Good morning, good morning. I have to let you in on something—I am trying something different today. I've decided not to have any slides, and let's see how that goes. I'm also prepared, which is something I usually don't do. I'm actually quite spontaneous, but I've had some coaching from Lita Carrie. I’m testing my own growth, asking myself, what would it look like if I were prepared? So, I've got notes. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them because, obviously, I’m not keeping to them now. But Lita said they are a safety blanket if I get a little unsure of myself.
I don’t know who originally said this quote, but I love it: "I am too busy to write you a short letter, so I’m going to write you a long letter." Who was it? Blaise Pascal? Thank you so much.
Now, I’m going to move right off topic because I’ve got twenty-two minutes left. There is a nod in saying that being very specific about what you want to say is key. So, thank you for allowing me to experiment on you. If I get off track, I’ll read my notes. Please allow me to do that because I really want to get a short-letter message across to you today. Strong introductions—that’s what it’s about.
Lita told me I mustn’t reveal the whole structure upfront. That’s not a strong introduction. Instead, I’d like to ask you: within your organization, how much time, effort, energy, and burnout have you witnessed in trying to realize a big, hairy, audacious strategy? If I had a crystal ball, I could tell you that you all have great strategies, but it's really tough to create the outcome and output and to say, “We have actually arrived.”
I work in financial services, where we are constantly adapting to meet the needs of our customers. I think there is a missing link, and obviously, the answer is at the back—me! I saw my name on my slides. Look how amazing the screen is. So, I’m just going to point to my name for the next twenty minutes.
Culture is the soup we swim in every day. I’ve heard one or two speakers this morning, and they’ve already started telling you how we show up in the workplace, how culture emerges, and how that culture is an important ingredient in making strategy successful. I like the way this works because there’s a point I wasn’t going to make. Culture is the best form of defense and attack in organizations.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a meeting where big decisions need to be made, and someone says, “This isn’t going to work for our culture” or “Our culture isn’t used to this.” Right? Who is culture? I find it difficult when someone has the title “Head of Culture.” That’s a tough concept. My favorite, though, is when people say HR has to fix culture by paying people differently.
It is true that culture and strategy together are the key enablers of organizational success. Strategy is your guiding path—it talks about the vision of what you want to achieve. You’ve probably heard a phrase like this before: “We are going to be a future-fit organization that is flexible and responsive to market conditions, delivering real value to our clients.” Sounds cool, right? I made that up! But you recognize that as a firm, solid strategy. You feel in your gut that it's a great strategy. There are probably objectives, tasks, and if your organization is large enough, a project office executing that vision.
Here’s the problem—we spend way too little time articulating the shift we want to see. We beautifully articulate the strategic direction and then hope and pray that the behavior follows. The good news is that if you spend time defining what behavior should look like, what practice should be paid attention to, you don’t need a lot of formal communication. People will observe what you focus on. It’s as simple—and as hard—as that.
Here’s my summary in a picture: your strategy is your rocket, your behavior is your fuel, and there’s a third element called fuel injection, which I’ll tell you about later. This is me keeping you at the edge of your seat!
There are three key takeaways I want you to remember today. Neuroscience suggests that threes work well, but fortunately, I actually do have three points! The first is that in achieving your strategy, you need to articulate the behavioral shift you want to see. We don’t spend equal amounts of time on it. As audacious organizations with huge transformation agendas, we love using language like “quantum leap,” “massive changes,” and “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Open the internet, and you’re bombarded with the scale of change required.
But if you use that language in behavior change, the only thing you’ll awaken is people’s defense mechanisms. That’s why I struggle with the phrase “future skills” when framed as a massive transformation. It makes people question, “Am I not valuable anymore? Do I have too much to learn?” Defense mechanisms start popping up. In behavior shifts, I prefer a concept called adjacent transformation.
Adjacent transformation is about being curious about existing habits and practices in your organization. Ask yourself: are they useful? If they don’t clearly drive the strategic direction, there is an opportunity to nudge them in the right direction. Who has heard of nudge theory? Good.
Adjacency means that as ambitious as your strategic goal is, your behavioral goal should be tiny and deliberate. Let me give an example. Say a company had a strategic goal of putting the customer at the center of everything they do. They realized that while their executive team had strong relationships, they were separated from the rest of the organization. So, they packed up their desks and, for a few mornings a month, sat on the shop floor among employees.
The result? Employees who never saw executives before started gossiping. No formal communications announced it, but a message emerged: “We are in this together.” It wasn’t long before employees approached executives with real customer problems, and leadership helped solve them. That simple act shifted culture, making leadership more accessible and engaged. No policy. No schedule. Just a small, symbolic, powerful nudge.
So, my three key takeaways: First, in achieving your strategy, you must articulate the behavior shift. Second, behavior change happens in small nudges practiced consistently. Third, you need psychological safety to make it happen.
Psychological safety is not about incentives, promotions, or seats at an executive offsite. It is about removing the fear of speaking up, whether to challenge a bad idea or support a crazy one. Organizations that foster this environment create openness, trust, and engagement.
In closing, let’s go back to my example of the executive team engaging on the shop floor. Their rocket was client centricity. Their fuel was togetherness. Their fuel injection was psychological safety—the openness to ask for and offer help. That is how transformation happens.
So here’s my call to action: Be curious about your organization’s habits. Identify what people already pay attention to and shift it slightly toward clearer strategic progress. Nudge it in a new direction, and you’ll be amazed at the impact. Thank you very much.