Why Do People Respond to Change the Way They Do?

0:00people are the most consequential and dangerous forces on earth well personality psychology is about the nature of human nature it's about people and wouldn't that be useful to know it seems to me i can't i can't think of a more important problem you're listening to the science of personality podcast brought to you by hogan assessments the global leader in personality and leadership guided by your hosts hogan chief science officer and world-renowned personality psychologist dr ryan sherman alongside hogan's pr manager and

0:35resident storyteller blake lepp this podcast explores the impact of personality on life leadership and the nature of human nature hello everybody and welcome to the science of personality podcast i'm your host ryan sherman along with my co-host as always blake lepp say hello blake hello everybody and welcome back to the science of personality podcast episode 148 today ryan and i are joined by dr victoria grady

1:06associate professor of management at george mason university's costello college of business to talk about change more specifically we're going to dive into the psychology behind why people respond to change the way they do change affects us all but how it affects us varies widely some find change to be personally disruptive or destructive while others seem to just roll with the punches so what's going on here well this has been at the forefront of victoria's research and we're thrilled to have her on the

1:39podcast to discuss this fascinating topic but before we get to our conversation with victoria if you wish to give us any ideas for upcoming episodes or you want to ask ryan or me a question shoot us an email at hello at the science of personality.com or follow the science of personality on linkedin now let's get to it victoria welcome to the podcast is there anything you'd like to share with our audience before we get started thank you so much i appreciate that great introduction i think i am all good

2:10well victoria i want to say welcome to the podcast as well and you came to us highly recommended by our friend jason blair who has also been a guest on our podcast and uh with your background in in management and teaching management as a professor of management and your your research and your knowledge of change we're super excited to have you here today so so thanks again for joining us thanks so much ryan i appreciate that uh a lot i'm excited to be here and it's a great honor jason speaks so highly of

2:42both of you and uh the podcast and your work so i'm super excited to be part of it well we're big fans of jason and uh for our listeners um you can go back i don't even recall we've done so many of these episodes at this point that uh but we have had jason on in the past and uh it was a really great conversation with him so go check that one out in our archive but uh today we're gonna we're gonna talk about change so victoria we're gonna start this off like we normally do with our guests you know what got you interested in the topic of change and how did it all start well i think that's such a

3:17great question and it's interesting because what actually got me interested in change is the fact that i um do not like it i'm not i'm now very flexible or adaptable um by my nature so that um as i entered my phd program back in the early 2000s i recognized that that wasn't necessarily a great attribute that was something i was gonna have to um maybe adjust a little bit as i was going through

3:49uh the program and luckily i had uh the great fortune of having dr jerry harvey um a professor at gw um he was a uh eminent scholar we have uh lost him now he's he's gone but he was an amazing researcher who spent his entire life um trying to understand more about why and how um people uh transition through and with different types of change and so um that class being my first one out of the gate was

4:26a great way for me to recognize that i was going to have to make some um i'm quoting in the air changes myself in terms of how i um managed through the um the doctoral program process and as i studied it to try to help myself um but be more flexible and adaptable i became fascinated with a theory that we'll talk about later i believe um called attachment theory and the role that

4:56attachment theory plays in how we as humans manage through the change process yeah so this is such a big topic victoria because of course there's change in our personal lives and i mean the place that we hear it a lot in the business world is about change uh in organizations or change in organizational structures change in organizational strategy and there's an entire field of consulting around change management um yeah i mean i know you're going to tell us a lot

5:30of things that you've learned about this uh here today but how frequently i mean do you see this i mean this was a i know this has been a big topic for a long time but can you tell us a little bit about the sort of rise of change managers that talk about has it always been a thing and organizational researchers are focused on is it relatively new uh is is it uh rising in concern and interest in in today's world or has it become less interest than it was say some years ago i mean i think that is a that's a loaded question um so from my perspective the real literature

6:06or the increase in literature really began um in the late 80s early 90s is a lot of the change and the um technology revolution was just beginning um back in the the late 80s and early 90s and the first article that i read about change management and i'm again quoting in the air proper was an article written by a gentleman named john cotter who happened to be a faculty member at harvard business school at the time and he talked about um his eight different phases or steps i believe um to help you transition

6:44through that change process and and that article from 1993 is often cited as one of the first um well accepted uh pieces of literature um in the change space what i will say is that um there there are other articles that were published before that notably one um by a gentleman named kurt lewin back in the early 50s that if you want to be um you know in the strict sense of the word talking about change

7:16literature i would argue that that article um lewin's theory was probably the first really defined um theory around change management so you've got a pretty big gap if you look at that article in the early 50s and you come all the way to the early 90s um and kind of there were articles that were uh published during that time but nothing that really took hold the way that cotters were kind of reinvigorated that space when you look at the literature post 1993 it seemed to to get a lot of traction and and if you

