Episode 57
Jerry Jones - Helping Teams Get Unstuck Through Human Connection
This week, Trisha interviews Jerry Jones, founder of Culture Blend and a learning strategist with over 15 years of experience helping organisations navigate cultural transitions. Jerry brings unique insights from coaching more than a thousand professionals through significant cultural shifts, having lived and worked in China for a decade himself.
The conversation reveals Jerry's counterintuitive approach to learning design and why he believes most training fails before it starts. Jerry shares a profound shift moment from a deeply personal conversation with his son that challenged his assumptions about understanding and perspective, demonstrating how the most powerful learning happens when we step back and truly listen.
They explore Jerry's philosophy that "growth happens when people feel seen, challenged, and supported" and uncover his surprising strategies for helping teams get unstuck. The discussion takes an unexpected turn into Jerry's thoughts on AI's impact on humanity and whether technology will ultimately bring us closer together or drive us further apart.
Jerry also shares insights from an eye-opening experience in North Korea and reveals why he thinks we should "postpone" rather than lower our expectations during major transitions. This perspective challenges conventional wisdom about change management.
Connect with Jerry via his website thecultureblend.com, LinkedIn and check out his Podcast Diesel and Clooney Unpack the World
Make sure you join Trisha in this journey of growth and discovery throughout the year via Substack or LinkedIn.
Transcript
[00:00:14]
[:[00:01:29] My guest today is Jerry Jones. He's a learning strategist across cultural expert and one of the most thoughtful and creative people I've encountered in the space of leadership development and learning design. Jerry is the founder of the Culture Blend, and he's worked across continents helping organizations build cultures of trust and meaningful change.
[:[00:02:16] So that was a moment. But I've since worked with him in his role as a global director of design and development. And he has always been one of those people who creates learning experiences that really help people lead, communicate, and collaborate more effectively and more inclusively. And working with him and with clients has always been a delight.
[:[00:02:58] Called Diesel and Clooney, which is really speaking to third cultured kids and some of the aspects of relevance to international education. So a broad background. Jerry, welcome.
[:[00:03:26] Trisha: but that's what we've done repeatedly when we've been talking about design, isn't it? I mean, we often think about how do we create those learning experiences? Yeah. What, how do we get to what's going on in people's heads, you know?
[:[00:03:52] Trisha: Yeah. And I should have probably said somewhere in there that we both have China in common, except I was probably there. Was it not 10 years? Was it 10 years before you were there? Yeah, so I was there
[:[00:04:07] Trisha: 93.
[:[00:04:12] Trisha: Yeah. So that was when I left. 10 years before you then, so you saw a different China.
[:[00:04:22] Trisha: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Different place and different time. And it's China changed so much over that time. Yeah.
[:[00:04:30] Trisha: Yeah we have both bonded listeners on our challenges over learning Mandarin. And our I felt like I got to a stage where I could be understood, but, you know, there it's it was challenging.
[:[00:04:43] Jerry: Yeah,
[:[00:05:03] But if you do speak Chinese, I know nothing. Like, my Chinese is so bad if you actually speak it.
[:[00:05:17] Jerry: That's a fabulous compliment.
[:[00:05:21] Trisha: I floated after they said, oh, your accent is very standard. Yes. Anyway, back to our standard opening questions. Jerry, what is a culture other than the one you grew up in that you have learned to love and appreciate?
[:[00:05:55] Like, this is my side answer and I'm gonna say North Korea because I didn't spend 15 years, but I gotta spend three days in North Korea and it was. Like the amount of deconstruction and unpacking and breaking down of things, because all I have is what I've seen. That's all any of us has of any culture, until we've experienced it. And so I had never experienced it, but I had plenty of ideas about what it was and to see. People like it just, it changed everything for me. Like to see people who had the same challenges in many ways as I do there, there was and the same, who love the same things that I do.
[:[00:06:59] Trisha: We'll make it one.
[:[00:07:06] I've got plenty of filters when I encounter a culture, but that was like a new filter of, hey, you, like, there's a lot you don't understand here. And you're probably making a lot of calls that that dehumanize these people and you're gonna find out real quick that they're human, right?
