Chief Change Officer - Tricia and Edward: The Secret to Getting People to Collaborate (Without Pulling Teeth) – Part One

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Part One. Social media has trained us to treat connections like disposable apps—add a “friend” in a second, remove them just as easily. But what happens when we treat relationships this way? Without sustainable connections, how can we collaborate, build strong teams, or achieve lasting outcomes? In this episode, I sit down with Tricia Cerrone and Edward J. van Luinen to explore the power of connection and collaboration. This is part one of a two-part series where we look at how they turned a positive work relationship at Disney into a lasting personal friendship and a successful business partnership. Together, they’re even co-authoring a book on collaboration. We’ll reflect on their 10-year collaborative journey, sharing how strong connections can lead to meaningful collaborations. Tomorrow, in part two, we’ll dive deeper into their framework for collaboration, centered on a “noble purpose” and five key behaviors that can transform how we work together. Spoiler alert: their method is far more human-centered than just another software tool. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Emotional Banking: The Secret to Long-Lasting Work Relationships “Relationships at work thrive on trust, respect, and mutual goals. By making consistent positive deposits into the ‘emotional bank,’ teams can evolve into high-performing units. Delivering results is key, but so is showing up for each other and building something lasting, as Trish and I found over a three-year project.” Collaboration Isn’t Just Tools—It’s Human Connection “The business world is spending almost $40 billion on collaboration tools, which are a band-aid for our failures to communicate. If you don’t have the human behaviours of generosity, resourcefulness, co-creation, action, and gratitude, no technology is going to help your team be happy or collaborate better.” Be the Change You Seek—Gandhi’s Wisdom for Collaboration “There’s a great quote by Gandhi: ‘Create the change you want to be.’ That’s the foundation of our collaboration model—being the change and the leader your team is asking you to be.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guests: Tricia Cerrone and Edward J. Van Luinen Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. A Modernist Community for Growth Progressives World's Number One Career Podcast Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI Top 10: GB, FR, SE, DE, TR, IT, ES Top 10: IN, JP, SG, AU  1.5 Million+ Streams 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. Don't burn bridges. Keep up with business connections and personal relationships. Because you never know when that connection or person could become your collaborator, business partner, or referral to a great opportunity. That's how I landed five job offers within three months after leaving a role that led to mental depression years ago.

Today, though, it's so easy to burn and build bridges. You can add a friend in quotation in one second and just as easily delete them. This user-friendly, in quotation, UI UX experience has seeped into our modern mindset, making it effortless to kick people out of our own circles or lives. But without sustainable connections, how can we collaborate, build stronger teams, and create outcomes that benefit everyone?

In today's episode, I sit down with two guests, Edward Vanduden and Tricia Strongiron to talk about connection and collaboration. This is part one of our two-part series. Today, Edward and Tricia will look back on their own collaborative journey, which started 10 years ago at Disley. They turned a positive work relationship into a sustainable personal friendship that has now grown into a business partnership and a co-authoring collaboration on a book about collaboration.

In tomorrow's episode, part two, we'll dive into the vision and framework for collaboration, centered on a noble purpose and five key behaviors. What are these behaviors? How can we practice them? And why is collaboration so challenging today? I assure you, the method isn't just another software solution. It's far more human-centered than what we're used to seeing. Let's start collaborating. Good morning, Edward and Tricia. Welcome to my show.

Thank you. Great to be here. Yes, I'm happy to be here. We always start with a self-introduction. But today's episode is extra special because for the first time ever, I have not one but two guests joining me. A unique moment for the show. Let's kick things off, Edward and Tricia, whichever one of you would like to go first. Share a bit about yourselves and your personal journey. Then we'll go into how the two of you came together to collaborate. After all, collaboration is the key theme of today's episode. So let's hear your individual stories, and then we'll get into how your paths crossed and what makes this collaboration so impactful?

Thank you very much, Vince. I'm delighted. We're delighted to be here and grateful for this opportunity to chat with your worldwide audience. I'm Edward Van Lunen, and I always start my origin story this way. I was a United States Peace Corps volunteer in the 1980s, and I was sent to the Republic of Guinea in West Africa to be an English as a foreign language teacher at two high schools in a mid-sized town about 600 miles in the interior of the country. And on the first day of my teaching, I had two overriding emotions. One was fear. Edward, these students are listening to you.

Are you making any sense? If not, you better start making sense really fast. And then after about three months or so, I had that other emotion happen, which is, I think I like this. I'm enjoying this work. Fast forward three, five years to where we are today, and I am still making Keem's companies and leaders better. In between, I was privileged to work for some great companies and having been mentored by incredible human resources leaders, mostly female, at Avon Products, at Heineken,

at Sony, and at Disney. And I am really a talent development leader and grateful to be in this space and business and here speaking with you and Tricia today. So thank you for having me. I'll jump in now. I'm Trisha Cerrone and my history really goes back. My entire career has been one of designing and telling stories with new technologies. I think pretty much every project I've ever done had some kind of either new hardware or software or experience that we were trying to create. And in doing that, working a lot in the interactive world, it led me to Disney where I spent most of my career. I had an amazing career at Disney.

