Chief Change Officer - Colin Savage: A Change Addict’s Quest Across Borders—From Canada to Japan and Beyond — Part One

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Part One. Welcome to a special three-part series with Colin Savage. we’ll dive into Colin’s fascinating journey as a self-proclaimed change addict turned change guru. Colin’s career spans continents, cultures, and industries—seven countries lived in, seven more seconded to, and projects in over 70 nations. From organizational transformation to personal reinvention, he’s mastered the art of embracing change and applying those lessons to life. Here, we’ll explore the learning required for transformation—why Colin believes lifelong learning is outdated and skill stacking is the future. And finally, we’ll tackle AI, human intelligence, and why every one of us needs a personal AI strategy. Buckle up—this one’s a ride! Key Highlights of Our Interview: Chasing Novelty vs. Finding Purpose “It’s easy to leap into new opportunities just because they look exciting. But what’s the endgame? Without a deeper reason or plan, chasing novelty can leave you with unfinished experiences and a string of ‘almost-there’ moments. Purpose turns adventures into meaningful chapters.” Addicted to Change: Thrill or Trap? “Addiction to novelty isn’t inherently bad—it pushes boundaries and opens up opportunities. But unbridled chasing without reflection or completion risks shallow experiences. The key? Balancing the thrill of change with the discipline to extract value from every leap.” Change as a Tool, Not a Fix “Change for the sake of novelty often leads to dissatisfaction. Instead, approach change as a tool for growth, not a quick fix. Thoughtfully evaluate your motives, assess your readiness, and embrace change as a means to align with your purpose—not as an escape from discomfort.” Japan: A Surprising Example of Measured Change “Even in traditionally conservative cultures, like Japan’s life insurance industry, meaningful change can thrive. Success here came not from disruption but from careful planning, patience, and conversations that built consensus. Change, when handled thoughtfully, can flourish even in the most traditional environments.” _________________________ Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Colin Savage Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 2 Millions+ Downloads 50+ Countries

Hi everyone, welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. This is a three-part series with Colin Selvidge. In part one, the first episode will dive into Colin's fascinating journey as a self-proclaimed change addict turned change guru. Colin's career spans continents, cultures, and industries. Seven countries live in, seven more seconded to, and projects in over 70 nations.

From organizational transformation to personal reinvention, he has mastered the art of embracing change and applying those lessons to life. In this conversation, Cullen impacts his unique perspective on change. How throwing himself into the unknown led to unparalleled growth and insight. From leaving Canada with nothing but a suitcase and ambition, to navigating industries from telecommunications to financial services, Collin shares how the constant evolution around him became his greatest teacher. In the next episodes, we'll explore the learning required for transformation, why Colin believes lifelong learning is outdated and skills-decking is the future. And finally, in part 3, we'll tackle AI, human intelligence, and why every one of us

needs a personal AI strategy. Buckle up, this one is a ride. Collins, finally, I got you to my show. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Good morning to you. Thank you so much for having me, Vincent. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. Colin is from Canada, the Big North, a very cold place.

I used to live in Toronto myself. Colin is in another province, or in America, we call it state. So Colin, let's start with your story. Who are you, what you're doing now, but also what did you do in the past? Your past, your journey and your history. Fantastic. Thank you, Vince. I'm happy to hear.

So I'm Colin. As you introduced, Colin Babbage. I am hailing today from the Queen City, which was Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. So I was born and raised here. I lived here until I was probably just out of university, and then I left and lived overseas for 20 years. That really isn't that uncommon. During the early 90s in Gatchawin, a lot of people looked for opportunities elsewhere. Even if I look at my high school graduating class, 60-70% of them stayed in the city and went to our local university. Another chunk maybe went to a university nearby or in their neighbouring province.

And a very small bit even left and moved elsewhere in Canada, like she mentioned, on to Korea. But very few people went further than that. I finished university armed with a great liberal arts degree and a degree in English literature, which obviously at the time, everybody was banging down my door to give me a job, but I needed to go, I needed to go somewhere else. So I left with that degree and with some other experience and decided to test Asia. There's a long story and it's all through my LinkedIn profile. People can read it, but I managed to, over the 20 years, build up what I call

7-7-70. So I lived in seven countries, I was seconded to seven others, and I worked in project 70 nations throughout the world. I put it up and make it simple for others to follow. There's three threads that go through my background. One of them was academics and education. I was heavily involved in my own academics. I studied for three master's degrees in various areas. I worked at the lecture in universities and countries across Southeast Asia and where I spent almost nine years. Then there was the more of a business thread, which involved

in development, marketing, market research in a number industries, which all looking back link a little bit to each other. But at times we're also like, right. Particularly because they also not include include all over the private sector, but also working with government and governments across different countries they lived in. And then finally, the other thread would probably be something where I would think,

and it's more aligned with this podcast almost directly, is strategy and change. While I'm working in industries or moving from one to the other, I noticed that things were evolving. An example would be I spent time leading a team of analysts out of London and the UK that focused on telecommunications across the United States. So I had a team of 40 people.

