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For Strategy Skills episode 518, we interviewed the author of Change: Six science-backed strategies to transform your brain, body, and behavior, Michael Lopez.
In this episode, Michael Lopez shares his consulting journey and leadership challenges that shaped his leadership style and led him to start his own firm. He shares his advice for consultants aiming to become partners in today’s hybrid work environment.
Michael also discussed change and how deeply personal it is that it can’t be approached with one-size-fits-all solutions. Lopez explains why change takes longer than expected, especially in adults, and warns against organizations’ tendency to focus too much on immediate outcomes rather than the necessary process of transformation.
I hope you will enjoy this episode.
Kris Safarova
Michael Lopez is a leading voice in change, combining scientific principles and human behavior to unlock potential in individuals and organizations. With diverse experience across industries, he designs innovative strategies that drive transformation and accelerate performance, earning recognition as a LinkedIn Top Voice.
Get Michael’s new book here:
Change: Six science-backed strategies to transform your brain, body, and behavior
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Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies
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Episode Transcript:
Kris Safarova 00:45
Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com and we have a gift for you. It is a one-page download. It’s called the overall approach used and well-managed strategy studies. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. And we have another gift for you as well. If you’re currently updating your resume, and it’s generally a good idea to have your resume updated at any level, you can get a great example of a resume to compare your resume to. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf, and today we have with us Michael Lopez, who is a former E&Y and KPMG Managing Director, and the leading voice and change, including a LinkedIn top voice, which is very, very hard to do. Michael, welcome.
Michael Lopez 01:38
Thank you for having me. It’s wonderful to be here.
Kris Safarova 01:41
So you’ve had an impressive career so far, including time at E&Y and KPMG, how did your experiences at these firms shape your approach to business and leadership and generally, the skills that allowed you to develop that help you now?
Michael Lopez 01:58
Yeah, well again, so both great places, and I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed my time there, great colleagues, great leaders, great experiences. I think in two ways, it really was an important experience. One, I think I really learned the skills of how to consult and advise at a strategic level, across number of different leaders in the organization. The second thing I would say is that it helped me really understand how I want to lead and deliver work, and it’s one of the reasons I started my own company, was to be able to kind of take a different approach in terms of being more hands on with my clients. One of the things about the Big Four is certainly the projects are big, the clients are big, the stakes are high, and those are wonderful experiences to be a part of. I really like to get in with leadership teams and to kind of get in and get integrated with companies. And so it was a way for me to really define who I am as a consultant, and those were great experiences, very formative, and things that I would certainly look back with a lot of gratitude and thanks that I was able to do that for someone who is currently
Kris Safarova 03:11
At one of the consulting firms, specifically Big Four, and they are either just about to be promoted to partner or just be promoted to partner. What would be your advice for them? How can they succeed?
Michael Lopez 03:24
Yeah, well, I think it’s important to understand, certainly the environment and the business and the business model. Those positions are highly sought after. They’re highly competitive, and they come with it all of the demands of being a senior leader in a firm like that. And so certainly understanding what’s required in terms of time and effort and attention, that this is not a nine to five job. And so even though the pandemic and our hybrid working life, I think in many ways, has made the strategy partner role a little bit less demanding, because we can do more from home. You know, it’s still a very high, high impact, sort of high demand job. I think it’s important to be honest with yourself about that. The other thing I would say is that it’s important to understand the role you play in shaping the lives of young consultants. I just can’t say enough about many of the partners that helped me grow early in my career. And so I think, because the consulting world is so demanding at times, you play a central role in helping young consultants both learn skills but identify if this is the right role in the right world for them. Because, you know, there’s a business model, and that business model has certain requirements and and so I think it’s important to understand the leadership role you play and kind of the working experience. I think the last thing I would say is that, you know, as a partner, things have changed. In some ways, the pandemic and the new way of working has really put different demands. I think it’s not just about selling work. It’s about. Delivering work, and that’s always been a requirement, but that’s changed now managing a hybrid workforce across multiple time zones, often multiple clients. And so I think you know, as strategy partners in Big Four and elsewhere, your skills need to adapt, and you need to keep growing. It’s not just about, you know, hitting your sales goals. It’s about balancing high quality, delivery, sales, work experience, you know, growth of the firm, brand, reputation, all of those things continue to be super important.
