A Quantum Leap in OD

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0:46 Well, hello everybody, thanks for joining again this week. We are very excited to have a great show today. I have a wonderful guest, doctor Terry Jackson, and he actually I have to pull up his bio, but he has done some phenomenal work in the area of organizational development and organizational transformation. He has created a new way to diagnose organizations, which I think is incredibly important. Part of being a great organizational development person or human resource person I just spoke to a group at UNCW last night is to have data and to have information. Accurate data and accurate information, not just focus groups, thoughts and perspectives, but real diagnosis of what's going on and what's hidden in an organization, And I think Terry brings that to the table in a way that, frankly, I haven't seen before.

1:48 Terry and I have known each other for a long time, and I'm delighted to have you doctor Jackson in the show. So tell me what made you think about this, discovering the hidden consensus within an organization? Render? Good morning, Thank you. That is a great question. You know, with my experience in organizational development, all of this was started inspired. By talking with my daughter, and she was a chemistry major. Oh, we're sitting looking at the periodic table, and she asked a question, does this concept also apply to business?

2:30 And I thought about it, and I said, well, elements in the periodic table and react to each other. So yes they do. And so I begin to wonder, how could we create periodic table that was related to organization versus chemistry. Oh I love that. I love that. So how did so how did you go about sort of crafting this whole thing for yourself? Well, you know, that's a good question. I sat down and I did the old traditional thing as I started putting pen to paper and just gotting down my technology. But it still works. It still works.

3:10 I started putting pen to paper around what my ideas were of what it would look like, how many elements would be, and you know, I was just looking to add aitude for a consultancy. And as I began to write down ideas and I shared some of those ideas with friends who were in the technology space, they say, hey, man, you have something and I can I can help you build it. And so I begin to deal with words and phrases that we use on a day to day basis in the in the corporate setting, you know, like vision and purpose and stakeholder accountability, responsibility, uh, you know, inclusion, uh, operational efficiency, productivity. And as I dealt with those, I said, you know what those are terms that could be a part of periodic table for business. And so ultimately I came up with sixty of these terms wow, and created also what we call the sixth intelligence. And those six intelligences are around cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, transformational intelligence of course, and the other three They fit into a framework that is very similar to nature and how nature works. Because we know that every organization is a living BEV organism and because they're not static and people interact all the

4:41 time together. How can we make this work? And that's so that's how it all came about, just tossing around those ideas and finally putting it to paper, having a friend build it, and so far, so good. Yeah. Well, you know, when we were talking the other day, I didn't realize that you focused then on technology too in your PhD. And I was like, oh, so that makes incredible sense, incredible sense. So I saw an analysis you did of a local business here in Southport actually, and it was very insightful, very incredible. Where have you used this and how is it driven change for an organization?

5:25 You don't have to give the company names unless you want to out. Of Well, you know there's a healthcare system that I've used it, right, and so when I ran the scenario for you, the system that I did have are using it with a currently is a smaller system. But we went in because they were set on having transformation become a part of the DNA of their organization. And so what we did was we we have three assessments that we use that helps us triangulate not only what people are saying, but underneath the surface of what people are believing. Organization.

6:05 Yes, I'm sure you've experienced as I have. We're in an organization. We decide that we're going to be structure, go through a transformation, and everybody seems excited outwardly to say we need it, yes, yes, yes, And what happens is what they truly believe is can't go through transformation. We're going to lose our jobs. Yes, absolutely. And so by understanding that hidden consensus, we can begin to understand what they believe so that we can craft solutions around helping them overcome their challenges with the belief system, which we know the belief system is really the culture of the organization, right, and so now we're talking about making the culture but organization better while we're going through this transformative process.

6:55 From caterpillar the butterfly. Yeah, oh, I love that this question. Caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. That's so great. Well, you know, that's an amazing thing because you know, you and I have worked on mergers and acquisitions and we've gone through a lot of transformation projects in major companies, and getting to the bottom of what people really believe and what they're really worried about is key because people won't change if they're still fearful of what's going to happen to them. And most employers don't want to be upfront and outfront about some of that stuff because they're afraid too. So how do you address that, terry?

7:37 You know, as I was telling someone yesterday, that has to be addressed up front, because that is a reality. I remember working with an organization several years ago and the CEO telling the organization that they were getting ready to partner with this other organization. Well, the reality of it all is it wasn't a partnership. Never is. Someone is being acquired, that's exactly right. And so they were being acquired, but the language in the organization was partnership. And so I finally told him one day, I said, when are you going to tell them that this is not a partnership. They are thinking that they're going to be equal to those in the same positions that the organization, but in fact, what may happen is some of these positions that they have here this organization don't exist any.

