Mel: [00:00:00] Well, here we are at the end of 2025 and the end of a year is always a good time for a little reflection, and we sure have reflected a lot on this show this year.

We have had a selection of incredible humans join us as guests over the last 11.5 ish months, and they've all generously shared their insights and wisdom. So on today's show, I've selected a few of those key insights from some of our guests to refresh your memory and get you thinking as we head into the next year.

What are those insights and who are those guests? Stay tuned to find out.

Hi everyone, and welcome to our final episode for 2025, and it's fitting that it's episode 150. My name is Mel Loy and I'm hosting this podcast from the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people, here in Meanjin, Brisbane. And at the time of recording this, we have had more than 15,300 [00:01:00] downloads of the podcast with listeners from 98 countries.

So firstly, a huge thanks to you for tuning in every week for leaving a rating, a review, or for recommending the podcast to your friends. It really does mean the world to me. And another huge thank you to everyone who gave up their time to be a guest on the podcast this year. Now, like anything new, we learn it pays to repeat it.

We tend to forget new things pretty quickly. So why not look back over the last 12 months and share some of the key insights our guest delivered? So let's get into it. First up is one of our most recent guest, David Pullan. And David is an expert storyteller, former actor. He and his wife have written a couple of books.

Uh, their first one was the DNA of Engagement, and their second was the Art of the Unignorable Email, and I highly recommend. Everybody go read those books. But in this particular episode, we talked about the power of storytelling, and specifically how important it is that we keep the experience of [00:02:00] our audiences at the very center of what we do.

And David opened up and shared this memory from his past, which really highlighted that principle in action. Here it is.

What's one of the best communication lessons you've ever learned, and how did it change the way you approach communication?

David: Oh, um. Okay, I'm gonna do a quote. Um, the, the, the, there was a guy, Edmund Lockard, who was the, um, he's the father of forensic science. It's why we've got CSI Miami and all that sort of stuff. And he said his quote, he came up with the theory of, um, every contact leaves a trace. And that's why, you know, a criminal is gonna leave their thing, their, their.

Things at the scene of a crime. I think that's true in communication as well as crime. I mean, every time we are in contact with people, we leave a trace. I mean, and people are sort of built, your reputation is building up. People are thinking about you people. It just builds up into this mosaic of who you [00:03:00] are and I, I, I think that the time I learned that.

It was actually when I was an actor, I was doing a production of Macbeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company and you know, I was one of the, you know, I, I didn't have a huge part in it and there was the banquet scene and everything. And as actors tend to do over the course of a run, we all sort of got a bit naughty and we were sort of like kicking each other on the table and playing food fights with the bread and stuff like that.

Nothing too distracting unless you were watching those idiots on the table at the back there. And we, we had one of those. Meetings after, you know, there was a drinks thing afterwards and, and this guy came up to me with his son. It's quite, quite amazing. This actually, he came up, he's an American guy and he came up, he said, I really, really enjoyed that.

He said, he said, this is my son. And, and he whispered to me, he said, he's got leukemia. He has, he's only seen the raw Shakespeare company was on his bucket list. He really wanted to do that. And it was one of those moments when I thought, who the hell do you think you are, David, taking the piss at the table.[00:04:00]

Um. You know when, when you don't know who's out there, you don't know who's watching you, and every contact leaves a trace with someone. So that's the, I think that's the, that's the biggest lesson I've ever learned is that just show up. 'cause you know it's starting to build e every time you're with somebody, it builds up your reputation or diminishes it is more importantly.

Mel: The second guest we are featuring again on today's episode is Zora Artis, who is a guru on all things alignment, and she shared with us in her episode well what the research tells us about alignment and why it's so important in businesses, but specifically what it looks like when alignment isn't there and what it looks like when it is there.

And here's what she shared.

Zora: There's what I would call a sense of flow. Where, um, the teams and the organisation thinks, acts and works better together. So you're [00:05:00] seeing people being able to, uh, listen better or the research that we've just, we're, we're doing. I'll, I'll dig into that a little bit. The research that Wayne and I are doing it now, um, is showing us that organisations listen deeply and often.

Uh, they communicate clearly and consistently. They're building that shared clarity. They've got the ownership, they've got accountability, and they've got commitment, and in natural fact. Uh, for organisations to work well together, that there's a trio that they need to have. It's, and it's systematic.

