August 7, 2025 • 27 mins
What makes change so difficult—even for organizations that know change is inevitable and even necessary for growth? If we all agree that staying in our comfort zones holds us back, why do we continue to resist change—and what can leaders do to help teams navigate it better?
In this episode of the Delighted Customers podcast, I sit down with Dennis Geelen, an accomplished author and consultant, to decode the human side of change management. We dive into strategies for easing transitions in workplaces rocked by mergers, tech shifts, and cultural upheaval. If you’ve ever faced pushback—even when a change is clearly for the greater good—Dennis’ actionable insights are for you. His creative approach takes the abstract concept of “change” and makes it tangible, actionable, and even relatable. From leadership lessons to frameworks you can use with your team tomorrow, Dennis explains it all with stories and wisdom.
Here’s why you want to listen: Dennis not only brings decades of experience helping organizations lead through transition, but he also recently co-authored a new book, The Five Shoes for Change, that pairs his business expertise with clinical psychology insights. If you’re a leader, CX professional, or employee wondering why company change initiatives so often falter—or just want to build your own change muscle—this episode is essential listening.
Three questions Dennis answers on the show:
What are the five “shoes” you need to successfully lead yourself—and your team—through change?
What are the most common missteps organizations make in change management, and how do these missteps affect employee experience?
How can leaders identify and address emotional baggage that employees bring to organizational changes, such as mergers or acquisitions?
Ready to build change resilience and transform your approach to leadership and customer experience? Tune in to this episode now.
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Meet Dennis Geelen
Dennis Geelen is a renowned author, consultant, and keynote speaker specializing in customer experience, change management, and leadership. As the founder of Zero In, he’s worked with organizations across North America, helping them create customer-obsessed cultures and navigate complex transformations. His new book, The Five Shoes for Change, is a collaboration with psychologist Christian McMillan, integrating clinical psychology with pragmatic business consulting to guide individuals and companies through the turbulent waters of change.
Dennis is also the author of The Zero In Formula, where he outlines a system for sustainable growth, and The Accidental Solopreneur, drawing on his own journey to entrepreneurship. Known for his engaging storytelling, Dennis brings practical frameworks to bear—with a focus on actionable steps and self-awareness that leaders can immediately implement.
Find Dennis on LinkedIn: Dennis Geelen on LinkedIn
Learn more: dennisgeelen.me
Book updates: 5shoesforchange.com (coming soon)
References from this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Delighted Customers podcast. I am so
glad you're here. We challenge conventional thinking about
customer experience because I believe that improving experiences
isn't just good for business. It's a powerful way to make a
meaningful difference in people's lives. Each week we
feature thought provoking conversations with industry thought leaders
(00:26):
from a variety of backgrounds, offering unique perspectives and
actionable insights. Get ready to sharpen your
leadership and transform your approach to customer experience.
Let's dive in.
Well, I am so excited to have my guest on the Delighted
Customers podcast, a returning guest, Dennis
(00:48):
Gielen, who is an author and a brilliant guy when it comes to
customer experience and how to best treat customers. He wrote a book called
the Zero in Formula. He wrote a book called the Accidental Solopreneur and
he's got a brand new book that we want to talk about because I really
think it can help people, especially in the area of change management.
And it's called the Five Shoes for Change. Dennis,
(01:11):
welcome back to the show. Yeah, thanks so much for having me back, Mark. I
can't wait to hear. You've got such a creative mind, you're such a good
storyteller and I remember doing, doing a previous podcast about
storytelling and you help people walk through that. I encourage
people to go back and listen to that episode. But today we're going to be
talking about your new book called the Five Shoes Word Change.
(01:32):
Catchy title. Tell us what the white space was and really what the book's
about. Yeah, very high level concept here is
that change is a journey. And if you
compare this to a physical journey, you know, you might be walking across all different
types of terrain, different types of elevation. Would you only bring one
pair of shoes for that type of trip? No. You're going to be encountering different
(01:55):
things you bring. You need different types of footwear. And it's the same thing
with walking through a change journey. You need to bring different
tools, different mindsets, different skill sets. And what we have
outlined, my co author and I, is there's five different shoes for
change that you need for this journey. I love, I love the topic. I think
it's so important. I don't think we can ever get enough help and insights when
(02:17):
it comes to leading change. I guess as humans we have a lot of
reluctance and reticence about change in general. Me coming
from banking, bankers are even more reluctant than the
average when it comes to change. But share with us a perspective.
I think if you don't mind that you bring. And then also your, your co
author brought to the table. Yeah. So my co author, I'll start with him. His
(02:39):
name's Christian McMillan. He is a brilliant
psychologist in Chile. Whole other story there on.
On how him and I got together and partnered on the book. But he
really looks at things from the clinical psychology point, point of
view. What are the emotions that people feel? What are the steps they need to
go through? Different life transitions, different things that they're
(03:00):
bringing to the table through life changes. More of the
business consultant side of things. So I'm always working with leadership
teams on, well, how do you scale your company? That's a change. How
do you implement new systems and processes into your
company without having a negative impact on your employees or your customers?
Those are changes. So it's really the melding of those two
(03:22):
different perspectives together that him and I bring to develop
the five shoes for change together. Really nice background for both
of you. Why should the C Suite really care? Like, what is the big
deal when it comes to this topic and how you
see a gap? Because the C Suite really has
a lot of issues they're dealing with. And so why should there be a focus
(03:45):
on this? Well, the old saying is, you know, death and taxes
are the two things in life you can always count on. Well, I would a
third, which is change. Right. And
the rate of change is just getting so fast
the last 10 years. We've probably seen more change in the last 10 years
than we did in the previous 100. And then in the last five years,
(04:07):
that rate of change has only gotten faster with AI, with.
With all the stuff at our fingertips now. And that just means
that businesses have to keep up or let alone
be leaders in any of these different areas. So change is
something that, yes, we've gotten better at. Yes, we're
a little better at understanding it, but I think we're still
(04:30):
so far behind the eight ball when it comes to having better
language around change, better understanding of how to actually
lead change effectively. And with the rate of change these days,
this is becoming a must. So let me just affirm what you just said.
