How managers drive change with the C8 team framework

Jimmy: The beauty of consistency is if you keep showing up, the wins keep stacking up. And over day-to-day, you might not notice those small changes in yourself. But if you look back after a month or six months, you'll be a different person. Your team will be in a different place, your results will be transformed.
Welcome back to this week's episode of The High Performance Leader, the podcast for leaders working in complex, challenging environments to gain insights and ideas which help you increase your impact without burning out, and to help you build a high-performance culture in your team. I'm your host, Jimmy Burroughes. And if you're new to The High Performance Leader, make sure you subscribe or follow so you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes before you put down your device.
Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of The High Performance Leader. You know, one of the things I've really enjoyed doing in these solo episodes is having the opportunity to dive a bit deeper into the topics and the conversations that keep coming up when we're working with clients during the Ways of Working programme. And I just think it's so fascinating to explore topics in multiple organisations and see the same things keep coming up, which is why we wanted to do these shares. And if you're enjoying them, please do leave a review of The High Performance Leader podcast on whichever platform you're listening on. Uh we love reviews, we're really grateful for them, and it makes a huge difference to the number of ears and eyes that get connected to the podcast itself and the material that we share, so please drop a review if you to if you have a moment to spare. It only takes a few seconds.
So today, we're going to build on the topic that we started talking about in the previous solo episode, which was, how do we essentially turn our goal-setting process from an old-fashioned New Year's resolution into a resollution, which becomes a continuous improvement model and allows us to use a lot of the knowledge and the wisdom that we've already gained whilst exploring some new things. This week, we're going to talk all about the change process. So, how do we go through a transformation, which seems to be required of all of us right now, to achieve the most impact and the best results possible for us and our teams? Now, there are probably, I don't know, a few hundred different change models out there in the world, that if you were to Google, you could come up with a whole variety. It can be difficult to know where to start, it can be difficult to know which one you should be using. What we've done in the JBL team is to try and put together a very simple framework that you can apply to changing your home life, your work life, your team life, um or anything else that you think you can ah that that needs some change put- applying to it and also is going to benefit from better results and higher impact. So let's follow through the model today. And if you want to go deeper, make sure you subscribe to the Better Ways of Working blog on LinkedIn or, indeed, sign up on my website jimmyburroughes.com for regular newsletter updates, where we'll go a little bit deeper on some of these topics in written format, which I know some of you really enjoy.
So, let's get into it. If we think about the requirement for personal transformation, we could change an awful lot of things. You know, when we are trying to work with an organisation, they're often trying to change too many things at the same time. And this can have a couple of effects. We don't know where to put our effort, we don't know which piece is the most important piece, what are the priorities. But also, we don't know which of those changes is having a positive impact. So, the first piece of the C8 change framework is contemplate. And this is really time to introspect. It's time to sit and think on what are we going to change, why should that be the change that we make, and what will it look like when that change has been successfully made? So, we're really contemplating the priority, the purpose, and the plan. And or the outcome, essentially, of the plan. And when we start thinking like that, when we start at that beginning contemplation, that helps us get a lot of clarity. Now, from my experience, the best way to do this is to create a bit of a vision board. Now, that can have many meanings to many different people. What I'm suggesting is you start to note down what are the things that you could change and choose one. So, put then putting crosses through them, then starting to build the purpose out. Purpose is the value it's going to create, the capacity you've got, the why you're doing it, all of the pieces that build up purpose. If you If you want to go deeper on that one, go and read chapter one of the book. Once you've got that, your vision board starts to give you and other people around you real clarity about what that change is going to be. It's almost like when you journal or note down your thoughts, they start to crystallise and become much clearer.
