as usual is setting everyone up to fail, and that everything is connected. And so if I am not willing to look at you as a human being and recognize that you are being impacted by the trauma that you’re experiencing, then I’m not going to be able to meet those needs to quiet the noise. that’s in your head, enough for you to be able to focus and do what you I need you to do. And so oftentimes, you know, you hear people say things like, check your check your, your personal life at the door, you know, and when you come to work, and here it’s work, it’s business, it’s not personal. The problem with that is the best and deepest parts of people is the personal part, you know, problem
Micheal Pacheco 10:29
with that is that it’s bullshit.
MaryJo Burchard 10:32
Because if we, if we’re expected to be disintegrated human beings, we lose access to the the best part of ourselves. And so at in times of crisis, in times of suffering and in crisis, when we’ve lost our reserves, people know, or can be helped to recognize if they don’t know innately that they don’t have the false luxury of disintegrating, they’ve got to see and treat the people around them as human beings, and say, I care about you enough to recognize that that you’re struggling, how can we carry the weight together? And what can I do to help eliminate some of the noise, so you can do what you need to do? And that’s not the same thing as I understand it’s hard, but I just need you to suck it up and do the work. That’s the opposite. And so trauma informed is not saying, Oh, no, it’s okay. You don’t, you know, you can just sit there because you’re having a hard time. But it’s actually saying, we’re going to use this moment, to regain some of the powerlessness that we have, we’re going to regain the power, we’re going to regain a sense of bearings, by taking ownership together of what we can do, and letting go together of what we cannot control. So that we can focus on what’s most important and get at least that done. So that’s what I work on with people a lot is getting clarity, I have exercises to help people get clarity in the moment when they’ve been, you know, knocked off their feet by some, some crisis. And so helping people to prioritize and triage and communicate effectively, when they can’t have all the things or do all the things what are the most important things, and including how they treat one another.
Micheal Pacheco 12:27
Let’s, let’s talk a little bit more about that you you help you help people lead successfully, through crises through through change through tough situations. What is that? What is the typical engagement with you look like? Do you have, you know, specific tactics that you work through? Is it mostly kind of a talk therapy methodology? Or what is it? What does that look like?
MaryJo Burchard 12:49
It depends on what kind of the nature of the crisis is that that I come in to, oftentimes, I will start by I have 10, clarity activities that I can help people with, and they’re not. Let’s go through all 10 of these, and then you’ll get clarity. They’re kind of like 10, separate in case of emergency break glass kind of exercises that you can do on the spot. But I also have a framework of looking at disruption, as instead of looking at it as an event, as an evolving journey that starts maybe is introduced by an event. And so a really helping people to develop a language a shared language, and discussing what they need right now. And what can be done right now, in in essentially in four dimensions. One is the details what details do I need right now to have clarity? And and setting those expectations? I can’t have all the details, but what details do I absolutely need right now in order to know what I need to do? And then the unknown. So what what unknowns do I need to have a plan for? I can’t mitigate I can’t I don’t know what the nature of the unknowns is that if they’re unknown, but with all with all the scope of potential worst case scenarios, what is a plausible scope of things that I can have contingencies for and you know, that makes me feel like I’ve met my baseline in terms of what’s reasonable to step out into the unknown. And so and then emotions, there’s a place for just recognizing and naming you know, I’m most awake to anxiety and anger and frustration right now and I’m not going to let it control my life but it’s allowed to be in the room and it’s allowed to vote because the more people try to muffle it the more it will try to rage out into the front so making room for for those things and if you’re grieving and someone else is excited, making room for them to be excited and and anticipate anticipatory and visionary without on either side, looking at them and saying, what kind of what kind of jerk Are you that you are not feeling what I’m feeling, you know, it’s recognizing that no two people are impacted the same way, by a change. And so if people are responding differently is because