Masters of The Turnaround: Tammy Watchorn of The Change Ninja On How She Turned Crisis Into Success
Tell your story how you want to tell it. We often think our perception of reality is reality. It isn’t. It’s just our perception and everyone has a different perception. We can therefore, to some extent, change our reality. If something bad happens you often can’t do anything about the thing that has happened but you can choose how you respond to it.
As part of my series about prominent entrepreneurs and executives that overcame adversity to achieve great success”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Tammy Watchorn.
Dr Tammy Watchorn’s experiences of leading transformational change in complex highly resistant environments led to The Change Ninja Handbook, a choose-your-own-adventure guide to making change happen. Then one day, she unexpectedly encountered a huge life-changing situation, an emotional, overwhelming change project that she hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. So she decided to use all of her resources, the tools and methods she taught others to use for change at work, to see if they worked just as well when the stakes were very high and very personal. She became her very own case study and has shared the results (and tools) in the follow up book ‘The Change Ninja Returns — and this time it’s personal’
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?
I worked in change for many years in the health service. It was painful. Everything took 3 times longer than necessary. So many people had views and opinions that got in the way of progress. So many people just refused to do the things needed, often hiding behind the system, the processes and the methodologies. Everyone agreed something needed to change but they all assumed it was the system that was at fault. Leading change was demotivating and energy zapping but still needed to be done for patient care. And one day I realized that it wasn’t the system that was at fault. It was how we approached change, more importantly how we approached the people we needed to make the change happen. I realized that using the term stakeholders and mapping them out was de-humanising and missed a vital point, that we are all human, with the same evolved brain and we all act in certain ways when faced with change that might affect us. The brain has evolved to fear change because it might be dangerous and so we need to approach people in a brain friendly way so their brain, and subsequent behaviors don’t try to block the change.
Can you share your story of when you were on the brink of failure? First, take us back to what it was like during the darkest days.
It was trying to deliver innovation into the health care sector. The organizational focus was on project plans, KPIs, and random ideas rather than understanding the problems we needed to solve. I knew this was wrong but didn’t know, at the time, how to articulate this in a way that didn’t cause even more issues. I was in a big workshop exploring the transformational changes needed and capturing ‘what we would do by when’. As Head of Innovation I was asked to provide a 3 year plan of what we were going to innovate. It was a ludicrous question and one I couldn’t answer. The more I tried to explain that this wasn’t possible, that we were in a fog with no clear goal, no clear problem to solve, and have never done this before, the more the system, or people in the system, demanded I produce a plan of action of ‘what by when’. It was hopeless and all I got was a ‘telling off’ from my boss for being difficult. I felt like giving up and felt like a failure.
What was your mindset during such a challenging time? Where did you get the drive to keep going when things were so hard?
I kept going because the end outcome (improved health care and a more efficient system) was important and I knew that we needed to change how we worked. I also don’t give up on a challenge easily. I often felt isolated, challenged, belittled and unqualified but as I introduced new ways of working and started to see pockets of success it gave me the energy and motivation to keep going. I started to save time by working differently (on a 4D system called QUBE, where I was taught a range of new tools to help with collaboration and alignment. QUBE is a people based approach, not a tech based approach, and suddenly I was able to get projects moving at speed and delivered in a fraction fo the time. The meaningless tasks started to disappear, the collaborative and trusting approach started to grow. I knew I had to keep going and to scale this way of working up. This was innovation at it’s best.
Can you please tell us how you were able to overcome such adversity and achieve success? What did the next chapter look like?
First step was to not give into the doubts about my abilities. I treat doubts like difficult stakeholders. They may have important information but that doesn’t mean I need to do what they say.
Then I choose small teams to work with. Teams that were struggling and willing to try something new. I chose different types of teams to work with, in different parts of the organization to enable me to showcase how we could start to work differently irrelevant of the team function.
Then I recruited volunteers to help scale up and grow this way of working.
It was often hard, there were a lot of ‘that will never work’ brigade but it achieved results, improved the well-being of the teams involved and delighted those on the receiving end of the change.
I knew I was onto something that was transformational and decided that I needed to spread this approach wider than my organization. With the help of my mentor Eddie Obeng I decided to leave my job and see if I could spread the word wider. And that is when the Change Ninja was born.
Based on your experience, can you share five actionable pieces of advice about how to develop the mindset needed to persevere through adversity? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1 . Notice how you are physically feeling. Can you feel the churn of adrenalin and the flood of cortisol ? This flood of neurotransmitters and hormones tells your brain how to respond. If it senses danger it will tell you to run to safety, and while you might not physically run away from something or someone your responses will potentially be defensive (fight) or you might shut down (freeze). Your brain acts very quickly, you aren’t aware of it and it drives your behaviours. If it’s a negative or bad thing then the emotions kick in and the logic switches off making it difficult to make logical decisions. If you don’t believe me then tell me how logical you were the last time you were angry and someone told you to calm down.