Then you need to go to the second of the C8 sections, which is commit. So, you've decided what you're going to do. Now you need to actually commit and create the intention to change. Now, that could be going firm on your decision and eliminating all of the other things that you've decided not to do. Equally, it could be creating some sort of commitment in terms of a goal, sort of the goal for the change. And, often I find, from an accountability perspective, sharing that commitment with some other people. One of the things I committed to doing was to writing a book last year and to launching a podcast. And because I'd committed to my coach and to some other people around me, uh I had to do it. And even when there were days when I was like, "Hmm, maybe I won't do it", because I had that commitment made and it was written down, then I kept on showing up, which is really important.
And talking about showing up, the third C in our C8 framework is consistency. You have to show up every single day, even on the tough days. And when we say show up, that doesn't mean you have to bring your 100% every day. That means that you need to try and work on that change process or move it forward a little bit. When we talk about goal setting and we talk about transformation, I use the analogy of the pavement to penthouse. So if we're looking at a sky sky skyscraper, we wouldn't expect to go from pavement level straight to the penthouse. We've got to use the stairs, because the lifts are out of order, in this scenario. And we may, on one day, be able to climb 10 10 flights of those stairs or 10 floors. On other days, we might just manage one step. But the beauty of consistency is if you keep showing up, the wins keep stacking up. And over day-to-day, you might not notice those small changes in yourself, but if you look back after a month or six months, you'll be a different person. Your team will be in a different place, your results will be transformed. So, it's about the consistent showing up. Do the 1% every single day, minimum. Do the one step in the skyscraper every single day and see your results start to ch- to stack up. Equally, there will be days when you just don't feel like it. And that's when you need to have some grit and some perseverance, because it's that commitment that will make you stand out above those around you who gives up. And this is why resolutions fail, right? People aren't committed to them, and they haven't got all the pieces that form around making sure that that goal is achieved. So they give up, because they haven't got the commitment. Your commitment comes from the first steps: the contemplation, the commitment, and then being consistent to keep that commitment alive.
Equally, as I said, some days you just won't feel like it. And so, don't try and do 10 storeys in the building, don't try and even maybe do one storey. Just say, "Hey, today, all I've got is one step, one step forward." And that's okay, cuz that's meant you did 100% of what you could do. So be kind to yourself. If you make mistakes, if there are setbacks, if you feel like you aren't giving enough, be kind to yourself. The worst thing we can do, and this is what happens with people who are on diets, often, is that they'll one day maybe have a piece of chocolate cake, or they'll drink alcohol, and then they give up. Because they're like, "Well, I've broken the diet now. I'm screwed. I may as well not bother continuing." That is one way of of approaching it, but, equally, there'll be the person who said, "Well, yesterday I slipped, but today I'm back on the wagon. Today, I'm back committed to my diet." And they're the ones who have the commitment and the compassion to get to the end.
We're going great, so far, in the episode. We're halfway on the C8 change framework. And if you're enjoying this episode, please do make sure you leave a review. We really appreciate those reviews. And also, if you haven't thought about it already, why not share the link to this podcast to somebody who you think is going through change or could benefit from listening to The High Performance Leader? It'll make a massive difference to them, by having an approachable and easy-to-listen-to podcast that they can follow along each week.
So, let's then move to C number five in the framework, which is curiosity. Curiosity. One of the things that you're going to have to do when you go through transformative change, whether that's you, your family, your team, your business, is you're going to have to explore new things. Transformation is doing things you haven't done before and becoming something you haven't been before. So part of that is going to be going along new paths, is going to be exploring new things. Chapter four of the book, Beat Burnout, is all about exploration. And we talk about curiosity being one of the key pieces of exploration. Saying things like, "How might we?" and "I wonder what would happen if?" and then going and finding out. Being open and having a growth mindset, growth mindset being the learning mindset, and not thinking you know it all, because you can't transform if you know it all, you are just going to keep doing more of the same. But actually saying, "I don't know anything and I want to go and learn more", and seeing what comes up, and reflecting on that.