7:53look back um again as that technology revolution continued um though in the the introduction of some of the apple products and and i don't know if you remember the blackberry and the way we communicate as part of an organization's things inside that organizational space really began to accelerate in terms of um the pace and i would argue that it kept accelerating at a you know pretty predictable pace throughout the the early 2000s through the 2010s but when covid hit wow it just has exploded

8:32and i don't think we'll see that pace of change slow down now um maybe ever i just think things are on a trajectory um that have made the entire field of change management um explode but explode maybe in a different way than what we had seen um in previous times i don't know if you have any thoughts on that ron or you want to give me any of your perspectives if you agree with that timeline or

9:03no no i know i'm asking you because i said well this is definitely an area that's not uh that i'm most up to date on so no i i really appreciate that perspective that helps me have a better understanding certainly this is a topic that that we get asked about all the time and hogan about change management but this was a nice little lesson for me around some of the history on it and i actually didn't realize that kurt lewin was was actually involved in that topic um so uh yeah no the really really fascinating thing thanks victoria well you got me you got me thinking i mean you said covid and now

9:39we're looking at this ai boom i mean i mean so you're right the change doesn't seem to be slowing down uh anytime soon it just seems to be accelerating which do you have any thoughts on the ai part of it absolutely blake that's a great question and also a great note um i i think that for right at least from my perspective right now it's a it's a a really evolving space and the way that ai is going to

10:10impact uh the change impact change is fascinating i'll tell you a quick quick story i said when i started i am um inherently uh a change-averse person i like predictability i like to know what's coming um maybe a little bit uh a little like a little bit of control those kinds of things um and over the course of my career i have definitely um shifted my perspective i never forget where where i where i

10:41was um initially but i've definitely shifted my perspective i'm telling you that because in 2023 late 2022 2023 i really started to hear about this thing called ai and at that time i really didn't understand what that meant or how pervasive um it was going to be so i decided to uh as as i often do take a class and learn a little bit more about ai and how ai um was going to impact um my work

11:13and teaching and the higher education um as an industry and just to get a better handle on what it it it means to use ai and use ai in the classroom i have colleagues that are um at that time and maybe even a few still who are like no ai i'm not going there we're going to keep everything um the way the way it is for now but for me as i learned more about ai and i read more about it i decided that i was going to um be more proactive about understanding a little bit more about how it

11:50could be a tool in the classroom versus versus uh uh waiting and it's been really interesting because i teach an nba class um directly related to organizational change and i have the great fortune of uh i have uh outside clients or consulting engagements that allow me to bring um my students real world opportunities real world experience so we decided we had the opportunity to work we were working with a

12:21a group um and that uh particular organization needed a change strategy and i asked them if the class could create their change strategy and could the class use ai to create their change strategy i mean blake it was crazy i had one group who could who we um we decided would be the holdout of the five and didn't use any ai and the other four groups um were allowed to use ai so we had a control

12:53group if you will it was fascinating what we got out of it and how incredible and how much faster the groups that were able to use ai um came up with their their their uh their end result their end product it was pretty interesting though that the results were very very similar which i thought was also fascinating what was the real difference is the time it took so i'm winding into this question that you gave me um you know the the importance of of ai in our everyday lives and how that is even

13:29changing the way um we think about change and we think about how we're going to manage change and how organizations are going to do that i mean it's just incredible really i think i'm so fortunate to be part of such an incredibly evolving um and exciting uh space in the change management um time frame so does that answer your question blake oh yeah yeah it does it very much does but there was also so i know i mean that wasn't even no direction i thought we were even going to go go down today

14:01uh but but you know i had to ask um that's why we we can't just uh map out every episode perfectly um but what i want to get back to is something you mentioned um you know early on in your first response and that was the uh around attachment theory so there are a lot of people out there who think that resistance to change is irrational so i'm curious about how attachment theory reframes what's actually happening psychologically here can you dive into that a little bit i absolutely can and i also

14:36think that uh it's it's interesting because it will i'll pivot back around to where we just were and how that's so interesting maybe a little bit uh later related to um resistance to change so i don't believe as a fundamental principle that people are in fact resistant to change i know people use that phrase a lot we hear it written about we hear it um in in the media a lot but i don't buy it i don't believe based on my experience in studying attachment behavior for 15 years that it really is

15:12the change that they're resisting instead i think it is more about the loss that they will experience because of going through the change so it's for example we aren't necessarily opposed to a technology that's going to help us do our job more efficiently and effectively instead we are opposed to that transition period if you will that what what dw winnicott called the transitional space right that

15:46time where you are going from current state to future state and the uncertainty that's in that space and so what i believe fundamentally is that people are resistant to that uncertainty that exists in that transitional space not the change itself what do you think about that well well victoria i think that's really an interesting point of view i it makes me think about um you know the the need to innovate

16:18right i mean this is such um a big topic that we hear in organizations today well we need to innovate we need to stay on the cutting edge which is driving towards change so i that sort of puts the people in this juxtaposition where the concern is you know potential loss you know i think i think there that there's some real rationality behind your point there as well when we think about startup companies and and there's no real fear of change because there's not much to lose right there isn't