My own experience, and I see if I go
back many, many years, worked for a large forms
(04:53):
manufacturer, basically a printing and label company, and they got swallowed
up by a bigger company. But we had acquired a company, went
through that change. Then later on, I worked for Boise Cascade
Corporation. We bought OfficeMax, changed our name to
OfficeMax, and had two completely different cultures. That was the.
I'm going to share four different acquisitions mergers that happened.
(05:15):
That was the one that had two completely. Because you're talking about retail people, a
lot of hourly people on the office max side. We acquired. We were an enterprise
B2B company, two totally different cultures and really
was very painful when it came to meshing those two.
And then the bank we had, we acquired two companies before the bank,
long after I left it was acquired by another company. So this
(05:37):
sort of consolidation isn't going to stop anytime soon. And
so that's just another, I guess, avenue for
change that happens. That's a hard reality, right? Yep. Yep.
And it's funny you mentioned when the name changed. Sometimes
something as small as that can be enough of a
change to really have people have a difficult time
(06:00):
going through it. Here's a real simple, silly example from my own life. There
was a local band in my area just starting up.
They were starting to get some traction. I was related to
or I worked with one of the people who was related to one of the
band members. So I had a bit of a loyalty, a bit of a reason
to kind of listen to their music. And in about three years in, they
(06:21):
decided to change the name of the band. Nothing else changed. All the exact same
band members, same sound, same kind of music and everything. But I
was attached to the old name and for some reason that was enough to make
me kind of stop following the band. And there was just this
affiliation with the old name of the band. So we gotta be really
careful when we're talking larger scale changes, especially if
(06:43):
you're leading one of those not to assume that it's all just
logic. There's a lot of emotion that gets tied in with change.
Both your employees and your customers can be really tied to certain things that you
may not even suspect. Like a simple name. That's a great
point. And words and phrases and what you communicate totally
matters. I want to ask you, when it comes to change
(07:05):
leadership or change management in general, what do leaders
what are some of the myths out there that I think some people believe
that are maybe not true? Several. One of them being
everybody will come along at the same pace or everybody is starting
at the same starting point. Not true. Everybody is experiencing
these things in different ways. In fact, in our upcoming
(07:27):
book, the Five Shoes for Change, we talk about four main
catalysts for change. And even though it could be the same change for
different people, it could be a different catalyst. We talk about
storms, we talk about deserts, we talk about dying objects, and we
talk about serendipity being the four main catalysts for change. Well,
two people could be experiencing the same change. For one, it could feel like a
(07:49):
storm. For the other, it could feel like a desert. And then the other thing
is, people are equipped with different skill sets, different
mindsets. In our case, that's different shoes. And they might be more comfortable
in a certain pair of shoes and more comfortable walking certain parts of the
change journey than others. So we really have to understand
the language around change. Why are people feeling certain
(08:11):
things and how are they best equipped to deal with them? And not
everybody's the same. I love that. I think that's so true.
And gosh, there could be so many factors that relate to that. One
could simply be. What I talked about is people have never been
through a merger or an acquisition before. Whatever the case
may be, whatever's changing, it may be their first time, right? Yeah,
(08:33):
yeah. And somebody else, we may assume, oh, this is. They've
been through something like this before, they'll have no problem. Well, maybe there's a
slightly different emotional trigger here. Maybe there's a different loyalty.
Maybe there's a new unknown for them. Never assume. And maybe they went
through multiple changes in the past and they didn't go
well. Yeah, there's some emotional baggage there just tied
(08:55):
to a previous change that was very negative and disastrous. Even though
this one might be going smoothly, they're remembering that last one.
I'll add one other one. I want to get your opinion on this because I
mentioned before the change associated with a merger, acquisition, some
sort of corporate change. And the fact is that whether you're on the
buying side or being bought side of this, for example,
(09:18):
if you acquired a company, and maybe this doesn't
make sense in your mind, but it was a reality for us. Is
that. The fact is that you. We bought another bank. Those
customers and those employees did not choose us. So they're being
forced to adopt to changes, both the employees and
the customers to our system, our way of doing things. And there's a
(09:40):
huge risk of churn there. What do you think? Completely
agree. So in the terminology in our book, we would describe that as a storm.
It was thrust upon them suddenly. Maybe they didn't know about it or
they had very little time to react to this. Suddenly there's
all these thoughts and emotions and unknowns going through their mind and
they're dealing with what they're considering a storm. Whereas the people on
(10:03):
the other side of the fence are probably thinking, wow, this is great. We get
to merge these things together. They get to take advantage of our processes and
our technology or whatever we're introducing. This is. There's so many
positives out of this, not realizing on the other side, they're
sitting there sweating, wondering what's going to happen, what's going on? Is
my job safe? Am I going to be able to handle this? Is this going
(10:24):
to be redund because somebody else is doing what I'm already doing over there? So,
so many different ways that people experience change. And I really
do think we need to change the language around change and how we
handle it. Dennis, we talked about some of the reasons that change
is hard. Change is difficult. What are some of the missteps
that companies make, leaders make when it comes to change?
(10:47):
I think a big thing is being upfront with
as much communication and information as you can from the beginning.
Obviously there's limits on what you can and can't say, but there's this,
there's that old saying, sometimes you have to say something seven times for
people to really get it. Here's a great example. I worked at a company
once and we were rolling out a really small change and it was
(11:09):
announced to all employees in the department that it's coming.
