August 22, 2023 • 30 mins
What if stress, that ogre of modern life, could be our friend?
We pose this provocative question to our special guest, Chris Young, the Director of Workforce Development at the Texas Department of Transportation.
With his impressive background in military service, diplomacy, consultancy, and workforce development, Chris offers a fresh perspective on stress and change.
He introduces us to "Eustress" and "Distress," the two faces of stress, which in some ways are loose, parallel opposites to the two forms of happiness: "hedonistic" and "eudaimonic."
If you've been wondering how to navigate rapid change in the workplace, Chris's insights are what you need.
Join us for an invigorating chat about compassion, empathy, and business self-care.
To learn more and connect with Chris Young, visit:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisyoungphd/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Pelè (00:00):
Hello happy people.
Welcome to the ProfitableHappiness Podcast.
Hello everyone, this is Dr.
Pelè with the ProfitableHappiness Podcast, and today I
have with me a fellow AustinTexan, the Director of Workforce
Development at the TexasDepartment of Transportation,
(00:22):
Chris Young.
How are you doing today?
Chris Young (00:25):
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Pelè (00:28):
It's a pleasure to have you.
I know we're somewhere in thesame city, but I just love to
meet people who are learning anddevelopment experts like
yourself or human resourcesexperts like yourself, because
we can get down into talkingabout some human stuff that's
important.
So you know, chris.
On that note, I'm going to askyou to maybe lead us off with
(00:50):
your definition.
In your years of experienceworking with people at the
workforce level, what is thenumber one challenge that you
found that you know you have tohelp out with in your line of
work?
Chris Young (01:04):
Well, there are a lot of challenges, but I think
most recently we've really seenthat changes in the workforce
and being able to adapt tochange really quickly, being
resilient, dealing with highturnover more work than
anybody's ever had in thehistory of contemporary United
(01:25):
States history that's probablythe biggest challenge.
Is change always coming at afaster rate and with more things
changing every single day?
Dr. Pelè (01:35):
Yeah, no, and there's got to be some psychology
somewhere about people notliking change very much right,
absolutely.
And so, you know, getting themto sort of maybe have some
compassion around themselves,their own sense of struggle
toward change is an importantthing, because I know that's an
important topic for you.
But, on that note, you know, ifchange is the challenge or the
(01:56):
problem or whatever it is peopleare dealing with, give us a
sense of how you, chris Young,became the guy that helps to
solve this problem.
And, by the way, let me justtell you something On your
LinkedIn, you have somethingvery cool.
You are he, him and y'all whichis a Texas thing, right, y'all?
Chris Young (02:18):
I think y'all is a great contribution to diversity,
equity and inclusionconversation that we, as
Southerners and Texans, shouldbe proud of.
Yeah, they contributedsomething to that conversation,
absolutely.
Dr. Pelè (02:33):
And it all works great .
It works perfectly.
It caught my attention.
I was like that's kind of cool.
I haven't seen that one before.
So tell us.
What is your story?
How did you get here?
How did you become, in myopinion, the hero that helps
people find this compassion andbecome human again at work?
How did you become that guy?
Chris Young (02:53):
Well, I've always been in public service.
So since high school I startedin the military, went to school
and then even continued to workoverseas with the US State
Department as a diplomat, and Icame back from overseas and
worked as a consultant in theprivate industry supporting
(03:13):
public agencies.
So I've really always been inpublic service.
And then, coming to the TexasDepartment of Transportation,
where I've been for eight and ahalf years, you really get a
chance to see that what you'redoing impacts everyone in the
country, in the state, in yourlocal community.
Dr. Pelè (03:34):
Wow, so you, basically you've walked the walk is what
you're saying.
You, literally you're here.
You're a veteran of this fieldof human, I guess, difficulty.
But let's talk about the ideaof change for a little bit,
because I do agree with you.
It's such a big challenge, inyour opinion.
How does what is it?
(03:57):
Why don't we like change?
Chris Young (04:01):
I think that when it comes down to biology and
psychology, we're all creaturesof habit.
What is familiar, what happenedyesterday, is what we're
counting on happening tomorrow,and when that gets challenged in
the workplace or our personallives, that creates stress, bad
(04:21):
stress and good stress.
I like to highlight to peoplethat there are two kinds of
stress.
We only focus on that one word,stress.
But the other word in Englishis you stress E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S,
so it's got two differentversions of stress.
And so those are good stresses,like when you're excited about
(04:42):
a birthday party or you'reexcited about getting married or
having kids or taking on a newrole.
That's also stressful, eventhough it's positive.
So I think that we're hardwiredas humans that when any change
comes, to view it as a stressorand we have that stress response
(05:03):
, which is a trauma response offreeze, flight or fight in that
order.
And so that happens.
Even in something as simple asa project management meeting
where somebody changes the scopeon you.
All the way up to we're gettingmarried tomorrow, that's the
same reaction in your body.
Dr. Pelè (05:24):
Oh my gosh.
One of the reasons I love doingpodcasts is I just sit back and
learn, because you've justtaught me something I never knew
before.
Of course, you're a workpsychologist, that's your thing.
But I didn't know that stressis actually defined in the
literature that way.
But I tell you one thing a lotof people also don't know that
(05:44):
happiness also has twodefinitions.
They think of happiness and theyusually think of the rah-rah
version, like hey, let's behappy.
And then you know, and let'sget the ping pong table in the
foyer, all that stuff, andthat's actually called
hedonistic happiness.
So, in the same way, the otherkind of happiness that is more
related to engagement is calledeudiamonic happiness, and it's
(06:07):
also starts with the spelling EU.
Just like, just like you stress, there you go.
So I'm like OK, wait a secondhere, this is so cool.
No, no, but I love the way youdefine that because, wow, that
gives us a new lens to look atstress and to think about.
You know, maybe not everythingthat's bothering us needs to
(06:28):
bother us.
Maybe it can be helping us.
Is that kind of how you'reseeing it?
