Anna Birch is the visionary Co-founder of Polaris Institute, which aids high-performing teams and individuals in managing and embracing impactful change. She is an acclaimed entrepreneur, executive facilitator, and experiential trainer with a profound grasp of organizational dynamics and human change. Anna leverages neuroscience and her extensive background in facilitating group dynamics to foster deep understanding and transformative experiences. Her insights have reshaped businesses from a range of industries to scale and innovate successfully. As a leader, she is committed to helping executives redefine their operational systems and narratives for clarity and growth.
Are you curious about how neuroscience can revolutionize your business strategies? How can understanding the human brain lead to sustainable change and improved performance within your team?
According to Anna Birch, a renowned expert in organizational dynamics and human change, the key lies in leveraging neuroplasticity to create lasting behavioral shifts. She highlights that true change comes from small, manageable steps that build new habits over time. This approach, grounded in neuroscience, enables individuals and teams to overcome resistance to change, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
In this episode of America Open for Business, host Cameron Heffernan speaks with Anna Birch, Co-founder of Polaris Institute, to discuss how neuroscience can transform your business. They explore how micro-steps can lead to significant behavioral changes, the role of self-care in effective leadership, and strategies for overcoming resistance to change in new markets. Tune in to discover practical insights and actionable strategies to harness the power of neuroscience for your business.
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Cameron: 0:02
Hi everybody, I’m Cameron Heffernan and welcome to another episode of America Opened for Business. I’m your host and before I introduce our guest for today, I will mention that we are the sponsor of this program, your B2B Marketing. We’re a truly global marketing agency. We help B2B companies overcome some of the typical challenges that they face as they enter new markets or cross borders, and we can help them with that end-to-end solution for marketing communications so they can focus on their business and growing that business rather than contemplating marketing or the execution of that. You can discover how we can drive your expansion at yourbeat2bmarketingco.
Cameron: 0:44
Some of the past guests that I’ve been honored to have on the show include Brian Smith, the founder of Uggs, the sheepskin boots and slippers from Australia, a billion-dollar brand. Jean-arthur Regebeau, who’s the ambassador from Belgium to the USA. And Ben Tija, who’s the founder and CEO of Earthly Wellness, a $20 million-plus direct-to-consumer brand that’s looking to change healthcare, naturally. Today I’m honored to have on the show Anna Birch of Polaris Institute, who is joining us on the show. Anna, before I introduce her, I’m going to say a little bit about we’ve known each other for several years. Anna, as a facilitator, has facilitated some of the groups I’ve been involved with. It was a great experience and to have her on the show is exciting to me. We had her business partner, bill Troy, on a little while back. Anna is an entrepreneur, a gifted executive facilitator and an experiential trainer. Anna founded and led several businesses, all rooted in organizational dynamics and human change, and we’re going to probe more into that today. Welcome to the show, anna Birch.
Anna: 1:51
Thank you so much. Good to be here, Cameron.
Cameron: 1:53
All right, Fantastic. So let’s start with a real basic question, which is Polaris Institute. How do you help people? How do you help companies? How do you help people?
Anna: 2:04
So part of what people struggle with, we’ve discovered, is change, and a lot of change is fleeting, maybe temporary. So how do you approach change, whether that be an organizational change or an individual? And we really approach it at a root level and support high performers or support teams that are really facing a change, whether that’s been imposed on them or they’ve invited it and really want to change. So incorporating elements of brain science, as well as taking some of the forum work I’ve done all these years and say let’s be honest. Let’s be honest about our current reality and how can we have transformative change versus fleeting change?
Cameron: 2:52
And you know we’re in now an election year, perfect. You know it could be a better, more tangible example of change, both generational kind of change of who you support, the ideas you have, but also within a few months, you know, having perhaps a whole new government, new participants, new ideas. How does your approach, how does Polaris help to possibly navigate a landscape like that?
Anna: 3:18
So one of the elements of how our brain works and how we incorporate this into coaching or different workshops is the fact that, to save energy and time on a physiological level, your brain creates a lot of shortcuts and your brain has a set of files and those files sometimes you might refer to those as your operating system or a set of narratives. Sometimes those are arbitrarily formed.
Anna: 3:50
So it could be a relationship with power, it could be your relationship or your narrative about wealth, and we’ve all constructed these in our brain. Doing this job has constructed a set of files and we’ve chosen to operate off of those, and sometimes it’s not necessarily the current truth, the current reality, but it’s our narrative, and so one of the things we bring up with and it works with polarizing topics is let’s get a deeper understanding. Number one the fact that you have an operating system, you have a set of files, and some of those are innocuous Like I don’t have to rethink how to sit down.