This is what's happening. Again, not a very large change, but a
couple of employees, the second they heard that, it's almost
like they had tuned out the rest of the message because their mind went to,
oh, is my job safe? Am I going to lose my job? So
that's all they heard. And if that's the only time you communicate about
(11:31):
this, they're stuck with that. So it needs to be communicated multiple
times in large group settings, in one on one settings, allowing
people to ask questions, allowing people to kind of work through what does this
really mean for me? But I think there's this assumption that, oh, we put
out a company memo or oh, we mentioned that at the quarterly meeting, everybody's
aware, great, now we can move on and start taking action. Well, for those
(11:53):
employees that maybe felt this emotional surge right off the
bat and didn't quite grasp and understand the entire change and what it did
or didn't mean for them, they're not along the change journey
with the rest of you. So over communicate, find different ways
to communicate. Communicate one on one. If you can allow people to
ask questions. Missing that step right off the bat is setting
(12:16):
that change up for potential failure. Even if it's a small one.
Like in our case. We learned a lot from that misstep
and not over communicating the change from the beginning. Yeah, such
a great point. And like you say, people are at different stages
in the journey and some may not come along till the very end,
some may not come along at all. So I guess we're
(12:39):
trying to mitigate those factors to the best of our ability. Because change, like you
said earlier, is, it's a common. Yeah, yeah. It's,
it's, it's inevitable. And it's so funny because we know this. We
know that getting outside of our comfort zone is a good thing.
We know that changing is a good thing. We know that growth and
learning is a good thing. Yet in, like, inside all of us,
(13:01):
we resist it. We can't help it. I think it's just the way we're wired.
We, we like comfort zones, we like safety, we like the known.
And that's where we want to stay. But we also know to grow,
to learn, to get better. We have to go over here, but still we
have to have all this language, all these processes, all this, the
right shoes in place to be able to walk that path
(13:23):
effectively. And no matter how many times we do it, it never
really gets something that we're excellent and good and comfortable at.
We have to always remind ourselves. Time to change my shoes. I'm going to
walk this step of the journey now. Time put on these more comfortable pair here
because I'm about to do this. So I don't think it's something
we'll ever, as humans, be really great at and
(13:45):
experts at. And that's why it's so important to keep bringing this
up and learning it ourselves as leaders to get better at it. So
true. Such a good muscle to try to build is this ability
to change and be able to transition. Well,
Dennis, great transition. You brought up the shoes and
I'd love to talk a little bit more about the five shoes for change.
(14:08):
Pardon the pun, but would you walk us through at
least at a high level, the five, and then maybe we can drill down to
one or two of them. Yep. So, struggling to connect the
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(14:52):
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in minutes.
What I'll do is I'll walk through. The five shoes are actually five different
colors. Okay. And they correspond
kind of with the change curve, if you're familiar with that, how you're thrust
(15:15):
into a change, and eventually you come down to maybe the low point or
breaking point until you finally work your way out of it. But
basically there's a black shoe, red shoe, yellow shoe,
green shoe, and blue shoe. And I'll just give a real high level
overview here. When you're first thrust into a change,
you need to absorb the impact, the shock. You need to be able to. Okay,
(15:37):
what is going on here? For that, you need to be wearing the black shoe.
And in the book we go into, what does that look like? How do you
wear the black shoe? How does that help absorb the impact?
Once you kind of get past that first phase, now you need to
take off the black shoe, put on the red shoe. This is where you're going
to be experiencing different emotions. Now, how do I express those emotions? How do
(15:59):
I release the different pain that I felt because of this change?
How do I experience and express these emotions properly?
Once you kind of get past that phase, it's time to put on your yellow
shoe. And this is really the thinking shoe. How do I now clarify my
direction? Now how do I make a plan? How do I really think about what
needs to happen next? That's the yellow shoe. But like, we all know
(16:21):
just having a plan or just thinking isn't enough. Now you need to take action.
So that's the green shoe. Green shoe is the. The action shoe where you're
actually carrying out the plan, carrying out the change. You start taking
action, you start moving on, you start building new habits. And throughout the
entire change curve, really, there's another set
of shoes you need to be wearing that entire time, and that's the blue shoe.
(16:42):
And the blue shoe is all for growth and learning,
seeking meaning, how am I growing through this? What should I be taking from
this? What am I learning from this? What are the values? What are the higher
perspectives I should be having because of this change? So
those five together make up the five shoes that we really need to wear through
the change journey. Nice. I like the color connection
(17:04):
to the different stages as they go through it. I share with you
offline. Also, this reminds me of the Bono six thinking hats.
Yes. And that was designed for
people to make decisions as a group, given the fact that
we all have different personalities. So it was pushing us to wear
different hats, put on this hat, and become this person. Tell us
(17:26):
how you believe this model should be
Experienced by the different players
in the group leaders, you know, middle management, employees. How should
we be activated? So, going back to the shoe
analogy, we are most comfortable in our own shoes, right? If you,
if, if you were to borrow somebody's shirt, it might not
(17:48):
feel out of place. You put somebody else's shoes on, that can
feel strange, right? It's kind of molded to their feet. They've been wearing it.
You put it on, it's not yours. It feels strange. Well, to that
same analogy, certain people are more comfortable in certain pairs of shoes,
right? Maybe you're more comfortable wearing the black shoe, or maybe you're
an action person. So the green shoe is for you. Maybe you're a thinker, an
(18:11):
ideas person, so you're a yellow shoe person. Well, to go
through an entire change journey, you really do need to
get used to putting on and taking off these different shoes, because one
pair of shoes is not going to get you through the entire journey effectively.
That's as your. That's as an individual going through a change on your own.
Well, what if you're a team? Certain people on the team are going to be
(18:33):
more comfortable in different types of shoes. So maybe at certain parts of the change
journey, they take a little more of the load or they take. Take a little
more of the lead. Let's get our thinkers together for the yellow
shoe part of the journey. Obviously, we're not ostracizing the rest of the
group. You have to do this effectively, but those are the people we might rely
on a little bit more. And then now it's time to put on the green
(18:53):
shoe. And those people are going to take the lead on that part. But
overall, we should all over time get more
comfortable with each of the different pairs of shoes because they really are
all good for us. They really are all needed for different
parts of the journey. I mean, life is a journey, so we should get
comfortable or more comfortable in these different shoes over different
(19:15):
periods of time. So one of the things that we will be including either in
the book or with different workshops that we do will be an assessment so
that people can understand. Which shoe am I most comfortable in
right now? That gives you a good idea of your team. If you have a
team of 10 people and, boy, we have nobody on the team that's really a
green shoe or a yellow shoe. Is that a problem? Or while we're going through
(19:37):
a change, who on the team should we rely on a little heavier in
different parts of the change journey? So really, just getting a better
understanding of the Shoes, which ones you're more comfortable in and how
do we utilize them more effectively? Yeah, I think that's a great starting point.