Kris Safarova 05:30
Do you have advice on managing your team when a lot of that work is happening virtually? That is something I often hear from people in the community that they’re struggling with it.
Michael Lopez 05:41
Yeah, it look. I mean, this is, I just wrote an article the other day about sort of the hybrid working world, and some of the calls back to the office. My wife actually still works at EY, so I do hear a lot of what they’re going through. You know, I think it’s a balance, certainly in a virtual world, it requires us to be more attentive, more time on the screen, the things that we can do when we’re in a team room together and we’re working side by side and we can have those conversations or go to dinner, certainly those things get harder to do. And so I think we’ve got to understand the effort required to be more present online, to check in to ask how people are doing. I think that’s the first requirement. The second thing I would say is that, you know, collaboration takes on a different form, and so understanding digital tools is certainly part of it, but I do think that we have to understand things are going to take a little longer. It might take more asynchronous work, it might take more iteration, it might take more failure in starting over before the team can really gel. And so I think as leaders of those teams, we have to exert a bit of patience and understand that we can’t just be in a room on a whiteboard and draw it up and get to the answer and everybody runs off. And so I think there’s a balance there as well. I will say, however, that one of the benefits is, you know, when you’re sitting at a client site and you’ve got meetings all day, maybe at dinner that night, you’ve got a couple hours of working time in your hotel room, there is a lot more time that we have now to really focus build high quality products, think strategically, analyze, look at data, and I think often we we don’t value that benefit quite as much as we should. You know, time away in solitude, working, thinking, processing, reflecting, is high quality time. And so there’s a benefit there that I think we can really lean into.
Kris Safarova 07:39
That is very true. What do you think is the future of consulting given the rise of AI? There’s something people are thinking about. NASA, I wanted to get your thoughts.
Michael Lopez 07:47
Yeah, it’s a great question. And certainly, you know, we’re we’re just beginning the journey. I think about it from a couple angles. I think about how AI complements the consulting experience. And then I think how AI might maybe compete with some of the traditional consulting experience. And if we take a step back and think about what consulting really is, it’s first of all perspective, right? It’s, it’s getting the input of a person who sits outside of your organization, because they just see the world differently. And so can you get that from other places by searching AI and getting feedback, looking for frameworks and insights and analysis? Of course you can, but there’s a certain level of, you know, human brain that is maybe coming from another industry or coming from another region of the world, coming from a different background, that might ask you that one question that sparks a new idea. And so I think, in some ways, you know, the consulting world is going to be ever present, because we still rely on that perspective that we just can’t get, maybe from from a machine, but where it can complement, which I think is really, really interesting. You know, the other role of consulting is about processing information and building and accessing expertise that you don’t have and so certainly AI as a tool for consultants to find information, quickly, build presentations, generate short form content that might be, you know, bullet points or talking points for leaders, all of those things can really speed up the consulting experience, which I think makes it less expensive for the clients. And I think they’re always looking particularly the last several years, you know, the consulting industry has really felt the pinch of the cost pressures that the market has felt. And so if there’s creative ways to use AI to to to make things more cost effective and to speed up getting the answer. I think that’s really helpful. I think the question that we all have is is, you know, can a computer replace a person? Can an AI chat bot replace a human being? And for me, that just really comes down to a lot of personal choice. Still, I think we’re experimenting with. You know, I I’m I’m also a coach, and I coach a lot of CEOs and senior executives. Many of my clients are not ready to to outsource that idea of, can a can a bot hold space for you when you’re dealing with something that’s difficult, emotionally, when you’re under stress, when you’re under the pressure of making a decision, you know, those kinds of things are still uniquely human experiences. And so I think we’ve got a ways to go to figure out if, if that element of the sort of the consulting, coaching realm can really be outsourced outside of the human experience. I have an opinion on that, at least for now, which is, I don’t think we’re quite there, but but time will tell, we’ve made so much progress in the last even three months, it seems like we’ve just made, you know, leaps and bounds and how AI has been integrated.
Kris Safarova 10:50
For someone who have just been promoted to partner at large consulting firm, let’s say big four. What do you think are the skills they need focus on strengthening? Because obviously all of us have very little time. Yeah, what do you think will be the skills that will become very, very important going forward?