16:51there isn't a company yet right so there's no fear of losing anything whereas companies legacy companies that have been around for a while change does come with risk right increased risk of losing something so to me that makes a lot of sense but how do you square this demand for innovation with resistance to change i think that's a really interesting question and it's incredibly complex um because as i mentioned a minute ago um the work of dw winnicott around transitional objects and

17:25transitional space um really helps highlight and complement um the the research and the work done around attachment theory it gives us an answer to your question around the like what do you do about this how do you manage through um a loss that that that might be uncomfortable or might feel uncertain and really what we've seen is that identifying and providing support mechanisms for individuals who are

18:00experiencing change is critical i mean critical to success and what i mean by that let me dig in for just a second um is um more related to uh an object that an individual identifies as providing support so it's not necessarily what you think as maybe the leader in an organization um you folks might need you to do in terms of uh helping them feel supported during a change instead it's more about understanding um the more

18:38individual nature and let me give you an example pulling back to your um to your question around innovation and startups so i had the great opportunity to work with a startup company probably 12 years ago um that had just won was an incredibly innovative organization um and what i didn't understand then is that there was like there are facets of what they were doing and and innovation at its core that was related

19:10to ai it was just an involved it was like an early version if you will of what ai would do for us anyway um but this was an incredibly innovative young company i don't think anybody there was more was older than 30 and they won their first big contract and they were super excited about moving um locations they were going to get out of this one room space where they had existed for all this time and have like a proper office um so they did this and and it was interesting because there were probably 50 percent

19:45of the group who were very reticent um and the the number was around 20 people so it was a small group but very reticent to make this move the other 10 were like let's go let's go let's go this is so exciting so they get there and everybody all the everyone that worked there started to really struggle the productivity the performance really started to suffer and they weren't meeting the deadlines on this new contract it was a government contract that they had won and that's when i got to um come in

20:19and be a be part of it with them to better understand how this innovative future focused young organization all of a sudden is struggling and what we found was that the innovation and the creativity that had really driven the culture of the organization came from being in that one room space where they had started and now they were separated and they weren't connected in the way that they used to be in this new office space and it was fascinating how once we shifted things around and gave them the space to be

20:57connected and be creative again together not in silos that that um performance and productivity just shot back up through the roof and so what we're really saying is that that support that the entire organization needed even though they came at it you know some were excited some were not they all needed that creativity and support to be innovative and future focused and it was driven by their ability to be connected which i think is a fascinating um fascinating scenario i don't know if you have any thoughts on

21:36that i don't want to share any of that uh your thoughts in that space no i mean no i agree with you i do i do think that's fascinating i know and i mean i also think and i know we're going to get into some of the personality stuff here too you know but for me uh you know this this connection to attachment theory i think is is a really interesting one it's one that's i know near and dear to bob hogan's heart as well uh right this notion that it's about um well i mean part of the notion there is that some people would approach change more comfortably than others i mean that would be a big finding and

22:10and i again i don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves i'm sure we're going to talk about this as well uh but but those are the kinds of things that come to mind for me yeah so let's let's get into the personality stuff so oftentimes you know victoria people chalk up resistance to change particularly from an organizational standpoint uh for some reason is it like a communication problem or fail leadership like that seems to be where the fingers get pointed but based on my research you

22:41know i i did you know leading up to this episode you seem to think and i'm pretty sure that ryan and i would agree as well that it's a personality phenomenon so can you break that down for us let's let's let's dig into the personality i do think it has a personality um i do think it has a personality component but i think it's deeper than that i think it is um i think we can take this back um you know to a identifiable space um

23:12in our early uh developmental literature around um instinct and and biology right so i think that there is a really interesting um literature and research that would highlight how strongly our predisposition um to attach is formed during our early years not dissimilarly from from our personality and how that evolves so certainly um you know there is a complementary relationship um between the two

23:48especially during those early years but i think it's really fascinating uh to look at the uh the data that helps us understand more about what happens in those early years or different um personality characteristics that really lend us to be um to be more um willing to to change versus being a little bit more readiness um to to uh accept change and i think that's a really interesting space tell me a little

24:22more about how you um you know kind of what you've read blake and what you're thinking about the personality and the the intersection between the attachment behavior and i'd actually be curious to get ryan's thoughts on this because this is where this is kind of his his wheelhouse right here so let's ryan what do you what are you what's your take well i i mean i certainly do think that uh you know well i mean i think there was a professor somewhere who said basically all problems are some communication

24:52problem i'm not sure if i totally agree with that but sometimes the communication is very clear it's just a disagreement on what the outcome should be um but uh you know so but i i certainly do think that lots of of change or even some of the resistance to change things can be um you know managed better through through better communication i know that's so that we've got teed up a little later on as well but from a personality standpoint again this is where i i touch on you know this this topic of of attachment theory which again suggests that certain people would really have a strong