they’re being impacted differently. And that’s, it makes room for that to be okay. And then the last one, I think, is the piece that is most often missed. Because you can, you can give people the details that they need, you can help them mitigate the reasonable scope of risks, you can be a safe space for them to process emotion as needed, you know, and let those be in the room. But if people don’t know what important things they get to keep on the other side of this disruption on the other side of this change, and they don’t know, their sense of self and orientation on what’s most important to them, feels that it’s under threat, then if the until they know what they get to keep on the other side, how they’re going to still recognize themselves on the other side, whether they want to support or not, they will knowingly or unknowingly sabotage the change. Because whatever else we are, we have to be who we are on the other side of the change. So helping people to have a framework and saying so so I help people by saying instead of looking at it as support versus resistance, or adaptable versus rigid, looking at it instead and saying, if this change or this disruption is hitting you in such a way that it’s meeting a need, then you’re going to pounce on it, you want you want to pursue it, or if at least it’s not threatening you, you’re happy to pounce on it. On the other side of it, if it is potentially threatening a need, or causing you to feel like you have to neglect a need, you’re going to pause like a cat is very agile, normally, but when a car comes it, it freezes, you know. And so there’s something to that pause. And so if we don’t have another shelf to put that pause on the neck, it’s called resistance, it gets called, I’m not adaptable, it gets called I’m not being supportive. I’m not on the team. But interestingly, if people have a language and a framework to discuss what they need in this moment, it’s a visceral response. They might not even know why they’re pausing until you help them processes. Do I need some more details? Am I feeling like I need to mitigate a risk? Am I just not knowing who I am on the other side of this change, and I need to figure out what I get to keep, if they don’t have a framework for that, then the only thing left for them to do is to say I’m not in favor of this. And the problem is the nature of so much change that we are facing as individuals, as teams as organizations are not the changes that we choose. They’re not the change that changes that are optional. They’re coming out of who would have voted besides zoom, maybe who would have voted for a COVID, lockdown, you know, a lot of people, right? So we can’t, we can’t, we can’t pick most of the changes. So support and resistance is the wrong, wrong language. And adaptive versus rigid is not fair. When you have a need. If I say I’m hungry, and you say well, I just ate so I don’t understand, you know, I need you to not be hungry. That’s about how realistic it is to say you need to get on board when when somebody has a legitimate concern or need because of the way that the thing is touching. So I help people to I facilitate processes that help people to know how to constructively engage without reading character or skill at adaptability into the conversation and just saying what do we need and how can we convert that into a solution based conversation right now?
Micheal Pacheco 18:56
Do you help people with the conversation specifics persuasive languaging that kind of thing? Or is that? Yeah,
MaryJo Burchard 19:03
yeah. And and also like for instance, I’ll say if you’re talking to yourself if you’re having a tough time when when a disruption hits then you can say I’m pausing Why am I pausing and run through the steps so it can work with self talk, but it can also work with with people when you see somebody that’s struggling you can say I noticed that you seem like you’re pausing what what do you need? That sounds so much better than white? What can I do to get you on board? You know, or like you layer you know, I need you to support me in this you know, or we need we need you not to be resistance you know, resistant. So it change when when people have words that give them the freedom to be both honest and constructive. Then there’s a way forward. Even when you don’t want that change to happen. Nobody in the room might want that change, but it’s coming like a herd Again, it could be coming, whether you want it or not. So but you still you need a way to be able to talk about it. So at least we can see each other and value each other and do the best that we can in the middle of
Micheal Pacheco 20:12
it. For sure, for sure. So you may, you may have talked about some of this already. But in your bio, you mentioned that your your approach includes resources for building trust, you know, assessing levels of trust and belonging, that sort of thing. Can you talk a little bit more on that? Sure.