Chris Young (06:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's when itcomes to that concept of
happiness and I talk about thiswith other people, leaders and
really anybody in the peoplemanagement business is that in
this day and age, you have thechoice.
You're going to talk about oneor two things.
You're either going to talkabout happiness, healthfulness,
(06:56):
mindfulness, being present atwork, or you're going to talk
about burnout, stress, turnover,increased cost of benefits.
You get to choose which one ofthose you're going to talk about
, but you are going to talkabout one of those things.
Yeah.
Dr. Pelè (07:14):
Absolutely, and, whether you like it or not,
those things may not seem likethey're connected, but they are
connected to the bottom line,and I think we're kind of in an
industry of intangibles, wherewe just talk to leaders about
these concepts soft skills andpeople go well, that's soft, I
(07:36):
want the hard stuff.
Give me the one that gives medollars.
That's a great point.
Yeah, how do you help leadersembrace what you and I have
embraced, which is these softskills are not that soft,
they're pretty darn hard.
They are solid, they getresults.
How do you help peopleunderstand?
Chris Young (07:54):
that Absolutely, and that's a core challenge in
the learning and developmentfield and in the HR space,
because we're constantly tryingto prove a negative.
So we tell people, hey, you'vegot to go to this mandatory
safety training, and theresponses always well, why do I
(08:14):
have to do that, nobody's gottenhurt.
But then I have to say, well,nobody's gotten hurt because you
went to the mandatory safetytraining.
I would much rather try to havethat argument with our
leadership rather than thereverse, of them coming to me
and saying someone got hurt, nowwe need to address it.
(08:36):
So I think in the HR space wealso have that challenge of when
things are going well.
That's when the leadershipcomes in and says well, things
are going well, why do we evenneed this function?
Why do we need to talk abouthappiness and wellness in the
workplace?
Everything's going OK, rightnow.
Dr. Pelè (08:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you On that note.
Let's get into the how.
So someone's listening to this.
They are either a leader at anorganization struggling with
well, how do I help people withthese intangibles and get them
to create high performance?
How do I get my hands aroundthis?
What is the how?
Do you have a favorite numberof steps that you take people
(09:19):
through in your learning anddevelopment approaches?
Or do you have a favorite storyof a time that you helped to
actually create the change thatis required?
How do we solve this problem isreally my question, I think.
Chris Young (09:35):
Yeah, I think if we're talking about this in a
work context, then almost everyorganization has some sort of
change management process orthey have some sort of project
management framework, andnothing I'm saying negates that.
So anything that I say doesn'tmean that you're going to turn
around and a listener is goingto say, oh, we can't do that at
(09:58):
our organization because wefollow the seven step model or
anything like that.
But everything we're doing isjust a generalized framework for
real change management andreally human performance, and
that's what we're talking about.
All of our companies, all ofour organizations are made from
people.
So everything that we're doingis the people management
(10:19):
business and it's sometimes it'sreally simple.
And so for us in the learningand development sphere, we have
a lot of different models, butprobably the most well known
model is the add D model, addi.
So the analysis, design,development, implementation and
(10:39):
evaluation of training, whichit's not a it's not a real, you
know, stepwise process, but it'ssomething you can layer onto a
project management framework andreally address all the house of
what you're trying to do toenhance human performance.
And I think that's important toemphasize because we know that
(11:02):
in contemporary American societywe're really geared towards the
bottom line and beingproductive, and most of our
organizations will ask us youknow well what's the return on
investment of this.
So we really have to apply thatlens that we're talking about
performance, and that's one ofthe things that I emphasize in
(11:22):
the learning and developmentsphere is that when we're
talking about adult learners,we're not talking about
education, we're talking abouttraining, and those are two
different things.
Education and training are twodifferent things.
Education is about exploration,it's about personal growth,
personal development, and ittakes a long time, whereas
(11:45):
training is about addressingperformance gaps.
And that's why sometimestraining doesn't always feel so
friendly is because theorganization has determined hey,
we're just trying to fix aproblem, Everything else is
outside of the scope of trainingand you've got to get that
somewhere else.
So that becomes a challenge forus in the learning and
(12:07):
development sphere.
Dr. Pelè (12:10):
And boy, I've actually experienced that challenge
because, you know, in my days asan executive coach and also
actually at Dale Carnegietraining too, I can tell you one
of the biggest problems is thisidea of how do you transfer the
learning that people go throughin the training class or
whatever, into actions thatproduce dollars and cents like
(12:32):
that.
What is it?
80% of I think it's 80% of alltraining is wasted because
people aren't transferringlearning into action or
something like that.
Right?
Chris Young (12:42):
Because all sorts of stuff about that, and that's
a real simple one.
So you can argue about that allday long and I'm sure some of
your listeners will hear 80% andthey'll start freaking out and
they'll ask you for a source andall that stuff.
If you ever get challenged onthat, I would always go back to
Ebbing House.
So the.
Ebbing House, forgetting curveWe've known since.
Dr. Pelè (13:05):
I was about to ask you about that?
Chris Young (13:07):
Yeah, we've known since the 1890s.
This is probably a cornerstoneof psychology.
Yeah, if you don't apply whatyou've learned in any context,
after about 30 days it's almostcompletely gone, and that
statistic is held up over time.
So even though things change inour technology world, human
(13:27):
brains haven't changed that muchin about 100 years.
Dr. Pelè (13:31):
Wow, I don't know if you saw me get excited there,
because I actually currentlyI've built my life and career
around the idea of the learningcurve versus the forgetting
curve.
I mean, I think that's a pieceyou know.
I'm going to write this downwhat do you call Ebbing House?
Chris Young (13:47):
It's Ebbing House.
Dr. Pelè (13:48):
Ebbing.
Chris Young (13:49):
House, forgetting curve, if you google that
anywhere or search anywhere.
You'll always find it, becauseit's been around since the 1890s
and we've reinforced it overand over and we've seen it.
We know this happens.
Dr. Pelè (14:02):
I know I've checked out.
You know my forgetting curvecame from different books and
sources that I learned it from,but I'm going to go check.