So basically it's not one of those things that is more important than the other. All three. So you've got alignment, cohesion, and commitment. They need to work together, and that's particularly relevant in organisations going through change and transformation. So those three, um, it's, there's also. A [00:06:00] fair bit of, uh, psychological safety and discomfort with disagreement.

So the difficult conversations are being had. Um. So you're not banking up conflict. Uh, they, they encourage dialogue and sense making, and particularly with complexity, and they're open to seeing what emerges out of that. So they're not necessarily saying, this is it. This is what must happen. They're open to things emerging and, and being able to shift and adapt, uh, and communication importantly is seen as an enabler, and...

the leaders are outstanding at communication, so that's really important. And they behave, they model behaviour the way they should be,

Mel: A few months ago, we also spoke to one of my favourite humans on the planet, Stephen Harvey. Steven is a safety guide. [00:07:00] That's his profession. He's a safety professional, but he also happens to be a trained comedian. And he's built a reputation for not only bringing the safety community together in Brisbane and further afield, but also in using humor in his, and storytelling, in his safety communication, which might seem to be.

At odds with what we expect of safety related comms at work. So I asked Stephen a little bit about his tactics, how he brings humor and storytelling into the work he does, and here's what he said.

Stephen: Very happy to share a bit the humor thing, sort. I just get like I'm, I'm from Glasgow, right? We are, we are kinda naturally funny and I'd always wanted to have a crack at standup comedy and I'd just finished my degree and I thought, what can I do next?

What's my next sort of. Thing that I can do. And I had a look at, um, psychology, marketing and human factors. And then I saw a standup comedy course and I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna have a crack at it now. One of the major things that I learned from [00:08:00] this is anybody can be funny. Anybody, you can actually train yourself to be funny, which is, I hear so many people saying they can't do it.

And what I've really, really learned and after I, after I'd read, studied it and performed it. What I really like about comedy is you can actually make people feel seen and heard and you can shine the light on the crazy stuff and get away with it. And unfortunately in in safety, we do a lot of stuff that is pointless and meaningless.

So I can get away by shining a torch on that and everybody can agree, Hey, yeah, that is kinda ship at what we do. And that's that, that that connection. So humor. It, obviously, it's a time and a place, you know, like you, you, you definitely can't use it in all situations, but if I'm ever doing delivering toolbox talks or training you, I can guarantee you you're gonna be having a bit of fun and you're gonna have be having a, a laugh.

So. Definitely have a crack at it, see how you go. But some other things that I've done is like, I'm big on storytelling. I really, really try and [00:09:00] hone that scale and I forever reading about storytelling and trying to get better at it. It's so important when I think about, we've been developing stories for tens of thousands of years and then it's only been the last sort of 30, 40 years that we've, I think we've forgotten our humanity and started using bits of paper and.

Tick boxes to do this stuff. So storytelling is something that I've would really encourage. Safety professionals, in particular, anybody but safety professionals in particular. Like, I use a lot of cartoons, memes. I, I use my dogs in a lot of videos and people love the videos. They, they, they definitely love that sort of stuff.

But I tell you what I have learned in safety email is shock tactics don't work. And we get a lot of people. I, I know a lot of companies will bring in people who have suffered injuries and I've suffered an injury in my, in my past. They'll bring in people to shock companies and they'll go, oh yeah, look, that will never happen to me.

But that's exactly what [00:10:00] happens when you bring someone in who's had a bit of shock factor. People go, that will never happen to me 'cause that guy was an idiot, or that guy was dumb. So we really need to hone in, hone in storytelling. Use images, cartoons, just try and do something. Just try and do something that, that other people are not doing.

Mel: Next up is Howard Krais; Now I first met Howard as part of the IABC community a few years ago. We actually caught up again this year when I was in London visiting family. So after that I thought I absolutely need to get Howard on the show. Howard is the co-author of a book. All about listening. And so of course that's what we talked about.

We talked about specifically what does listening actually mean in an organisation and why it is so important, particularly in this day and age. And I really liked his distinction between the word listening and the word hearing, and here's what he had to say about that.

Howard: And, and I think the final thing that's worth saying on this is that [00:11:00] the, the word listening, you know, we start listening when we're small children. Very small children, the smallest of children we listen. It's a, it's a core human behavioural thing. So we know as, as we get older, we know when someone listens to us, we know we feel it.