I really got to do everything I wanted to do. My sweet spot was always in innovation and coming up with new ideas. I was able to lead our Blue Sky studio for four years and just come up with ideas with the teams there for retail and brides and restaurants and all sorts of things. And I really loved it. But I also was really good at teaching other people how to develop ideas and design and innovate. That's what led me in my career to start doing a lot of the talent development, which my leader then hooked me up with Edward down the road. And that's really how we ended up

meeting. So you both met in Disley, right? I'd love to hear more about that first experience working together. Let's dive into the details. Edward, let's start with you. How did you feel when you first met Tricia? And how did this collaboration unfold from your perspective? And then, Tricia, we would love to hear your side of the story as well. I think it will be really interesting to explore both viewpoints. At Disney, working at Imagineering, I would say a talent leader who gets business. And I met Trish initially when I was new at the company and saw her in a meeting,

and I thought, this is a business leader who gets talent. So as in a talent development role, you're always looking for business leaders who get talent as much as their technical or functional skills. And that certainly was Trish. So I was delighted to meet her. So from a professional support and business relationship perspective, now I had a goal to lead talent development at Imagineering, which was to make sure that leaders and teams globally were working and successfully at building their next level up leadership.

I could in no way do that by myself. So I was always looking for business partners. And Tricia was that business partner. And I was just delighted to that early meeting. We had a couple of meetings and I thought this is something that is a beginning of a collaboration that I think could be very promising. My side of the story. I get invited to a meeting in my leader's office and Edward is sitting on the sofa and I'm asked to sit next to him and then our leader says

we have this initiative I want you to collaborate and he's grinning like it was the best idea he ever came up with. And in my mind, I'm sitting there going, what just happened? There's so many problems with this. People don't collaborate in leadership, not the way you think. I could see all the barriers to us being successful and succeeding in this project. I thought the project was really important, but I also knew this had been assigned to Edward. And if I jump in, it'll look like I'm taking over the project and all this other stuff.

Our leader was just like, he was just happy to have us there. You guys will figure it out. And so we left. I was thinking, okay, so she wants us to co-lead and all the problems with that. We are a matrix organization. So he reports up to a different leader and I report to a different leader. And you definitely don't want one leader to have more information than the other earlier than the other. So there was going to be politics involved. There would

be how do we manage the same team and they don't go to one person or the other. So there was going to be politics involved. There would be how do we manage the same team and they don't go to one person or the other and say, he said I could do this or she said I could do this. There's all those issues. And then there's just like communication and agreeing on a direction that you want to go. And at the end of the day, if something goes wrong, who is accountable? So I had all these things going through my head when Edward invited me to a coffee for us to talk through what the project needed first and how we were going to do it. I wasn't all gung-ho, like, this is going to be awesome. But I was at least 13 for, okay, what do I know about this new guy? And I had met with Edward a couple times.

I had been in his office, and he was like one of the most helpful HR people that I had ever experienced. So in 30 minutes, he gave me a plan that was going to help me with an initiative I was working on, and there was innovation books on his desk. So I'm like, okay, he can't be that bad. We have some common interests there. There's a lot of savants and passionate people at Imaginary. So corralling a group of us is not an easy thing.

And I was in a session where he was leading some development, and I was like, oh my gosh, they're going to just run him over. But he managed to get everyone on track. So I had those two positive experiences. But I still felt like we're really different people in terms of our personality and our background and so many other things. But we had that first coffee and Edward did a couple things really well in that first coffee that helped me to relax and realize, okay, so far so good. He understands where I'm coming from and he's offering to understand like what how I need to communicate, what my time availability is.

And just that little bit of generosity toward understanding me opened up space for me and my mind and heart to then reciprocate and to say, OK, what do you need from me? And then we made a plan to meet next. And that's how we got started from my perspective. Absolutely. And such great memories and thoughts and feelings of how we got started. Absolutely. Really fun.

That was how long ago? I don't know. Is it 2013 or 14? Yeah, I would say it was 2020, let's see, 14. Yes. Wow. 10 years ago. That's a long time. So after that first encounter at Disley, how did the working relationship evolve? Was it more day-to-day interaction? Or maybe project-based, on and off? Did you face any moments of confrontation?