25:29reaction strong negative reaction change whereas other people would feel more comfortable with it although i do think um you know attachment theory would tell us that everybody uh feels uh some sort of anxiety or some sort of stress increase in stress when there is change but it's about how do they react to that increase in stress that that shows those individual differences sort of securely attached individuals um are are even though they experience that stress they're more likely to react in a

26:03in a positive proactive way around that order to order to sort of be resilient against those stressors whereas people with sort of an anxious avoidance style are more likely to sort of fall apart under those those kind of circumstances so if we're talking about change i mean this is where you're going to see very emotional reactions uh you know uh uh typically uh high highly intense reactions right away whereas people with more of an avoidant attachment style are more likely to sort of shut down in the face of

26:33change-based stressors um maybe they'll just hunker down and focus on their own work perhaps they would even consider um applying for other jobs or leaving an organization but doing so in a much more quiet way rather than doing it in a sort of um emotionally reactive kind of way is that consistent with the kind of work that you that you have you found victoria absolutely i mean i think that that's a very good um overview kind of of what the different attachment styles um look like and and attachment

27:07styles are um an important part of how we evolve going again back to um you know our early years our developmental psychology uh years and it's super interesting to me to really look back at um you know the time period between zero and five and kind of the amount of change that you've experienced and how you've interacted and connected with other individuals during that time and how that really does have a very um interesting influence on the attachment style you have as an adult and i i love the

27:43example um that you use for um for the dismissive attachment uh style and the reason i like that is because those individuals are are oftentimes very skilled at finding the the space where they will be more comfortable and so they find that object they find that support mechanism um we call it a strength anchor um and that strength anchor um and that strength anchor is what really helps you reset when you feel

28:15that initial um uncertainty or instability or um anxiety related to a change and the dismissive interestingly personality i'm i'm sorry attachment style is oftentimes um very uh very quick to find that support mechanism um secure is um secure is also um uh tends tends to do that very well but interesting thing about the secure is uh we've had some some great opportunities uh to to do some work around the secure styles and what we are

28:49seeing is that um over a population of about 20 000 sample size we are seeing a very distinct um cluster of different types of different types of secure and those different types of secure then manifest pardon me themselves a little bit differently in terms of what they um tend to gravitate towards to provide themselves support so really really interesting um to bring up the styles and there is so much ryan in that space

29:26um to be understood um to be understood and explored and what we're talking about you and i is not leadership style it's not um you know a personality per se it is truly how you as an individual um use the the environment around you or your internal um environment to feel secure or not um you know when you're experiencing some kind of some kind of change so attachment style is a fascinating space um to exist in terms of

30:01really wanting to understand what's going on inside that change um that change space so i love it that you brought that up and that highlighted that you know okay so my next question uh i'm gonna rephrase it a little bit because i think we have touched on you know earlier on about what you know what it's not really the change that is um you know upsetting for people or or you know you know causes any of that stress or whatever it's more about the loss that comes with it and then you you were just we

30:33were just talking about like security um so why is it that logic doesn't outweigh these things i mean like or is it something that just takes a little bit of time before the logic finally comes into play how what's your thought there because sometimes like you said some of these changes are actually going to make their job or lives better but it may be that point a to point b and what's involved in that change process that's that's problematic but how come how come people tend to react and allow

31:08their emotions or or you know or you know that concern about the loss outweigh the logic of this is actually better for me blake i think that is brilliant i think that is a great question i mean you guys have really you and this is great i love this conversation so much um i think that

31:32i think that it has so much to do with how how you feel like the change is potentially happening to you or if it's happening with you and let me let me use another example so i got to do a project with a government organization up in vermont and they were losing a leader everybody was super uh depressed it was a relatively small team 182 people so not too big but they were super sad about losing um their

32:08their their deputy director and everyone was was grieving if you will um and not really understanding why because it was a celebration because this individual had worked for this organization for 35 years and done his time and it was great and he loved it and he did great things but everyone was so profoundly sad and they couldn't really understand why they were so sad or what it was they wanted to be happy for him because he was excited excited to be moving to the next phase but they were having a hard

32:44time reconciling being happy with being sad and one of the things that he did that i think was um just genius was he acknowledged openly to the organization that they were sad and that seems so obvious i mean that seems like something everybody would do and that's oftentimes something leaders think they do but they don't right they're not doing it in a way that really helps their teams so the way he did it is he

33:18had a big all hands meeting and he created um what i will call what i will it was it was it's a toy but it was it's a stress reliever and it's something you you play with in your hands but instead of just giving out the it's called a tangle so it has a name um but instead of just giving out these tangles he had them personalized and he had them personalized with the organization's mission and value and so it was if to say to all 182 employees i understand this is going to be a

33:57challenge for all of you and you need to remember what kept us together it wasn't me i'm not the glue the glue is you the glue is the mission the glue is the values and through these simple little you know three dollar toys he was able to create a culture that flourished at a level even more productive more innovative more effective in his absence than it was before he left because he

