Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt, Google's First and Former Chief Innovation Evangelist - Innovating the Future: How Do You Want to Be?

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Shannon Lucas: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And I'm Tracy Lovejoy. We're the Co. Ceos of Catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalyst to create bold, powerful change in the world.

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Shannon Lucas: This is our podcast move, fast, break, shit burnout, where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation in large organizations. And oh, my goodness! Do we have an amazing guest today? Speaking on that very top topic, I'm so thrilled to have with us Dr. Frederick Ferret. He shaped one of the most fabled creative cultures in the world

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Shannon Lucas: as Google's first chief innovation evangelist. He founded Google's Innovation lab, where he trained tens of thousands of Googlers to develop and experiment with new ideas, and taught groundbreaking classes on innovation and creativity at Stanford University for more than a decade, coming up soon on June eighteenth. His book, What's next is now? How to live future ready

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Shannon Lucas: for those looking for guidance on how to invent a better future, and I got a sneak peek, and I have to say it's phenomenal.

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Shannon Lucas: His ideas and practices are used by international government agencies, organizations and businesses ranging from the UN to NASA to the Nba. His work has been highlighted in more than 250 media outlets like fast Company Harvard business manager, der Spiegel and BBC. News. Born in Germany, he experienced with a nature centric lifestyle with his family in Santa Cruz, California. So great to have you, Frederick.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Thank you for having me, Tracy and Shannon.

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Shannon Lucas: I love that. We can see how you're living. Your sort of catalyst nature centered life with your geodome. There, we'd love to start off. You know, within your own words about how you relate to the concept of catalyst. Maybe what catalyst has meant. Especially as you've been an innovation leader at Google. All those years.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yes, I'm I'm joining you here from the Santa Cruz Mountains.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: which is, you know, on the West coast in California, and we'd love to say

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Frederik G. Pferdt: it's above Silicon Valley, right? Which gives you a little bit of a perspective

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Frederik G. Pferdt: of all the the good stuff that's happening down there, the craziness, the chaos, the creativity, and so forth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And yeah, I'm here with, it's a real background. I've get that. I'm getting that question a lot.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: It's a real environment, and I always like to share that story that you know. In 2,019, I think it was

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Frederik G. Pferdt: first week of December I gathered a couple of friends here

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in our little forest, and I asked them to help me.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Built this dome.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and you know we we put it together, and like we celebrate it, and it's supposed to serve as a guest house for

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Frederik G. Pferdt: friends and family, and everybody who wants to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: to come visit us.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But none of the guests ever showed up, because 3 months later, you know, the pandemic

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Frederik G. Pferdt: happened, as we all remember.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: March 2020,

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and

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Frederik G. Pferdt: my friends kept joking around. Hey, Frederick, did you actually predict the future that you know we always needed to?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Or we we needed

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Frederik G. Pferdt: different places where we can work where we can live, where we can communicate and meet, and so forth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And as I'm not a big believer, and I'm actually not a believer at all in predicting the future. I'm more a believer in creating your own future. I always tell them.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: hey, you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: whatever you wanna see happening in the future. Right? You have the power to create it. If you wanna have a different environment for yourself to meet with people or

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Frederik G. Pferdt: gather people or

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Frederik G. Pferdt: just be working.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: You can create that right. And you know that's one of the the examples I love to share. But coming to to your question around

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Frederik G. Pferdt: catalysts right? Which I really love, that that terminology, because it's a positive kind of like momentum creating word.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know. For me it really embodies that quote around

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Frederik G. Pferdt: be the change you want to see in the world.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and as a catalyst you really have that power to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: embodying the change you wish to see.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And for me

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Frederik G. Pferdt: it involves

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Frederik G. Pferdt: maybe 3 things, 3 things that I would

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Frederik G. Pferdt: really relate to that notion of a catalyst. First, it's inspiring others.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Secondly, it's challenging the status quo.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And thirdly, it's around sparking new ideas of thinking and doing. And so these 3 combined really

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Frederik G. Pferdt: for me, stand for that notion of a catalyst.