This Sounds like it's kind ofan original source of this.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, wow,well, you know.
So here we are.
People learn things, people gothrough change management and
now we have to help them sustainit, even after you and I are
(14:24):
off of the podium, as they say,or when the workshop is over,
and then we think about thesestrategies, you know, like
spaced reinforcement and all thestuff about the forgetting
curve.
Do you have any specialprograms or maybe I shouldn't
say programs stories that youcan share without you know you
don't have to reveal names oranything like that but that you
(14:46):
can share of where you'veimplemented something like this
and maybe you had a good resulton one of them, and maybe not so
good results, and why?
You know, give us some contexton trying to do this stuff.
Chris Young (14:59):
Sure.
So I go back to that model thatwe use for training and
development, the Addy model.
The last stage is evaluationand a lot of folks in our
industry they really get caughtup on evaluation because
evaluating training is hard.
Like I said, sometimes we'retrying to prove a negative.
(15:20):
So when you see that peopledidn't get injured or people
didn't get hurt or people aren'tquitting, it's hard to tie that
all the way back to thetraining and say that hey, this
training intervention is whatled to these positive results.
That no one really notices itmakes it really hard.
I think most people when theyhear about training and
(15:43):
evaluation they immediatelythink of those smile sheets at
the very end of class thateverybody gets that says did you
like the training?
Was the venue comfortable?
Did you learn something?
I will tell you, as a learningand development professional,
those things at the end of classare largely not useful for us
(16:04):
at all.
I mean they'll tell us ifthere's a problem with the air
conditioning, but I'm not reallygoing to know if there's been a
successful transfer of traininguntil you take it back and do
it.
So that makes evaluation reallyhard, because when people leave
a training class they thinkit's gone in the past.
But, if we follow up 30 dayslater, 60 days later, and we
(16:30):
follow up with the managers andsupervisors to say have you
detected a change in theperformance?
Has this metric that you wereworried about changed since that
training event, Then we canmake an inference that what we
did may have had some impact,Even if it was just the fact
(16:51):
that we got them out of theirenvironment, because I always
capitalize on the Hawthorneeffect as well.
So we know from the Hawthorneeffect that when people know
they're being observed ormeasured, their behavior changes
.
So it doesn't matter what youdid, but if they know that
(17:12):
you're doing something, thentheir performance changes.
And maybe that sounds a littleweird or dystopian, that you
know you're being watched so youbehave differently.
But it's also an opportunity toreally embrace the positivity
of that concept and say that ifyour people know you're
(17:33):
investing in them, that you knowwhat they're doing and that
they're engaged and that you'rechecking in with them you're not
surveilling them but if theyknow that they're being helped
and supported, then we know fromthe Hawthorne effect that
there's going to be a change.
Dr. Pelè (17:52):
Yeah, oh, my goodness, I mean that was a masterclass
in not just the ad-y model, butjust learning and development in
general.
I think learning has to.
Why is it?
Let me just ask you thisquestion why is it the training
and learning and developmentgets cut first whenever
companies are downsizing?
It's like why, I mean, thatcould be the most important.
Chris Young (18:16):
That's a great question.
That's a great question.
It's kind of the same way thatpeople assume that sales and
marketing get cut first from anorganization because when we
look at it from a leadershipposition, they're looking at
well, who's performingoperations, what's critical to
our operation, and kind of thosesupportive functions get lost
(18:39):
because they're alwayschallenged to prove the negative
.
So if the CEO says we're makinggreat sales, so why do we need
marketing?
Why do we need to buy more adtime?
We're selling stuff, it's goingto take them three or four
months before they realize thatcutting that advertising and
marketing budget is reallyhurting them.
(19:00):
That's the same thing thathappens with HR and other cost
centers and organizations is wecan add to the efficiency
equation, but we're constantlychallenged to be our own
cheerleaders so that peopledon't forget that the perfect
training that you ever got wastraining you never knew you had.
(19:23):
And if you never knew you hadtraining.
It doesn't have a dollar figureattached to it.
Dr. Pelè (19:31):
Chris, something that I know is important to you is
this idea that work is a humanbusiness, and I'm wondering I
wish more people felt that way,or I shouldn't say people more
leaders, because, let's face it,it starts from leadership.
In fact, I had a leader once inan organization no names will
(19:51):
be shared, but she is a CEO ofthis company and she actually
said to me we don't have anytime for all this emotion stuff.
Right, just get the job doneand let's move on.
All these people with theiremotions, just, and I'm sitting
there going okay, I shouldn't behere, because this is to me,
(20:14):
emotions are pretty much thewhole point.
I mean, what's your take onthings like happiness and
employees and their well-beingand their emotions?
What's your take on?
Chris Young (20:25):
that that's a great question and I really come to
this from the position of publicservice.
This is something we thinkabout a lot in public service
and I bring this up because weall know that concept of
bringing your whole self to workand you've clearly articulated
that you've had CEO in past whodidn't expect you to bring your
(20:49):
whole self to work.
You just showed up, you do thejob and you get out and in a
perfect world that would beexactly how it is.
It's a very transactionalrelationship In public.
We understand that concept ofbringing your whole self to work
, but we also recognize thereare limitations.
(21:09):
So being a public servantworking for the public, for
everyone in the state of Texasand really everyone in the
United States, I recognize thatI cannot bring my whole self to
work, that I have personalopinions, I have political views
, I have religious and spiritualviews that do not belong in a
(21:31):
public workplace.
So we're fortunate in that weunderstand there are very clear
lanes in the road between whatyou're supposed to do at work as
a public servant and what youcannot bring into the workplace.
So that really forces us tohave the conversation of saying
you know what are you bringingto the work and because you
(21:52):
cannot bring your whole self towork.
How are we striking thatwork-life balance where you can
be exactly who you want to be onyour terms, on your time,
without conflicting with yourworkplace role?
So in public service wedefinitely have that forcing
function that forces us to say,hey, what is your work-life
(22:16):
balance, so that we make sureyou're happy and healthy and
you're being fulfilled in allaspects of your work and not
just what's happening right hereat the workplace?