Just have some self awareness of where everybody is in this and
acknowledge, you know, what are some of the gaps that we need to grow
(19:59):
into. As you're moving along this, can you share an
example of. Let's just say
I'm in the black phase and that's where I think I am. And
what are some strategies that an organization can
use to move people through that storming stage and help
people maybe if they have a more of a reluctance in that area.
(20:21):
Right. So the black shoe by definition means you're a little more comfortable
at absorbing that initial impact. Those are those people that are good in
crisis situations. Right. Something happens, they're on it, hey, I'm going to
minimize the impact. That's great. That's where they thrive. But you can't stay
there. It's not always crisis mode. It's not always, okay, now
we're coming out of that, we need to really start putting on the red
(20:43):
shoe and saying, okay, what are the different emotions people are feeling here?
Let's be a little more empathetic. And maybe the black shoe people
aren't the best at being empathetic and really expressing or
helping others express their feelings. So we need to first understand
that is a requirement. We're now going into that
phase of change. So acknowledging that,
(21:05):
recognizing that and then having the language around, how do
we transition? There is most importantly. So I think
it's a lot of education, I think it's a lot of awareness and I think
it's a lot of having the right language around change to be able to do
that effectively. You're such a good storyteller.
I love to hear maybe a story that relates
(21:27):
to one of these shoes that an employee or a leader may
be dealing with. It's funny, in the. When we first wrote the first
draft of the manuscript, it almost read a little too much like a
textbook. Right. It's very clinical. It's very, this is what change
is. These are the catalysts of change. These are the different shoes for change. And
a lot of the feedback we were getting from the beta readers was,
(21:49):
can you show me what this looks like in the real world? So we started
giving some small examples in there and we just thought, well, wait a minute, what
if we just reached out to some real people, some real organizations, and
got their stories of the major changes they've had to go through?
And how would the five shoes for change apply to their
situation. So that's what we've done. I think we've got five or six different
(22:11):
stories that we dive into in the book. One is an example of
a church where they lost all three of their full time
pastors within a couple months. So what did that look like? Well, first
the elders board had to absorb that shock. They had to put on their black
shoe and go into crisis mode. Okay, what do we do? How do we handle
this? They were able to very effectively find an
(22:32):
interim pastor that was going to come in and kind of make that a seamless
transition. They were able to hire a recruiter that specializes
in finding pastors and they kind of minimize the damage.
Great. How's the congregation doing? We need to check in. How's everybody
absorbing this? That's, that's the red shoe is what they put on there. They wanted
to really get the feedback from the congregation. There was a lot of discuss, discussions
(22:53):
with people, There were surveys. What should we be looking for? Where should the church
be going? Let's see this as an opportunity. So that was good.
So that was also moving into the yellow shoe. If we're going to be planning
the next steps of our church here, what does this really look like? And then
it was taking action, putting on the green shoe through all of that.
The blue shoe was put on saying, what do we need to learn from this?
(23:15):
What is God wanting from us from this? How are we
growing as a church through this? So it was a great example
of even though they had no concept of the five shoes process
or what this language was, they were exhibiting this. As I
interviewed all the different elders, it was incredible to see. Wow, you guys really
did a great job of wearing these different five shoes. And
(23:37):
it was a seamless transition for them. They, they filled all the pastor
positions. The congregation is extremely happy with how it went. It was
a seamless transition that could have went completely sideways if they
didn't handle it this way. Other stories, other examples that will be in the book
are people who've fought through addiction, people who have gone through
layoffs, other companies that have gone through different mergers, acquisitions. How
(23:59):
does the five shoes for change really apply to those real life stories?
So there's lots of examples of those in the book. Yeah. I love the
church example and the way you describe them, people walking through.
In some ways it's counterintuitive because you might
think, well, in this vacuum of leadership, somebody needs to
step up and say, here's where we're going with confidence
(24:21):
and maybe a small steering Committee says this is the direction
forward. Instead, the group was very transparent, very
almost vulnerable and seeking guidance from
the parishioners congregation to
say, what are your thoughts about where we should go? And there's some risk associated
with opening that door. Yeah. Yep. But with that risk
(24:44):
comes great opportunity if done well. I mean, if you put this
into the context of a for profit business
going through a major change, well, the more vulnerable they
are, the more open they are, the better they handle the change. The
better experience it's going to be for the employees. And as we all know,
the better experience it is for the employees in turn, the better experience
(25:06):
the customers are going to have throughout that. Right. You have employees who
are being brought along properly throughout the change, who are buying into the
change, who are aware of what's going on and buying in. Well, that's going to
trickle down to the experience that the customer feels while interacting with
that business throughout that transition. Yeah, yeah. Well
done. Very exciting. Always love to read your stuff.
(25:30):
Before we, before we land the plane here, Dennis, I want to ask you one
more question, which I ask all my guests, which is what delights you as
a customer? The biggest thing for me, I think is, is being known.
So that could be as small as where Starbucks write your name on the cup.