34:34empowered his people to believe that they could do it on their own and i mean that seems like such a silly thing that you would need to recognize outwardly openly but i've worked with so many organizations over the last 15 years that fail to do that they fail to to bring everybody um to a place to say what is hard acknowledge it and then talk about how to build it back up and that's creating

35:04i mean he gave everybody in that audience a transitional object he gave them their strength anchor an anchor that they could rely on it wasn't just the toy it was again the mission the values the importance of what they built the culture of the organization does that make sense blank oh yeah it makes perfect sense ryan you got any follow-ups to that well i mean i think it's a really funny thing in some ways as well given what we know about attachment there being right the history on attachment theory is that it typically started with small children and about attachment to mothers or

35:39or parental figures and you know it's been extended into romantic relationships and into the business uh world as well but uh you know but the transitional object you know for for infants was you know it's you might remember me probably you had an object like this you know uh yeah some some like a little blankie or some uh people who've had children have certainly or may perhaps with a brother or sister you remember turning your house upside down to find said transitional object that was lost and we

36:12couldn't leave the house until that transitional object was found right so so that i think that's really uh an interesting uh and somewhat amusing uh um uh scenario where where this this leader uh provided these transitional objects for for people i suppose one thing that comes to mind for me is that this is almost turning an emotionally uh potentially negative event into an emotionally positive event that's what also struck me about that story victoria so it's recognizing that this change is

36:46going to have a create an emotional reaction but trying to turn that emotional reaction into one that's that's more positive in nature i mean easier said than done i think everybody wants to do that but the way this was done i think was really impressive what do you how do you think about or what do you think about that notion of of trying to turn this from a negative emotion into a positive emotion i mean ryan i think you are spot on i mean it is fascinating and i'll tell you that experience led us to do a really

37:16interesting analysis over um a set of data that spans 16 years and about 273 different federal agencies and really um look into this idea of the intangible transitional object because even though he gave them toys it wasn't really the toy that was the transitional object it was the mission and values that was really the transitional object when we really dug in as we kind of watched the organization

37:49um evolve over time and so it's super interesting to me to understand and the a classic example which has it just resonates with me and it's so recent um is the way nasa values mission and values and so what we saw when we kind of dug in and we started looking at these 273 different agencies and really started to try to understand the ups and the downs we this idea of mission and values but it can't be mission and

38:21values that are not um called out so mission and values can be um overused and over taxed um in terms of of being a support mechanism if they aren't called forward in a positive way so i think your note about the the positive side of this is really interesting and really watching how nasa over the course of the last 50 years has constantly come back to the idea around everybody that's part of this organization

38:54is working to put a person on the moon or to mars or to whatever i mean it's it's bringing that positive take us to the next stage the next space the next event that really is the important part of calling it out so i love that that was so um prominent to you in the story because that's that's right ryan that's exactly right and that's what leaders and consultants and managers are not doing is helping

39:28their people get to that space where they you know find that object tangible intangible they can provide that support and turn what feels like it might be a negative into a situation that is you know um showcasing the positive so i love that that resonated with you well victoria my assumption is that probably a lot of the leaders that are out there today in a in a leadership position um

40:00i'm going to guess most of them probably don't have you know books on the shelf about attachment theory um you know maybe i'm wrong that's just that's an assumption but so uh you know but how organizations and leaders introduce change it really can have a huge impact on how it's eventually received so let's say for that handful of leaders out there who are familiar with attachment theory what would be uh kind of a a best case scenario or or like a a good case study and how one might roll

40:35out that change differently to have a more positive allow it to have a more positive impact

40:44i think that is a great great question um my brain starts spinning around with lots of different ideas and so i want to kind of package it um in a way that maybe will will make make um make the most sense i think the if i had a one piece of advice to give leaders and consultants and managers it is not the framework because i don't really i mean i don't believe that there's

41:17one framework that if you use it every time you're going to have a successful change i just don't believe it i think that the framework that you use to guide the process needs to be specific to the organization to the change and to the way the people that are collectively the organization are going to be impacted by the change and so i i almost think that the framework is something that has to you know kind of be uh created each time or for each type of change however i do think that a

41:51fundamental level of awareness for observing behavior is something that everyone can do every leader every manager every supervisor every employee can be aware and observe the behaviors around them of what is important to to uh different individuals and so let me give you um let me give you an example so i work um a lot of the work that i've done has been with hospital systems um and that kind of started back in

42:28the uh early 2010s as it related to the integration of uh new electronic medical records systems and what we saw was the different employees in different spaces risk and it did age doesn't matter i always hear that oh it has to do with age no it doesn't necessarily have to do with age it does have to do with other demographic factors and it's you know again unique to the situation and to the individuals but what we

42:59saw was that for one set of individuals that were more clinical in nature that offering a specific type of training and education what didn't have the same appeal and didn't provide that same level of support that it did to the non-clinical employees in the organization and so we had to create a different way of interacting and training teaching educating um the entire organization about this new system and i