8:30 Longer and they're redundant. Yes, absolutely, And there was there was fear of telling the people that it was going to be a they were being acquired. He continued with the language of partnership, and it didn't do well for the morale of the organization being acquired because when they realized it, they said, well, he didn't tell us the truth. So the truth in organizations with transformation and issue is could be told up front. Here are the possibilities of what's going to happen as we move along this line of transformation.

9:11 Yeah, yeah, that's very very powerful. And do you share the diagnosis that you do with the full organization or how do you share it back? Yeah? So what we do is we go in and we do this. We do three assessments that gives us great insight into culture, great insight into what they believe as an organization, insight into what the actual individual executives believe. When we get that insight, we go back and we do a debrief and we show them how they what they believe as individuals and what they believe. As a team, and then factistating. Yes, and then what it takes in order to work on those beliefs so that the transformational process can be for successful. What our system also does in a real time basis is as we go through that analysis, we benchmark how they are against those within their industry. And so they'll see on a rip, yes, they see a real time benchmarking and then based upon the challenges that they face, it makes recommendation in real time because it is AI and it is predictive analytics at the same time.

10:27 And so with that we can go through and we can make predictions not only about their success, but we can show them predictions if they are not willing to go through the transformation, how it negatively cascades throughout the organization and the impact that it'll have by not taking the recommendation. That's very powerful, Terry, very very powerful. So do you find that the executives necessarily see things more rosy than the rest of the organization and how do you get alignment? Bit So, what do you see when you when you work with the executives? Are they in the same psychological mindset as the other the rest of the team in the organization.

11:11 I think it's a it's a simple answer, and the simple answer is no, right, they're normally there. There normally is a perception gap, and that perception gap is when you ask the executive team, you know, how is the organization, they give you a rose colored reality that their views that they're living through because they're thinking vision, how do I move this organization to the next level of performance? How do we gain more market here? So I'm looking to the future and I'm looking at it from a rose colored pair of glasses, and that's okay.

11:51 But when I go to those on the front lines who are doing the actual work, the perception is different. So we have an assessment. It actually measures that. That's how we get to the belief que methodology measures the perception system and the subjectivity of human beings. And so once we get the two from the front line as well as from the executives, we do a debriefing that includes both to show them where they are from an executive perspective as well as from a frontline perspective. Interesting, and are people ever in denial about that on the executive level or.

12:34 You know what they normally say? They make comments like wow, we really didn't understand what was going on at other levels of the organization. We were so focused on where we are here, we lost touch with the everyday employee and what their tasks are and how those tasks move the organization along. And so often without having some pool or tool to help them stay in touch with the every day employees. It's easy to have a different perception because of the space that they're walking through as an executive, and so what we try to do through real time data is always they have Actually we create these dashboards that they can see on a daily basis, real time, and then we suggest that they take the assessments on a quarterly basis, so everybody is always updated as to if their perception gaps, or if you've implemented where the improvements have happened, or maybe where you've stall.

13:41 Right, Yeah, that's fascinating. What a great sort of reiterative tool for senior leaders and for employees too. I mean, where have you have you seen? I'm sure you have, but I know this is a new tool in many ways, but have you seen big different differences where alignment does come into play? Yes, And I'm glad that you mentioned that, because part of what the tool does automatically is it goes in searching for the alignment between those at different levels of organization as well as those in different departments of the organization, and as that alignment happens, we look at the alignment and say, okay, here's what the people are saying. Now let's look below to get back to the hidden consensus. Yeah, because that hidden consensus, now added to the alignment, builds a strong It gives you a strong picture of where you are and helps you develop a vision of where you want to go. But where you're going on the new journey what we call the transformation journey from Caterpillar to Butterfly, it's driven by real time data that you can see versus having to guess where we actually are.

14:58 We're going to show you where you are step by step. So do you find that's absolutely brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And do you find that there is hidden consensus in the organization that just hasn't been surfaced, but that people have a greater sort of view and understanding and belief about what's going on in a company then is recognized. Yes, yes, there we have found that there's always a hidden consensus that is that is okay, you know, we we think we are we're saying we are a great organization and here are the things that we are doing. But then there are people who are saying we are not great, but we are afraid to say, you know, and then you have the you have the silos. You know, it really comes down to being in an environment where people are fearful of saying what's on their mind for fear of retribution of what may happen because they didn't go along with the team. Right, But oftentimes we don't need the always go along with the team. We need that divergence because that brings in the quality of thought to create better solutions.