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Shannon Lucas: I love that. And I I mean, the whole thrust of your book is you know, it's it's like, what what future do I wanna create and ha! You know, how am I going to embody that that question that we were talking about as we were as we were kicking off about like, you know. How do you wanna be in the future? Is such a great way to start to, to get to know people and so I love the intersection of that's so.

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Shannon Lucas: intuitively often how catalysts show up. But your book is about making a lot of those things you know manifest I'm just curious, like, you know, you have this amazing story about how you you embody what I would call the sort of a catalyst mentality when your family and your home were threatened

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Shannon Lucas: by a fire. And I I love the example because it's so easy when we talk to others about how catalysts show up, and how positive about the future, and optimistic and curious we can be in there. They can be dismissive like, well, that's really easy, because or you know you have the privilege of doing that because but in the face of insane, possible, personal family impact.

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Shannon Lucas: you still embodied that. Can you tell us that story?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yes, yeah. Happy, happy to go back in time a couple of years.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But let me start with that deep belief that I have which is around

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the future is not what happens to you.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: The future is something you happen to.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and if you start

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Frederik G. Pferdt: understanding and believing that right.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you move away from fretting over what could happen in the future.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and start thinking hard about what should happen in your future.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: As the future is not such a distant, mysterious force that we always think about right when we look at these visuals of like, you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: 50 years out, or a hundred years out

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Frederik G. Pferdt: where you know everything is flying and everything is looking shiny.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: It's crafted, really, by your daily choices that you make, and if you start believing that, and understanding that I think you can also relate to how we reacted or responded to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the wildfires that were just a mile away, burning close to our house in California.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And so imagine right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: You see fires coming closer and closer over the days, and you know you're living in a forest. So you're in a dangerous place. And then.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, one morning a police officer knocks on your door and gives you basically a 10 min warning to pack all your stuff

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Frederik G. Pferdt: for your family of 5, and leave your home for good.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: not knowing if you ever will return right. So that's a situation that we ended up in

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Frederik G. Pferdt: end.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: We, you know, packed this, the stuff we

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Frederik G. Pferdt: we value and find meaning in.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And we, you know, hopped into our little Vwanagon from the 90 S.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And went on our road trip right? That we not. We're sure if we ever returned from

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Frederik G. Pferdt: with

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Frederik G. Pferdt: not hope, but a sense of optimism, I would say radical optimism that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know things are gonna be turning out good right in at the end. And because that's the only way of approaching your future is taking that optimism with you.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: even in a situation where you might end up losing everything in terms of your

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, environment and your home.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but we had everything we needed with us, right? We had our 3 kids, you know, my wife and myself. We had us that we were

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Frederik G. Pferdt: taking on that road trip again, like not knowing if we will ever return. And what really stood out in that situation is

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the way we responded. Right? We responded with a sense of openness. Where we said, like, you know, we're not sure how this is gonna end up or where things are going.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But let's embrace that openness, that whatever is going to come, you know, we have a little bit of control in deciding what's what's going to happen.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And it helped us really

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Frederik G. Pferdt: to live a different lifestyle afterwards, where, you know, we

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Frederik G. Pferdt: found a different relationship with our

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Frederik G. Pferdt: with our planet, with our mother Earth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: We

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Frederik G. Pferdt: really understood that.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know it's

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the climate is changing, and our actions and our choices really make a difference.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And so

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Frederik G. Pferdt: now we live a

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Frederik G. Pferdt: a lifestyle where we grow our own food. We

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Frederik G. Pferdt: really not just respect nature, but we nurture it right? We want to give more back than we actually take from nature.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And that's really something that helped us

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in that moment to again have that sense of optimism, that this is a lesson learned that really changes our life moving forward, and I think that was something we then afterwards were grateful for, because now we can live a lifestyle that is more aligned with nature, and and really helps us to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: experiment our way forward.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Thank you for sharing that already. I know they're going to be conversations in my household cause you've helped me