I mean, that's an example that's used a million times. But you go into a
mom and pop store, they know you by name. They know,
(25:51):
are you, are you getting the regular order today? So how can
large faceless organizations make you feel like you're
known? There's, there's so many different things that they can do to personalize the experience
a little better, a little more, and make it feel like you're not just a
number, not just a customer, but a friend, a family
member, something along those lines to make it feel like a more warm
(26:13):
interaction. Yeah, well said. I think you hit the nail on the head. That's going
to be a huge challenge and maybe a useful application of
AI in the future is how do you personalize that experience and make someone feel
known? Very good, Dennis. Awesome conversation. Can't wait for
this book. Tell us when it's going to come out, tell us how people can
find it and find you. Sure. So we don't have a set date yet for
(26:34):
the book. We're aiming for this fall. So September, October
2025. Currently in the rewrite of
the manuscript and then we'll be going into the, the editing process. The book
will be available on Amazon mostly there will be
a website for the book and for the five Shoes for Change in
general that will be launching soon, so there will be a
(26:56):
5shoeesforchange.com website. In the meantime,
people connect with me directly. Dennisgeeland me is my website
or LinkedIn is a place where I like to hang out quite a bit and
always up for some good conversation on change and
leadership. Excellent. The book is the Five Shoes for Change with
Dennis Gielen and Christian McMillan. Dennis, thank you so much for being on the
(27:17):
Delighted Customers podcast. Yeah, thanks again Mark.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Delighted Customers Podcast.
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(27:41):
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Welcome to the Delighted Customers podcast. I am so
glad you're here. We challenge conventional thinking about
customer experience because I believe that improving experiences
isn't just good for business. It's a powerful way to make a
meaningful difference in people's lives. Each week we
feature thought provoking conversations with industry thought leaders
(00:26):
from a variety of backgrounds, offering unique perspectives and
actionable insights. Get ready to sharpen your
leadership and transform your approach to customer experience.
Let's dive in.
Well, I am so excited to have my guest on the Delighted
Customers podcast, a returning guest, Dennis
(00:48):
Gielen, who is an author and a brilliant guy when it comes to
customer experience and how to best treat customers. He wrote a book called
the Zero in Formula. He wrote a book called the Accidental Solopreneur and
he's got a brand new book that we want to talk about because I really
think it can help people, especially in the area of change management.
And it's called the Five Shoes for Change. Dennis,
(01:11):
welcome back to the show. Yeah, thanks so much for having me back, Mark. I
can't wait to hear. You've got such a creative mind, you're such a good
storyteller and I remember doing, doing a previous podcast about
storytelling and you help people walk through that. I encourage
people to go back and listen to that episode. But today we're going to be
talking about your new book called the Five Shoes Word Change.
(01:32):
Catchy title. Tell us what the white space was and really what the book's
about. Yeah, very high level concept here is
that change is a journey. And if you
compare this to a physical journey, you know, you might be walking across all different
types of terrain, different types of elevation. Would you only bring one
pair of shoes for that type of trip? No. You're going to be encountering different
(01:55):
things you bring. You need different types of footwear. And it's the same thing
with walking through a change journey. You need to bring different
tools, different mindsets, different skill sets. And what we have
outlined, my co author and I, is there's five different shoes for
change that you need for this journey. I love, I love the topic. I think
it's so important. I don't think we can ever get enough help and insights when
(02:17):
it comes to leading change. I guess as humans we have a lot of
reluctance and reticence about change in general. Me coming
from banking, bankers are even more reluctant than the
average when it comes to change. But share with us a perspective.
I think if you don't mind that you bring. And then also your, your co
author brought to the table. Yeah. So my co author, I'll start with him. His
(02:39):
name's Christian McMillan. He is a brilliant
psychologist in Chile. Whole other story there on.
On how him and I got together and partnered on the book. But he
really looks at things from the clinical psychology point, point of
view. What are the emotions that people feel? What are the steps they need to
go through? Different life transitions, different things that they're
(03:00):
bringing to the table through life changes. More of the
business consultant side of things. So I'm always working with leadership
teams on, well, how do you scale your company? That's a change. How
do you implement new systems and processes into your
company without having a negative impact on your employees or your customers?
Those are changes. So it's really the melding of those two
(03:22):
different perspectives together that him and I bring to develop
the five shoes for change together. Really nice background for both
of you. Why should the C Suite really care? Like, what is the big
deal when it comes to this topic and how you
see a gap? Because the C Suite really has
a lot of issues they're dealing with. And so why should there be a focus
(03:45):
on this? Well, the old saying is, you know, death and taxes
are the two things in life you can always count on. Well, I would a
third, which is change. Right. And
the rate of change is just getting so fast
the last 10 years. We've probably seen more change in the last 10 years
than we did in the previous 100. And then in the last five years,
(04:07):
that rate of change has only gotten faster with AI, with.
With all the stuff at our fingertips now. And that just means
that businesses have to keep up or let alone
be leaders in any of these different areas. So change is
something that, yes, we've gotten better at. Yes, we're
a little better at understanding it, but I think we're still
(04:30):
so far behind the eight ball when it comes to having better
language around change, better understanding of how to actually
lead change effectively. And with the rate of change these days,
this is becoming a must. So let me just affirm what you just said.
My own experience, and I see if I go
back many, many years, worked for a large forms
(04:53):
manufacturer, basically a printing and label company, and they got swallowed
up by a bigger company. But we had acquired a company, went
through that change. Then later on, I worked for Boise Cascade
Corporation. We bought OfficeMax, changed our name to
OfficeMax, and had two completely different cultures. That was the.
I'm going to share four different acquisitions mergers that happened.
(05:15):
That was the one that had two completely. Because you're talking about retail people, a
lot of hourly people on the office max side. We acquired. We were an enterprise
B2B company, two totally different cultures and really
was very painful when it came to meshing those two.
And then the bank we had, we acquired two companies before the bank,
long after I left it was acquired by another company. So this
(05:37):
sort of consolidation isn't going to stop anytime soon. And
so that's just another, I guess, avenue for
change that happens. That's a hard reality, right? Yep. Yep.
And it's funny you mentioned when the name changed. Sometimes
something as small as that can be enough of a
change to really have people have a difficult time
(06:00):
going through it. Here's a real simple, silly example from my own life. There
was a local band in my area just starting up.