Michael Lopez 11:07
Yeah, it’s interesting. I get this question a lot, and I’ve had it. I think it happens at various points in our career. The single hardest transition for anyone going into a leadership role is what I call going from player to coach. And most people in the Big Four, before they become a partner, they’re a senior manager, you know, something at that level. And what do senior managers do? They do all the work, right? They manage the teams, they perform quality control and the deliverables. They manage the project experience. They really are kind of in control of the whole execution layer of the consulting experience. And what happens when we get promoted is we know the old job. We know the senior manager job really well. We understand what it takes. We have a system for balancing all of our priorities. We have a method for how we organize our time, and then we become a partner. And it shifts from more delivery to more sales. It’s about delegation and oversight and coaching and guiding. It’s not about doing. It’s about leading and shaping and building, and that can be a difficult transition for a lot of people, because it’s stepping outside a comfort zone where my identity has really been I got promoted because I was good at doing the work, and now I’m in a position where I have to help the people who are good at doing the work be successful. So I think it’s about understanding, first of all, how to let go of some of the skills that you had before in terms of the more project oriented things. It’s about understanding how to tap into teams and people. It’s about understanding how to motivate and guide and support the senior managers that you used to be. It’s also understanding how to sell and what sales means, particularly in this new world. And I think lastly, I would say it’s about understanding how to navigate the organization. You know, when you’re in a big four consulting firm, you don’t just have your day job of supporting clients and doing client oversight. It’s also about working across service lines and functional teams and market teams and regional teams and those sorts of things. And that’s, of course, a very big responsibility. So So I would say having that skill set and understanding how to divide your time is really, really critical. You know, most partners get a coach, a transition coach, somebody to help them make that move. And that’s certainly something I would suggest people really lean into.
Kris Safarova 13:44
What was the most enjoyable part and the hardest part for you when you were at the leadership role within those firms?
Michael Lopez 13:52
Ah, well, I can tell you the hardest part is, and I just referenced it a little bit as you know, I like to, I really like to do the work I consider myself a practitioner, certainly as a coach and as a leader of teams, it’s important for me to be on the ground with clients, with teams. And I think one of the challenges that a lot of senior leaders in strategy and Big Four consulting firms face is, you know, the economic model and some of the metric pressures of being able to meet your sales targets while giving oversight to high quality delivery. I always struggled with that because I felt like I couldn’t dedicate the time to really coaching, guiding and leading the teams that I was a part of because of those other pressures. And so I think that can be a lot for folks, right? This kind of do it all, experience of of managing all of that. I think for me it was, was always very difficult. The most enjoyable part is really the answer to that question I just gave, which is, you know, being with teams Leading Young Consultants, being in with my clients, working. On the hard stuff. You know, really, really understanding what makes a client, either individually or as a group, tick, solving their hardest problems. You know, some of the we did a one of a good friend of mine, I did this very small job at Clorox. They won’t care that I say this because I’ve said it a number of times. Years ago, it was very small by consulting standards, very, very small. They had a decision making problem, which was, they were a very consensus driven organization, and so decision making was very slow. Anytime they had a new initiative, everyone got to weigh in. And so what happened was, they couldn’t make progress, because by the time you asked 50 people what they thought, you know, it’s sort of like a horse by by a group consensus as a camel, right? It just didn’t really work well. And so we had to rebuild that muscle for them. And to this day, some of the highest impact work that I think I’ve ever done. And what was challenging was there was a lot of pressure to be pulled away from that job, because it just, you know, again, it didn’t hit all the metrics of financial success, but for me, it was the epitome of why we exist, right, which is shaping behavior, changing perspective, breaking down cultural tendencies that hold organizations back. And so that’s ultimately why I started my own firm, was because I wanted to to be able to do that and do it in a way that allowed me the the economics and our clients to be successful. So you know, nothing beats having an impact with your team and with clients.
Kris Safarova 16:30
That is very, very true. So another area where people often struggle is navigating politics. And I know number of partners who got managed out after still a careers, and they were incredibly competent, had tremendous relationships with important clients, and it was still not enough for them to stay. What would be your advice?