It's an emotional response. We know when someone actually seriously listens to what we have to say. We know when they're not listening. And I think the same's true in organisations, you know, we hear the term increasingly, um, oh, you can't do that because we've got, um. Uh, you know, we just do too many surveys.

We've got survey fatigue, and what people are trying to say to you is, we're just doing it too many times. What they really mean is, we're doing too many surveys when nothing happens as a result. So listening is doing something with what you hear, and that's the really key thing around when we're talking about listening.

It's not around the processes and systems. It's not asking for people to, to contribute, which is all good, and you have to do that. Is doing something with it.

Mel: [00:12:00] Now one of the most popular guests of the year was Gilbert Kruidenier, and Gilbert is a change pro. I won't go into all his qualifications and experience, just suffice it to say there are a lot. He's also the author of a book called Bad Change, which you absolutely need to get your hands on. It is. A marvelous book and also his most recent book where he pulled together all his writings about change from over the last 10 years.

And the beautiful thing about both books is that all the proceeds from those go towards helping people who are facing homelessness in true Gilbert style. Now. With Gilbert, we took a little bit of a different approach to this episode and we talked about, uh, change comms pet peeves, but not only did we whinge a bit, we also provided some solutions, which is, you know, more helpful.

And one of the problems that we looked at was project leaders underestimating the comms workload involved in change. And I really liked Gilbert's approach to solving this one. [00:13:00] So let's listen to it again.

Gilbert: Let's be specific about we, because I never underestimate it, I'm always the person who plans for it. And I literally, so last week, uh, there was a change management event, uh, which talked about the single view of change. And one of the three panel members had a very clear, and I, I was almost about to jump up and start applauding while she was still talking. Very clear line about work it out. Like make it to the detailed level of the task.

How many hours do you need from the person doing the work, and how many hours do you need from the person receiving the work? And that's what I always do with comms and my stakeholders Steerco They love it. They could just like, so this is gonna take like 175 hours? Yes. And here's the step out for these 25 tasks and how long they take and why it takes so long.

And you, you present it in an overview, right? You're not gonna write a 12 page report. No. Like, this is how this is going to work. They're like, that makes so much sense and honest. They've often not seen that before. They're like, oh no. Normally a consultancy X comes in and they just tell me like, this is what's going to happen.

But so take them down to that level where they're still [00:14:00] comfortable and overwhelmed, and then it just doesn't happen. Sometimes you get the conversation about can we maybe integrate a couple of messages? And then you have to explain to them, it's like, it's a different audience, different type of, of engagement, but sometimes they come up with really good suggestions and it often also sparks their own creativity.

And it's like, oh, maybe if we could say it in a different way or could use it in this different forum. And this message could serve two purposes. So it's a little bit of education, capability building, and also information at the same time. So I, I think that's, that's the golden, uh, sort of path that you can take.

And it's, it's never let me down.

Mel: Now another thoroughly decent human who I had the pleasure of speaking to this year was Tiffany English. And Tiff is not only a friend, so I probably am pretty biased in that respect, but she's also a very successful business woman. She owns a business called Access Offshoring, which connects people from around the world with amazing talent in the Philippines.

So she spends a lot of time in the Philippines, and she talked about how she's bridging that gap in the [00:15:00] communication. Differences between cultures, and she shared some of the learnings and the tactics she's used and also busted some common myths about using virtual assistants from the Philippines in particular.

So let's listen to what Tiff had to say.

So you mentioned one there having, you know, being directive in terms of giving, you know, you want feedback and you want comments. What other tactics have you had to use?

Tiffany: Definitely a lot more context. Mm-hmm. So, I, I talk a lot when I talk about the cultural nuances. I have a bit of a diagram that I, that I illustrate, and it just shows that when you look at where Australia may sit on a matrix or on a on a scale, and where Philippines may sit in terms of parameters such as hierarchy and decision making like we've talked about, but also communication and trust.

If you look at communication, Australians are very low context. We tend to provide one sentence and expect everyone to read between the lines and produce an outcome, and that's just the way we've always communicated. Filipinos are high [00:16:00] context, like they couldn't get any further along the high context scale if we tried.

They like the whole story. And so the, the sort of training and tactics that we employ ourselves and train do as much via video as possible.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And this is not just Philippines, this is when you're dealing with any other culture, whether they're in another country or whether they're sitting next to you.