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): really concretely talk about.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): why, mindsets are a choice

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): and not something that's just natural to someone. But you, you mentioned earlier, when we were chatting before we hit record that you were grateful, for example, for the police officer that came to your door

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): versus some others had some different reactions

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): in the face of the police officer right in that. In that choicefulness

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): of I can. I can be grateful. I can be angry.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Is so powerful. So thank you.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): As you know our listening audience are executives, catalytic executives that are driving change in organizational environments. And so I wonder, as we think about this philosophy of future doesn't happen to you, but you will happen to the future. Right I may. I may have. I may have gotten that a little wrong, and you can course correct me.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): How do we apply this in organizational settings?

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): What is it either, you know, looking back at your experience and organizations that you feel like we can take from these philosophies, or what is happening around the world today, that you think we should take inspiration from.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yeah, Tracy, I think you're making a really great point that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know our mind state is our choice. I call it mind state instead of mindset. It's more like

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the moment. But per moment perception you have.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: about the world, and it's influenced by your

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Frederik G. Pferdt: thinking and your feelings. And so.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, you have more control than you think, and how you respond in these situations.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know what I want to do is really offer a new paradigm, one that equips, you know, people and leaders with that mindstate and practices necessary to be

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Frederik G. Pferdt: what I call a proactive rather than reactive

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Frederik G. Pferdt: human being

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Frederik G. Pferdt: to innovate rather than stagnate, and to create

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Frederik G. Pferdt: out of uncertainties. And as soon as you can embrace that, and you know I'm I'm showing a way and how to do that.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: I think you can create a future that shows you more opportunities.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Hmm.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: You.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, started earlier with

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that question that really I want to want to put forward. And that is, how do you want to be in the future. We so often, you know, ask others, especially like our kids, you know. If you have children, we ask them like.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: What do you want to be in the future? Or who do you want to be in the future? Right? If they have role models, or if they have specific job descriptions in their in their minds. And you know, answers are typically around.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer, or I want to be you know

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Frederik G. Pferdt: famous, or I want to be that specific person. Right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: I think that's the wrong question to ask for me. It's more important to ask, who do you want to become in the future?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: What future self can you envision today that you want to be

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in the future.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And if you ask, who do you want to, or how do you want to become instead of who do you want to become.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Then you were relating more to qualities right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and I think that also speaks to your

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Frederik G. Pferdt: concept around.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Do you want to become a catalyst right? Do you want to become a person that is more empathetic, more kind, more loving, more open, more curious, more

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Frederik G. Pferdt: more more

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Frederik G. Pferdt: catalystic in in a way.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And as soon as you decide any of those, and it could be a combination, I think you can make the choices today and put the things in place today that help you to get there.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Yeah.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And

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Frederik G. Pferdt: I think that's

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Frederik G. Pferdt: one of the probably advices I would have for leaders in organizations is, instead of asking yourself, like.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know. What leader do I wanna be.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: or

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Frederik G. Pferdt: who do you want to be in the future? Ask yourself, how do I want to be as a leader?

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Whoo.

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Shannon Lucas: I'm

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Shannon Lucas: go ahead. Tracy.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Any specific advice you have to leaders that are

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): trying to actively create those responsive environments, those creative environments.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I, I was looking at at data just this morning. Actually, Shannon and I run programs where we help organizations identify their catalysts. You call them future readies right? And we work with them to begin to build skills and processes into how the organization works. And so it begins to create a firefly effect right where you know they're all over. And then it spreads.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): So I saw in the data that these folks said, I feel so confident in my skills, in my ability to use the skills. But I'm not confident that the organization I sit in is really ready for change.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): So what advice do you have for folks to support what you're talking about, and really be able to bring that into the fabric of where they sit.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yes, that's that's an interesting observation that you found is like

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that. We

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Frederik G. Pferdt: tell ourselves that the organization or the culture or the community we're part of is not ready for change. And I hear that so often right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: working with, you know, very large organizations, you know, around the world, or even startups, or.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, smaller organizations that are