Michael Lopez 16:52
Well, I’m, you know, I’m going to be I’m going to have this a vulnerable moment. I don’t know that I was very good at this either, and when I say that, what I mean is I’m somebody that’s naturally a bit of a non conformist. And I like to challenge. I like to push. I like to break things and rebuild them to see what else we could create. And early in my time at particularly at EY, I was trying to disrupt some of the structures and systems that I thought were holding us back as an organization. One of the coaches that I had at the time, a gentleman named Ken Durbin, who’s just still a wonderful one of the most transformative coaches I’ve ever had, he said something to me that was really, really impactful, which is, you have to be successful within the environment in which you exist, and you can’t transform something if you’re on the outside looking in. And so I think it’s important that I didn’t always navigate that well. I think sometimes i i Over pushed in places that maybe weren’t helpful. I under pushed maybe in places I could have. And so for me, if I look back, I would this is the advice I’d give to myself. Number one is understand the importance of relationships, and that every interaction you have, somebody’s forming an opinion of you, and they’re building a perspective, right and and just like in the rest of the world, if you meet someone out at a restaurant or a networking event, or whatever, someone’s going to form a perspective on how you carry yourself, how you communicate. You know that your tone of voice, and I don’t mean to be too like, you know, walking on eggshells, but I think it’s important to know that relationships matter. I think the second thing that I would say with that, which is investing in relationships matter, which is, you won’t always know when an interaction is going to pay off, and so taking the time to help other partners be successful. Ask them how you can be of service. Ask them how you can help. Raise your hand for other things. Volunteer to make their lives easier. Builds a bit of goodwill that I think will pay off in the long run. I think the last thing I would say is is know when to stop, right, which is, if there’s something that’s maybe not working for you, you know over pushing is one of the things I used to say. And I think this was true, and some other companies I worked at, which is fairly or unfairly, sometimes your reputation follows you forever, even if it’s something that you did only once. And so it’s important to understand, you know, is pushing in this direction serving me, or is it maybe ultimately working against me? And that’s where having a guide or mentor or a coach, somebody who’s outside of your service line, outside of your region can be really helpful, right, to just ask the questions, Hey, should I keep pushing this? Or should I stop? Or how would you recommend I handle this? And so that’s the third thing I would say. The last thing I would say is, understand that change is possible. And you know, the consulting. Industry with the pandemic certainly experienced a lot of change, and I think maybe now more than ever, they’re open to the idea that, hey, we’ve got other ways to work, and maybe we can embrace those ideas and start to think differently about what might be possible. So so be so be patient, because, because change is possible.
Kris Safarova 20:21
The last question I have for you on your time with large consulting firms before we transition to your current business, and the recent book you wrote is, as you know, as a new partner or as a senior partner, you have responsibilities when it comes to sales, and that is on your shoulders. Keeps you up at night. If it’s not going well for our listeners who currently maybe not doing very well in that area, what would be your advice?
Michael Lopez 20:48
Well, you know, I have a lot of friends that are still across many companies, not just Ey and KPMG, folks that have left and gone to other places. And I do think it’s important to acknowledge that, you know, the market’s been tough. It’s been tough for everybody, and so you’re not alone. And you know the pressure that you’re feeling, you know, please believe that other people are feeling it too. And and I think we’re seeing signs of the the economy, you know, starting to move in a better direction. Inflation’s down. The latest round of layoffs that we had over the last 18 months seem to be slowing down. And so there definitely is, I think, signs of life in the market. And so, you know, weathering that storm is important. I think getting creative. You know, one of the things again, that the pandemic did really open up is, you know, new economic models because of, hey, we don’t I don’t have to fly every week. You know, our direct costs are down. You don’t have to pay for hotel and travel. How can we get creative about solving your project problems or outsourcing labor, as you’ve just laid off people and maybe you need someone for a month or or six weeks, right? And so finding creative ways to to build an economy around the people that you have available. The third thing I would say is, you know, and it’s tough, because maybe investments are down across the board, but what can you do with the excess capacity that is currently available in the staff right? New services, new offerings, new outreach to client, new campaigns around what you do. So even if you’re maybe on the bench for a while, there’s still a capacity in there that you have to be able to think about new growth avenues and new ways to come up with other offerings to clients. It’s a great time. The last thing I would say around that really is to ask clients be really direct with them about, hey, I know this is a tough time. What do you need? How can we help you? What can you afford? Okay, you’ve only got $50,000 we could do X, Y and Z, and you might just have to string together a bunch of nickels for a while until you make it work, right? And now, none of that removes the pressure of the bottom line, and I wouldn’t say any of this and be dismissive of that, but you know, everyone’s feeling it, so finding ways to get creative can at least make you feel like you’re making some progress, right, and selling smaller projects while while things start to turn around.