Anna: 4:39
I can just sit down. I’ll go to the sit down in my chair file. But there are other files of how I’ve established my opinion about power, about politicians, about certain dynamics, and what we’ve been doing is to help people get to that deeper understanding, understand where that narrative has come from. We have a couple of things we do to show it In real time you’ve probably seen our checkerboard and to really de-stigmatize the difference of opinions and say you know, it’s normal. It’s normal that you’re going to go to your old narrative and some of those narratives have gotten you where you are today. Some of those narratives might get in the way of clarity, might get in the way of curiosity, certainly might get in the way of a high stakes relationship get in the way of a high stakes relationship.
Cameron: 5:52
And so how do you determine I guess it’s a combination of experience and kind of reading the room how deep to go with some of these workshops and sessions that you’re leading?
Anna: 5:59
So a couple of different environments. When we are working with EO or YPO people that aren’t on the same team then we can go fairly deep and you can bring up topics that are not necessarily related to the team at hand. They might be a personal topic, they might be a business topic or a challenge business topic or a challenge. An example I give in front of the room is I came to discover that I have a very different relationship with decisions than my spouse. My spouse and I ran one of our companies together and there were times when it was hard to be in business with your spouse. When it was hard to be in business with your spouse, and times it was particularly hard were when I would want to make a decision. I would want to.
Anna: 6:52
I look at decisions. This is my operating system. I look at decisions as exciting. I look at decisions as progress. I look at somebody who can make a quick decision as an asset to a team. I’m married to someone who agonizes over decisions, who looks at a decision as an end point, and if we make the decision, then we close the door on opportunity, which is completely opposite as how I looked at it. So team members would if they really wanted to pontificate, who’d they go to? They go to my husband. Team members are like I don’t really want, I just need a decision, let’s go to Anna.
Anna: 7:45
And it caused some tension, certainly between he and I, and there were times when my approach was really effective. Now, when it came to $150,000 contract and we needed to read every line and question and go back and forth with a vendor, my approach wasn’t necessarily as beneficial as somebody that would dig in and ask a lot of questions.
Anna: 8:14
So that happens in companies, that happens in families, that happens in our businesses and our personal lives, our businesses and our personal lives. And just to recognize it, so when we’re working with teams, looking at different operating systems and opinions and narratives, what’s going on? Where did that come from? And we can go deep on the fact that if we’re going to innovate, we’re going to scale, we’re going to need to understand who’s on our team. There are even companies that have a set of core values. You know customer first. That might mean if you have 10 people on your leadership team, it could mean 10 different things. Do we truly understand what does that? What does that mean to you, cameron? Do we truly understand what does that mean to you, cameron? You know customer first. What does that mean to other clients?
Anna: 9:11
I had one team that I worked with who the driving, very driven, very execution-focused CEO, said they were high, high, perfectionist, high, high, resilient, which means it’s never good enough and don’t quit. And this CEO made a comment of gosh, you know, people were there till nine or 10 o’clock last night making sure they didn’t quit and they got it perfect. And I dared in the room that day because the whole team was there. I dared to say, well, I wonder if somebody might look at that as in question leadership. And I got these definitely glares from the CEO and I said, if it was great leadership and the team was really high functioning, should they be there till nine o’clock at?
Cameron: 10:16
night Right, right.
Anna: 10:18
And finally, somebody that had been quiet so much of the time, didn’t really speak up on this team said I agree, and I’m in charge of a lot of the safety and a lot of if my team is tired or not really firing on all cylinders and we’re there till 10 o’clock at night, we’re going to make mistakes. So I don’t look at that as the type of culture that I want to drive. So it brought up this very interesting conversation. Neither is necessarily 100% right, because there might be times when we just have to burn the midnight oil, get a job done, and there might be times when we need to question that reality and say is that, is that the culture we want?
Cameron: 11:08
right. Right. Do you have challenges with I mean, maybe you see it in the, in the course of these, uh, these sessions people that are a little less willing to participate or feel that this is not for them because they’re just the workers sort of thing. How do you pull them in? Or maybe you don’t experience that.
Anna: 11:27
Yeah, a lot of the teams I’ve worked with are all the leadership team. And. I would say that for the most part, they’re vocal. There have been times when you know, I’ve known, I’ve read the room and said, you know, it might be a good time to pair up and let’s say, cameron, you’re one of those people, I don’t guess that. But let’s say you were the one of the people that didn’t necessarily speak up and you were partnered with Amy. I might say, hey, amy, what’d you hear from Cameron?