They were all dedicated and focused on individual countries or markets. And they were all coming back to me with similar but also at times very different analysis of how those markets were changing. Data was becoming part of what you could put on your mobile phone or you could start searching the internet. And this led me into financial services where while I was with quite a traditional Japanese major light insurer, there was FinTech visible and FinTech led to things like RegTech where we're doing regulation. Through all of these different evolutions and changes, there were little things that led me from one to the other, but also I'm really honest to say that a little bit of looking in the rear view

of your and seeing you afterward. At the time it was just a lot of change and I know today Vince we're going to talk about something that I mentioned in change addict to change guru. I really was a change addict in a sense. When I left Canada in 1994 I just threw caution to the wind and went. Picked Thailand, I packed the suitcase, I went there. I had no... I knew nothing about the language, culture, the working environment or anything. I not only changed the city I lived in, but the country, the culture, the language, the industry and everything at one. And that really put me on the path. To do it repeatedly, until before I moved back to Canada,

I joked to myself that, look, if I change everything at one, and I'm addicted to doing that, the only thing I can do next is maybe move to the moon. There's no more I can add into the mix to make it harder on myself. So I think full circle all of the different industries and markets and cultures and country, roles and people that I've dealt with, you can put a lot of energy into promoting it and encouraging it, but to a point before it gets a little bit dangerous. So hopefully that's a good answer to your question. If you've got any other questions for me on that, I'd be happy to delve into it.

I can take up for an hour on myself if you are. In your self-introduction, two words caught my attention. Change addict and change guru. How do you define these two terms? Regina is a lovely city. And like I said, I grew up here. And I grew up at a time when it was pretty traditional. Most of us looked the same. There wasn't a whole lot of ways to get it. A right word to use. And so there wasn't a lot of novelty, at least from my perspective. If you wanted to, you could. You grew up here, you went to university, you got a

degree in administration and were a government talent, you go work for the government, you find your partner, start a family and so on. So path was pretty, pretty much laid out. And that really wasn't need. And at the time I didn't know, I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I knew that wasn't the path that I wanted to take. And so the only thing I could do is basically have my radar on high alert for anything that sort of caught my interest.

And that's where I get to the change addict is it's a lot about novelty. Oh, wouldn't it be neat if I moved to Kenya and I worked for a bank or wouldn't it be cool if I went to China and I studied and when I hear people say that I'm always encouraging them to consider it. But the question afterwards is what thing for what purpose? If you go and you could study where you live now, because of all the opportunities we have and online and the virtual world has made it easy. For example, us today, here in Hong Kong, I've been to a dino very easily.

We can do whatever we want. Well, why do you need, why do you need to go there and do that? And if the answer that comes back, the lot of, I don't know, I saw a movie in China looks really neat or, saw this one person on social media that they do this and they're being super successful so why would that be me? And I don't think that's a bad answer, but the reality is that you gotta have a little bit more planning behind it. And I lived the addict lifestyle.

Like I said, I moved, picked up and moved to Thailand. And then one day in Thailand, I don't really teach English to adults and at the university. I want to go somewhere where there's no Burger King, there's no 7-Eleven, there's no this, there's no that. And I basically walked into a traveling, where can I go? But I poured and she said, go to Myanmar. So I did. I went to Myanmar and there was nothing about it. I took a suitcase and then I lived there for a year and a half. Learning my way as I was there, but looking back, that was just novel. Oh, it's foreign, it's new, it's different, it's unknown.

I'll leap into it and don't do it. And a single person now anywhere could do that. But it didn't really have a purpose in mind and the thing is novelty is great but novelty wears off you're there for a year and a half and then you wake up one morning and it happens again all on board and i've done this i've learned these things that i'm really cool and interesting and okay let's go move here or let's go try this or let's do whatever. The other thing that I might have is that change addict. Like whenever you're shipped with some kind of adversity, it takes as much if not more focus to get through to the end.

focused to get through to the end. The lucky thing for me was, well, I've started this degree, I got to finish it. Or I started in this job, I got to be here at least this amount of time. Or I started learning this language, I've focused at least enough so I can do some kind of benchmark. It's a lot harder when you have to do that. When it is just chasing novelty.