Dr. Pelè (22:27):
That's interesting.
I never thought oforganizations like yours in the
public domain, if you will asbeing different in that way, but
now I can see that this isalmost government.
It's a government function.
Yes, this is a.
In fact, on your LinkedIn,you've got something that says
(22:49):
opinions are my own.
Chris Young (22:52):
Absolutely.
We're very clear about that.
We're here to serve all of thetraveling public and not just
folks that fit in with our worldviews or politics.
If you get caught up in that,where that becomes so much of
your identity that you can'tleave it away from the job site,
then public service might notbe for you.
(23:15):
And so we definitely have thatdynamic and that forces the
conversation of how are youbalancing work with life?
Government changes,administration changes, politics
changes.
If that's going to impact howyou perform on the job site,
then we need to address that insome form or fashion, and that's
(23:37):
part of our whole well-being.
Dr. Pelè (23:39):
Yeah, you know, I heard somewhere from one of my
favorite motivational speakers.
I think his name is, I think itwas Les Brown that said this.
He said that and I don't know,I can't quote him for sure but
he said that the most heartattacks in this world happen on
Monday morning at 9 AM.
And the question is why?
(24:02):
Well, you know time to go backto work.
Chris Young (24:06):
Exactly, exactly.
Those are the real things.
Dr. Pelè (24:09):
Yeah, I think you know , after sort of based on your,
you've really parsed down arecognition of these work-life
balance issues.
Sure, we can't bring ourpolitics to work, but how do we
help people bring theirhappiness to work so that they,
you know, we can reduce theseheartbreaks in the morning on
Monday?
Chris Young (24:30):
Yeah, absolutely, and I mean there are plenty of
cliches that we recognize that.
You know, problems are justopportunity in disguise and that
attitude is everything, andanything you can fit on a coffee
mug is usually the stuff we seeon LinkedIn and other posts.
I think it really.
It really comes back to havingthose one-on-one connections
(24:53):
with not only the people thatare in your chain of command,
the people that you work for,but the people around you in
work, and I don't think we'vedone a very good job in the HR
world of understanding how allof those different factors of
engagement come into play.
(25:13):
So we know from you, know recentpopular studies, that you're
less likely to quit a job if youhave a friend at work or if you
have someone you can talk to atwork, and you're less likely to
leave an organization if youhave constant interaction with a
certain supervisor or a managerwho responds to your needs.
(25:37):
And so I think, recognizingthat we have to have those human
connections at work and theydon't have to just be up and
down, they can be left and rightand so encouraging team
dynamics and making sure thatyou understand that you're not
all by yourself when you're inan organization by definition,
you're not an entrepreneur,you're part of an organization,
(26:00):
and reminding folks that theyhave support, that they're not
the one that has to be up at 9pm on a Saturday, that there's
another 300, 400 people in theorganization that can help.
I think having constantreminders that we're all part of
a human society is importantfor us as leaders.
Dr. Pelè (26:19):
Awesome, awesome.
So, chris, let's talk about you.
What are you excited about?
You know we've talked aboutwork life balance.
What do you do when you'relooking to have fun outside of
work and or do you have anyprojects that people might be
interested in learning aboutthat are coming up?
Chris Young (26:36):
So we've done a lot of cool stuff at the Texas
Department of Transportation, soI'll start with work stuff
first.
So, we've been exploring theuse of virtual reality and
augmented reality in ourtraining events.
Because of some of the simplebiological things that we've
talked about already.
So we talked about If you putgoogly eyes on your camera when
(27:00):
you're a computer, you're morelikely to engage with the other
person on the other end of thezoom call, even though you know
their plastic eyeballs.
It changes your behavior at avery basic level of biology.
So so we know that and we'veused that when we're
constructing our virtual realitytraining.
(27:21):
So we worked with the Universityof Texas is Dallas and a and a
really talented Team that hadwhat they refer to as an
artificial human laboratory, andso we've come up with
management and communicationstraining that uses Scenarios
(27:41):
based in virtual reality, sothat we could give that to the
workforce in new and differentways and they could feel safe,
knowing that it was a fakeenvironment, that they could
make mistakes and that theyweren't role-playing with
somebody, that they would get aseed walking down the hallway
Five minutes from now.
And so we were excited to takeon those projects and and really
(28:04):
Help further the academicresearch when it comes to what
virtual reality training meansfor us in the future.
And wow, that's been exciting.
Over the last two years We'vebeen working on that project and
I'm very proud to be part of anorganization that's looking
that far into the future forinnovative approaches to do
things better, faster, moreefficient for the state of Texas
(28:26):
, so that's been exciting on ona professional level and on a
personal level.
I I do a lot of work in the inthe yoga community in Austin and
and.
I've had the fortunateopportunity to bring some of
that back to the workplace.
So I work for the TexasDepartment of Transportation and
(28:48):
that is my job and I work in ain a very physical workforce.
So any opportunity that I canbring something related to
safety, physical development,personal development into our
workspace to reduce injuries, toreduce downtime, to make people
feel better about their bodiesand To be able to exercise that
(29:12):
compassionate self forgiveness,I'm always excited to bring that
in.
Dr. Pelè (29:17):
Wow, that is so cool.
How can people find you online?
What's the best way to to getin touch with you?
Chris Young (29:24):
The best way to get a hold of me is via LinkedIn,
so I'll respond to everyone,except for robots on.
I mean, we, we see a lot ofthat and we know it.
Yeah we happen.
But yeah, if anybody isinterested in learning more
about me or what I'm doing atthe Texas Department of
Transportation or what we'redoing for learning and
(29:44):
development for HR, by all meansreach out to me on LinkedIn.
Dr. Pelè (29:49):
Well, chris, I have to say first of all, it has been
an honor just to meet Someonewho you're just tracking on the
same level of all the thingsthat I've learned and that I
want to keep learning About howwe help people get into the
compassion zone, as you like.