16:10 Do you find that the senior executives always listen to that? Oh, I like these questions. Executives are not gonna like what I have to say. You know, they're human, right, right, So exactly, there are some who will listen and listen for listen's sake without doing anything about it. There are some who will listen and say, you know what, that has a lot of value to what is to what they're saying. There's a lot of value to that that we need to experiment or explore a little bit with what they say just to find out for ourselves. So those are those who are curious. But then there are those who say, well, hey, you know, we're moving right along, we're doing well, so this point in time, that's not applicable, and what ends up happening is later down the line, what they listened to and didn't act on.

17:09 Comes back around to bite them. Yes, to bite them, to have a negative impact on the organization. So we have to learn as humans executives that we have to be able to listen and consider what is being said, because that is someone's perception of the reality in which they're working within that workplace, and that's value how they are perceived and what they're seeing, because unfortunately, for many our perceptions are reality. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Well, that's true, that's very very true. And one of the things that you know that I've learned through my career is that perceptions do drive reality, whether you like it or not. And it takes minutes seconds for someone to have a perception of you, and once they have a perception, it takes forever to change that. It's not an overnight thing. If people have decided you're not a good leader, to change that or whatever whatever they've decided to change that perspective could take forever or never, and then it becomes a cultural norm, which is very difficult.

18:19 As you and I both know, changing organizational culture is critical, if not almost impossible. Yes, And that's because it happens at the surface. So we take these assessments to say, Okay, we're aligned and we're not misaligned. Okay, So the question is what what is it that's causing the misalignment and why? Right, that's in the belief system that very few assessments actually measure. And I'll be real honest with you. I stumbled upon this methodology because as I wrote my dissertation, I came across Q methodology, which is an academic research methodology that measures human subjectivity and perception. And wow, as I was and it was created in nineteen thirty five by William Stevenson who was a psychologist and physicist. So as I was looking for research methodology that was mixed method that's what Q provided me quantitative and qualitative.

19:24 Right. As I said, around developing this, that's that I wonder if I were to use methodology in this operating system, how would it how would it work, how would it interact? And it was the exact that was needed because every organization is made up of human beings. Everyone has their own perception. We need be able to measure that to understand belief systems. How those belief systems play a role in the workplace, and so that allows us to go below the surface. Yeah, that's that's that's really great. So what happens when the senior executives get this big aha? What do they you know, how did they react to that because a lot of them take it personally since they're leading the organization.

20:07 Yeah, they do take it personally. But what I always say to them is what we are showing you is for the greater good of the organization, and so what are you willing to sacrifice for the greater good? And once we have that conversation around sacrificing what is in the greater good of the organization and it's actually going to help his performance because the organization. Is going to perform better. We sit and we negotiate what the engagement is going to look like. We find out where where, we show them where the key areas are are the most important areas that they need to address imediately, and we go in and we use vertical AI agents to read in a read only fashion to begin to examine the data within their system to help them with the recommendations to move the organizational performance.

20:59 Well, that's fascinating so using the AI I mean not because you can get data so much more quickly. Now I've been using it myself. So so how do you how do you actually do that? Go in and get the all the A I mean do they give you the data or do you go in and how do you do that? Well? These these these uh we build a vertical AI agent. Yeah, we get with their systems people and so we they give us access to their system via I vertical agents and say, for instance, there's a challenge in finance. We're building agent specifically around finance. What those challenges are. We connect to their system and we begin to read the data.

21:46 As we read the data, we're looking for patterns. We're always looking for patterns of data, and we're always looking for cost efficient. The system is built that way. So as we're looking for the for the data around what's happening in the finance department, what types of decisions are being made, Which decisions were good decisions, which decisions were not so good decisions. If you look at internal rate of return, because every organization has an internal rate of return, if you invest x amount of dollars, how much do you want to get back? So we take a look at all of that data, and we show them the patterns in that data, what was good, what was not so good. So of course you want to go along the lines of what was good, kind of minimize or eliminate what wasn't good because it helps that performance in that department very good.