Kris Safarova 23:17
That is very true. So let’s go to that moment when you decided to start your own firm. Can you take us to that moment?
Michael Lopez 23:24
Yeah, well, you know, I went from KPMG to a small firm called profit and great, great place, great company. I decided I needed a different experience, and that’s why I left the Big Four and went to profit, smaller company. Really good experiences. And you know, what I realized was I had been searching for a style of work and an environment. As I mentioned, I’m a little bit of a non conformist. I’d been working in the change management space for years. I saw that what we were doing wasn’t really working. It wasn’t changing behavior. It might be changing some things, but not the things that really mattered. And I found that the only way I could really do the work I wanted to do was to start my own company. Because even in a small firm, the pressures of balancing sales and metrics and targets were still there. You know, the overhead of a company that that was making it cost prohibitive for me to do some of the kind of jobs that I wanted to do. So that was really the first thing, I think the second thing was, I was, I’ve got a bit of a different style as it relates to how I coach and work with clients, and I found that I wanted to find the people that wanted to be coached that way. You know, I have a background in sports. I played college football. I still coach sports. And you know, you have to if you’re going to change, you have to want to be coached and and I found a lot of times that I was maybe struggling for creative control with some of the clients I was serving, because of the demographic I was in and the best way for me to map. My skills with the demand in the market was to be able to kind of take more control over the types of clients I was working with. And so it just became a natural, no brainer. And it’s funny, I’ll tell a story. I was in an interview when I was going through this process with another company. And it shall remain nameless, doesn’t matter somebody I worked with at KPMG, he went to another company, and he asked me, Hey, Michael, how are you going to meet your sales goals and fill your pipeline and build your book of business? And about halfway through the interview, I said, Hey, you know, I can’t do this anymore. I’m not I’m not your guy. I need to go in a different direction. And for me, it was the most clear moment I’ve ever had that it wasn’t if I start my own thing, it’s how and how do I make it successful? And that was just about a year ago, and it’s been a great year, and I wish I had done it 10 years ago, but here we are.
Kris Safarova 25:58
So for you, that moment occurred during an interview.
Michael Lopez 26:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did. I had been struggling with it. I had been kind of thinking about it and and it just became clear as day to me, and I’ve never looked back.
Kris Safarova 26:11
Once you started your own firm, where did you immediately notice you have skilled gaps that you needed to quickly skill up in those areas?
Michael Lopez 26:20
Yeah, well, I had gaps in two places, I think, both for me and for the kind of work I wanted to do. You know, when you work in a big firm, even though business development is still part of your remit, there’s a lot of infrastructure available to you to to kind of ride along with, right? There’s market teams, there’s regional teams, there’s sector teams, there’s client and account teams, and you can jump in into those structures and start to build your network, piggyback off of another client sale and meet your numbers by attaching yourself to maybe, you know, big hitters in the firm. When you’re on your own, you’re on your own. And so you’ve got to really start building a system of business development for yourself that I think works at a couple different speeds. One is your current relationships and how you harness those, and I had been pretty good at that. The second was, how do you how do you build what I call second degree relationships, referrals, clients, of clients, former clients that you haven’t spoken to in a long time. And then the third one is, you know, I need to meet new people, and I need to meet as many new people as I can, because I’ve got to fill the funnel of new relationships, and it’s a numbers game. And truthfully, when I started, I hadn’t done that before, because I relied on the infrastructure of my former firm, so I had to level up there really quick, and that’s been a great learning experience for me, and I think I’m getting pretty good at it, but it was definitely new. The other gap I had to fill was I no longer had the team around me that I used to use to deliver so I now have a group of kind of collaborators, former consultants that I worked with in the past that are now independents as well. And we, we sort of, it’s like a little kind of collective where we come together, we deliver work, we work on different projects, and that’s been great, because I can keep that community moving. But, you know, I don’t have a resource management lead to find me a senior manager anymore. I have to go do that on my own. And so building that community has been really, really helpful.