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Frederik G. Pferdt: successful in what they're doing

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Frederik G. Pferdt: most of the time. What I hear is like, hey, Frederick, we like to innovate, or we like to, you know, change things. But I think the organization or the culture is just not ready.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And I think that's wrong.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: because we are actually setting as individuals the tone in the culture, every, every individual, every human being right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: How they show up every day.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: are responsible of how the culture actually works.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Hmm.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And so

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in my work, when I was.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know,

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Frederik G. Pferdt: beginning to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: try to build a culture of innovation at Google.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: I basically traveled to about 27 offices in less than a year.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: My suitcase was packed with playdo and pipe cleaners and posted notes, and all these things that we always thought like are helpful to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: experiment or unleash an inner child in, in people. And I really was on on a journey to discover like, you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: how is innovation happening here, like? What are some of the things that I can learn to then eventually scale innovation to to everyone and the whole organization, and what I found on the way is individuals, remarkable individuals that were open, that were curious.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that had a lot of questions. But they were the people that really helped me to understand how innovation works. And then eventually, you know, I build a community with those folks. I called them

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Frederik G. Pferdt: innovation evangelists.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and those were like, around 650 people that really

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Frederik G. Pferdt: where?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Embracing all of those things that we felt are

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Frederik G. Pferdt: helpful when you want to build a culture of innovation.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and that's empathy.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: tenx, thinking and experimentation. Those 3 principles really

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Frederik G. Pferdt: were embraced by these individuals

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in like

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Frederik G. Pferdt: every part of the organization and they were teaching it. They were role modeling it. They were coaching it.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: They created programs around it. They were training it.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and they were living it most importantly.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and I feature about 14 of those individuals I could have feature, probably like more than those obviously

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: everyone had a remarkable story.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and I picked 14.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: That I

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Frederik G. Pferdt: find that probably everybody can relate to right, which was very important criteria for me, and it's a diverse group of people.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and one of those folks

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Frederik G. Pferdt: is Kaler Ryan. He lives in Dublin.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: an incredible creative human being.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but he probably could be described as that powerful catalyst that you really want to have in your organization.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: He used to work at Google. He worked at Meta and Facebook afterwards.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and he shares, and

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Frederik G. Pferdt: a really incredible story that you should check out. I'm so I just want to briefly introduce him.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So

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Frederik G. Pferdt: what he mentions is that for a long time, you know. His corporate side was what he called Bruce Wayne from Batman.

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Shannon Lucas: I loved this story. It was such a great story. It makes it like it makes it so clear, Frederick. Yes.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Exactly. And so his creative side was Batman.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know. At night he was filling halls and pubs, and

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know events with standup comedy. Right? So he was leading standup comedy, and he was

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Frederik G. Pferdt: a tremendous creative person to to lead, that he also got an award for

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Frederik G. Pferdt: an alternative anthem for

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Frederik G. Pferdt: for Ireland, from the Dublin times.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and so, you know, at night he was batman, but during the day he was Bruce Wayne.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and one day he asked himself.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: what if I bring Batman to work?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And that changed everything.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: because from then on he asked, you know what's the creative way to look at this? Or what's the creative way of solving that?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So imagine you know he was doing, you know, standup comedy for an all hands right, or a musical version of your presentation slides, or you know, whatever you can imagine.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But as soon as he brought Batman to work.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that's where

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Frederik G. Pferdt: he figured out. That's exactly what the corporate actually needed, right? Because they needed creative ways of doing things and creative ways of looking at things.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And I think everybody has their batman or bat girl inside themselves, and just ask yourself.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: what if you bring that to work and everything you're doing? And I think that's a powerful way of looking at that. So yeah, check out. Kelly Ryan and I have. You know more of those stories in the book as well.