They were starting to get some traction. I was related to
or I worked with one of the people who was related to one of the
band members. So I had a bit of a loyalty, a bit of a reason
to kind of listen to their music. And in about three years in, they
(06:21):
decided to change the name of the band. Nothing else changed. All the exact same
band members, same sound, same kind of music and everything. But I
was attached to the old name and for some reason that was enough to make
me kind of stop following the band. And there was just this
affiliation with the old name of the band. So we gotta be really
careful when we're talking larger scale changes, especially if
(06:43):
you're leading one of those not to assume that it's all just
logic. There's a lot of emotion that gets tied in with change.
Both your employees and your customers can be really tied to certain things that you
may not even suspect. Like a simple name. That's a great
point. And words and phrases and what you communicate totally
matters. I want to ask you, when it comes to change
(07:05):
leadership or change management in general, what do leaders
what are some of the myths out there that I think some people believe
that are maybe not true? Several. One of them being
everybody will come along at the same pace or everybody is starting
at the same starting point. Not true. Everybody is experiencing
these things in different ways. In fact, in our upcoming
(07:27):
book, the Five Shoes for Change, we talk about four main
catalysts for change. And even though it could be the same change for
different people, it could be a different catalyst. We talk about
storms, we talk about deserts, we talk about dying objects, and we
talk about serendipity being the four main catalysts for change. Well,
two people could be experiencing the same change. For one, it could feel like a
(07:49):
storm. For the other, it could feel like a desert. And then the other thing
is, people are equipped with different skill sets, different
mindsets. In our case, that's different shoes. And they might be more comfortable
in a certain pair of shoes and more comfortable walking certain parts of the
change journey than others. So we really have to understand
the language around change. Why are people feeling certain
(08:11):
things and how are they best equipped to deal with them? And not
everybody's the same. I love that. I think that's so true.
And gosh, there could be so many factors that relate to that. One
could simply be. What I talked about is people have never been
through a merger or an acquisition before. Whatever the case
may be, whatever's changing, it may be their first time, right? Yeah,
(08:33):
yeah. And somebody else, we may assume, oh, this is. They've
been through something like this before, they'll have no problem. Well, maybe there's a
slightly different emotional trigger here. Maybe there's a different loyalty.
Maybe there's a new unknown for them. Never assume. And maybe they went
through multiple changes in the past and they didn't go
well. Yeah, there's some emotional baggage there just tied
(08:55):
to a previous change that was very negative and disastrous. Even though
this one might be going smoothly, they're remembering that last one.
I'll add one other one. I want to get your opinion on this because I
mentioned before the change associated with a merger, acquisition, some
sort of corporate change. And the fact is that whether you're on the
buying side or being bought side of this, for example,
(09:18):
if you acquired a company, and maybe this doesn't
make sense in your mind, but it was a reality for us. Is
that. The fact is that you. We bought another bank. Those
customers and those employees did not choose us. So they're being
forced to adopt to changes, both the employees and
the customers to our system, our way of doing things. And there's a
(09:40):
huge risk of churn there. What do you think? Completely
agree. So in the terminology in our book, we would describe that as a storm.
It was thrust upon them suddenly. Maybe they didn't know about it or
they had very little time to react to this. Suddenly there's
all these thoughts and emotions and unknowns going through their mind and
they're dealing with what they're considering a storm. Whereas the people on
(10:03):
the other side of the fence are probably thinking, wow, this is great. We get
to merge these things together. They get to take advantage of our processes and
our technology or whatever we're introducing. This is. There's so many
positives out of this, not realizing on the other side, they're
sitting there sweating, wondering what's going to happen, what's going on? Is
my job safe? Am I going to be able to handle this? Is this going
(10:24):
to be redund because somebody else is doing what I'm already doing over there? So,
so many different ways that people experience change. And I really
do think we need to change the language around change and how we
handle it. Dennis, we talked about some of the reasons that change
is hard. Change is difficult. What are some of the missteps
that companies make, leaders make when it comes to change?
(10:47):
I think a big thing is being upfront with
as much communication and information as you can from the beginning.
Obviously there's limits on what you can and can't say, but there's this,
there's that old saying, sometimes you have to say something seven times for
people to really get it. Here's a great example. I worked at a company
once and we were rolling out a really small change and it was
(11:09):
announced to all employees in the department that it's coming.
This is what's happening. Again, not a very large change, but a
couple of employees, the second they heard that, it's almost
like they had tuned out the rest of the message because their mind went to,
oh, is my job safe? Am I going to lose my job? So
that's all they heard. And if that's the only time you communicate about
(11:31):
this, they're stuck with that. So it needs to be communicated multiple
times in large group settings, in one on one settings, allowing
people to ask questions, allowing people to kind of work through what does this
really mean for me? But I think there's this assumption that, oh, we put
out a company memo or oh, we mentioned that at the quarterly meeting, everybody's
aware, great, now we can move on and start taking action. Well, for those
(11:53):
employees that maybe felt this emotional surge right off the
bat and didn't quite grasp and understand the entire change and what it did
or didn't mean for them, they're not along the change journey
with the rest of you. So over communicate, find different ways
to communicate. Communicate one on one. If you can allow people to
ask questions. Missing that step right off the bat is setting
(12:16):
that change up for potential failure. Even if it's a small one.
Like in our case. We learned a lot from that misstep
and not over communicating the change from the beginning. Yeah, such
a great point. And like you say, people are at different stages
in the journey and some may not come along till the very end,
some may not come along at all. So I guess we're
(12:39):
trying to mitigate those factors to the best of our ability. Because change, like you
said earlier, is, it's a common. Yeah, yeah. It's,
it's, it's inevitable. And it's so funny because we know this. We
know that getting outside of our comfort zone is a good thing.
We know that changing is a good thing. We know that growth and
learning is a good thing. Yet in, like, inside all of us,
(13:01):
we resist it. We can't help it. I think it's just the way we're wired.
We, we like comfort zones, we like safety, we like the known.