Kris Safarova 28:26
Of course. Could you share with us some advice on how to grow on LinkedIn? Because I know you have been recognized as a top LinkedIn voice. That is something very difficult. Could you maybe share with our listeners who are interested in building their professional brand, sure, maybe even while they’re working for a large organization, maybe share with us how you were able to get that recognition, and your advice on how can someone gets more traction on LinkedIn?
Michael Lopez 28:54
Yeah, you know the short answer on how to do it. It’s, it’s about, it’s about consistency and repetition. And certainly that was a big piece of my experience, you know, about two years ago, two and a half years ago, one of the things that I had been frustrated with in the consulting world is the the organizational change management discipline, I thought, and continue to think, that that discipline has not delivered the results that we have been sort of advising or guiding or suggesting or needing. And so I decided to sort of break a hole right through the middle of traditional thinking around change management. And I think that was the first step was I had a message, and I had a theme, and I had a goal, and I kept coming back to that goal. And so it was identifiable. You know, I wasn’t talking about a million different things. I was talking about one thing over and over and over again. And so I started to really be. Be a little bit of a non conformist challenge some of the conventional thinking. So that, excuse me, that that was, that was my first step, I think. And I would advise people to pick, pick a topic that you feel passionate about and that you’re willing to be a little bit disruptive on right, have a different point of view and share it, and be willing to do that. And I will say that comes with a little bit of anxiety. I was nervous about doing it, but over time, you sort of get better at it. The second thing I did was, and this is maybe unconventional now, but a lot of people do video. They do short clips. I had two kind of content formats that I did. I had a like a little icon based sort of format that if you look at my page, you’ll see which is a kind of Adam Grant style, maybe summary, conclusion or theme or bit of wisdom, but I would write seven, eight paragraphs that complemented that narrative of the story, a personal story, an example from a client, and expand on it. And I was really surprised at how well the long form content actually did. And so I got some really great feedback about six months in. And people said, Oh, when I see your posts, I really sit back and and want to read it, because I know that there’s some some goodness in there. So I was willing to kind of lean into that long form structure. And I was just very surprised. And then the last thing I’d say is, again, it’s about repetition. For the first year, I posted every two weeks, at least, if not every week. Actually, it started every week for six months, and then the six months, six through 12 was every two weeks. And then I started to inject more video. I’d done some speaking, I’d done some podcasts, and I started to mix that in, but all of it was around that theme. And so about, yeah, but about almost 18 months, 20 months into my journey, I received the email saying I’d been part of the community and just really, really honored quite, quite frankly. And I did not start with that intention. I just kept going and kept repeating that formula. And you know, here I am today.
Kris Safarova 32:06
So congratulations, and thank you so much for sharing so much advice. So you recently wrote the book, which is a very interesting book. I specifically like the chapter on brain. So let’s talk about it. What are some of the things you want to share from the book that you really want people to take away with them after listening to this podcast?
Michael Lopez 32:25
Yeah, well, I thank you, and I am excited to bring it to everyone here, and it’ll be available January 2025, we were just talking about that kind of putting the finishing touches on it. Now, I think the first thing to think about back to this idea of change, right? And what we do, from a organizational perspective, is the first thing is, is change is a inherently personal experience, right? And the only person you can change is you. And one of the mistakes we’ve made in the organizational change management world is we? We, we apply these broad principles, right? We train everyone on a 30 minute new technology, or we send them a newsletter, or we write the case for change, or we send them to a town hall, and we just assume that the same five data points will universally affect everyone the same and we just know that that’s not true, right? And so, so one of the things I want people to take away with is that change, particularly at a macro level, takes far longer than you expect, because it is so personal, each person arrives at the experience of change with a different history, a different family life, a different set of experiences, a different culture, a different language, all of these things that influence the way that we anticipate the world. And to your point about the brain, the first thing I would say, and we talk about this in the book, is your brain is a prediction machine. And what that means, this is from the science that was done by Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett. She’s the preeminent neuroscientist in the world, which is your brain is constantly guessing what’s going to happen next. It’s the source of our fears, it’s the source of our anxieties, it’s the source of our frustrations, of I’m guessing what my next experience is, because my brain is anticipating how to regulate my heartbeat, my hormones, my blood flow, all of those things, and where we get into trouble as change practitioners is failing to understand the types of predictions that people are making. And in order to do that, I need to get into the individual right. I need to really understand you as a person. So I would share that as a starting point is that if you want to change someone, you’ve got to deal at the brain level first and understand what predictions is this person making, and how do I start to unwind this experience that look by the time we got it, I’m 51 years old, right? I’ve made a lot of predictions by the age of 51 I’m just not going to rest. Start that overnight, it’s going to take some time.