43:35think that um that observation from the leadership team um that was managing the project was really significant and it was super quick into the process of the change integration that that the the trainers realized that it wasn't impacting all people the same way and they were able to course correct if you will and i think that observation that awareness of the role that attachment plays in the workplace this

44:09isn't something that we just needed to focus about in kindergarten or on the way to kindergarten this is something that is part of our bio biological instinct it stays with us through our entire life that we we as leaders and supervisors and managers and organizations and co-workers need to think about like what these attachments look like and be more aware of it so that a word observation becoming observe you know being an observer of human behavior i think can be an enormous

44:44um game changer in terms of um you know watching how it's impacting those that are being um

44:54directly um in in the path of the change does that make sense blake or does that answer your question oh no i know that absolutely makes sense uh ryan what were your thoughts yeah i mean well one thing that came to mind for me here victoria is to typically we think about attachment theory we think about it as as attached to a a person right i mean in childhood literature is always attachment to to a parental figure and then the romantic literature is a romantic partner

45:26even in the organizational literature it's mostly about like a boss or a manager or a leader but i i wonder you've got me think wondering about sort of attachment to ideas or or attachment to organizational standards or policies and that got me thinking about things like some changes we're seeing with organizations around remote work versus in-person work and and and how uh our attachments maybe so you know one argument would be that well in-person work allows people to build those

45:57sort of attachments to other individuals versus it can be more difficult to do remotely but another argument to be made for seeing whatever the policy is being attached to that policy i don't know if people have that same kind of i it strikes me that they wouldn't have quite that same emotional attachment to it but i but i just really don't know so i'm curious victoria what do you think about this notion that people can get be attached to a system or a policy or some set of procedures

46:27and that changes to those procedures disrupt that attachment i don't know if that's really a thing or not oh my gosh ryan i see it is totally a thing i mean i don't i think you are just yes you're hammering that nail hard i think that is yeah you're spot on i really think that is one of those components of this discussion that is so underserved it is so overlooked it is something that when when we talk about change um with consulting teams and change management processes and frameworks that you know

47:05that that intangible idea that mission that commitment to mission that value that's associated with um you know working in a certain way i mean we see it so significantly in organizations that have safety cultures and that's not just hospital systems that can be um i've had the great fortune to work with utility companies um even nuclear power plants and those cultures are so um you have to be so careful

47:41safety such an important part of interacting with those cultures and i think it was probably um out in california the first time i visited a nuclear power plant where i actually understood that unsaid safety culture in a way that i never had even being in a hospital i recognized it once i saw it at the nuclear power plant in the hospital systems but it wasn't as obvious to me

48:11until i experienced um i experienced it like that and so i think the question that you ask is brilliant i think you are spot on i think that is an incredibly important part of recognizing what is important in an organization to the people who are collectively the organization and they're the ones being impacted by the change you know i often tell my students in my mba class which i coincidentally

48:41have tonight so i'll have to tell them a little bit about our conversation today but i um i often tell them about people like steve jobs and the type of leader that steve jobs was and it wasn't steve jobs the leader that people were attached to i think it was the innovation and the future focus and being a part of something revolutionary is what people wanted to be a part of that's what they were attached to

49:15and you know i think it's it's a fantastic that tim cook has been able to um you know continue that legacy not the person but the idea and that innovative spirit that is i mean it's difficult to recreate an innovative spirit like that i don't know if you have thoughts about that or if you have ever thought about i mean you know it being the spirit of innovation not the innovation itself that could be an attachment object but i think that's a really interesting space

49:46well i mean i think the steve jobs reference is is a very good one because i and i think you're right on because honestly he probably wasn't that pleasant to deal with on a personal level but was able to people were able to overlook that for like kind of what i would consider the greater good or you know like it was like what he did he transformed i mean if steve jobs didn't didn't was never born where are we today i mean i mean seriously like where are we without what what

50:22he did but yeah so that's that's easy to buy into and i can see how people can definitely get attached to that so that's a great example but i want to transition a little bit from leaders now to you know something else that we work on a lot at hogan you know and that that has to do with teams so i'm curious about team dynamics and what happens when you have a mix of attachment styles on a team like a different like you know maybe certain you know certain people have different attachment styles on this particular team uh and what happens whenever they go through change how does that how does that look

50:56i think that's a great question i think it's a super super important question and i think similar to to how i believe that understanding personality is a really important component of being part of a team i also think understanding attachment style and i mean powerful i can't even tell you how you know what i think it would be to be able to look at a re a potential research study where we know personality and attachment style and we can you know even do some work around correlation of

51:28the relationship um between those two wow that that sounds like exciting um research but anyway back to your question around um around attachment style i think that understanding who's on your team is to understand the attachment styles i recently worked with a team that was awesome in that it had um a representative from all three dismissive preoccupied and anxious and then two of the three um secure styles so