[:[00:07:23] Jerry: Sure. Yeah.
[:[00:07:26] and maybe another way to think about a shift is when you become aware of a filter. Anyway, that moves us to our next question. Can you tell us about a moment when you experienced a specific shift, a moment where your perspective expanded in a way that stayed with you?
[:[00:08:02] And so, and we were still in China, so, but we were watching the world, or not the world, but the country go through that from the other side of the world and experience that. And it was just one of those moments where I felt really inadequate as a white father of a black child. Right. And we were a little bit shielded from it, actually.
[:[00:08:40] And he, he just does this thing where he just kind of. Squints his eyes and goes really deep and he unpacked it a little bit. He had a few things to say and and it was like it was really deep. And we went back and forth and he kept asking me questions and I was like, I can answer that.
[:[00:09:10] But we had the conversation and then as he's talking about video games and school and he says, dad, I just, I sometimes I feel like nobody likes me. And, I was like, internally, what's going on in my head? I'm like, yeah, okay. I got this. I know how to handle this. And I said, yeah I do too. I know how that feels.
[:[00:09:30] And it was just this huge moment for me of like, he, there's so many things about. Culture about politics, about the history of the United States and everything that was going on about crime and police and all the different pieces about what was unfolding right in front of us that I knew more than he did.
[:[00:10:13] Like everyone was screaming at in the moment. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had an idea. And it was really time for people like me who can't understand it can't grasp it, and will never be able to, no matter how much you explain it to me. It was really a moment for me to shut up and listen and learn what I can as much as I can, but not to feel like I need to teach anything.
[:[00:10:38] Trisha: So hard. Yeah. I think about those, you know, really difficult moments when we see things and we see, that those moments have been then opened up and you can't close that. Then you then see lots of different, you see things from that different perspective.
[:[00:11:12] Trisha: You've coached, you know, over a thousand professionals through cultural transitions and designing learning experience that help them to face cultural shifts, significant cultural shifts. How do you prepare people for that shift? You know, how do you, I guess, try and help them to make those switches in their heads?
[:[00:11:53] You can tell 'em all about the place that they're going and the people there, but you can't. You can't have the conversations that they're gonna have, right? Like, you can't recreate the smells. Some of them maybe, but you can't recreate all the smells and the experiences and the stress and the like you can tell them it's going to be stressful.
[:[00:12:32] Just realize you're not gonna get anything done because you're transitioning from one space to another and just go in with zero expectations and then everything's great, but it's not. Like, it's just depressing because you've given up on these hopes and dreams and thoughts that you thought were going to happen.
[:[00:13:17] For, to even expect it. Then you take that out and you've got a better list. But the ones that are possible, they're just gonna take more time. 'cause you've got a lot of transition. You've got a lot of learning. You you've gotta catch your insides up with your outsides, right? Like, what's going on around you.
[:[00:13:40] Trisha: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it's part of what you were saying before about listening it's being there for them in the challenge point.
[:[00:13:50] Trisha: You've said I think it was on your LinkedIn page, growth happens when people feel seen, challenged, and supported.
[:[00:13:58] Trisha: Yeah. yeah.
[:[00:14:00] Trisha: yeah. I know,
[:[00:14:02] Yeah. I mean, like I referenced before that I've been in client meetings with you where we presented design, the learning design, and I think that's exactly what you do. That you.
[:[00:14:14] Trisha: It's not a problem in Australia, mate,
[:[00:14:28] that.
[:[00:14:30] Jerry: Sorry, I thought you were saying something really important
[:[00:14:56] Jerry: I think the most impactful, learning moments that I've been able to be a. Part of like the most important thing is just getting out of the way for that to happen. and allowing and trusting. 'cause especially when you're designing, it's so easy to over design.
[:[00:15:31] If we say this, we have to say this and we have to say this and yeah. Okay. That gives us a picture. But it's not completely accurate because you haven't thought about this yet. And it's like, okay, if you say all that, you said nothing because nothing sticks, right? It just bounces off.