To talk about compassion,helping people.
Remember that this is a humanbusiness, work as human, and I
(30:11):
just love the way you thinkabout these things.
Thank you so much for being apart of the profitable happiness
podcast.
Thank you Thanks for tuning into the profitable happiness
podcast.
For more episodes, visit drPalaiscom.
And remember get happy firstand success will follow.
Hello happy people.
Welcome to the ProfitableHappiness Podcast.
Hello everyone, this is Dr.
Pelè with the ProfitableHappiness Podcast, and today I
have with me a fellow AustinTexan, the Director of Workforce
Development at the TexasDepartment of Transportation,
(00:22):
Chris Young.
How are you doing today?
Chris Young (00:25):
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Pelè (00:28):
It's a pleasure to have you.
I know we're somewhere in thesame city, but I just love to
meet people who are learning anddevelopment experts like
yourself or human resourcesexperts like yourself, because
we can get down into talkingabout some human stuff that's
important.
So you know, chris.
On that note, I'm going to askyou to maybe lead us off with
(00:50):
your definition.
In your years of experienceworking with people at the
workforce level, what is thenumber one challenge that you
found that you know you have tohelp out with in your line of
work?
Chris Young (01:04):
Well, there are a lot of challenges, but I think
most recently we've really seenthat changes in the workforce
and being able to adapt tochange really quickly, being
resilient, dealing with highturnover more work than
anybody's ever had in thehistory of contemporary United
(01:25):
States history that's probablythe biggest challenge.
Is change always coming at afaster rate and with more things
changing every single day?
Dr. Pelè (01:35):
Yeah, no, and there's got to be some psychology
somewhere about people notliking change very much right,
absolutely.
And so, you know, getting themto sort of maybe have some
compassion around themselves,their own sense of struggle
toward change is an importantthing, because I know that's an
important topic for you.
But, on that note, you know, ifchange is the challenge or the
(01:56):
problem or whatever it is peopleare dealing with, give us a
sense of how you, chris Young,became the guy that helps to
solve this problem.
And, by the way, let me justtell you something On your
LinkedIn, you have somethingvery cool.
You are he, him and y'all whichis a Texas thing, right, y'all?
Chris Young (02:18):
I think y'all is a great contribution to diversity,
equity and inclusionconversation that we, as
Southerners and Texans, shouldbe proud of.
Yeah, they contributedsomething to that conversation,
absolutely.
Dr. Pelè (02:33):
And it all works great .
It works perfectly.
It caught my attention.
I was like that's kind of cool.
I haven't seen that one before.
So tell us.
What is your story?
How did you get here?
How did you become, in myopinion, the hero that helps
people find this compassion andbecome human again at work?
How did you become that guy?
Chris Young (02:53):
Well, I've always been in public service.
So since high school I startedin the military, went to school
and then even continued to workoverseas with the US State
Department as a diplomat, and Icame back from overseas and
worked as a consultant in theprivate industry supporting
(03:13):
public agencies.
So I've really always been inpublic service.
And then, coming to the TexasDepartment of Transportation,
where I've been for eight and ahalf years, you really get a
chance to see that what you'redoing impacts everyone in the
country, in the state, in yourlocal community.
Dr. Pelè (03:34):
Wow, so you, basically you've walked the walk is what
you're saying.
You, literally you're here.
You're a veteran of this fieldof human, I guess, difficulty.
But let's talk about the ideaof change for a little bit,
because I do agree with you.
It's such a big challenge, inyour opinion.
How does what is it?
(03:57):
Why don't we like change?
Chris Young (04:01):
I think that when it comes down to biology and
psychology, we're all creaturesof habit.
What is familiar, what happenedyesterday, is what we're
counting on happening tomorrow,and when that gets challenged in
the workplace or our personallives, that creates stress, bad
(04:21):
stress and good stress.
I like to highlight to peoplethat there are two kinds of
stress.
We only focus on that one word,stress.
But the other word in Englishis you stress E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S,
so it's got two differentversions of stress.
And so those are good stresses,like when you're excited about
(04:42):
a birthday party or you'reexcited about getting married or
having kids or taking on a newrole.
That's also stressful, eventhough it's positive.
So I think that we're hardwiredas humans that when any change
comes, to view it as a stressorand we have that stress response
(05:03):
, which is a trauma response offreeze, flight or fight in that
order.
And so that happens.
Even in something as simple asa project management meeting
where somebody changes the scopeon you.
All the way up to we're gettingmarried tomorrow, that's the
same reaction in your body.
Dr. Pelè (05:24):
Oh my gosh.
One of the reasons I love doingpodcasts is I just sit back and
learn, because you've justtaught me something I never knew
before.
Of course, you're a workpsychologist, that's your thing.
But I didn't know that stressis actually defined in the
literature that way.
But I tell you one thing a lotof people also don't know that
(05:44):
happiness also has twodefinitions.
They think of happiness and theyusually think of the rah-rah
version, like hey, let's behappy.
And then you know, and let'sget the ping pong table in the
foyer, all that stuff, andthat's actually called
hedonistic happiness.
So, in the same way, the otherkind of happiness that is more
related to engagement is calledeudiamonic happiness, and it's
(06:07):
also starts with the spelling EU.
Just like, just like you stress, there you go.
So I'm like OK, wait a secondhere, this is so cool.
No, no, but I love the way youdefine that because, wow, that
gives us a new lens to look atstress and to think about.
You know, maybe not everythingthat's bothering us needs to
(06:28):
bother us.
Maybe it can be helping us.
Is that kind of how you'reseeing it?
Chris Young (06:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's when itcomes to that concept of
happiness and I talk about thiswith other people, leaders and
really anybody in the peoplemanagement business is that in
this day and age, you have thechoice.
You're going to talk about oneor two things.
You're either going to talkabout happiness, healthfulness,
(06:56):
mindfulness, being present atwork, or you're going to talk
about burnout, stress, turnover,increased cost of benefits.
You get to choose which one ofthose you're going to talk about
, but you are going to talkabout one of those things.