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Shannon Lucas: It was. It was such a great, I mean, cause it's super memorable, right? And there's what we found is like when we work with organizations to identify their catalyst. We, you know, it's an opt in you know, sort of engagement. People have to fill the thing out themselves. But we find these people who, after they're identified as catalysts, the managers will be like well, we never thought about them as a catalyst, but

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Shannon Lucas: she does run a nonprofit outside of work, and she has written 2 books, and you know what I mean. And and I think it happens for catalyst, because we can be told so often in the corporate world. You're too loud, you're too fast, you're too, whatever. And so increasingly, and especially when you add different layers of intersectionality on that. Increasingly. Maybe people are doing that work out outside of work. And and there's an invitation I hear, and bringing this

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Shannon Lucas: in. But I wanted to build on that, because it's connected to you know what I heard you say. Part of the advice that was sort of implicit in what you said was, you ended up building a community. You had a community of these 650 people, and it, you know, it was an interesting thread, because, as I was listening to you, talk about like the cultures created by people.

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Shannon Lucas: it's a for me that's a yes, and because if you're one person. It's like that video of the guy who's dancing at the thing right? And he's dancing by himself, and he looks like the crazy ass person. And then the next person gets up, and then the next, and then it's the whole movement. And it's not just that one crazy person. And so one of the things that we talk about a lot around, you know, driving change in large organizations. They agree with what you're saying. And

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Shannon Lucas: there's a lot of emotional labor. There's a lot of like expectation around self management. When we get frustrated. If we wanna bring people along, we have to have some of the reserves and the things that you're talking about. So I'm just wondering if you can talk about like if you're one of the those early catalyst, or you know future readies in your organization. How might they go about that? And are there other tools or skills that they should have to be able to sustain that energy.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yes, it's a

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Frederik G. Pferdt: great observation. So 2 things I probably want to share. First, one is about you as an individual, what you can do.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and that has always been a guiding principle for myself is around.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness right? It's such a

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Frederik G. Pferdt: profound

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but powerful way of going about things right.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: You mentioned that story about that individual that gets up and dances, and then everybody, you know

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Frederik G. Pferdt: looks at at him or her, and, you know, waits a little bit. But then they join because it's such a fun and and joyful thing to do.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Why wouldn't you?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But that person didn't walk around and ask everyone for permission if he or she can dance

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Frederik G. Pferdt: right. They were not like having these waivers where, like people could sign like up. Can you give me permission so that I can get up and dance

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Frederik G. Pferdt: right? So just

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Frederik G. Pferdt: if we, if we play that metaphor

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Frederik G. Pferdt: a little bit longer.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: How often do we in our work in our life wait for that permission slip that's handed off

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Frederik G. Pferdt: out to us where we feel like.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Oh, now, finally, my manager, my leader, or my partner, or my team, or my mom, or my dad, or whoever

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Frederik G. Pferdt: gives me permission to do something.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And that's

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Frederik G. Pferdt: it's it's a task that is is just not helpful, because you shouldn't spend your time walking around and asking everybody for permission. Right

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Frederik G. Pferdt: again. That person that started the dancing movement was not doing that.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And just imagine, it would be such a funny picture if everybody like needs to sign something, and, like, you know, read.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: read a long slip of, you know permission.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: But we often do that right.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Just don't ask anyone right. Just go and use your confidence and and see what happens. And what I experience is 99% of the time

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Frederik G. Pferdt: people will actually kind of like, you know, support. You get behind. You find it interesting.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and in 1% there is maybe a person who says, like, Yeah, yeah, that was not okay. Or you shouldn't do that just ignore them right? Because you don't do anything illegal. That's, you know, important.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: You're not creating harm. It's the opposite. You're creating a movement around change. And you're creating a movement that is positive and forward looking.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and who could say no to that?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So find

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, in these 99% of supporters and people who are like, you know, admiring what you're doing, find a couple of that are really becoming your champions, and applaud and like create the next movement

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and get up and dance whenever they're like somewhere else. Right? And I think that's what I found with my 650 people in that community

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Frederik G. Pferdt: is, they felt