Or was it mostly collaborative? I'd like to hear how both of you describe the experience after that initial meeting. So it was a three-year project, which is rare in a way for people that lead equally. And so it gave us a lot of time to learn all the things that we probably didn't know about collaboration. But I think we had good intuition and previous. We've both led a lot of projects and things at other companies before. So we had some skills going into it. We had pretty close contact regularly. We had a weekly meeting. Our teams had task force meetings.

We would text each other when we had updates and then talk on the phone if we were available. It was always so positive that I think that contributed to us building a friendship. And also we realized that everything that we were, the way that we were treating each other, we were also treating our team and modeling that for them. So they were emulating us and they were also passing it on to new people who we brought on to the team. So it had this ongoing onboarding effect when you would join our team. We noticed that our team, they weren't just amazing. It's not like we got to pick everyone that we wanted. And sometimes we only had people

for a short amount of time. But everyone who was on the team always just gave us their A game. They were always solving problems. They were always had just positive energy. We're going to work together to help each other and make everything successful. Edward and I, when we left the company, we were talking about just, there was something very different about that project and about that experience. And it's not that neither of us have had no passion or energy on teams.

It was just that every positive thing was on that project and in that group and in those people. And so that's when we started deconstructing the experience. Absolutely agree with you, Trish. And I feel that what was fundamental but still unformed until after we left Disney were the five collaboration behaviors. And we demonstrated them, right? And then others also did.

And that was how we first role modeled it and grew the team. So coupled with the five behaviors, which were essentially pretty innovative and pretty human behaviors and very original because we've hired a researcher to validate that they are unique. They were coupled with a noble purpose

and that's not just the vision and mission of the company that people memorize or try to memorize or try to live. The noble purpose of the project is that it's commonly understood but also internalized. I am here to do this, to meet this goal, but I'm here first to work closely and support the career growth of my team members. And in that first meeting, it was not to receive a list of tasks and come back and say how many you did. That first meeting was who are you, what's your skill that you offer everyone here, and how can you support this team. And at the end of the meeting, a little bit about the noble purpose so that we're all focused. I think when we ask people,

what do you want to learn on this team? They were quite surprised. No one had ever asked them that before on a project team meeting. So there were some really essential elements that I think that we did to build this collaboration approach. And then fast forward over the last 10 years, we carried, as Trish said, what we did and defined the five behaviors, coupled it with noble purpose, but also launched a business, Authentic Collaboration Incorporated, virtually. We've also started a book and did that virtually. So not only does collaboration work in person, it also works virtually because we did it the last 10 years, launching a business, writing a book. So it's applicable to everyone, wherever you are. And there's a great quote by Gandhi, which many

people know, which is create the change you want to be. So I feel that that's really at the heart here is be the change you seek. Be the collaboration leader that you want to be and the organization the team is asking you to be. So if I understand correctly, after your time atley, both of you went your separate ways, pursuing your own paths. But you stayed in close touch as friends. You reunited and started working together again, forming a company, and even co-authoring a new book. Is that a fair way to summarize your 10-year journey together? I think so. So we had worked together for those three years, and then we both left not too far, maybe in the same year.

I'm not sure. But we would talk and stay in touch. That just kind of friendship. We would always be talking about this project. And we finally broke it down. And I would say we broke it down to the behaviors first. And then we were like, we need to write this because this needs to be captured. Because it's not just about the behaviors, but it's also about how you express them and

that you understand why they work. Because a lot of the times people do the right thing, but then they don't realize why it worked and so they don't repeat it and so we felt really strong about we need to write this down and so we ended up doing the book first and then we started looking at how to teach it to people so it was in that order exactly As both of you were sharing your memories, it made me reflect on my own experiences working in corporations. I've had some great memories and some more senior, some junior, or maybe at the same level, often in different offices and locations. These were people I had such a strong connection with, even hanging out after work but as time passed I moved on to other things became an entrepreneur and while I kept in touch with some of them

others drifted away our Our conversations became fewer, and the connection faded over time, sometimes naturally, sometimes with a sense of loss. I guess what I'm trying to say here is, since we're talking about collaboration today, which I see as a form of relationship, I'm curious about your journey together.

You started as work friends, obviously had a positive working relationship, and then stayed in touch after your time at Desley. But how did you sustain that work friendship and evolve it into a personal relationship and then eventually into a business partnership? I think this would be really meaningful to hear, especially in today's world with the rise of social media. Building and maintaining real connections isn't easy. So I'd love to hear your insights

on how you kept that relationship strong and turned it into something much deeper, both personally and professionally. You have asked a really excellent question. is that relationship is vital in certainly a work situation, but also it comes with respect and awareness of the strengths, what each person brings to that professional relationship. And as Tru said earlier, we have some similarities because we care first about the company and the team and our own success. So we've got our priorities in order, but also we demonstrated those five behaviors consistently. So that built up trust.