Yeah.
Dr. Pelè (07:14):
Absolutely, and, whether you like it or not,
those things may not seem likethey're connected, but they are
connected to the bottom line,and I think we're kind of in an
industry of intangibles, wherewe just talk to leaders about
these concepts soft skills andpeople go well, that's soft, I
(07:36):
want the hard stuff.
Give me the one that gives medollars.
That's a great point.
Yeah, how do you help leadersembrace what you and I have
embraced, which is these softskills are not that soft,
they're pretty darn hard.
They are solid, they getresults.
How do you help peopleunderstand?
Chris Young (07:54):
that Absolutely, and that's a core challenge in
the learning and developmentfield and in the HR space,
because we're constantly tryingto prove a negative.
So we tell people, hey, you'vegot to go to this mandatory
safety training, and theresponses always well, why do I
(08:14):
have to do that, nobody's gottenhurt.
But then I have to say, well,nobody's gotten hurt because you
went to the mandatory safetytraining.
I would much rather try to havethat argument with our
leadership rather than thereverse, of them coming to me
and saying someone got hurt, nowwe need to address it.
(08:36):
So I think in the HR space wealso have that challenge of when
things are going well.
That's when the leadershipcomes in and says well, things
are going well, why do we evenneed this function?
Why do we need to talk abouthappiness and wellness in the
workplace?
Everything's going OK, rightnow.
Dr. Pelè (08:56):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you On that note.
Let's get into the how.
So someone's listening to this.
They are either a leader at anorganization struggling with
well, how do I help people withthese intangibles and get them
to create high performance?
How do I get my hands aroundthis?
What is the how?
Do you have a favorite numberof steps that you take people
(09:19):
through in your learning anddevelopment approaches?
Or do you have a favorite storyof a time that you helped to
actually create the change thatis required?
How do we solve this problem isreally my question, I think.
Chris Young (09:35):
Yeah, I think if we're talking about this in a
work context, then almost everyorganization has some sort of
change management process orthey have some sort of project
management framework, andnothing I'm saying negates that.
So anything that I say doesn'tmean that you're going to turn
around and a listener is goingto say, oh, we can't do that at
(09:58):
our organization because wefollow the seven step model or
anything like that.
But everything we're doing isjust a generalized framework for
real change management andreally human performance, and
that's what we're talking about.
All of our companies, all ofour organizations are made from
people.
So everything that we're doingis the people management
(10:19):
business and it's sometimes it'sreally simple.
And so for us in the learningand development sphere, we have
a lot of different models, butprobably the most well known
model is the add D model, addi.
So the analysis, design,development, implementation and
(10:39):
evaluation of training, whichit's not a it's not a real, you
know, stepwise process, but it'ssomething you can layer onto a
project management framework andreally address all the house of
what you're trying to do toenhance human performance.
And I think that's important toemphasize because we know that
(11:02):
in contemporary American societywe're really geared towards the
bottom line and beingproductive, and most of our
organizations will ask us youknow well what's the return on
investment of this.
So we really have to apply thatlens that we're talking about
performance, and that's one ofthe things that I emphasize in
(11:22):
the learning and developmentsphere is that when we're
talking about adult learners,we're not talking about
education, we're talking abouttraining, and those are two
different things.
Education and training are twodifferent things.
Education is about exploration,it's about personal growth,
personal development, and ittakes a long time, whereas
(11:45):
training is about addressingperformance gaps.
And that's why sometimestraining doesn't always feel so
friendly is because theorganization has determined hey,
we're just trying to fix aproblem, Everything else is
outside of the scope of trainingand you've got to get that
somewhere else.
So that becomes a challenge forus in the learning and
(12:07):
development sphere.
Dr. Pelè (12:10):
And boy, I've actually experienced that challenge
because, you know, in my days asan executive coach and also
actually at Dale Carnegietraining too, I can tell you one
of the biggest problems is thisidea of how do you transfer the
learning that people go throughin the training class or
whatever, into actions thatproduce dollars and cents like
(12:32):
that.
What is it?
80% of I think it's 80% of alltraining is wasted because
people aren't transferringlearning into action or
something like that.
Right?
Chris Young (12:42):
Because all sorts of stuff about that, and that's
a real simple one.
So you can argue about that allday long and I'm sure some of
your listeners will hear 80% andthey'll start freaking out and
they'll ask you for a source andall that stuff.
If you ever get challenged onthat, I would always go back to
Ebbing House.
So the.
Ebbing House, forgetting curveWe've known since.
Dr. Pelè (13:05):
I was about to ask you about that?
Chris Young (13:07):
Yeah, we've known since the 1890s.
This is probably a cornerstoneof psychology.
Yeah, if you don't apply whatyou've learned in any context,
after about 30 days it's almostcompletely gone, and that
statistic is held up over time.
So even though things change inour technology world, human
(13:27):
brains haven't changed that muchin about 100 years.
Dr. Pelè (13:31):
Wow, I don't know if you saw me get excited there,
because I actually currentlyI've built my life and career
around the idea of the learningcurve versus the forgetting
curve.
I mean, I think that's a pieceyou know.
I'm going to write this downwhat do you call Ebbing House?
Chris Young (13:47):
It's Ebbing House.
Dr. Pelè (13:48):
Ebbing.
Chris Young (13:49):
House, forgetting curve, if you google that
anywhere or search anywhere.
You'll always find it, becauseit's been around since the 1890s
and we've reinforced it overand over and we've seen it.
We know this happens.
Dr. Pelè (14:02):
I know I've checked out.
You know my forgetting curvecame from different books and
sources that I learned it from,but I'm going to go check.
This Sounds like it's kind ofan original source of this.
Yeah, absolutely yeah, wow,well, you know.
So here we are.
People learn things, people gothrough change management and
now we have to help them sustainit, even after you and I are
(14:24):
off of the podium, as they say,or when the workshop is over,
and then we think about thesestrategies, you know, like
spaced reinforcement and all thestuff about the forgetting
curve.