52:06that team worked incredibly well together but it took them a minute it took a little bit of time for them to get used to my i'm sorry their preoccupied person not mine their preoccupied individual and that that individual needed to have or feel constant connection with the other members of the team the dismissive person on that team was pretty much like i'm over this need for connection but once she realized that

52:38the need for connection in the preoccupied individual which happened to be a male which i loved is the fact that you know we sometimes have stereotypes even attached to some of the styles and and this was definitely the opposite of what what i have experienced people expected um in the past it was fantastic because once they realized how to to work with each other um it became just a powerhouse team but it took a minute and so

53:10i often feel like organizations put a team together and just wanted to perform so go do your thing instead maybe given a little bit of time and space and some type of activity that allows for identification of those styles maybe even identification of the personality um piece too to really be able to understand what makes the most sense for how this group um is going to work together optimally i mean i think that's an

53:43amazing question from a change perspective and experiencing a change especially if you're on a team that is going to be significantly impacted by the change of the organization taking that time to really understand who who is who's part of your team and what does it look like to be part of of this team i think is a really important um component what are your thoughts on that well well victoria you know you know part of it when we get asked about teams we are often asked about this mix of the right personalities and while there

54:19does seem to be something intuitive about that empirically it's really hard to find any evidence that oh it's this combination of personalities and i feel like it probably has to be the same thing with attachment as well that i couldn't say oh this is the right combination of attachment that you want want to have on a team i suppose i would think about it more from that team dynamic perspective of okay these are the folks that we have what is that what are the implications of that for team dynamics these are the

54:50attachment styles on the team how is the team going to operate how are the team members going to communicate with each other how um our uh mission or how our decision is going to be made um how does uh is it sort of uh what's the the attachment style of the leader and how does that impact the relationships between the individuals with the leader of the team those are the kinds of questions that that i think i would be asking in a team setting but i don't know does that resonate with your experience working with teams or um have you found some magical formula that that works yeah no i don't

55:28think there is a magical formula i think you're right i think you're spot on with that i think the the magical formula is to take the time to understand who it is that you have on your team right and to really i think you're what to your point i think that it's it's critically important to know who you're working with and to understand what aspects of being a part of a team they value and what aspects of being a part of a team might not be the most comfortable experience for them i think those are what you said i think

56:01is a spot on i think it's just there isn't a magical formula there's not a perfect combination if you will i think it's the but it comes back to that observation that we talked about a little while ago about understanding who's on your team about understanding who's part of the group and really how they contribute and what makes them um feel supported what gives them strength what anchors them um to um to to to whatever the mission is of the team or the task of the team if it's not um a mission

56:35per se anyway i think you're you're spot on with recognizing that there is no magic bullet if you will a magic formula i think it is instead important to to understand who who's sitting at the table maybe is a good way to say it you know so this next question victoria i i'm i'm asking this one because when we mentioned jason blair you know good friend of the hogan family um he uh he introduced you to us

57:06and recommended you as you know hey you should look into this and we saw the the topic that he proposed and we thought oh yeah this is a good one we haven't talked about really uh so so he indicated that you and him are looking into potential links between attachment theory and bob hogan's socio-analytic theory so i don't i don't know how far you are down the road on that is there anything you can share with our audience on this front without spoiling too much i think you all are planning something more public facing later so you don't have to this you can just give us the

57:40movie trailer um thanks so i definitely um yes that is correct jason and i have been um working in that space and talking about um the relationship or the intersection really um is more it's not really it's more than a relationship right i think it is truly an intersection where attachment styles and attachment behavior is so focused on understanding the individual and bob hogan's work around

58:10socio-analytic theory is so focused on the team in the group and really understanding more about how understanding attachment styles and um knowing what your attachment style is being able to uh affirmatively uh help folks be able to uh look at their attachment style as it relates to others i think is really

58:40really important and we are you know doing a lot of work um and some uh development of an assessment to help quantify that if you will but not just quantify it in a oh this is what you are because i don't know that that that's it that's always helpful instead quantify it in okay this is what your attachment style looks like but let's take it to the next level and let's really look at what your attachment style looks like in relationship to the different attachment styles of the people on your team and what

59:15does that mean like how how does an individual that has a dismissive um attachment style relate to an individual that has a preoccupied attachment style like i talked about a little bit earlier um that's a really interesting mix there but to be able to understand more about how those two interact i mean i think it's brilliant and it really frames um some of the important characteristics to understanding who your team is to be sure that you can support that team the way they need to be supported moving through change

59:50does that answer the question i i think it does uh ryan you i mean you know a lot about socio-analytic theory so where what what's your take on it yeah i mean i think one of the clear intersections between these two has to do with with relationships and of course this this draws on um you know you know um even other theories as well and bob hogan would say that that socio-analytic theory isn't just something he came up with it draws on several other theories and combines those theories together but i think one of the key intersections between socio-analytic theory and