MaryJo Burchard 20:33
Yeah. So I’ve developed a model for trust, I think one of the things that makes trust hard, is that we assume oftentimes that it’s a sin, it’s a flat dimension, I trust you or I don’t trust you. And so the problem with that is, if maybe you’re being trustworthy with me, in every area, but there’s this one thing that you’re not mastering. And if you blow it in that thing, and I think trust is an all or nothing proposition, then you have to start from scratch every time you mess up in this one area. And that’s not fair to either of us. It’s exhausting for both of us. So breaking down the trust experience into first of all, making sure that everybody understands that it’s reciprocal, we’re both giving and receiving trust all the time, that once you gain it, you’re not done. That it’s it’s an evolving process. And we’re either reinforcing or causing strain on on it at, you know, all the time. It’s a dynamic and evolving process. But I found six different dimensions, that trust exists. So there’s authenticity, there’s safety, do I feel safe around you? Or do you make me feel threatened and nervous and anxious when I’m around you? There’s consistency. And consistency is an interesting thing. Because I can trust. And this is almost a word that you could say is the same thing as predictability. If I know for example, I love my mom, she wants to do all the things and help all the people. And because of that she has an unrealistic idea, a chronically unrealistic idea of how much she can get done in an hour. So because of that, she’s always, you know, 30 to 45 minutes late for anything, you know, any. So if I invite her to something, I’m like, she doesn’t make us all late this time. That’s like driving on to a highway that I know is under construction, that I saw the sign that says it’s under construction until November, if I get angry, that it’s under construction this time when I already knew that that’s what was going to be whose fault is that? Yeah, so trusting, trusting consistent? What how do I how do I navigate that I take a different route. So with my mom, I trust that she will consistently be 30 to 45 minutes late for an event. I can navigate around that by telling her an earlier time. Sure. Right. So I’m setting her up without attaching character to it or anything like that. So there’s consistency, there’s dependability, which is a specific kind of consistency. There’s ownership, can I trust you to own this. And then the last thing is your capacity to actually do the thing, you know. And so sometimes, for instance, medical professionals may expect that just because they’re really competent at something, that I should trust them in their authenticity. That’s not the same thing. And so that when you have the ability to break things down, then you can say, look, I trust that you mean, well, your authenticity is off the charts. But you have not studied to be a brain surgeon, and I do not trust you no matter how well you mean, you don’t get to open up my brains and do brain surgery on me, right. And so doesn’t mean that I don’t trust your authenticity. And so having open trust conversations where you can say, I trust you in this, and these are the behaviors that have led me to believe that I can make myself vulnerable in that area. And know that you’re going to keep that part of me that part of my vulnerability safe. But in this area, you have not demonstrated that for me yet. And in people with people that I do trust, and this is gonna give you an example of what that what their behavior looks like. That’s different from what I’ve observed in you. So what I need to see from you is consistent, this kind of behavior, not that kind of behavior. So it gives people a track to move forward. And it has if I’m going to extend that kind of conversation to you. I have to be open to you extending that same conversation to me and what I’m doing to gain and threaten your ability to Trust me, otherwise, it’s kind of emotional bullying, if we don’t have the right to speak into each other’s life in that way.
Micheal Pacheco 25:07
Interesting. Interesting. I like that. Tell me more about your your clients, who are your clients, Who’s your ideal client?
MaryJo Burchard 25:18
My ideal client is the client that’s in the middle of a mess. And so it doesn’t, it doesn’t it’s not limited by industry or, you know, type. So I’ve worked with this last year, I worked in a global bank that was doing restructuring. I have worked with a nonprofit, residential home, I worked in local government. I’ve worked in a lot of different capacities worked with higher ed and formal and informal capacities with a medical organization. And so really, the common thread is not the type of organization but really, it’s the state of affairs and the willingness of the leadership to have hard conversations that will not be at the expense of dignity of the of all players
Micheal Pacheco 26:14
like that. And how do you how do you market yourself to these to these folks? How do you get your message in front of the right leader at a time when their world is crashing down all around them?
MaryJo Burchard 26:28
Such a good question, I have to say that, because of the unique kind of niche that that I have. If I’ve helped somebody, if I’m fully present in helping somebody, they remember, and they tell other people, hey, this, this person is going to talk hard to you, but but they will help you get through this, they’ll help you move the needle. I haven’t done any formal marketing. In my business, since I started, it’s been word of mouth. It’s probably not always going to be that way. But you know, I’ve done some pretty large scale, things that started because somebody on a small scale needed help. And they knew somebody who was in leadership on a large scale thing. And, you know, one snowballed into the next thing into the next thing. So if you get good at listening to people, and you’re not just sticking your way through or giving somebody a formula, but you’re allowing things to be messy, and then pull out far enough to find what the trends are, and then try to really speak to those things and do the hard work with people. People who’ve been through something will look for other people who are going through something and they will become your advocates, you know, and so that’s been how I have done my that’s how my work has grown.
Micheal Pacheco 27:49
I love it always, always good to have those advocates out there. trumpeting on your behalf? Yeah, do you? Do you do lots of podcasts like this, for example? Because this is this is essentially marketing, right? This is this. There’s plenty of high performers and business owners and that sort of thing that listen to this podcast in particular, do you do more other podcasts? Are you Are you active on social media,
MaryJo Burchard 28:12
I am just now starting to do more podcasts, I was kind of head under the water in some pretty intensive projects for a couple of years. And as some of those long term projects is starting to wind down, I’ve been able to start kind of giving myself more bandwidth for for things like podcasts, and I do, I just returned from international elite leadership associations global conference. And that’s one of the ways that I kind of feed my soul every year and, and also kind of cross pollinate with other with other practitioners and scholars. And this year, I did a a workshop in immersive workshop on assessing and building belonging, a culture of belonging in organizations, they’re so that’s another way I think, putting yourself out there in in conferences and things like that is another way to do it myself. But it’s kind of evolving. This is the very beginning stages of starting to do podcasts and stuff.