Anna: 11:57
as he shared that and so just kind of finding ways to. There’s really no way around making sure we hear from everybody, and it might be adjusting my facilitation style.
Cameron: 12:10
But, yeah, so do you think change is more prevalent now than it was, say, 10 years ago?
Anna: 12:20
I would say that we absolutely, and it depends on where you are. I think the pace has changed. Yeah.
Anna: 12:29
The other thing is there’s a difference in my mind between change and transition. So it may be that there’s this major change in the company, we’ve changed and we brought in an external CEO or we’ve changed something about the company, and oftentimes it’s the transition. So we’ve made the announcements and we’ve made the change, and then people kind of forget that there’s a whole lot of adaptation and recalibration when we go and transition to the new normal.
Anna: 13:05
People leave you know. They just announce the change and expect everyone to get in line. But how are we really adapting and transitioning and maybe undoing some structures and rebuilding based on that change?
Cameron: 13:21
Mm-hmm, because I also think the environment we’re in now there’s a different level of change just on an everyday basis you know with. We’re more connected. It’s less of a defined you know, nine to five, monday to Friday work week. It’s a more global world now and I think all of that kind of contributes to this environment where change is at a faster pace. I see it when I, when I work with or hire or, you know, interview younger people, just what they’re able to handle and I don’t know sort of what comes naturally to them versus me. When I first started in my 20s I could do a couple things and I was accomplished at those Younger people these days it seems that they come right out of the gate just sort of ready to go because of what they’ve faced to get to that point. We may have lost her. Let’s see. Oh, you’re back, anna. You there, yep.
Anna: 14:18
It looks like it froze a little bit.
Cameron: 14:20
Maybe it’s the second I’ll edit this out later but it’s the second day of summer vacation, so my son is at home. He could be playing Siege or something online.
Anna: 14:29
Taking over the internet bandwidth.
Cameron: 14:31
Yeah, yeah, so we’ll edit this out later. So let me go back. I was going to ask you about change from an environmental kind of standpoint, so let me re-ask you that question. Let me just write down where we’re at. We’re at 24 to 27. All right, let me shift to a different direction, completely Okay. Okay, I’m asking about some of the companies that you work with. Um, what types of companies and what types of industries or settings are best for for your program to succeed?
Anna: 15:12
So I would say, uh, the type of industry we’re all over the map, so the industry hasn’t really played a factor. So we’ve worked with a company, a space company. We’ve worked with an IT services company and government contracting. We’ve worked with property management that does big projects. That does big projects. One of the things so far is we’re not and haven’t been a company where there was somebody that needed massive rescuing. So so far every company and every executive we’ve worked with is somebody performing at a pretty high level and they want, are driven to. Maybe they’ve brought, been brought on into a new role, maybe they want to take uh and 4x growth in the company. So it’s really we’ve worked more with an executive type of a high performer that is is not only open but curious about, about change and about personal, personal growth.
Cameron: 16:27
I imagine it’s going to take a certain mindset to reach out to you in the first place, and understanding of and, I think, most people. When it’s too late to make those changes, the, the, the, the. You know the boat has already sailed, but it’s. It’s seeing trends coming on the horizon, meeting those as they’re coming and staying one step ahead of what’s happening in the marketplace. That would probably be the most likely kind of leaders that you’re working with.
Anna: 16:50
Absolutely, absolutely. And when you go into, we’ve led some planning sessions and to have a pretty open-minded CEO to say you know, just because we’ve always done it this way doesn’t mean we always need to be doing it this way. So there was presenting some of our content and then engaging the team. And she wrote to us months later and said we went from a 10-step process. We thought that’s what we had to do, and somebody challenged it and said why do we do step seven, eight, nine and cut out two thirds of the process just to get be given a voice? And is that really what we need to do? We’ve just done it Cause that’s how we’ve always done things.
Cameron: 17:43
And now I noticed from when we talked before on your website that a big aspect of this and I’ll read it from your site Polaris Institute engages the truth of neuroscience to activate sustainable human change. How does that come into play?
Anna: 17:56
So one of the things is oftentimes people think I’m going to think my way to a new behavior If I just think it and think it and think it and come to find out that doesn’t work very well. And people it’s like believing it’s kind of a New Year’s resolution, believing it’s kind of a new year’s resolution.