Right. We all come with preconceived ways that we communicate, the way that we handle the way that we'd like to be managed. So the more video and voice that you can do, the better, because naturally you'll provide more context. They can also watch it back. Open-ended questions are an absolute must. Have to have open-ended questions because when you're dealing with certain countries that are people pleasing by nature, you're gonna get what you wanna hear versus what you need to hear.

And if I ask things like, do you understand that they're gonna say yes and they may not. And so when I pivot that to tell me what you just [00:17:00] understood about what I said, or repeat to me what the next steps need to be on this particular project, then I'm ensuring that they understand and they're comfortable because I've gone in expecting an answer.

So when you just slightly tweak, it's not, it's not an absolute shift in the, in your leadership or management style, but it's those little tiny tweaks in the way that you show up and the way that you communicate. That absolutely changes the outcome.

Mel: Mm.

Tiffany: It's pretty, yeah, it's pretty phenomenal.

Mel: Yeah. So if I just play that back to you, it's, uh, it sounds like, uh, the Erin Meyer culture map, uh, is what you're referencing, the high context, low context.

Uh, but I guess for more context, so to speak, for our listeners, it is a spectrum, right? So. Compared to Australia, the Filipino culture might seem very high context, but compared to say, uh, Germans or Dutch... Australians might also seem very high context. So it is, it does shift depending on, as you said, like how, where [00:18:00] you've grown up and those sorts of things.

But those three tactics you shared was those directive instructions actually asking, you know, saying, I want to, I want you to give feedback two points. So being very directive, a video, and having that open-ended Discussion. So thank you for sharing those. Uh, when we think about some of the biggest myths that people have with working with people from another culture or another country, what are some of those big myths that you've heard or experienced?

Tiffany: I think skill is probably one of the big areas of aspects, like what do people actually believe people in other countries are capable of, of achieving. I hear this often. You know, there's, and I spend all my time in the Philippines, so I'm sorry that I keep referencing back there, but the, you know, from a Philippines perspective, there's a huge stigma around call centres and, um, virtual assistants, right?

VAs, VAs and call centres. Whenever, when typically when you talk about it to someone who hasn't employed, highly qualified [00:19:00] staff out of the Philippines, they're the two things that they default to. And like we don't even hire what we would reference as a virtual assistant. Like I just think that's the most ridiculous title in the universe, right?

Mm-hmm. Because like what are they actually doing for you? Are they a sales administration role? Are they actually an executive assistant? They actually calendar manager and managing and email managing, or? Are they, you know, an internal account support? What actually are they? And so I think when you actually start looking at the population of the Philippines and the skill, the amount of education, the experience they have, when people get exposed to that and start seeing resumes with five, 10 years experience in certain skills with degrees, many of whom have master's degrees, um, you start to recognise, oh, actually.

I can hire highly skilled people out of countries like these rather than this, this belief and myth that actually they're just, you know, kind of. Absolutely base baseline tasks. Yeah. So that's [00:20:00] something that I'm still kind of combating, I think as a, as the biggest myth.

Mel: earlier in the year around March, I had the honor of speaking at the IABC APAC Fusion Conference in Manila. And while I was there, I got to meet all the other speakers. And some of them were just incredible. They had amazing stories, so I knew I had to get a few of them, as many as possible, at least on to the podcast.

And one of those people was Gurpreet Bhatia, and she talked about using storytelling to drive change, particularly in the nonprofit sector. She talks about in this episode how storytelling is not just another marketing and comms tactic in that sector. It is the very soul of what they do. And she also shared that importance of using genuine voices to tell these stories.

And as part of that, I asked her about a story that has stuck with her from her work, and she shared this amazing anecdote, so let's listen to it again. It gave me [00:21:00] goosebumps, and maybe it'll give you a few hearty warmy feelings as well.

Gurpreet: Oh my God, Mel, I've been so fortunate to work with. With the, with the communities directly for all of this while, and there's so many people that have touched my heart and, you know, in turn changed me as a person as well over the years. So it'd be very difficult to choose one story. But I can tell you of the one women that I just very recently engaged with.

So this woman is called, Tulsi Thapa, she's from Nepal and currently she is leading, uh. A women only cooperative called women, a Bihani women cooperative in Nepal, but her life didn't start that way. She was born into a poor family in Nepal. Her father was a farmer. She was married very young, and then her husband was also a sub subsistence farmer.