So I think yeah, like the change addict part, there's a lot of people that will do that. And actually I'm a little bit different. If you start something and it's not for you, you should really just chuck it in and go find a thing that you want. There's opportunity cost as we all know, right? But if you don't wrap things up or if you don't complete them to a certain extent, later on, I don't really know how you could pull out the value

and as we get into other topics, but maybe you can apply it, Kimura. But if you haven't finished it, you're never going to get there. So the way that I came about this concept of change addict, Maybe you can apply it to your work, but if you haven't finished it, you're never going to get there. So the way that I came about the concept of change addict, and addict is a harsh word, but you really can be addicted to change and to knowledge. So being a change addict, individually, would you say you're one of those who puts in a good amount of calculation behind each change? Or is it more like, oh, it's just them feeling? What type are you?

Have you ever thought about that? No, that's a great question, Vince. And I think I began to talk to him maybe in hindsight, which is lovely to have. But I think at the time it was, like I mentioned adversity, but, and I also mentioned boredom. For me, like when I didn't have responsibility, right? It's just me. I'm the one that's responsible for myself.

I got to feed, clothe, house me. There were many times where I was just like, you know what, I'm going to change it. I'm going to quit my job and I don't have anything else or I don't really have a plan to do anything else and I'll just see what happens. And that's dangerous. There are people that can do it, but I don't like it so I'm not going to push through the adversity. It's not going to help you later on in life. Absolutely. If you're not happy with where you are and you're not, you don't think you're where you can be or you're not being supported the way that you would like, then you certainly should look for other avenues and talk to a lot of people and

try different things, but you can try different things while you're doing something else that allows you to do that exploration. If you're just doing it because somebody has slighted you. When I was in Myanmar, I just woke up one day and said, I have $300. I'm a very good life, but I'm never going to have anything. If I ever decided to leave here, so why don't I just go? And I was out in a week, but it's not, I could have done it in a much more thoughtful way. And I might be an odd cat in that move to so many places and have done whatever, maybe

that's not going to be the way of the world in the future. But you only get, I would think in your life, a bunch of major changes. So you really shouldn't minimize the impact and the importance of the change of the time. Really give yourself some time to think about like why am I really unhappy? What do I really want to do? I don't know what I want to do. Where is something I can figure out that might lead me? Have I bought in my head and built some scenario planning or I'm like what's going to happen if we do it? Am I going to regret it? Regret is an awful thing that we're always going to have it. But I think you can minimize it if you've got a little bit of thoughtfulness around

why you're leaving to change something. Is it really just today I'm having a bad day and I had a bad interaction? Or is it, you know what, it's been building up for a long time and I shouldn't be here. I need to go find a place in my tribe so I think yeah like a lot of those different components are really important for figuring out am I addicted to change or am I welcoming of it and I'm using it you'll help me find a better place to rise. Like you said, one of the threats run through your experience is change and strategy. You've worked with so many firms and organizations,

guiding them through their transformations. So you must have seen Cognos business cases unfold. What have you learned from these consulting projects and organization change initiatives that could apply to individual situations? Are there lessons from these business cases that also resonate on a personal level, especially when we face dilemmas or crossroads in our own lives? Yeah, and I think so there's, this is a great question again Rin, and I did some soul searching in that I have worked in a number of both the mainstream and odd cases of change in a variety of different countries and industries. Potentially, there's two things I would want to start off with, and those are some misconceptions,

some common misconceptions that you about change. And again, we're talking like in an organizational or a business or even a personal professional way. And the first one is we have these people and I support them. Embrace change. Embrace change. It's the same thing as like you're embracing change for success. And then how are we defining success? Is it simply a bunch of key performance indicators and some sales bigger than revenue? Is it keeping people? Is it launching ourselves into a brand

new space to be wildly successful? Is it keeping status quo? There's a whole variety of different ways to do it and embracing change for success is fine, but don't do it just for the sake of success. Because the true impact really comes when you are, you're guiding strategic and focused change. And that's a whole different arena with a lot of complicated parameters. And you gave out some specific examples. So I think I've got two and I'm going to make them personal to me because change is person. One example is going to be a bit of a surprise to people because they will have read potentially how traditional this country is and this is Japan.

So I lived in Japan as I mentioned for quite a long time and then they worked with Japanese organizations or machines for an equally long period and I, yes, value and worth put on traditional practice. And that also varies across industry. And lo and behold, I also worked in a very traditional industry, light drinker. But from the outside, it does look like it's stuck. Practices are the same. They move along. So when I was working for one of these big organizations, So when I was working for one of these big organizations, Alvin that, yeah, there wasn't a lot of airtime given to, hey, why don't we try this? Or, hey, why don't we consider something completely different?

There was incremental change, change or introduction of new things. And then luck would have it, I ended up traveling to a developing market, looked at senior people from that state and looked around and just started noticing thoughts. And then we could connect these thoughts to make something unique. And with the Japanese Life Insurance Company, we're in Brazil, we're seeing something that's a bit unique. In Japan, one of the largest minorities are really... They are people who travel to Japan as youth.