[:[00:16:02] What they need to do is feel this, and then we'll talk about it. We'll come back and they'll have something to learn, which is so much better than anything you could teach them. Like, they came ready for that. You don't have to be responsible for all the learning. It's there.
[:[00:16:18] Trisha: And it's that recognition that there are people at different points of the readiness for change.
[:[00:16:24] That's so true.
[:[00:16:36] I have not heard of the accessibility to accuracy, but that feels like the, some people are not even at the point where they're ready to be taken on that journey and I guess they might, you know, one of the other things that you've talked about in your work is helping teams get unstuck. And so sometimes people are really.
[:[00:17:08] Jerry: Yeah, like, I like, I feel like that's an ongoing there, there are lots of experiences where we've had just really unsticking people and trying to figure that out. What stands out for me though, as you talk is that a lot of times, again, this is where I have to check myself because I go in and I think I can see it. Like, I think I, I can see why you're stuck. If you'll just listen to me. I'm gonna give you the three point outline of how to get three point outlines. Don't unstick people. They don't make any difference. No matter how true or right or wise or good they are. They just don't help you get out of the mud.
[:[00:18:01] I I don't do well with details. But the avalanche of details has me stuck. And I feel like, I remember one time my desk got messy in my office at work. And it was just like overwhelming. There was a lot going on and all the excuses, but it was just messy. And I just looked at it and I couldn't move.
[:[00:18:39] And that's where they can't get to the details because they're they're missing the high level pieces. And so you have to really, I think. Takes some time discovering who a person is and why they're stuck and what got us here and all those pieces. But then it just really give them the reins and the opportunity to unstick themselves.
[:[00:19:03] Trisha: It's getting people unstuck.
[:[00:19:11] Trisha: exactly. Let's be here and walk together. I was thinking about a learning situation and that isn't what you can do in a learning situation, but it's always good to recognize that you've probably got some people in the room who are sitting at that point in the change cycle as well.
[:[00:19:38] Jerry: I think one that the communication. Is so much more than words, right? Like even if you know the words, even if you can speak the language, there's so much beyond that, that goes into communication. And that was a lesson that I learned like in the big funny ways early on and throughout my experience the times you say something and it comes out wrong and but it was also like it just, that goes as deep as you will take it, right? Like the cultural piece of that and the recognition of we're looking at this together, right? Like we're looking at the same thing right now. And my assumption is always, I. You see what I see, right? Like you see, and that's not necessarily the case, right?
[:[00:20:29] What's the first thing you think about ?
[:[00:20:32] Jerry: Interesting.
[:[00:20:37] Jerry: that's that's interesting. You're the psychologist though, so I have no idea how to unpack that with you, but that's very interesting. Yeah. But you get, if you get people from five different places in the room, they're gonna have, red is going to mean something different. Maybe two of them agree and these two agree and but it means something different.
[:[00:21:08] And the person who was helping me choose that number the first one I chose was they were like, oh, you don't. You don't want that one. I'm like, why? Why don't I want that? Because I had too many fours. You don't want all those fours. And I'm like, okay I'll choose this one.
[:[00:21:39] Like, that's a really lucky number. I throw up a 6, 6 6, and they're like, that's extremely lucky. And then I show them the picture. I. The pictures that come up on Google image when you Google 6, 6, 6, at least from our Google. And it's these demons and monsters and and they, or it's demons.
[:[00:22:16] But to keep that in front of you when it's really practical and it matters, is a completely different thing because you'll almost every time kinda slip back into that. You see what I see,
[:[00:22:27] Trisha: Yeah, that's right. Jerry, we've been sharing between us some of our mutual learnings from using artificial intelligence, ai. So what have been some of your aha moments around ai?
[:[00:22:57] That's the one I was using in the moment. I was like, tell me like what you think about this. And there's this one moment where it said what you're doing is you're. Putting something out there where people aren't like they're not just connecting with it. They're saying, damn, that's me.
[:[00:23:31] Like every, everywhere. Like there's nothing, there's, I've never seen anything. I don't know. But I've never seen anything that people are so excited about and so scared of at the same time.