Farmer, right? Her means were limited. [00:22:00] Her opportunities were limited in her village. And then she joined a self-help group that was formed by Heifer in her community, and with a very little help of about 500 rupees. She started to build a poultry business of her own with such limited money. And, but that was the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey.

And then she'd never look back. And today I'm so honored and proud to say that this woman who had come with such meager means and opportunities is leading a cooperative of about 1400 women. And this cooperative is actually leading very successful dairy business. They're, you know, giving out insurances, credit, you know, a very formal cooperative enterprise is what she's, uh, running and this life that she has changed is just not for herself, but for many other women in her community. [00:23:00] So this is something that touched me and we engaged recently with her for our, uh, seeding Strength Empowering Pharma cooperative campaign that we've launched in Asia.

To commemorate the International Year of Cooperative 2025. That's where I met her. That's where I heard her story. And I think it's just, you know, uh, it just makes me feel that, you know, there's change is possible. Even one person can, you know, begin that ripple effect and it can just spread, you know, it, it can have a snow ball effect.

Uh, you know, if your intent is correct. I think change is possible.

Mel: Another brilliant mind from Southeast Asia. Featured on the podcast this year, Soundari Mukherjea. And Soundari is not only a TEDx speaker, but she is an executive coach on all things storytelling. And if you remember this episode, or if you haven't watched it yet or listen to it, go back and listen to it because you'll just hear how effortlessly and expertly [00:24:00] she weaves storytelling into... everything she does, and in this episode, she shared her insights into storytelling in the corporate world in particular. And in this snippet, she recounts a story that beautifully illustrated, a key point for a leader that she was working with. Take a listen.

Soundari: I'm always fascinated with the question of how do we grab attention of our decision makers and how do we inspire them to act, say, based on data? Because as a finance, MBA, I've always felt that I had two people sitting on my shoulders, uh, one going after the numbers and one being human. And I would say, which is the devil or the angel, we'll leave that be.

And I think over the last few years, that's where the work, uh, that I do in organisations in crafting strategies, communicating with impact came and I realised when I worked with leaders, and it's not something I think organically, it was not a eureka moment, uh, but something that I realising that the most effective leaders share examples to make a [00:25:00] point.

And that's how they build trust. They just don't present data. I was just speaking to a friend of mine who's been a CEO of large banks across geographies in, uh, Southeast Asia. And I was telling him that I'm traveling this week to, uh, run data storytelling sessions.

And I said how important it is these days, especially with AI mulling on all the data that we need to have clean and good data. And he said, you know, that's so right. And he could have just left it at that saying, yeah, yeah. It's important to have clean and good data. He just went on to say that when I was working with this bank, we were like looking at how we can do market segmentation based on our client base.

And we said, let's find out more branch wise, what are the segments, what are the target, uh, areas our clients are working. And he said that in one particular branch, we found that 37% of our customers were astronauts. And I said, what? How is that even possible? [00:26:00] And he said,

Mel: yeah, who knew there was that many astronauts?

Soundari: So everybody had the same question because, and he said, we went back and we checked what was happening. And what used to happen is that the clients would come to the branch, they would open the account and the relationship managers because they wanted to be helpful. And no client wanted to fill a form.

They would say, we'll fill the form for you. So they would take the ID documents, they'd have their names and all of that. And then when they had to fill the form, they were suddenly left with hundreds of forms to fill. So they would just click on the dropdown menu and pick anything and right on the top after the accountant maybe was the astronaut.

So it really was not useful. So we do need clean data. And for me that was a great idea to communicate in a way that data couldn't have managed.

Mel: [00:27:00] I always say that anything that sends a message is a form of communication. And our next guest embodies that more than anyone in his work on body language, and that is Shea Evans and I talked to him about not only the power of body language, but why it's important to consider it. And he shared a bunch of tips for different contexts.

But I asked him specifically about some tips for body language when we are online, because we do so much of our work now through a computer screen. We're not actually going out and physically meeting people as much anymore. And he shared some great tips, which I'm now using every day thanks to this conversation.

So let's listen to Shay.

So, so much of our interaction at work now is done through a screen. Yeah. And assuming people have their cameras on. Mm-hmm. And that's step one.

Shea: It is step, it's actually step one, right? Yes. It's like, I, I can't, I can't imagine being in a meeting now without turning my camera on. Right. Because it's, we, it's otherwise, why not just have a phone conversation?