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Frederik G. Pferdt: what we call in a.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in a safe environment, a psychologically safe environment that I've created for them, where they

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Frederik G. Pferdt: only shared what they were doing outside of work, what they were doing there. 20% time, which is, you know, one of those famous things that people could dedicate about 20% time to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: work on things that are not related to their job description.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So we just talked about those things.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and they always felt like, this is what excites them. This is where they are passionate about and so forth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: end.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So the second thing I want to share is like you as a leader, try to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: build such environments, try to create an environment where people feel like they have the freedom to try. They have the freedom to get up and dance. They have

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Frederik G. Pferdt: a psychologically safe environment where they can

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Frederik G. Pferdt: do whatever is

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Frederik G. Pferdt: different, whatever is new, whatever is challenging the status quo, whatever is a new idea whatever that is. And we all can create those environments right? It's just a matter of

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Frederik G. Pferdt: role modeling that as well

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Frederik G. Pferdt: being that leader who creates a psychologically safe environment needs to be that role model

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Frederik G. Pferdt: where people really trust and and understand that this is not just lip service. This is actually like practiced by that leader.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And so

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Frederik G. Pferdt: again, like to summarize first.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness, get up and dance

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Frederik G. Pferdt: because most people will actually love it.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And secondly, if you're a leader, create an environment where people can feel

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Frederik G. Pferdt: comfortable to get up and dance. And you know, as a leader, you can create those environments.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I have a follow up. I wanna learn from you in this area of ask ask forgiveness, not permission, which you know is an adage we know we love, and

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): when you study the catalyst community we see a pretty high incidence of catalyst getting fired, and in the stories that sit behind it, we'll see that they will often trigger what we talk about. As the corporate immune system. Right? The corporation has said, the organization has said, we want change. I you know I've I have begun to do this, and then something begins to happen.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): The system. It's rising up to maintain the status quo, and often the catalysts can become, you know, kind of the center of that.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And I'm wondering if some of the answer you know, cause you said, you think 99% of the time it works. And 1% doesn't that we get slightly different statistics than that.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): But I was curious, because in talking about your group. You had 3 things. So they experiment same as catalyst 10 x future thinking same as catalyst

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): empathy. We actually find there's quite a range of folks that we call catalyst, and their ability to really translate what they see into their environment. So I'm wondering if that's the difference.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Talk to me about how it works out so often

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): to ask to not ask permission.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): Just ask for forgiveness.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Yes, there's there are many things, Tracy, that you that you mentioned that are interesting. First.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: ask yourself.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: isn't that actually good that you're fired because you created positive change. Right? Do you want to, you know, be part of an organization that is not

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Frederik G. Pferdt: grading change. That is not, you know.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: holding that value of innovation.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, doing meaningful things, being creative and so forth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know, if

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Frederik G. Pferdt: if you're writing your next

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Frederik G. Pferdt: job application

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Frederik G. Pferdt: from, you know, a place where you got fired for doing, you know, for being a change agent and and a catalyst. I think that's a great thing, because you can include those examples. And like, Hey, I tried

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Frederik G. Pferdt: to change everything in that organization.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and but they were too resistant, or, like, you know, I I got fired for that. But that's actually a great story, because the next employer

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Frederik G. Pferdt: might actually look for exactly those people who are change agents who create the change they want to see happening in the world.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: So that's the first thing like, that's just a question you have to ask yourself is like.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know. Do you want to be the person that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: does always the same same things over and over again, and and sticks to the routines and practices that have been done in the past? Or do you want to be the person that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: try something new and something different that leads to a different outcome?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And you know, one example I like to share, and how you know, I tried to reward people for doing things differently was a penguin award that I introduced

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and I learned that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: by

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Frederik G. Pferdt: teaching experimentation and prototyping on a ship called the Entrepreneurship, where we literally ended to the sale to the end of the world.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Patagonia and