Anna: 18:23
So one of the things we talk about and tie it to neuroplasticity is that you need to behave your way to a new way of thinking, and that’s when you can, at more of a physiological level we call them micro steps start to understand and notice and change your behavior, not for willpower, but what is a laughably easy thing you could do to start behaving in a different way, even if it’s you know you want to set your alarm for two minutes earlier. Don’t tell me you’re going to get up at 4amm and you’re going to do a three-hour workout. That’s all willpower. Let’s see what it feels like to get up two minutes earlier and I want you to laugh at that. And all of a sudden you’ve started to behave in a way and stack habits and we do some things with atomic habits, but you’ve started to behave your way to a new way of thinking and that’s where we can tap into the fact that the other thing is getting people to really notice.
Anna: 19:31
So I have one client I’m working with and mentioned this before we started that their voice is months later. I said that. I said that in the meeting. So when we started that, their voice like oh, it was months later. I said that, I said that in the meeting. So when we started working together. She claimed that she couldn’t be heard, was overlooked, was all but ignored. And six months in, I said let’s check in in that, check in on that voice. And nothing had changed with the environment. But what we had done was started to okay. Notice, when you feel that way, what’s the environment look like? What’s a micro step, a micro change you could make All right, almost undetectable to her by the fourth month? All of a sudden, nothing had changed with their behavior, but everything had changed with this leader’s behavior. Wow.
Anna: 20:28
So it is really one, accepting that our brains have the ability to change. Two, embracing the fact that, yes, our brains are designed to keep us in fear, keep us anxious, keep us worrying. So, thank you, brain, for doing your job, now that I know that I can manage and I can start to. What is the real fear? And do I really need to step into this with anxiety or fear or protectiveness, or no, that’s my brain talking.
Cameron: 21:05
I remember from the book atomic habits some of the takeaways that I had. One of them was the importance of environment. So if you take something like, uh, you want to eat more healthy and lose 10 pounds, one key is don’t have junk food around the house. I mean, it sounds silly to say it. My problem is my kids love it and they’re they’re skinny, so I can’t forbid them, so I just gotta take some willpower. But like, how do you apply that to a, to a workplace setting? What are the environmental I don’t know cues or triggers that people need to be thinking about?
Anna: 21:35
Yeah, One of them was uh, one executive I worked with would just get locked in, really locked in head down and good, You’re getting a lot done, You’re getting a lot accomplished, but was pretty burnt out. We went through was to really address and reprogram so that a burnt out leader is pretty ineffective. And a couple of things happened. One is this person loved being outside. The second element was they were a very front-facing customer service person. Your customer is not in your screen, your customer is out on the property.
Anna: 22:29
And so started to set an alarm, a ritual in the workplace and, no matter what you know, at 115, unless it’s pouring down rain, you’re gonna go and and do this loop, and within that loop were a set of customers. This person would see, and, sure enough, uh, those customers weren’t emailing complaints, weren’t? Uh? They were telling a story about a customer that come into their store, or and so this, this five minute, ten minute break in the middle of the day for some sunlight, some fresh air. You know this.
Anna: 23:11
This executive worked that in and again, none of the behaviors of anybody else changed yeah she got to hear, to hear stories, she got to get outside, she got to get that sunlight Goes, sits back down at the computer, feels a whole lot less burnt out. Actually, you know, elevates productivity. The other element to atomic habits is on the way or in the way. So if you’re headed to the front door and you know that that’s where you’re headed and you got to go past something, maybe it’s a pair of running shoes, or maybe it’s a pair of a yoga mat, or is it on the way or in the way. Even if you didn’t get that workout in or didn’t get that exercise, you thought about it and so, all right, you’ve had 10 days in a row of thinking about it. One of those days you might just put those shoes on and do something, because you can’t stand to walk by it anymore.
Cameron: 24:13
Or he talks about the first time you go to the gym. Even just getting in the car, driving the gym, putting your track shoes on and doing five sit-ups is a start. It’s not a whole workout. But you can’t get to the workout with those first steps first without going there. Absolutely Build those habits and will grow over time and become second nature. You want to get to that point of automaticity where you’re just doing things on autopilot and not having to think about them. Particularly, at the beginning it feels foreign and different and unfamiliar, but eventually it’ll be second nature.
Cameron: 24:49
I like thinking about that with my kids. I’m trying to explain something to them. I can’t show my kid how to shoot a basketball without first how to hold it, how to dribble, because all this stuff is to him is brand new, right To me. I’ve been playing, you know shooting hoops for 20, 30 years, so it just comes natural. How do you break those steps down to people and explain it to them the way they’re going to understand? And it was something even more complex how do you explain to someone you know running and leading a company, right, right, if you can unpack that.