Mel: Mm-hmm. [00:28:00] Exactly. So body language through a screen. Mm, what can we do?

Shea: Great, great. Um, you'll see people who will be sitting like right next to their computer like this terrible, um, because funnily enough, the, um, the body, uh, what's it called?

Distance, proximity. Um, you know how you. If you meet someone new and they're a close talker, they get up like right in your

Mel: personal space, mate. Personal space. Space.

Shea: So personal space still exists online. Yeah. Um, so to remain like, you know, like a hand, like an arm's length away from your camera, an arm and a half even away from your camera, um, gives the impression of me standing. At a distance from you that allows you to have personal space. Mm-hmm. So personal space is really important, even online. Funnily enough,

Mel: I'd never thought of it that way. Yeah. But you're absolutely right.

Shea: Yeah. Um, another thing that we can do is also, um, so a turning on your camera B being a proper [00:29:00] distance away from it. Hands, yes. Hands are so important.

Mel: Spirit fingers. Spirit fingers, anything.

Shea: Right? So we as humans, um, love an open palm. Okay. Um, an open palm is a non-threatening, uh, gesture for humans. Yeah. Um, and if people can see your hands and your open palms on a video call, and it doesn't have to be all the time, you don't have to be speaking like this the entire time.

You don't have to have your palms visible, but as opposed to always having your hands under the desk. Mm. Looks a bit suss, right? Yeah. Um, so that's a way that we also establish connection and it's kind of like we were in the room together. Yeah. Um, and then finally the other thing I think would be, um, is making sure that you are engaging with the screen.

And I find it super hard to not look at myself because there's a lot happening in my side of the screen here. 'cause I'm waving my hands around. Um, [00:30:00] but to look at the camera. Like you were looking someone in the eye. And that's not constant. Um, that's not constant visual engagement. It is maybe at the end of a sentence when you wanna get a point across looking into the camera.

Um, or it might be when the other person, um, is listening to you and so they are watching you look directly at them. Um, so they're really important. Just really quick things that people can do. Um. For this online interaction, which I think we haven't thought enough about. Oh, another thing that I hate that I actually, ah, blindly hate is a fake background. And I understand that some people are trying to get rid of mess in their background and I get that. Um, but you wanna be a real person. And people, I think can see that. And if you have got a messy background, tidy it up or move or like shift your focus, right?

Mel: So, some good tips there. Number one, start with your camera on number two, stay about an arm's length away from your [00:31:00] camera. Yep. Number three, show your palms. Use your hands. Mm-hmm. Obviously within reason. Yep. Uh, and number four was, uh, look at the camera making eye contact. Yes. Uh, and then also avoiding the fake background. I think they're really good tips.

This episode of the podcast was with a local legend, Sally Porteous. Now, Sally is an event management guru, and she's had such an interesting career path to get to what she does today. If you don't follow her on LinkedIn, please do, because she always shares a bunch of amazing tips on event management. Now, you might be thinking, why did we invite Sally onto a show about comms and change?

It's because.... Any communicator, who knows their salt, knows that we often get hauled into these events, right? You've gotta run the town halls, you've gotta run the AGMs, the conferences, whatever it might be. And so it pays to think about events as another communication channel. Now, Sally reminded us of a very important principle with any comms, not just events.

Putting the [00:32:00] audience first, let's listen to what she has to say.

My next question then is what are some of the common challenges with organising events?

Sally: Common challenges organising events is, um, funnily enough, people don't start with the audience in mind. Uh, your, your community probably does because as you say, that's your ethos and that's what you bring to the table all of the time. That's the first hat that they put on. I'm the audience member, what is my expectation here?

Most people though, they don't, they start with the venue in mind. They go, oh where are we going to have this? When are we going to have it? One of the challenges, um, your community might experience, similar to mine, is we are often at the disposal of the person who has booked us to do the thing. And so we need a, we need a framework to help people understand why it's important to follow our [00:33:00] process and not theirs.

So I think, um, for me, for example, I have a process that focuses on purpose, audience, objectives and outcomes. That's the first four things I talk about. And that every decision comes from that. If the client I'm talking to wants to start talking about a venue, I can pull them back.

I can, I can pull them right back and go, let's just do these four parts first. And then through that process, they will often realise, Oh, actually, this is completely the wrong venue, or location, or time, or, you know. So, um, that's probably the biggest challenge.