[:[00:23:48] Trisha: As we think about organizations and the fact that they're transitioning some of them really fast, and some of them not at all, and some of them somewhere in between, towards what you and I would we've talked about how we refer to it and we think more of an AI forward, but, you know, human first future.
[:[00:24:16] Jerry: That's a great question. And I think like picking it apart in the moment and just getting very real and honest about change. From multiple perspectives, right? Like there change is absolutely happening, but, and we've been saying that for. For my entire life at least, right? Like change is the one thing you can count on. The thing you can be sure of is that everything's gonna change.
[:[00:25:00] Is gonna be 10 times the amount of change that we've seen in the last 15, just because there's, there, there are now these things in place that are gonna move us forward. But I think one, like we're not out of control. Not yet. And there are some things we can change. We have full reign over one how we interact and what we do.
[:[00:25:37] It's not about what they can change. It's about them and whether or not they change. And one of the things, you know, we've worked together and one of the things that we've said just from a work perspective is that in inevitable change requires intentional change, right? It things are going to change.
[:[00:26:13] Whether that's. For myself, for my team, for my business for the people around me. Like, what changes do I need to make intentionally? Because if you don't, then that's how Extinction happens. And Extinction used to take a really long time. But at the rate that things are moving now I think we could go extinct pretty quickly.
[:[00:26:46] Trisha: Yeah, and remembering that within any organization we've got people who you know, are at those different stages from, whether it's accessibility to accuracy or you know, not even thinking about change to keenness, to be on that change wagon already there. We know that even in organizations where people I work with some government departments and here in Australia and for the majority of the people, they are not to use ai.
[:[00:27:34] And so there are all these people at all these different stages. And. Helping people to get wherever the organization might want to be is a challenge. And it's, I mean, it's the same in the work that we've been doing about inclusion for, you know, the last, how long we've been working together, four years maybe.
[:[00:27:54] Trisha: so, yeah. That there are people at different stages and recognizing that is probably the first and most important thing to seeing how are we gonna take this organization on this journey.
[:[00:28:26] And it's still my idea, but it said it better and just saved me two hours of like, it's really serving me right now. I like it. It is working and it's, and it does it in such a way that I feel like it's human. Like I have conversations and I can speak to it and it speaks to me. And, of that is there, but right now AI is for humanity it feels like.
[:[00:29:07] Like you didn't know that you haven't seen it, but I'm realizing like my aha moment was only a year ago, right? Like, or a year and a half ago. And that's how quickly things are moving. It used to be when somebody has an aha moment, the other people had it 10 years ago, and now it's just moving quickly.
[:[00:29:52] We could keep talking for hours.
[:[00:29:56] Trisha: but I'm wondering what advice you would offer to someone who wants to help others experience real shifts in their thinking.
[:[00:30:18] And I've learned that the hard way. Like there have been times that I've spent hours and days putting something together and been excited about it. This is what they need to know. And it just doesn't land. But then one little conversation is like, oh, like that's what you needed. I thought I knew what you needed and I didn't.
[:[00:30:48] Trisha: You're taking us back to that.
[:[00:30:51] Trisha: what advice would you offer, which is exactly what you've just answered, listening, and you've taken us back to that moment in the car with your son and you needing to listen. Yeah. So Jerry, how can people who want to connect with you, follow up with you?
[:[00:31:21] Trisha: and LinkedIn
[:[00:31:24] Trisha: Connect.
[:[00:31:28] Trisha: And as you look at your life and the people you've worked with and the future that we are facing, what are you hoping for?
[:[00:31:54] Years, maybe centuries. I don't know that when a new invention, new technology is coming out, we just envision what the world is going to be like when that comes out. We'll be able to, like, this is gonna do 80% of my job for me. I'll be able to sit around and do nothing. Like, I'll be able to work 10 hours a week and everything will be good.
[:[00:32:33] Right. So my hope and I I feel almost ridiculous I'm not super hopeful about it. It like, it hasn't happened yet with any of the other things. I don't think it's gonna happen with ai. But I would love it if we just had deeper human connections because. AI could do something for us and give us more time, or AI could help us connect.
[:[00:33:17] out of this.
[:[00:33:33] Jerry: Well, thank you.
[:[00:33:45]