2 . Breath. Any breathing exercise is good but I tend to use the physiological sigh. Take in two breaths through the nose and then exhale slowly through the mouth. This method uses your diaphragm to ‘hack’ your brain telling it everything is fine. This will help quieten down the nervous system, slow down the emotion and help you start to think logically again. It works very quickly and can be done without anyone noticing what you are doing.
3 . Treat the doubts like you would treat a difficult person in your life. Those so-called friends who keep telling you why you are failing, or those at work who keep saying ‘no’ to your project. Think about how you approach them to get them to shift or how you avoid listening to their, often bad, advice, then do the same with your doubts. Another great tip is to write down the doubt then look at it as a risk and see what action would minimize it. For example:
‘I’m worried if I change jobs I won’t fit into the new team.’
What could you do to mitigate the risk? Check them out on Linked In? Ask your new boss about the team? All of this will give you more data that, in turn, reduces the uncertainty that the doubt is based on.
4 . Don’t try to do too much at once. Big goals can feel overwhelming and lead to procrastination or a sense of failure. Instead imagine the end goal and outcome. Live that future and your brain will start to imagine the good things that are on the horizon because it will start to feel real. Then ask:
‘What are the big chunks of activity I need to do to get there?’
Order the chunks then, focus on the first one only, breaking it into small manageable actions. Do the actions and celebrate once you have achieved them. It shifts you from anxiety induced procrastination to lots of high fiving yourself in the mirror.
5. Tell your story how you want to tell it. We often think our perception of reality is reality. It isn’t. It’s just our perception and everyone has a different perception. We can therefore, to some extent, change our reality. If something bad happens you often can’t do anything about the thing that has happened but you can choose how you respond to it.
Husband run off with his secretary? You can’t change that. You can choose anger, you can choose embarrassment and shame or you can choose to empower yourself. Tell everyone what an idiot, and cliche he is, even though you are hurting and grieving. Tell yourself and others you are now free to pursue your dreams as you want. The more you tell it this way the more this becomes your reality. It’s hard to do, it’s hard to not think ‘why me or what is wrong with me’ but if you do it and do it often then your story becomes your reality. Tell your story how you want it told.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There is mostly more than one person. Because all the good people in your life offer something different. The trick is to understand who is best for what thing you need. Need coaching ? Who’s good for that? Need advice on finances? Who do you know for that? The finance person is perhaps not going to be the same as the coach person. So rather than think ‘I need my best friend for this’ think ‘What do I need help with and who’s the best person to provide that help?’ In saying that Professor Eddie Obeng, my mentor, teacher, colleague and friend is behind the last 10 years of my professional and often personal life. He is the person who has probably influenced me the most in life and it’s because of him I’m doing what I’m doing today. When everyone around me was telling me to be cautious, telling me how risky my choices were, telling me how things could go wrong, he crushed the doubts and guided me through the fear. He was right. And I will be forever grateful for what he has given me.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I’m really excited by my ‘4 day Ninja Challenge programme which is based on the first book: The Change Ninja Handbook. It’s interactive and based on real problems to help others understand why humans behave the way they do and how they can change their approach to change to make it brain-friendly. It will hopefully be accredited soon by an international organization which will allow it to be scaled up and create Change Ninjas in all organizations across the globe.
I also have a ‘retreat’ to go alongside the second book: The Change Ninja Returns and this time it’s personal (released October 29th 2024). This immersive experience is focused on managing the big emotional changes that life can bring and finding a way through that change, especially when you are in the fog, to open up new and unthought of opportunities. If you are looking for personal transformation then this programme can really help.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
The Ninja Way! Understanding the human brain and why we do what we do. This not only helps the Ninja (imagine if you no longer got angry because the dishwasher was loaded the wrong way!) but will help those around you too (imagine the relief of not getting shouted at because the plates are in the dishwasher the wrong way!!). If just 10% of us applied the Ninja Way then the world might be a bit calmer and more unified and aligned on doing some good stuff.
Any parting words of wisdom that you would like to share?
When you start to feel a bit angry at something, before you shout ‘why did you do that?’ ask yourself ‘does it really matter? It often doesn’t and saves a whole lot of grief and energy. This is the quickest way to help you manage your mojo and has far reaching implications for those around you too.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I listened to my brain… and minimized social media platforms
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammywatchorn/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