Micheal Pacheco 29:12
That’s great. That’s great. I think it’s, I think it’s a good way, a good way to get your content out there. Your ideas out there. And, and it builds. You know, we just were just talking about trust, right? This is a great way to build trust, because people can hear your voice they can hear the the passion or the lack of passion behind it. Right. They can judge right here, you know, they learn about your personality and learn a little bit about how you work. You know, they can read into authenticity and sincerity. Yeah, I think podcasts are just absolutely fantastic way to build trust. So I think that’s that’s awesome. Yeah,
MaryJo Burchard 29:49
yeah, yeah, I have only had this I think the third podcast that I’ve done, and every time it’s it’s wonderful to have you genuine conversations with with people who are like minded and care about getting to the heart of things, you know, and not allowing, not allowing the conversation to be overly formulaic and overly, with these five simple steps, you can be guaranteed this kind of an outcome it’s life is the real things when the rubber meets the road, you’re not going to be able to solve problems with a with a stick or a formula. And so having those kinds of conversations that you’re allowed to let it go wherever it’s supposed to go, I think mirrors the good the good stuff in life, you know?
Micheal Pacheco 30:42
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned you got some some bigger projects over the last few years, and they’re starting to wind down now. What is the typical engagement look like, for you or working with you? With a typical project? I mean, are you are you working with a company for six months at a time for a year at a time? Do you have contracts with these people? Is it month to month? What does that what does that look like?
MaryJo Burchard 31:05
Yeah, so for smaller projects, I wouldn’t say that there’s a typical, but I would say at the very beginning, I spend a lot of time asking a lot of questions to make sure that we’re getting to the true heart of what I want to be able to do in the initial engagement. Sometimes that will be in one case, for example, it was it was quarterly trainings. And other cases, it’ll be a training, then with augmented coaching, until the next training with augmented coaching, the next training with augmented coaching. In one of the major projects that I did this this past year, it began with organizational diagnosis. So finding where the pain points were, and and doing some assessments in the readiness piece and where the needs are in some major disruptions that were happening, and then coaching the leaders and knowing how to engage constructively, and and in their specific projects, and then coming together and assessing across, you know, every quarter to make sure that that we were staying on track, that the priorities weren’t changing, and then at the end, assessing the needle movement. And so I would say in a larger scale commandment, that’s probably would be more akin to the what I would say the emerging norm begins and ends with some benchmarking. And then we’re tracking along the way augmenting with with training, coaching, consulting, as needed, depending on what the the nature of the pain point is,
Micheal Pacheco 32:46
is like how do you how do you assess success versus failure? And in an engagement, long term or short term? Are you doing like 360? Assessments? Are you doing more, you know, qualified assessments instead of quantified?
MaryJo Burchard 33:03
So, because I’m coming in, in the midst of disruption, one of the ways that that I assess is I have developed what’s called a change experience profile. And, and so in 25 questions, it can ask people, basically what all their pain points are, and what their perceptions of the the evolving change experiences in this moment, what their needs are. And so in the past, I was doing manual calculations and mapping that out to my team, and then and then discussing. And so I have just gotten a new version of my change experience profile that includes an individualized report. And so each person can now get a personalized assessment of, of their profile of their current needs, how that sounds in their lens, you know, that they’re laying over the situation, and comparing that to other people’s perspectives in each of those dimensions that we talked about, and then recommendations for constructive engagement. And so my bet is that, instead of doing it, you know, just manually and then discussing with coaching, now, I’ll be able to have more biased, facilitated process where everybody has their report, and we can discuss identified needs, but they already have some back context before I get into the room. And doing that depending on the the speed of the disruption. That may happen again, two or three times before the end of the engagement or may happen only once before the end of the engagement, and then again at the end. So you can see. Number one, again, you’re not looking for everybody to pounce. You’re looking for everybody to get good at talking about what their current needs are, and assessing them What needs to be done and what realistic expectations should be set set in order to navigate what has to be done right now. And so the the benchmark for me would number one to be comparing people’s skill at doing that at the beginning to their their mindfulness of their own responses and the constructiveness of their engagement in the middle. And the evolution of of the the change as it goes to the end, the at the end, I would expect that I would be seeing needle movement, at the very least, and people’s capacity to discuss what their needs are, and not become Saba tours, or us versus them. But rather, at the end, I would see progress as people able to have constructive solution based conversations that end in effective pivots and effective adaptation. And whatever that engagement is,
Micheal Pacheco 36:05
a little bit, that’s great. Mary Jo, tell us about some some remarkable wins that you’ve had in your in your coaching career.