Do you have any specialprograms or maybe I shouldn't
say programs stories that youcan share without you know you
don't have to reveal names oranything like that but that you
(14:46):
can share of where you'veimplemented something like this
and maybe you had a good resulton one of them, and maybe not so
good results, and why?
You know, give us some contexton trying to do this stuff.
Chris Young (14:59):
Sure.
So I go back to that model thatwe use for training and
development, the Addy model.
The last stage is evaluationand a lot of folks in our
industry they really get caughtup on evaluation because
evaluating training is hard.
Like I said, sometimes we'retrying to prove a negative.
(15:20):
So when you see that peopledidn't get injured or people
didn't get hurt or people aren'tquitting, it's hard to tie that
all the way back to thetraining and say that hey, this
training intervention is whatled to these positive results.
That no one really notices itmakes it really hard.
I think most people when theyhear about training and
(15:43):
evaluation they immediatelythink of those smile sheets at
the very end of class thateverybody gets that says did you
like the training?
Was the venue comfortable?
Did you learn something?
I will tell you, as a learningand development professional,
those things at the end of classare largely not useful for us
(16:04):
at all.
I mean they'll tell us ifthere's a problem with the air
conditioning, but I'm not reallygoing to know if there's been a
successful transfer of traininguntil you take it back and do
it.
So that makes evaluation reallyhard, because when people leave
a training class they thinkit's gone in the past.
But, if we follow up 30 dayslater, 60 days later, and we
(16:30):
follow up with the managers andsupervisors to say have you
detected a change in theperformance?
Has this metric that you wereworried about changed since that
training event, Then we canmake an inference that what we
did may have had some impact,Even if it was just the fact
(16:51):
that we got them out of theirenvironment, because I always
capitalize on the Hawthorneeffect as well.
So we know from the Hawthorneeffect that when people know
they're being observed ormeasured, their behavior changes
.
So it doesn't matter what youdid, but if they know that
(17:12):
you're doing something, thentheir performance changes.
And maybe that sounds a littleweird or dystopian, that you
know you're being watched so youbehave differently.
But it's also an opportunity toreally embrace the positivity
of that concept and say that ifyour people know you're
(17:33):
investing in them, that you knowwhat they're doing and that
they're engaged and that you'rechecking in with them you're not
surveilling them but if theyknow that they're being helped
and supported, then we know fromthe Hawthorne effect that
there's going to be a change.
Dr. Pelè (17:52):
Yeah, oh, my goodness, I mean that was a masterclass
in not just the ad-y model, butjust learning and development in
general.
I think learning has to.
Why is it?
Let me just ask you thisquestion why is it the training
and learning and developmentgets cut first whenever
companies are downsizing?
It's like why, I mean, thatcould be the most important.
Chris Young (18:16):
That's a great question.
That's a great question.
It's kind of the same way thatpeople assume that sales and
marketing get cut first from anorganization because when we
look at it from a leadershipposition, they're looking at
well, who's performingoperations, what's critical to
our operation, and kind of thosesupportive functions get lost
(18:39):
because they're alwayschallenged to prove the negative
.
So if the CEO says we're makinggreat sales, so why do we need
marketing?
Why do we need to buy more adtime?
We're selling stuff, it's goingto take them three or four
months before they realize thatcutting that advertising and
marketing budget is reallyhurting them.
(19:00):
That's the same thing thathappens with HR and other cost
centers and organizations is wecan add to the efficiency
equation, but we're constantlychallenged to be our own
cheerleaders so that peopledon't forget that the perfect
training that you ever got wastraining you never knew you had.
(19:23):
And if you never knew you hadtraining.
It doesn't have a dollar figureattached to it.
Dr. Pelè (19:31):
Chris, something that I know is important to you is
this idea that work is a humanbusiness, and I'm wondering I
wish more people felt that way,or I shouldn't say people more
leaders, because, let's face it,it starts from leadership.
In fact, I had a leader once inan organization no names will
(19:51):
be shared, but she is a CEO ofthis company and she actually
said to me we don't have anytime for all this emotion stuff.
Right, just get the job doneand let's move on.
All these people with theiremotions, just, and I'm sitting
there going okay, I shouldn't behere, because this is to me,
(20:14):
emotions are pretty much thewhole point.
I mean, what's your take onthings like happiness and
employees and their well-beingand their emotions?
What's your take on?
Chris Young (20:25):
that that's a great question and I really come to
this from the position of publicservice.
This is something we thinkabout a lot in public service
and I bring this up because weall know that concept of
bringing your whole self to workand you've clearly articulated
that you've had CEO in past whodidn't expect you to bring your
(20:49):
whole self to work.
You just showed up, you do thejob and you get out and in a
perfect world that would beexactly how it is.
It's a very transactionalrelationship In public.
We understand that concept ofbringing your whole self to work
, but we also recognize thereare limitations.
(21:09):
So being a public servantworking for the public, for
everyone in the state of Texasand really everyone in the
United States, I recognize thatI cannot bring my whole self to
work, that I have personalopinions, I have political views
, I have religious and spiritualviews that do not belong in a
(21:31):
public workplace.
So we're fortunate in that weunderstand there are very clear
lanes in the road between whatyou're supposed to do at work as
a public servant and what youcannot bring into the workplace.
So that really forces us tohave the conversation of saying
you know what are you bringingto the work and because you
(21:52):
cannot bring your whole self towork.
How are we striking thatwork-life balance where you can
be exactly who you want to be onyour terms, on your time,
without conflicting with yourworkplace role?
So in public service wedefinitely have that forcing
function that forces us to say,hey, what is your work-life
(22:16):
balance, so that we make sureyou're happy and healthy and
you're being fulfilled in allaspects of your work and not
just what's happening right hereat the workplace?
Dr. Pelè (22:27):
That's interesting.
I never thought oforganizations like yours in the
public domain, if you will asbeing different in that way, but
now I can see that this isalmost government.
It's a government function.
Yes, this is a.