1:00:24attachment theory is about relationships is that it's about life is about those interpersonal relationships those interpersonal relationships that we have are really critical from from an attachment theory perspective it's all about the relationship with some attachment figure whether that's a parent or romantic partner uh an individual at the workplace and it you know i think of attachment people often think that you know that means some sort of love uh i mean it partly depends on the the definition right there's different definitions of love and those kinds of things but but it's about

1:00:55some relationship right that there is some relationship and socio-analytic theory the same way says that you know that life isn't done in public it's done in those relationships yes there are things that people go do in private but many of the things that we do many of the things we think about many of the behaviors we engage in in private are done for social reasons are done for those those those relationship reasons to improve or increase our standing among our peers and in our social relationships so to me that's the main area of intersection where you see these two is that they both say

1:01:29hey much of social life or much of our lives is about those relationships and and i think that's to me that's what the key intersection that's where they they both put them front and center victoria any any thoughts on that i mean right i totally agree with you i think that is exactly why i think it is so interesting to be able to help people understand what that what that intersection what that relationship what it looks like and and why when when you uh are a uh let's see a decisive secure individual

1:02:07and you are very specific about the way you would like a change carried out that a preoccupied individual who's on your team might ask questions might want to know why might want to connect about it and instead as that decisive secure you you don't get annoyed or agitated by that because you understand that that preoccupied individual is very focused on connectivity and relatedness that you take the time to help make

1:02:40sure that they are um informed in a way that is helpful for them it doesn't need to be an individual um you know meeting per se but it could be just through a town hall where you uh you know you can inform the multitude of people so i don't want folks that are um listening to think oh my gosh this sounds like it's so laborious and it's going to take so much time it really doesn't right it can be done in a way that address um what big groups of people need in terms of support um during during that change i love i love

1:03:17that i think that was a great um way to say it ryan so thank you well victoria this has been an awesome conversation but i do have one last question before we wrap this thing up and you know that is if a leader listening to this podcast could only do one thing differently to improve how their team responds to change what would you recommend um that's a loaded question blake i you can you can add you can add more

1:03:50than one thing if you'd like but i i wanted to see what what that top one might be if you had one i mean i think that top one is really to understand how you provide your team with um that transitional object that strength anchor that object that carries you through or gives you the

1:04:15confidence the commitment um the clarity to move forward in a way that you recognize that even though it might feel uncertain and it might feel like you were are there's a loss happening that once you get to um you know out of the transitional space into um you know out of the transitional space into the space where um the change is becoming more normal um that in fact you will be um you will be able to uh to

1:04:46return to the to to the way you felt pre the change happened or maybe you don't return to the way you felt pre the change happened maybe you evolve to a new way of feeling about the organization because of the innovation because of the change i'll give you a quick example of that so when i went from work on march 13 2020 we were sent home at george mason um to teach um from home i struggled for for several

1:05:17weeks um with my routine i was doing the same thing i was getting up at the same time i was getting sitting at my desk um but i was doing it all at home i wasn't going to work and it was really interesting how i struggled with um what i eventually identified as my commute time and that commute time was that space where i transitioned from you know my personal life into my work life and i had to re-identify what that transitional space looked like for me as i was um staying at home and and not having to go

1:05:54anywhere what could i do to have that transitional space that would give me the support i needed to leave personal behind and go to work and it was really really uh important exercise and as we have turned back i've had to i've had to do the same thing in reverse order like not having um you know the time to walk in the morning or or do it at a different time of day um as i as we've gone back to work and gone back to more and more in-person classes it was definitely you know a reverse order so i think it

1:06:30is um the most important thing i think the biggest takeaway for leaders would be to take the time to recognize that you and everybody that works with you need this um the support that comes from a transitional object or a strength anchor or or however you want to call it um and you really need to take the time to identify that that i think that has a a power to really influence the change

1:07:00strategy whatever framework you pick does that make sense blake oh it absolutely does i think that's a great way to put it uh any closing thoughts ryan before we well no i think that's absolutely uh a really great advice i also think uh you know this this what is that strength anchor right when you're going through a change a process try to identify that i mean it's such good advice victoria to help help organizations try to identify what is that strengthening through what is the thing that isn't changing that's staying the same that you can feel anchored to you can feel secure about i think that's

1:07:36amazing advice and um really appreciate having you on here today to share this with victoria this has been wonderful so thank you so much well i thank you thank you both for the great opportunity to talk with you and uh to to have this fantastic dialogue as you can probably tell this is probably my most favorite thing to talk about so thank you both for the opportunity well thank you and i think our audience is really going to enjoy this episode and uh appreciate you coming on all right thank you guys

1:08:08and that does it for the science of personality podcast episode 148 be sure to join us in two weeks for another fun and informative episode cheers everybody

1:08:22this has been the science of personality podcast brought to you by hogan assessments you can access all episodes on our website thescienceofpersonality.com or on the streaming service of your choice see you next time you you you