Anna: 25:17
We talk about. What you experience at the end is it’s it becomes embodied, it feels automatic, it just you know, I don’t have to think about it, so I’ll I’ll give my own example, and I was 2020. Maybe we all have different stories of our 2020s. I was completely overwhelmed. I was probably I was completely overwhelmed, I was probably.
Anna: 25:41
I could say I was 18 hour days and not, and I’m one who’s always taking care of myself mentally, physically and emotionally and I wasn’t, and it felt pretty near impossible. I’m like I’ll take care of myself once I get all this other stuff figured out which is the wrong order, by the way but I’m just like I just don’t have the time. There’s just no way that I can fit this in, and it was June 2020. It’s beautiful and I said you know what? I can’t, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be on zoom for 10 hours and then head down in my email and I am I’m slowly dying here.
Anna: 26:27
So I would take a break five minutes, but I can, I can find five minutes and I just I’d go outside and we have some, a lot of flower beds and I was like, let me just take five minutes, I’m going to weed some have some flower beds. And I was like, let me just take five minutes, I’m going to weed some of these flower beds. And after a couple of weeks my husband’s like who’s been weeding the gardens? And then I built up. I said you know what, one of my daughters was home doing a gap year and, you know, chipped in in, helped her pay for her gym membership and she had a guest pass.
Anna: 27:01
I’m like I’ll go with you and every once in a while I wasn’t really paying, was, but you know, wasn’t my membership, I just joined along and it was more to have time with my daughter. And then I started to go go more often. Then I decided I’m going to get my own membership because I wanted to go earlier and I had a whole routine. I loved there’s a certain kind of energy bar I loved. I loved a certain type of water and all of a sudden I’m driving, no willpower whatsoever, driving to the gym.
Anna: 27:38
Like hey, I didn’t think about that. I didn’t force myself to get up. I’m in the car and it’s embodied. So when we think about that on a team, one of the groups we’re working with is they came up with the topic of trust. That’s a huge topic. Yeah.
Anna: 27:57
So we broke it down. We asked you know, how do you, how do you see trust appear and get built in your company? How do you see trust breaking down? We get all these responses from these executives because we’re going to really work on trust. What are the behaviors? And some of them are micro behaviors and some of them are overt macro behaviors. And then we broke those behaviors down into is that a belief? Is that a fear of something that has happened or could happen?
Anna: 28:31
And we came up with a set of different categories, that these elements of where trust exists or trust doesn’t exist. So now we can come to the table with oh. One, we’re all talking about the same thing and this is what we think trust is. Two, we’ve now broken it down into some of the behaviors, because all too often let’s just work on trust. What does that really mean? Yeah, and in how is that showing up? And then we will work as as an entity, either in polaris, continuing to weave and integrate what we’ve learned. We’re hoping that we can infiltrate into what are the different meetings you have, and how do you take the learnings and incorporate a new ritual in your meeting? Is there a micro step with who’s invited to which meetings and how those agendas flow?
Anna: 29:37
so a lot of different ways to not just take a workshop and say, oh, that was interesting and and then it’s done.
Cameron: 29:45
Yeah, gotta find how is it integrated into day-to-day life on an ongoing basis? You talk about, you know, people helping themselves, the. The best metaphor I think of for this is when, on a plane, they read up those instructions and they say if, in the event of a loss of oxygen, put your own face mask on first and then help your child or your spouse or whatever, because if you can’t breathe, there’s not much help, you can provide anybody else. So helping yourself first is not just nice to have, it’s essential.
Anna: 30:19
And I see that in two lights. One is to physically, emotionally, mentally take care of yourself, so you’re showing up as a leader that the team needs. And secondly is when I teach workshops in conflict or in feedback, oftentimes we want to be focused on well, if that other person will just do this, this and this, we wouldn’t have that. Well, you know, what I want you to focus on is yourself, because that’s what you have the ability to understand. You have the ability to regulate. We can’t work on other people. Right.
Anna: 30:55
And often we find, as you start to self-regulate and you start to really understand your own behaviors and your own reactions, suddenly the environment changes.
Cameron: 31:10
That’s what you can control. You can’t do too much with someone else’s reality Absolutely we have. You know, a lot of our listeners and companies that we work with are based offshore. They may be headquartered in Europe or Latin America and their operations are in the US or the US subsidiary is here. Definitely a big element of what they’re dealing with day-to-day would be change. You know, if it’s entering a new market, entering the US market for the first time, very different from what they experienced in Europe, coming over without the brand recognition or perception Some of the team members have never worked before in the US and maybe they’re managing work from Europe. Any advice or best practices for companies that are trying to make that shift into a new market from a change and a mindset perspective?