Kris Safarova 35:02
That is very true. Tell us a little more about how the brain works, because some of the things you said in that chapter about how the brain works are very, very interesting.
Michael Lopez 35:11
Well, I think there’s a couple of things I talk about, six strategies that are really important, and they all sort of root back to sort of this idea of what our brain is doing at any given point. Maybe one of those big principles is our relationship to stress. So, so first of all, stress is a real thing, and we all experience stress in different ways. But the truth is, biologically, stress is actually an adaptive, you know, sort of pro benefit to our bodies, right? Stress is required for growth. We learn under stress. Bones grow under stress, muscles grow under stress. And yet, I think culturally and socially, we’ve really tried to kind of sell the easy button for change in a lot of ways. Look, I’ve done it with clients, right? Hey, this, we’re going to put in a ERP system. This won’t be hard at all, and we know that it is right. We know it’s tremendously complex. And so I think, you know, understanding that our brain desires comfort, but it needs stress, and that’s an important distinction in the change experience. I was on with a client of mine today. I say this to them all the time, right? The growth is in the struggle, right? You will not grow unless you experience discomfort. And getting comfortable with that experience is the first step, and you’ve got to trick your brain into understanding that the effort is the reward, not the outcome, right? So if you think about sports, right, I was going to teach you how to run faster. I would I would time you in 100 meter dash, and then I’d say, Okay, how do we build your leg strength? How do we look at your flexibility? How do we look at your start? And we would change the inputs to making you run faster. But in order to do that, I need to lift heavy weights. I need to, you know, stretch beyond my comfort zone. And if you’re not willing to do that, your performance will never improve. And so you’ve got to get the brain enjoying the effort of change more than the outcome of change, if that makes sense. And so it’s a great study that was done about vision boards, right? I don’t know if you have a vision board. I apologize if you do. For anyone who’s listening, I’m about to ruin it for you. Vision boards actually reduce your motivation, because vision boards are actually like states of being, right? I see the house I want, I see the car. I want, the job I want those are nouns. And what happens is I get to experience a little bit of that dopamine hit by looking at that vision board and going, Wow, my life’s going to be so great when all of these things happen and I actually become less motivated. So what I’ve got to trick my brain into doing is going, No, what are the inputs to those right? What’s the kind of effort I need to give in the pursuit of a job, or the effort I need to give in my health and fitness or in my relationships? And when I make effort, the reward, I change so much more rapidly, because I’m not focusing on the outcome, I’m focusing on the input. So that’s another example, just how to, how to trick your brain into understanding what you want. And you know, our brains want dopamine, and the dopamine hit from effort is huge. You just have to get used to being, being in enough stress to withstand the effort that’s required to actually change.
Kris Safarova 38:36
When you work with clients and help them apply all the insights from the book. Where do they get stuck most often?