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in Chile, and we had about 30 students from Stanford and about 30 students from Chile.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And you know I wanted to, you know, teach on experimentation and prototyping, and how that can help you to learn fast.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And we watched those penguins on ice shells, and what was fascinating is that when we observe those penguins

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in nature

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Frederik G. Pferdt: being on that ship.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you see that there's always one penguin that jumps first into the water. It's the courageous penguin right. And the rest is kind of like following slowly.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but mostly, like, you know, first watching, if that first penguin comes back up again because there's a 50% chance that they find food or they become food.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And for me it was such a such a magical moment, because that's how organizations usually work. There's one

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Frederik G. Pferdt: courageous penguin. Maybe it's a catalyst, right? Maybe it's someone

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Frederik G. Pferdt: who jumps into the cold water tries something different.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: They have a you know, a chance to find something new, a new market, a new customer, a new technology, a new process, whatever it is.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: or they might have a chance of not finding that.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but they always will learn, and they will learn for everyone else that follows. Right? So the organization that's standing on the ice shelf watching carefully. If that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know courageous penguin comes back up again, or that human being

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Frederik G. Pferdt: who tries something new and jumps into the cold water. It's very important that we reward those people.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: and so for me, I introduced the penguin awards. That was a little

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Frederik G. Pferdt: penguin figure that we handed out biweekly to the person who jumped first into the cold water.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: not recognizing, rewarding success, but rewarding, taking a risk which is important because they always learn something coming back.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And that's what they shared with the rest of the organization, because to close that story we all know what happens. If no one jumps.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: everybody's going to die.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: the whole organization will eventually

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Frederik G. Pferdt: disappear right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And so that's a powerful way of looking at that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: where we want to reward and recognize those people who take a risk.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Now, you asked that question around. You know, experimentation is something you see as well like in catalysts, those notions of Tenx thinking and thinking radically different.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: but also for me was empathy right? The people who

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Frederik G. Pferdt: showed empathy

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Frederik G. Pferdt: where the people

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that really had that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in-depth connection with each other. Right?

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Frederik G. Pferdt: They really

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Frederik G. Pferdt: we're able to

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Frederik G. Pferdt: understand the needs and perspective of those

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Frederik G. Pferdt: they aimed to serve through innovation right? And I think that's a very powerful

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Frederik G. Pferdt: way of looking at change as well as you're looking at change. And you know everything is changing all the time. It's just the law of nature.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: understanding what people might need in the future, and having that empathy

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Frederik G. Pferdt: is such a foundational

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Frederik G. Pferdt: element

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Frederik G. Pferdt: that ensures that the innovations that you pursue are not just technologically advanced products or services. But they're truly meaningful and impactful to people's lives.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: And as soon as you realize that

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Frederik G. Pferdt: you know that empathy is one of the most critical factors actually in

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Frederik G. Pferdt: leading change, and especially if you are leading a team right, having that empathy

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Frederik G. Pferdt: around what your people actually need

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Frederik G. Pferdt: in terms of support, encouragement.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: inspiration, and so forth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: is a very critical skill that we all have as human beings, but we could probably use a little bit more.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): I just love that. You've taken us back to the beginning of you know the call to action. How do you want to be right do I want to be the courageous penguin? Do I want to be the leader that's going to create psychological safety? Do I want to lean into my empathy, Frederick. Thank you so much for the time with you. Today I am excited to go in action on so many things. I heard this hour.

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Shannon Lucas: Ditto.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Thank you, Shannon, and thank you, Tracy, for doing wonderful work. And yeah, let's be the change that we want to see happening in the world.

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Tracey Lovejoy (she, her): And thank you so much for listening to our audience. If you would like to learn more about how to accelerate positive change, go to our website at catalyst constellationscom.

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Shannon Lucas: And be sure to check out our book, move fast, break shit, burn out. If you have other catalysts in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way. And Frederick, the name of your book that's coming out on June eighteenth.

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Frederik G. Pferdt: Next is now how to live, future ready.

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Shannon Lucas: Awesome. So check it out. Thanks again.