In fact, on your LinkedIn,you've got something that says
(22:49):
opinions are my own.
Chris Young (22:52):
Absolutely.
We're very clear about that.
We're here to serve all of thetraveling public and not just
folks that fit in with our worldviews or politics.
If you get caught up in that,where that becomes so much of
your identity that you can'tleave it away from the job site,
then public service might notbe for you.
(23:15):
And so we definitely have thatdynamic and that forces the
conversation of how are youbalancing work with life?
Government changes,administration changes, politics
changes.
If that's going to impact howyou perform on the job site,
then we need to address that insome form or fashion, and that's
(23:37):
part of our whole well-being.
Dr. Pelè (23:39):
Yeah, you know, I heard somewhere from one of my
favorite motivational speakers.
I think his name is, I think itwas Les Brown that said this.
He said that and I don't know,I can't quote him for sure but
he said that the most heartattacks in this world happen on
Monday morning at 9 AM.
And the question is why?
(24:02):
Well, you know time to go backto work.
Chris Young (24:06):
Exactly, exactly.
Those are the real things.
Dr. Pelè (24:09):
Yeah, I think you know , after sort of based on your,
you've really parsed down arecognition of these work-life
balance issues.
Sure, we can't bring ourpolitics to work, but how do we
help people bring theirhappiness to work so that they,
you know, we can reduce theseheartbreaks in the morning on
Monday?
Chris Young (24:30):
Yeah, absolutely, and I mean there are plenty of
cliches that we recognize that.
You know, problems are justopportunity in disguise and that
attitude is everything, andanything you can fit on a coffee
mug is usually the stuff we seeon LinkedIn and other posts.
I think it really.
It really comes back to havingthose one-on-one connections
(24:53):
with not only the people thatare in your chain of command,
the people that you work for,but the people around you in
work, and I don't think we'vedone a very good job in the HR
world of understanding how allof those different factors of
engagement come into play.
(25:13):
So we know from you, know recentpopular studies, that you're
less likely to quit a job if youhave a friend at work or if you
have someone you can talk to atwork, and you're less likely to
leave an organization if youhave constant interaction with a
certain supervisor or a managerwho responds to your needs.
(25:37):
And so I think, recognizingthat we have to have those human
connections at work and theydon't have to just be up and
down, they can be left and rightand so encouraging team
dynamics and making sure thatyou understand that you're not
all by yourself when you're inan organization by definition,
you're not an entrepreneur,you're part of an organization,
(26:00):
and reminding folks that theyhave support, that they're not
the one that has to be up at 9pm on a Saturday, that there's
another 300, 400 people in theorganization that can help.
I think having constantreminders that we're all part of
a human society is importantfor us as leaders.
Dr. Pelè (26:19):
Awesome, awesome.
So, chris, let's talk about you.
What are you excited about?
You know we've talked aboutwork life balance.
What do you do when you'relooking to have fun outside of
work and or do you have anyprojects that people might be
interested in learning aboutthat are coming up?
Chris Young (26:36):
So we've done a lot of cool stuff at the Texas
Department of Transportation, soI'll start with work stuff
first.
So, we've been exploring theuse of virtual reality and
augmented reality in ourtraining events.
Because of some of the simplebiological things that we've
talked about already.
So we talked about If you putgoogly eyes on your camera when
(27:00):
you're a computer, you're morelikely to engage with the other
person on the other end of thezoom call, even though you know
their plastic eyeballs.
It changes your behavior at avery basic level of biology.
So so we know that and we'veused that when we're
constructing our virtual realitytraining.
(27:21):
So we worked with the Universityof Texas is Dallas and a and a
really talented Team that hadwhat they refer to as an
artificial human laboratory, andso we've come up with
management and communicationstraining that uses Scenarios
(27:41):
based in virtual reality, sothat we could give that to the
workforce in new and differentways and they could feel safe,
knowing that it was a fakeenvironment, that they could
make mistakes and that theyweren't role-playing with
somebody, that they would get aseed walking down the hallway
Five minutes from now.
And so we were excited to takeon those projects and and really
(28:04):
Help further the academicresearch when it comes to what
virtual reality training meansfor us in the future.
And wow, that's been exciting.
Over the last two years We'vebeen working on that project and
I'm very proud to be part of anorganization that's looking
that far into the future forinnovative approaches to do
things better, faster, moreefficient for the state of Texas
(28:26):
, so that's been exciting on ona professional level and on a
personal level.
I I do a lot of work in the inthe yoga community in Austin and
and.
I've had the fortunateopportunity to bring some of
that back to the workplace.
So I work for the TexasDepartment of Transportation and
(28:48):
that is my job and I work in ain a very physical workforce.
So any opportunity that I canbring something related to
safety, physical development,personal development into our
workspace to reduce injuries, toreduce downtime, to make people
feel better about their bodiesand To be able to exercise that
(29:12):
compassionate self forgiveness,I'm always excited to bring that
in.
Dr. Pelè (29:17):
Wow, that is so cool.
How can people find you online?
What's the best way to to getin touch with you?
Chris Young (29:24):
The best way to get a hold of me is via LinkedIn,
so I'll respond to everyone,except for robots on.
I mean, we, we see a lot ofthat and we know it.
Yeah we happen.
But yeah, if anybody isinterested in learning more
about me or what I'm doing atthe Texas Department of
Transportation or what we'redoing for learning and
(29:44):
development for HR, by all meansreach out to me on LinkedIn.
Dr. Pelè (29:49):
Well, chris, I have to say first of all, it has been
an honor just to meet Someonewho you're just tracking on the
same level of all the thingsthat I've learned and that I
want to keep learning About howwe help people get into the
compassion zone, as you like.
To talk about compassion,helping people.
Remember that this is a humanbusiness, work as human, and I
(30:11):
just love the way you thinkabout these things.
Thank you so much for being apart of the profitable happiness
podcast.
Thank you Thanks for tuning into the profitable happiness
podcast.
For more episodes, visit drPalaiscom.
And remember get happy firstand success will follow.
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