Michael Lopez 38:44
One of the big sticking points is time. So you know when you when you learn as an adult, so when you’re when you’re a child, particularly a young child. So I have a five month old daughter, and she learns just by being in the world, right? She learns from sensory experience through what she’s interacting with. Now we all do that to some degree, but her brain is like on fire doing this, right? And that goes up until about age 12, slows down. And then between 12 and 25 you still continue to learn through what’s called neurogenesis, right, which is the formation of new sort of pathways in the brain. After age 25 you don’t really create a lot of new, you know, sort of neural pathways. What you have to do is repurpose the pathways that you have, which is why habits are so important, right? So an example, you brush your teeth with one of your hands, right? If I asked you to do it with the other hand, you would become intensely frustrated, because your brain actually doesn’t understand how to repeat the movement. And you’d have to think about it right. You’d have to actually be you don’t think about brushing your teeth. You just do it right? It just happens. Well, behaviors, whether they’re relationship. Behaviors, work behaviors, leadership behaviors, they’re the same way. And so when you want to break that, I need to actually bring your awareness to the habit that you have. And then I need to teach you a new pattern. But then I you need to repeat that pattern over and over and over again, and it always takes so much longer because, like brushing your teeth, it’s just easier to go. And I want to go back to using my right hand, because it’s faster. And so time is always a challenge. It never happens as quickly as you want. It never happens as a group as quickly as you want. And that leads to the second big thing that people, that most organizations and people struggle with is the comment we just had. They have a KPI somewhere that’s about, I want to save 10 million or I want to make another 50 because I just bought a new company, or capture my synergy targets, or whatever it is, and the relentless focus on outcomes makes it very difficult for them to track the inputs that are required to go capture them, right? So it’s called the What about now effect, right? What about now? Did we make it now? Did we earn the money now? What about now? And so that time and outcome problem leads to an impatience that forces people to quit or redirect before they really need to, right? And so, so that’s the other thing as well. We’re not hitting our target on time. So let’s try a different strategy. No, it’s just taking longer than you expect. It will stay the course, right? So those are three big things that that I spend a lot of time with leaders, helping them just take a breath, relax. You’re going to get there. It won’t take as long as you want, but it’s going to happen. And here’s how we start to measure progress towards that goal that you have.
Kris Safarova 41:51
Thank you. Michael, last question from me today, over the last few years, were there any aha moments, realizations that you would be comfortable sharing with us that really changed the way you look at life or the way you look at business.
Michael Lopez 42:03
Wow, what a great question. I think the first one is wrapped up in the idea of starting my own company. I always knew I didn’t quite fit in, and yet I was afraid to take the risks I was I was afraid of my own stress, my own discomfort, of stepping out into my own betting on myself in the way that I wanted to. And I was seeking the safety of a large organization, but still trying to be this disruptive force. And what I realized was that wasn’t serving me right, because I was disrupting the wrong place, you know, to in fairness to EY or KPMG, they weren’t asking me to change the business model of our company. They were asking me to go, you know, do the role of a partner. And so I think the aha moment for me was, the only way I could really, truly be myself is to go out on my own. I think that’s the first one. The second one is, is, you know, I’m, I’m a coach. I started out as an athlete. I worked with the military for years. I continue to coach sports. You know, I one of my favorite quotes is from Mike krishevsky, who used to be the coach at Duke University. He said, I’m not a basketball coach. I’m a leader that just happens to coach basketball. And I think for me, in that principle, everything just came together. I can’t separate who I am on a football field versus who I am in a boardroom, who I am in a team meeting. You know, this is my purpose. I am a coach, and I think I have three responsibilities, really obligations. You know. The first one is to is to usher people into difficult and uncomfortable but necessary conversations and experiences, because that’s where growth happens. The second is to help them with that process, with the things that I’ve come to know and learn and practice. And the third one is to lead by example. And so, you know, for me, I just realized this is my identity, and being able to step into that place and kind of go all in, truthfully, it’s been the best, you know, 18 months of my life, and I feel like I’m just getting started, and that’s really been the biggest aha is, this is who I am and and I’ve gone from having a job to fulfilling a purpose, and every day I get up, and no matter how hard it is, I’ve got energy and motivation to go pursue it, and I’m just super thankful for that.
Kris Safarova 44:35
Michael, such a pleasure speaking with you. I really enjoyed our conversation. Where can our listeners learn more about you by your book. Anything you want to share?
Michael Lopez 44:44
Yeah, a great place to start is my website. It’s Michael J Lopez dot coach, and so that really fits with the conversation we were just having. You can find all my socials there, certainly on LinkedIn and Instagram. I’m pretty i. Pretty active. The link to the book will be there that you’ll be able to find, as well as a couple other things that I’ll be releasing soon. So I’m excited about sharing that and getting a chance to kind of push the envelope a little bit more. So I’d start there. And you can also schedule 15 minutes with me whenever you’d like. So you can do that and happy to spend time with people talk more about this. I could, I could talk about it all day. So it really is the best part of my job.
Kris Safarova 45:24
Our guest today, again, has been Michael Lopez. Check out his book. It’s called Change: Six science backed strategies to transform your brain, body and behavior. And our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used and well managed strategy studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf. Thank you again, everyone for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.