That built up a track record of what we call positive deposits in the emotional bank of goodwill, of trust, of also delivering. It's not all about feeling, because we do have to deliver, and we did accomplish our three-year project wonderfully. So, Vince, I really like what you said about relationship as the focus. The second thing I believe I heard you say is that this is a process.

There's an evolution to building professional relationships, which, of course, becomes friends and in the personal domain as well. Like collaboration, it takes a while to establish collaboration with yourself as a leader. With a co-leader like Trish and I did, it took three years. And that's why we have this method and process because we built it. But also it has to be expanded to our team, to champions, to peers in the company, and then expand it even in our lives if we so choose, in how we approach people, in how we assess talent, how we hire people. What are the qualities of collaboration that

are really important? So it's truly evolutionary and it's relationship focused and it takes awareness, but also discipline for want to live these behaviors more and more in the areas of our lives that are really important. Because we're all trying to change and companies are trying to change and leaders and teams are trying to change. And we found, we believe, is a really strong formula to do that.

There's something that kept us together to your point, Vince. And that was we recognize a noble purpose bigger than ourselves. And that's what's been driving us to keep working together and keep pursuing things. And in some ways, the foundation of our friendship. And I suppose every great relationship has a noble purpose. Even if you're building a family, you have a vision for your family. But for us, this noble purpose is that we recognize that a lot of people are not happy in the workplace and they struggle on their teams and it could be easier and it could be better and they could really love their jobs. And it could be easier. And it could be better. And they could really love their jobs.

And that was like a metric that Edward had come up with. We need the I love my job metric. And so we recognized that this was a problem. And we also saw that the behaviors of collaboration are not just great leadership behaviors. But they're these human behaviors that everyone can learn. And when they're in action, they make work better and happier. So for that noble purpose that we both shared, we want everyone in the workplace and the world to like,

yeah, you can enjoy your work. You can be a better human and you can help others be a better human. And I think that's the emotion driving our work in a way. For each of us, we express it differently, but that's a little bit of a foundation. And I think for young people listening and for building relationships, Edward said earlier that we collaborated online. The industry that work, the business world is spending almost like $40 billion on collaboration tools and technologies, which are in a way a band-aid for our failures as a human to collaborate, to talk and to communicate. But even these now they're saying are almost dehumanizing us.

And I would say there's nothing wrong with technology. It's just we have lost a little bit of our humanity. And so these five behaviors of generosity and resourcefulness, co-creation, action, and gratitude are five easy ones to remember and practice that anyone can get better at and that will help all of your relationships at work and in life. That's another reason why we're passionate about it because if you have those then the technology will work for you but if you don't have those or something similar then all the technology in the world isn't going to help your team be happy or collaborate better or communicate better. I could go on about like how instead of making it about yourself first. That's like the most basic human thing that we can do.

And sometimes we lose that. And so all these behaviors that we have in collaboration do help you to grow in all your relationships. I couldn't agree more, Trish. Metrics are important. The noble purpose is what drives the team and you and I in collaboration. And over three years, our team on the project went from two to 70 people. Now they cycled in at different times and different numbers of team members, but I feel you and I with collaboration created a team that people wanted to be on. And that's truly the challenge of leaders today is not saying you must go into the office five days a week. It is wanting and creating the environment that team members want to be on.

So I absolutely agree. Before we dive into the five principles in your book and the noble purpose behind it, I want to ask, why does this book matter? On the flip side, what is the problem you're trying to solve with the book? From what you've shared with me so far, you believe collaboration is the solution to many of the biggest workplace challenges. So if collaboration is the key, that means there are a lot of issues in the workplace today. What are those problems? As you see them?

We have seen that people say, oh, go collaborate, but they don't understand what that means. And so what we have discovered in our work or what we believe from the work that we've done is that people just simply don't understand what collaboration is. And they're spending billions of dollars on a problem they don't understand. And is and they're spending billions of dollars on a problem they don't understand. And two issues with that is that people think that the core unit of collaboration is teams or tools or technologies, but we're saying no, the core unit of collaboration is the individual. And so we all have to work on our individual skills first, or we won't be able to collaborate with anyone.

There's this other piece of collaboration is not one action. It's a collection of actions or behaviors. That's why we say these five behaviors. In the last 30 minutes, Edward and Frasier went down the memory lane and reflected on their own collaborative journey. It began 10 years ago at Disley. They turned a positive work relationship into a sustainable personal friendship that has now grown into a business partnership and co-authoring collaboration

on a book about collaboration. In tomorrow's episode, part two, we'll dive into division and framework for collaboration centered on a noble purpose and five key behaviors. What are these behaviors?

How can we practice them? And why is collaboration so challenging today? I assure you, the methodology isn't just an other software solution. It's far more human-centric than what we're used to seeing. 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.