They have access to visas and other things, and they start their working life in Japan. So they're actually indoctrinated. They learn working culture from being in Japanese companies, a lot of them, and other work. They learn things like, hey, life insurance is important, you need to have it. The discussion went, how are we going to go build this business by here? And what came about was, I learned that change, individual, team, and otherwise, comes from talk, doing a lot of promotion. So Japan is a lot about individual conversations to get support or get direction. Big organizations are great at providing that direction,

but often indirect. You have to be a cute direction. So, hey, why don't we consider this? Why don't we do that? But also, it's measured and it's planned to change. You can't just come up with an idea and throw it at people and get them to say yes or no. You've got to research your idea. This is the market side.

These are the people. This is what they would buy. This is how it would benefit them if they stayed where they are or then when they moved back. This is how we could link a dovetail or a pipeline into getting new people in a new market we might make. So it took a lot of time, but I was very surprised and very proud that we actually managed to get this kind of a lead in. I got support from lovely people within the organization. They provided their time to meet. We moved ahead. It was just two years. But the change did happen and it was actually a real shining example of just because you think a culture and a group of people are traditional in their practices, doesn't mean they're averse to change. You just need to be, from that change addict thing we were talking about, not willy-nilly, not, hey let's just do it for the sake of doing it. Be measured, be strategic, be researched in what you want to change, and then find the kind and support of voices.

And if you find enough of them, you'll get a groundswell and you'll be able to do it. If you don't, maybe your idea really isn't that great. Maybe you need to go back to the drawing. So learn to take the interest and the novelty and the energy that comes from a potential change and have it fuel you to do the really important steps, the fundamental steps, to maybe make that change happen. And the flip side would be actually back here in Canada. I worked for a quite traditional marketing company.

Probably if I tell you who it is, people will know right away. They brought me in as a change person. That's how I was recruited. Please come here. We know our industry is on the decline. We're not really entirely sure where to go with it. We've seen what you did in other places. We're eager to change. We want to change. They used all the right words. They were very receptive to the idea before I moved in house. I got in there and I asked, do you want me to be disruptive?

Would you like me to push new initiatives? And they said, absolutely, this is what we want. And within a month of me doing that, we don't really like it. Or that was a little too much. The reality is they were a different kind of ad. The reality is they were a different kind of ad. They were hooked on a legacy of very high revenue and high profit margin. And they weren't willing, they really weren't willing, and they hadn't done the time to figure out, do we want to change?

Are we willing to forego some of that to potentially make it somewhere else? Or maybe not. And even though they had all of the support, allegedly support from people above and their ownership and others, they were incredibly reluctant and cured. So I was sitting in a role where change was in my title, but I couldn't do anything. And I had tried, I had built up goodwill, I'd got some champion. I was doing everything that chain management told you to do, pushing the needle here, tape scaling here, and for the time period that I was there, they were fully unwilling to take it on. At a certain point I had to be, you know what, it doesn't get to work for me.

I'm pushing the rock. I'm ill, that is whatever the Greek myth do. And I'm not getting anywhere. And I'm being told two different stories. So we dig into it with my, to really like an external push from other people. So we don't want to do it. And it ended up being a failure for myself. And it's something that I've taken on and I accept.

I've learned a lot of really good lessons from it, and frankly had some work with some wonderful people that were driven to do it. But when the entire organization has been dictated a change, and not really trusting of the person who's supposed to pilot it, then it's not going to happen. But in this instance, it's a little bit about, it's maybe less about the change addict thing, but learning how that change guru, if that's a good word, or change guide, which is, all right, maybe we need to take a step back, figure out what is your definition of change?

Is it collectively the same? Do we all think this is a good idea? Okay, maybe we need to tailor it a little more specifically. And then move on from there. And that's hopefully where I am now, and how I actually go about it a little bit more. There's a little bit less put on the gap, more let's put the car in park for a second and let's have a talk. We'll drive a block down the road and then we're going to have another talk and that way we can get to the kind of again change that we're all trying to achieve and back to that definition of six steps. It's not just keep stuff directed by the outside or financial reasons only, the whole way that we're going to evolve in and change for the better.

Just now, Colin unpacked his unique perspective on change. Change addict turned change guru from leaving Canada with nothing but a suitcase and ambition, to navigating industries from telecommunications to financial services, Colland shared how the constant evolution around him became his greatest teacher. In part 2, tomorrow, we'll explore the learning required for transformation. Colin has I don't even know how many degrees under his belt. Why Colin believes lifelong learning is outdated and skills-gacking is the future. And Part 3 for Friday will tackle AI, human intelligence, and why every one of us needs a personal AI strategy.

Come back tomorrow and join us. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.