Mel: And the final guest that we're highlighting today from 2025 is Kate Neilsen, and I met Kate also at Manila in the Philippines earlier in the year as senior editor at my lab. She really has her finger on the pulse of what's happening in the comms and change industry. She gets to talk to people from all over the place, gets to see the latest research and all those sorts of things.

[00:34:00] And one of the things that she highlighted in our conversation was we're not just facing change resistance. We're now facing interchange apathy in companies all over the world, and so here's what she had to say about what that is and why it matters.

So I hear a lot, you know, change, uh, resistance, change, fatigue. What is change? Apathy, how is that coming about? What kind of impact is that having?

Kate: Yeah. Um, I think maybe I'll just quickly give some context and a couple of quick data points just to set that up because I think, um, this is a concept that came from an interview that I did with an expert at Gartner.

Um, and I do think they are the experts, you know, that they're the people I turned to for all the data on change. I mean, they're doing such great work. Um, and they found that. In 2016, the average organisation was experiencing just two, what they call unplanned enterprise wide changes per year. So that's something like having a new leadership team come in, [00:35:00] restructure, big tech implementation, something that's gonna kind of rock the boat a little bit.

Um, and then in 2024, so less than 10 years later. The average organisation experienced 12 of those changes per year. So it's like a pretty massive shift. And like in some respects, that's to be expected. We are talking nearly a decade on, obviously work is becoming more complex. Um, change is always expected.

It's probably important to say, you know, change is often good. Um, I'm not here saying change is bad. I think it's just how we talk about change sometimes isn't necessarily effective. Um, but what Gartner found at the same time as that is that employees, um, they found a correlation between the amount of change the average employee is exposed to and their willingness to embrace that change.

So in 2016, that was sitting at about 70% or around the mid seventies of. Employees who said, yes, I'm willing to jump on forward this change that you're putting forward. Whereas now in 2024, that data was sitting at about 40%. [00:36:00] So, you know less than half of the workforce who are saying, Hey, yep, I'll, I'll be involved in this change.

And this is change that businesses spend millions of dollars, thousands of, you know, resources trying to get across the line and then it's just not cutting through. So this is kind of what's leading up to that. Um. That change apathy that we spoke about and that Gartner is kind of talking about, which is, you know, it's not just the change fatigue that we, you know, we're tired of change.

It's, we're actually, people are saying, I don't care about this change. I don't want to be involved. I'm kind of passively part of it. Um, so in some respects we do have those passive observers of change rather than those active participants, which are what, you know, businesses really, really need and, and.

That undermines transformation efforts in a huge, huge way. You know, there's poor adoption, there's late missed deadlines or KPIs. Um, innovation stalls off the back of that. People just don't wanna put their hand up with a new idea or new way of doing things. We kind of bunker [00:37:00] down to protect ourselves a little bit.

Um, and then off the back of that, the ripple effect is, you know, there's trust that um, is eroded and loyalty that declines and all these terrible things that, um, yeah, you just don't want in your business. Gartner found anecdotal links between change and people's propensity for misconduct. Mm geez. Um, so, you know, it's, it's rewiring how we we operate and show up at work, which, um, yeah, like I said before, is something that we need to be taking really seriously.

Mel: Well folks, I hope you got a lot out of today's episode. Some of those episodes you may not have listened to before, so I totally encourage you to go back and do that if you've got some spare time over the next few weeks during this crazy period where we dunno what day it is or what time, and we're just trying to get through all the food in the fridge.

But for me, to you, again, a very heartfelt thank you for tuning in, whether it's every week, every couple of weeks, or maybe you are coming back after a hiatus, or maybe you're brand new to the podcast, welcome. It really is my privilege and my honor [00:38:00] to be able to get people like some of these guests on here and to share as much knowledge with you as I possibly can.

Now, as always, if you haven't yet and you've got a couple of minutes, please hit the review button or the ratings button every little bit, help. And next year we are going to be taking a slightly different tact to the podcast. Rather than doing something every single week of the year, we are going to be releasing a few series of podcasts.

So look out for those. We've got one kicking off early in the new year and uh, your ideas of course, are always welcome. This is the People Show, so please share your ideas, your thoughts on. What topics you'd like me to cover or guess that you'd like to see? If I can wrangle on here, I'm more than happy to give it a go.

In the meantime, please have a safe and happy New Year and I look forward to talking to you all again on the other side of New Year's Eve. Have a great one.