Anna: 32:00
it from a change and a mindset perspective. Yeah, one of the metaphors I like is looking at that resistance to change as like an immune response. Right, so there’s something happening here. I don’t understand it and I’m going to send out this immune response to stop it in its tracks or find out what’s wrong with it or attack and so looking at it to say what is maybe its history and my narrative and maybe it’s wrong spotting. I’m going to find out what’s wrong here.
Anna: 32:29
And that’s my skill set. My superpower is, you know, to find out what’s wrong and how this change isn’t going to work. So, really, looking at it as do we have an immunity or an immune response to change, we need to address that because it can come from all sides. It can come from our own behavior, it can come from our mindset, it can come from our own words, what we do or choose not to do. Both those are responses.
Anna: 33:03
And so, okay, here’s a change we’re trying to accomplish. Where will we start to have a response to that? That’s going to prevent that change. And let’s look at what level of change. Are we just trying to do more of the same thing? Are we trying to do something better? Are we trying to do something we’ve never done before.
Anna: 33:26
Those all require a different mindset and a different approach. So what is a level of change we want? And some things might be. We just need to do more of that. We need more clients. We need to produce more. We may need to do some things more, be we just need to do more of that. We need more clients. We need to produce more. We may need to do some things more efficiently or effectively and change how we do things. We may need to really do things we’ve never done before.
Cameron: 33:49
That’s a very different mindset that’s complete, open openness to possibility. And you anyone can come up with 10, 15, 20 reasons why it will not work. Correct, let’s get that out in the open. Let’s hash those out. Okay, now let’s shift to a whole new page of the notebook on. Let’s look at the reasons why this can work. Can we get to yes, can we get to an affirmative outcome here?
Anna: 34:14
Yep, and that mindset when we’re trying to do things that have never been done before, the mindset of let’s find everything. And that that mindset when we’re trying to do things that have never been done before, the mindset of let’s find everything wrong with that, it’s going to stop most people on their tracks and you’ll not do it. You’ll find, you will find a reason you know cognitive bias to not do it.
Cameron: 34:35
I mean, isn’t that the definition of self-sabotage, to not do it? I mean isn’t that the?
Anna: 34:39
definition of self-sabotage, and it’s. Sometimes I’ll do a SWOT analysis with companies and one of the things I’ll have them really think about is you know, what is it that this company would dare to do? That would scare your competitors, or that? Your competitors would never touch. That’s really what might you know, and we might not accomplish it, but it’s going to get our minds into that space of possibility, thinking differently. What are things that might intimidate your competitors or they would be terrified to try?
Cameron: 35:20
We’ve been talking today with Anna Birch, co-founder of Polaris Institute, and I’ll ask you one last question before we wrap things up. Their website is polarisinstitutenet, and what I really love about their website and their approach is the material. A lot of their blogs and their case studies and their site are the material. A lot of their blogs and their case studies and their site are written from the participants in their voice, and it’s really, if you want a great testimonial or how it works point of view, that’s a great way to do it. You know it’s user-generated content. As a marketer, I love that, but but also it’s it’s um, they don’t control what their clients feel, their experience and what they went through through the journey. So it’s a fascinating way to look at different angles and perspectives on things. My last question is, anna when you work with a client, is there an end to this process? Is there an outcome when you succeed, or is it an ongoing kind of engagement?
Anna: 36:16
I would look at it as ongoing. Or is it an ongoing kind of an engagement? I would look at it as ongoing. So when we look at incorporating their professional personal change, I look at it as a cumulative impact and even if our relationship with a client comes to a natural close, they have accumulated things and we look at we don’t use the word goals, we look at the word intention and direction. So what’s an intention you want to set, what’s a direction you want to go? And as we go on this journey you’re going to accumulate changes in behavior, new intentions and new directions. Those don’t go away. The impact is is lifelong and and doesn’t end, even if you know they, they aren’t working with us.
Cameron: 37:06
But we really look at it as a as a lifelong journey for sure I’m guessing people are applying to other facets of their life, to relationships outside of work, etc absolutely absolutely I mean humans seem to show up to work every day, whether they’re the leader. So anna birch of polaris institute. Thank you so much for joining us on america open for business, take care thank you, good to be here thanks bye.
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