And that's where we want to stay. But we also know to grow,
to learn, to get better. We have to go over here, but still we
have to have all this language, all these processes, all this, the
right shoes in place to be able to walk that path
(13:23):
effectively. And no matter how many times we do it, it never
really gets something that we're excellent and good and comfortable at.
We have to always remind ourselves. Time to change my shoes. I'm going to
walk this step of the journey now. Time put on these more comfortable pair here
because I'm about to do this. So I don't think it's something
we'll ever, as humans, be really great at and
(13:45):
experts at. And that's why it's so important to keep bringing this
up and learning it ourselves as leaders to get better at it. So
true. Such a good muscle to try to build is this ability
to change and be able to transition. Well,
Dennis, great transition. You brought up the shoes and
I'd love to talk a little bit more about the five shoes for change.
(14:08):
Pardon the pun, but would you walk us through at
least at a high level, the five, and then maybe we can drill down to
one or two of them. Yep. So, struggling to connect the
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(14:30):
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(14:52):
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in minutes.
What I'll do is I'll walk through. The five shoes are actually five different
colors. Okay. And they correspond
kind of with the change curve, if you're familiar with that, how you're thrust
(15:15):
into a change, and eventually you come down to maybe the low point or
breaking point until you finally work your way out of it. But
basically there's a black shoe, red shoe, yellow shoe,
green shoe, and blue shoe. And I'll just give a real high level
overview here. When you're first thrust into a change,
you need to absorb the impact, the shock. You need to be able to. Okay,
(15:37):
what is going on here? For that, you need to be wearing the black shoe.
And in the book we go into, what does that look like? How do you
wear the black shoe? How does that help absorb the impact?
Once you kind of get past that first phase, now you need to
take off the black shoe, put on the red shoe. This is where you're going
to be experiencing different emotions. Now, how do I express those emotions? How do
(15:59):
I release the different pain that I felt because of this change?
How do I experience and express these emotions properly?
Once you kind of get past that phase, it's time to put on your yellow
shoe. And this is really the thinking shoe. How do I now clarify my
direction? Now how do I make a plan? How do I really think about what
needs to happen next? That's the yellow shoe. But like, we all know
(16:21):
just having a plan or just thinking isn't enough. Now you need to take action.
So that's the green shoe. Green shoe is the. The action shoe where you're
actually carrying out the plan, carrying out the change. You start taking
action, you start moving on, you start building new habits. And throughout the
entire change curve, really, there's another set
of shoes you need to be wearing that entire time, and that's the blue shoe.
(16:42):
And the blue shoe is all for growth and learning,
seeking meaning, how am I growing through this? What should I be taking from
this? What am I learning from this? What are the values? What are the higher
perspectives I should be having because of this change? So
those five together make up the five shoes that we really need to wear through
the change journey. Nice. I like the color connection
(17:04):
to the different stages as they go through it. I share with you
offline. Also, this reminds me of the Bono six thinking hats.
Yes. And that was designed for
people to make decisions as a group, given the fact that
we all have different personalities. So it was pushing us to wear
different hats, put on this hat, and become this person. Tell us
(17:26):
how you believe this model should be
Experienced by the different players
in the group leaders, you know, middle management, employees. How should
we be activated? So, going back to the shoe
analogy, we are most comfortable in our own shoes, right? If you,
if, if you were to borrow somebody's shirt, it might not
(17:48):
feel out of place. You put somebody else's shoes on, that can
feel strange, right? It's kind of molded to their feet. They've been wearing it.
You put it on, it's not yours. It feels strange. Well, to that
same analogy, certain people are more comfortable in certain pairs of shoes,
right? Maybe you're more comfortable wearing the black shoe, or maybe you're
an action person. So the green shoe is for you. Maybe you're a thinker, an
(18:11):
ideas person, so you're a yellow shoe person. Well, to go
through an entire change journey, you really do need to
get used to putting on and taking off these different shoes, because one
pair of shoes is not going to get you through the entire journey effectively.
That's as your. That's as an individual going through a change on your own.
Well, what if you're a team? Certain people on the team are going to be
(18:33):
more comfortable in different types of shoes. So maybe at certain parts of the change
journey, they take a little more of the load or they take. Take a little
more of the lead. Let's get our thinkers together for the yellow
shoe part of the journey. Obviously, we're not ostracizing the rest of the
group. You have to do this effectively, but those are the people we might rely
on a little bit more. And then now it's time to put on the green
(18:53):
shoe. And those people are going to take the lead on that part. But
overall, we should all over time get more
comfortable with each of the different pairs of shoes because they really are
all good for us. They really are all needed for different
parts of the journey. I mean, life is a journey, so we should get
comfortable or more comfortable in these different shoes over different
(19:15):
periods of time. So one of the things that we will be including either in
the book or with different workshops that we do will be an assessment so
that people can understand. Which shoe am I most comfortable in
right now? That gives you a good idea of your team. If you have a
team of 10 people and, boy, we have nobody on the team that's really a
green shoe or a yellow shoe. Is that a problem? Or while we're going through
(19:37):
a change, who on the team should we rely on a little heavier in
different parts of the change journey? So really, just getting a better
understanding of the Shoes, which ones you're more comfortable in and how
do we utilize them more effectively? Yeah, I think that's a great starting point.
Just have some self awareness of where everybody is in this and
acknowledge, you know, what are some of the gaps that we need to grow
(19:59):
into. As you're moving along this, can you share an
example of. Let's just say
I'm in the black phase and that's where I think I am. And
what are some strategies that an organization can
use to move people through that storming stage and help
people maybe if they have a more of a reluctance in that area.
(20:21):
Right. So the black shoe by definition means you're a little more comfortable
at absorbing that initial impact. Those are those people that are good in
crisis situations. Right. Something happens, they're on it, hey, I'm going to
minimize the impact. That's great. That's where they thrive. But you can't stay
there. It's not always crisis mode. It's not always, okay, now
we're coming out of that, we need to really start putting on the red
(20:43):
shoe and saying, okay, what are the different emotions people are feeling here?