22:36 Well, that's a lot of data to come through, and if you can get AI to do that vertically, that's you know. I mean, you and I both PhDs. We've been data crunching all our professional lives, frankly, and that's a how did you develop that? How did you get AI to be able to do that? It's interesting because I was traveling one Saturday. I decided to call a friend and then I called friend and I told him what I was putting together, and he said, man, that sounds very interesting. He says, have you ever considered vertical AI agent? And at the time, I really didn't know what they were. I didn't know what I don't know, I don't know what that is. What is it?

23:16 So it is? It is a connector. It allows us to connect to other systems in a secured fashion, to read the other system read only, no manipulation of data to read only the data within their system, and so he was talking to me about it. I really didn't know what it was. So when I finished UH traveling and I got off, I looked it up and I said, oh, this makes sense. And then he said I can build those. So that was a Saturday. Following Tuesday, we had a conversation. He said, the whole system carry I can build Wow, okay, and AI agents. And then it's evolved so much since then.

23:58 We have the AI agents that we utilize. We have we've created the organizational genome, which are familiar with the human genome of how scientists broke down the human body genetically to see how it works and how to best heal it. We use the same thing around organizational genome leadership genome. We can break down genetically, if you will, the organization of what's working, what's not working, who works best together, who doesn't work best together, and it predicts, you know, again the silos that could potentially happen, how to eliminate them. And then from a leadership genome, we break down the traits that are really needed by a leader to be able to lead an organization, or we will show you this is a good leader, but this leader right here will not be the leader that is needed to run the organization. They'll work well in this department.

24:54 And here is why we can we break all of that down genetically if you will. Yeah, well that's that. I can see where that could be threatening to some people. It is very it is it can be very, very threatening. But again I go back to we're trying to do what's in the greater good of the organization, right, exactly of the stakeholder and the greater good of the shareholder. With that in mind, you know, let's let's move forward. It might be painful now, it'll be fruitful when we get further along in the process. Right, sort of like a diet. You know, it's painful now, but you'll feel real good when you look much better at yourself.

25:36 That's right, that's right, that's right. So Terry, what what three things do you want people who are listening to this show to take away from you and your discussion. Oh, that's a great question. That I'm grateful to have created this transformational ecosystem. It came through me, and really at the bottom, the bottom line is what it does is it works with time, team, and money within an organization. How time, team and money, how to be more productive, how to generate top line revenue, how to generate bottom line profitability, how people to be are are productive, and how to build a culture that is sustainable and a culture that thrives.

26:27 Yeah. Wow, really fascinating. So how do people get a hold of you? That's a great question. You can go to my website JCG Consultinggroup dot com. You'll see the whole story of the caterpillar to the butterfly on the website. You can connect with the pig. Your models on there too. Yes, the model is on The model is on is on the website. We also have a complementary seven question executive assessment that people can take, and that is is E E O, P T. Peter tom O, D O S O S dot com dot com.

27:11 Okay, backslash seven Q because it's only seven questions. Oh I got your backlash seven Okay. It's only seven questions and there's seven questions. It'll give you an executive analysis how you relate to transformation in your life and in your workplace. So are you as an individual transformation? Uh? And what you believe about it and whether or not you think it's accomplishable in your life as well as the organization in which you work. Wow, Wow, how how great is that? You can find me on LinkedIn? You can find me on LinkedIn. I do a lot of posting on LinkedIn as well. Jerry Jackson, pH, Terry Jackson, pH d Well Terry, thank you so much for giving me the time today to really chat with you. It was wonderful. And you know, I think this is a really game changing tool for organizations and I'm glad you have it because I'm I'm really I've always been on the data driven side of organizational change. And you know, on our field way back, we used to do the focus groups and you know, ask questions and you know, if there's a thing that has that has a place. But it's not really good organization analysis. And what you have is scientific. It's it's really directional. It's really somewhere you can hang your hat on making real change in an organization, which is exciting,

28:44 very exciting. Thank you, Thank you so very much. Thank you for giving me the time to interview with you, to see you again and to talk about be Tide operating system. And You're right, it is scientific because it is built the punt an academic search methodology and so we yeah, and so it makes it more precise. And we like to say what we do is we we align to activate and architect human potential. Wow, that's great. Wait, aligns what was the next one? Activate, activate and an architect. Oh that's great. That's great. That's like Caterpillar to butterfly. That's absolutely that's terrific. Well, Terry, thank you so much, and I'm so glad we live in sort of very close to each other. And I'll see you soon. You okay, thank you, bye bye. Well, thanks everyone for listening. I hope that you got something from this broadcast today and see you next week there'll be another show