MaryJo Burchard 36:15
Yeah, I would say some of the biggest wins are when I first start talking to people about the change experience not being something an event that you have to get over, especially ones that are really traumatic, it’s not an event that you have to get over. Instead, it’s a story that’s evolving. And so it’s not about trying to get past something, but rather recognizing how it’s shaped how it’s shaped and is shaping you. And giving people skills to work not only recognize what’s going on in themselves, but not condemn other people for being not where they are. And so I heard from a leader that I had worked with a couple of years ago, when there was a major we restructure in her department. And everyone was upset before we met, and I did the assessment. And then we impacted, they could see on the screen even though they didn’t know who, whose dot was who’s you know, they could see where everybody was landing on the spectrum and each of these things. So number one, they could see they weren’t alone. They’re not imagining things, even though nobody was talking about it, they were on. But number two, it wasn’t as bad as they thought. And it was really cool. It’s really cool when sometimes there’s enough trust in the room for me to be able to put the names in the small enough group for me to be able to put the names where they’re being mapped out. And other times, I’ll number it so they can find themselves, but they don’t know who anybody else is. But I’ll say oh no, this is what this dynamic looks like, it looks like you’ve got a cluster of people who need more details, and these other people look like they’re ready to wing it. And then this person over here really looks like they don’t need, I mean that they really need details, stuff like that. And I’ve had people jump in and say, That’s me, you know, and here’s why. And so it’s a safe space now, for them to share things that before they were scared to tell the truth about. Um, so it’s destigmatizing. One in one case, in specific that I loved. I was working with a group of engineers, an engineering firm, the CEO was leaving. And the person who was coming up to be the new CEO, had been mentored for years by the CEO who was retiring. And, okay, so their engineers, they had worked out all the details. They were pretty much mostly pouncing on that on the day to day they knew that they had what they needed, then mitigated the risks. But then we got to the emotion. And it was really interesting, because one of the people who was pausing the hardest, you know, who was most awake to feelings of sadness at the time? Was the guy taken over? And so, oh, it really surprised these other guys, because he’s, he’s all in he’s totally supportive. And, and he said, Yeah, well, let me tell you where my head is. When I took this, I realized how much I’m going to miss my mentor. And he’s always been the guy that I’ve admired and watched and he’s been there and now I realize I’m gonna have to be that guy. And he’s not going to be in the office next to me anymore. I’m going to be that guy, and people are going to be looking to me to be that guy, and I’m really processing right now, at this moment, even though I’m excited about this change. I’m processing, my, my grief, my loss, you know, and, and so he had a safe place for that to come out there really, it would have seemed unreasonable for him to have that. And, and so in this in this case, I said, Now, what I need each group to explain what you need from the other group in order to feel like you’re being seen, and the group that was real excited about the change said to the new CEO and the others, we need you not to feel that way. Oh, that’s adorable. You think that’s how this works. And so what you can say is, you know, we, we need you to be committed to move forward, move through those feelings. And to not let those stymie the work that you have, but nobody is, you know, in this room is choosing to be sad. And in order to progress, you’ve got to be able to name it and say that it’s in the room. And so just being able to have those, those, those conversations, where expectations can be set, and people can recognize what’s a reasonable and what’s an unreasonable expectation, so that they can move and say, this is, this is how it really is today. And I’m allowed, I know that grief comes and goes in waves, or I know that, as soon as I have my details, I’m going to be able to wing it, but right now I really need these details, or whatever it is, then the whole journey becomes less frightening. Because because we’re not afraid to have a need in the middle of of the change. And so, so I see the biggest wins as people reframing the way that they even look at their role and change and their relationship with the people on their team in the change. And then one big win that i i found is I was working with a group of executives that had another major restructure. And at the beginning, every person in the room, we did it on a whiteboard and had everybody in this, you know, boardroom on a whiteboard, taking different colored marker. And on each of the dimensions, the details, the unknown, the emotion and the legacy, put a little X, you know, on this, on the spectrum where they were, and everyone was at the polar opposites, you know, nobody was hovering in the middle at that point. And I said, since nobody knows what this is about, let’s leave it on the on the board. And it was a room full of glass. And so you know, you can see it. And I said a month when I come back. anytime between now and when I come back, if something happens, and your position changes, then come in here and erase where you are. And so when I came back a month later, everybody was hovering in the middle, somewhere in the middle. And I said, what happened? And they said, well, when something happened, and I’m and we moved, somebody would see that it moved, and they’d come up and say I noticed that you moved why. And so we would have these conversations about those those adjustments. And that would cause both of us to move. And so in less extreme in our responses, and we ended up finding equilibrium. And so I think a win is when people start recognizing that the more they talk to each other, the less they have to play tug of war. And the less they have to convince anybody to be like they are and the more they will do find themselves in a state of homeostasis, you know, even though they’re all being affected differently. Yeah.