Equally, then we move to number six, which is, if you're going to go on this transformation, it's always better to have a battle buddy, a gym buddy, a study buddy, if you're going on a change process. Equally, try and surround yourself with a community. The next C is community. Find a tribe of people who are going on that transformation in a similar direction to you. Whether that's you take your team with you, whether that's maybe you join a mastermind group or a networking group, or something where you can surround yourself with supportive people who are sharing and believe in the commitment that you've made. It's always easier to achieve something really tough when you're doing it with people around you. And, you know, having been through military training, having been through high-performance teams uh programmes for years and years and years, it's the teams that stick together and it's the teams that work together and share those aligned values and purpose that always outperform the superstar individuals. So find a community of supportive people.
You may or may not know what the next uh C is all about. We say course-correct. Now, a little fun anecdote for you. When the rocket went to the Moon, the space program, American space program, took a rocket to the Moon, that rocket was only actually on course, perfectly on course compared to the plotted course that they had had a trajectory for, 2% of the time. The rest of the time, they were making mini course-corrections. So they were altering the direction that that the spaceship was flying to make sure it ended up in the right place. And much like that space rocket, when you're going through your transformative change, things are going to change around you. So even though you had your plan with your vision board, and you're committed to it, and you were doing all the right things, the world will be changing around you. We're in a really complex time in the world right now, where there's lots of macro, socioeconomic factors going on. There's political things going on. And that's going to change the landscape within which you operate. So you need to be prepared to course-correct, be flexible, adapt your approach where necessary. And if something goes wrong, learn from your mistakes and change direction slightly so you still end up where you wanted to end up. You know, the the path to victory is not a straight line. It's a wiggly line, and there's some loops, and there's some bumps, and there's some hillocks. So course correction is absolutely key.
And then our final C in our C8 model is celebration. If you wait till the end to celebrate during your change, it can become a really, really long road. What we recommend you do is you break down your celebration into milestones. And let's take a very simple example. We're going to go through a change process that takes 90 days. Well, within that 90 days, or that three-month window, there's about 12 weeks. So let's create a celebration opportunity at the end of every week to see what has happened and what we can celebrate winning, moving forward, or completing. Recognise those big things and also recognise the small things, because if you're certainly taking the people around you, a team, along the way, what might seem like a really small thing to you could be a big thing to them. So try and identify big things and small things that you can celebrate, and take time to appreciate the personal growth and the the the the distance you've come. As I mentioned, if you look at it day-to-day, then you might not see much of a change. If you look at it month-to-month, the change will be more pronounced. But what I recommend you do is to start journaling or keeping track of how you are starting to think differently. I had a conversation with a client today, and he had kept track of his notes and his notebooks for the for the 5 years that we've worked together. And he said, "I cannot believe the things I used to write. And I can see, as I've gone through the notebook, how far I've come and how much I've changed." And it's because he's got that snapshot of each of his thinking processes at various points in time that he can celebrate the enormous wins that he's had. And we're talking about a business that's tripled in size. His revenue has more than doubled, and he's really, really successful. He was successful when he started, he's even more successful now.
So that is C8 change process. We've got: contemplate, commit, consistency, compassion, curiosity, community, course-correction, and celebration. And if you can work through the model in that order and continue to put your energy and your heart and soul into transforming the person you are, transforming the team you're in, transforming the organisation you work for, this is, honestly, one of the best models that we have ever come up with to help people like you go on journeys like this.
I hope you enjoyed this solo episode. Uh please do uh drop me an a note at [email protected] if you have any topics you'd like us to go deeper on or talk about. Uh many of these topics are guest requests uh or from clients who said, "Can we do an episode on that?" So if you've got something you want me to talk about, please let me know, and I'd be happy to do one. Take care. Speak soon.
That's it for this week's episode of The High Performance Leader. If you enjoyed this episode, please drop a review on whichever platform you listened on. We really appreciate it, and it helps us to connect with new listeners. Also, if you haven't already, head to jimmyburroughes.com and download a copy of my latest bestseller, Beat Burnout - Ignite Performance. It's the leader's playbook for building a high-performance culture, and is packed with practical action tips to get you started. Stay tuned for next week's episode of game-changing insights and ideas on The High Performance Leader.