Let's be a little more empathetic. And maybe the black shoe people
aren't the best at being empathetic and really expressing or
helping others express their feelings. So we need to first understand
that is a requirement. We're now going into that
phase of change. So acknowledging that,
(21:05):
recognizing that and then having the language around, how do
we transition? There is most importantly. So I think
it's a lot of education, I think it's a lot of awareness and I think
it's a lot of having the right language around change to be able to do
that effectively. You're such a good storyteller.
I love to hear maybe a story that relates
(21:27):
to one of these shoes that an employee or a leader may
be dealing with. It's funny, in the. When we first wrote the first
draft of the manuscript, it almost read a little too much like a
textbook. Right. It's very clinical. It's very, this is what change
is. These are the catalysts of change. These are the different shoes for change. And
a lot of the feedback we were getting from the beta readers was,
(21:49):
can you show me what this looks like in the real world? So we started
giving some small examples in there and we just thought, well, wait a minute, what
if we just reached out to some real people, some real organizations, and
got their stories of the major changes they've had to go through?
And how would the five shoes for change apply to their
situation. So that's what we've done. I think we've got five or six different
(22:11):
stories that we dive into in the book. One is an example of
a church where they lost all three of their full time
pastors within a couple months. So what did that look like? Well, first
the elders board had to absorb that shock. They had to put on their black
shoe and go into crisis mode. Okay, what do we do? How do we handle
this? They were able to very effectively find an
(22:32):
interim pastor that was going to come in and kind of make that a seamless
transition. They were able to hire a recruiter that specializes
in finding pastors and they kind of minimize the damage.
Great. How's the congregation doing? We need to check in. How's everybody
absorbing this? That's, that's the red shoe is what they put on there. They wanted
to really get the feedback from the congregation. There was a lot of discuss, discussions
(22:53):
with people, There were surveys. What should we be looking for? Where should the church
be going? Let's see this as an opportunity. So that was good.
So that was also moving into the yellow shoe. If we're going to be planning
the next steps of our church here, what does this really look like? And then
it was taking action, putting on the green shoe through all of that.
The blue shoe was put on saying, what do we need to learn from this?
(23:15):
What is God wanting from us from this? How are we
growing as a church through this? So it was a great example
of even though they had no concept of the five shoes process
or what this language was, they were exhibiting this. As I
interviewed all the different elders, it was incredible to see. Wow, you guys really
did a great job of wearing these different five shoes. And
(23:37):
it was a seamless transition for them. They, they filled all the pastor
positions. The congregation is extremely happy with how it went. It was
a seamless transition that could have went completely sideways if they
didn't handle it this way. Other stories, other examples that will be in the book
are people who've fought through addiction, people who have gone through
layoffs, other companies that have gone through different mergers, acquisitions. How
(23:59):
does the five shoes for change really apply to those real life stories?
So there's lots of examples of those in the book. Yeah. I love the
church example and the way you describe them, people walking through.
In some ways it's counterintuitive because you might
think, well, in this vacuum of leadership, somebody needs to
step up and say, here's where we're going with confidence
(24:21):
and maybe a small steering Committee says this is the direction
forward. Instead, the group was very transparent, very
almost vulnerable and seeking guidance from
the parishioners congregation to
say, what are your thoughts about where we should go? And there's some risk associated
with opening that door. Yeah. Yep. But with that risk
(24:44):
comes great opportunity if done well. I mean, if you put this
into the context of a for profit business
going through a major change, well, the more vulnerable they
are, the more open they are, the better they handle the change. The
better experience it's going to be for the employees. And as we all know,
the better experience it is for the employees in turn, the better experience
(25:06):
the customers are going to have throughout that. Right. You have employees who
are being brought along properly throughout the change, who are buying into the
change, who are aware of what's going on and buying in. Well, that's going to
trickle down to the experience that the customer feels while interacting with
that business throughout that transition. Yeah, yeah. Well
done. Very exciting. Always love to read your stuff.
(25:30):
Before we, before we land the plane here, Dennis, I want to ask you one
more question, which I ask all my guests, which is what delights you as
a customer? The biggest thing for me, I think is, is being known.
So that could be as small as where Starbucks write your name on the cup.
I mean, that's an example that's used a million times. But you go into a
mom and pop store, they know you by name. They know,
(25:51):
are you, are you getting the regular order today? So how can
large faceless organizations make you feel like you're
known? There's, there's so many different things that they can do to personalize the experience
a little better, a little more, and make it feel like you're not just a
number, not just a customer, but a friend, a family
member, something along those lines to make it feel like a more warm
(26:13):
interaction. Yeah, well said. I think you hit the nail on the head. That's going
to be a huge challenge and maybe a useful application of
AI in the future is how do you personalize that experience and make someone feel
known? Very good, Dennis. Awesome conversation. Can't wait for
this book. Tell us when it's going to come out, tell us how people can
find it and find you. Sure. So we don't have a set date yet for
(26:34):
the book. We're aiming for this fall. So September, October
2025. Currently in the rewrite of
the manuscript and then we'll be going into the, the editing process. The book
will be available on Amazon mostly there will be
a website for the book and for the five Shoes for Change in
general that will be launching soon, so there will be a
(26:56):
5shoeesforchange.com website. In the meantime,
people connect with me directly. Dennisgeeland me is my website
or LinkedIn is a place where I like to hang out quite a bit and
always up for some good conversation on change and
leadership. Excellent. The book is the Five Shoes for Change with
Dennis Gielen and Christian McMillan. Dennis, thank you so much for being on the
(27:17):
Delighted Customers podcast. Yeah, thanks again Mark.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Delighted Customers Podcast.
It would mean so much if you would take a moment to subscribe. You
can go to Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to
podcasts. Click on the plus sign or follow button and that will ensure
that you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out to others.
(27:41):
While you're there. I'd love it if you leave a five star review.
I look forward to seeing you back here next Thursday.
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