Micheal Pacheco 43:49
Mary Jo, that’s great. I, you know, I think what you just mentioned the the x’s on the whiteboard, you know, circling back to the dots on the on the graph, and people can see, you know, you can’t tell who’s who, but there’s a bunch of dots up there and people don’t feel alone, right? It’s it’s social proof that it’s okay to be feeling what you’re feeling. What I love about that is that you’re not, you’re not falsely manufacturing a safe space, you’re not gathering everyone in the student union and saying this isn’t a safe space, right? This is this is like psychologically a safe space because you can visually see it you can which which translates into feelings. And that’s, you know, creating that actual safe space where people can talk and let down their walls, I guess. Yeah. That’s brilliant. Yeah,
MaryJo Burchard 44:43
tell the uncomfortable truth. Right? Because you’re gonna tell me the uncomfortable truth. Because we see each other we value each other enough to be allowed to have a different a different feeling and a different space and not to read into it character maturity motives, but just it’s a It need different from how it’s hit me. And that’s okay.
Micheal Pacheco 45:03
And again, I want to press that I really think it’s brilliant how you you’ve kind of taken a shortcut to get there. And again without falsely manufacturing a safe space, but you’ve taken this kind of shortcut to like actually create one. So it’s not just some, like I said, it’s not just some bullshit gathering students, gathering everyone in the studio. This is a safe space. Let’s
MaryJo Burchard 45:28
close your eyes and fall back, you know? Yeah.
Micheal Pacheco 45:31
So yeah, I think that’s, that’s pretty cool. I know, we’re coming up on the end of the hour here, I want to be respectful of your time. Before we close out, is there anything that you would like to talk about that we haven’t had an opportunity to touch upon yet?
MaryJo Burchard 45:47
Well, I would say that if anybody is interested in getting involved in the either belonging, research, trust research, or potentially even helping us get get feedback on the change the personal version of the change experience profile, to shoot me an email, my email is a Dr. Dot Borchard, at Concord, leader.com. And shoot me an email and let me know kind of what your background is, and see if we have any synergy just on you know, continuing the conversation. I’m always happy to collaborate and kind of poke on stuff. And have you thought about this. Have you thought about that? And we’d love to engage in conversation with people if they’re interested.
Micheal Pacheco 46:37
Love it. And Mary Jo, where can people connect with you online?
MaryJo Burchard 46:41
So the easiest part will be LinkedIn. Mary Jo Burchard, I think I’m the only one on LinkedIn. So if last I checked, I was the only marriage MaryJo Burchard on LinkedIn, that’s really easy. Again, or my email, Dr. Dot Burchard, at Concord, leader.com. My website is Concord leader.com. So it makes it makes it pretty easy.
Micheal Pacheco 47:03
Awesome. And we’ll include all of those links on the show notes pages, well, we’ll probably won’t put your email address on there. Otherwise, you’ll probably get a bunch of Robo spam links to your LinkedIn into your website so people can contact you that way. Awesome. I think that’s that’s everything. Mary Jo, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me.
MaryJo Burchard 47:24
Thank you so much for having me. It’s
Micheal Pacheco 47:25
been a joy. And thank you to our viewers and listeners for joining us. We’ll see you again next time. Cheers.
