Michael Jackson — Leadership Through Change Flattening The Corona Change Curve

It is yet another edition of What's Involved and my special guest and we're getting to when last I actually spoke to him is somebody who used to be an amazing conference speaker several over the country, in fact all over the world, speaking internationally renowned. So former conference speaker Michael Jackson, hello, how are you? David, what a pleasure to be with you and thank you for having me on your program which I understand is growing in leaps and bounds and very deservedly so. Well, thank you, kind sir. A lot of people that know you or know of you when they hear this, they're going to go hang on, what did you just say former conference speaker? So before we get into the former conference speaker bit, we've had you on the show before. In fact, you and some of the gang from the unique speaker bureau were regulars a couple of years ago on the show and then life happened. So it's good to have you back but talk to me about former conference speaker. I think we're all going to have to reinvent ourselves massively as a result of the dreaded C word and I think that what we need to understand David is that things are going to be very, very different. It's not even going to be a launch or a return to normality once our lockdown is lifted.

We're all going to have to reinvent ourselves and I've been doing it much the same way using the time that I've been on lockdown to figure out that traveling the globe, jet setting around the world, doing 150 conferences a year is not going to happen for the rest of at least 2020. So what I decided to do is reposition myself literally from behind my desktop where I need to be helping clients develop their own change story. I've been a change speaker predicting trends for a while. I didn't guess that coronavirus was coming, nobody did by the way, but looking about business trends now, I know what we have to do as a result of them and it's reinvention. So I'm going to be helping people create their story and share it with their customers, their staff, their channel partners and their suppliers. Less stage work and a lot more virtual work. That's where I'm going. But I think this whole thing and you know, specifically guys that are in your industry and I mean, anybody in inverted commas, entertainment industry, sound lighting, this has taken their legs out right out from under them. And we're all sitting there going, okay, now what now? And I don't know, you've been in this business and everything and you've been talking about change, one of your talks that you used to do, I don't know if you still give a challenge of change.

But everybody is sitting going, I actually, I don't know, I don't know what it looks like, I don't know what I should be doing and we're looking for people and we're looking to people for some guidance, for some inspiration and I don't know if it's been forthcoming yet. What is your feeling there? First of all, there are no experts. I think that you can take every scientist, every expert, predictor, whoever you line up to give you a glimpse into the future and in the same way, you can take a chimpanzee and put a dart in its hand and ask the chimp to throw it and hit the dartboard. The chimp has as much chance of being successful as anyone who makes predictions at this point in time. But there are patterns that we can look at and as humans, we respond very poorly to change and as a result of that, we take that huge curve that you've mentioned and yes, I still talk about getting through the change curve because we never go from start to finish in a straight line. We take this huge U-shaped curve and we drop down with all our negative emotions from anger and denial and fear until we get to acceptance and then we start climbing out a little bit of hope and progress and belief and it's remarkable, David, really, because I was on a virtual call the other day with 12,500 event professionals from around the world and as you say, that market has gone completely dead at least until November later this year.

Where were they on the change curve? 12% were still in denial, halfway down the slippery slope. Over 30% were very fearful. Only 20% had come to a level of acceptance where they were prepared to say, "All right, I know things are going to be different, but I don't quite know what to do yet. I'll accept the fact that it's going to be different. I don't have a plan yet." And the other side of the curve, hoping that things would come out, starting to go towards the belief that a vaccine cure or the end of this coronavirus scenario would happen, two out of ten event people are in that hopeful stage. Only one in ten was making progress up the curve, thinking about how they reinvent themselves. And I think that many, many people are in that same situation. It's an interesting thing because those people who follow me on my social media, we've been talking about this change curve in the last couple of weeks, obviously, and somebody mailed me the other day and said, "Look, I've gone from acceptance back up towards fear and denial once again. And I'm very much afraid that come May the 1st or May the 4th, and May the 4th be with us all soon, Monday, May the 4th is when work should be starting again, assuming lockdown isn't re-extended.

I'm of the opinion that it won't be re-extended, but I think will be released from it in somewhat of a traffic light curve, the red before amber, before green, and will go back in a staged response that may well push people from the bottom of the curve back up towards fear, denial and anger. There is no doubt about it, David. We all need to understand that our world is not going to be what it was for at least six to nine months from May the 4th onwards. Yeah, well, I was telling to somebody about it the other day, and the irony of May the 4th, it's a Star Wars reference, May the 4th be with you. And I took it a step further and went, well, with luck, then Cyril will have what we call the revenge of the 5th. I kind of like it. I mean, it's ironic that we're coming out of lockdown and literally going straight into a public holiday. But on May the 1st, we're into such a strange situation. We were told that 2020 would be the future. It was going to be a tech smart, a seamless and more connected, better planet for us all. And we all rode into that blindly, thinking it was going to be business as usual. But you know, some key things have happened since Corona. And beyond Corona, what we need to understand are politics, trade, immigration issues, environmental issues have all come to the fore.

And when you get slapped by what the market calls a black swan, a black swan is something that affects us every once in a while. We've had two previous ones that were most significant in our lifetimes. There's been a couple more, but the most important ones like coronavirus go back to 1987, Living Memory, Black Monday. You know, when excessive risk taking on high stocks came through, the recovery for global markets there was just over a year and a half. The next significant one was the global financial crisis of 2007. That was the so-called subprime fiasco. And there it took three and a bit years for the world to recover. Our latest black swan, this strange event, coronavirus, the pandemic itself, I've gone on record as saying my recovery date for it for normalization is 2025. Everything changed. Everything changed instantly the minute that virus came out in Wuhan. You know, whether you deny it, whether you're confused by it, whether you're angry about it, whether you're at a standstill because of it, the basic answer is we're going to have to accept the fact that everything ahead of us will be incredibly different. Even the bailouts that people are receiving or not receiving in some cases, where is that money being generated from a place where it has to be paid back?

Almost 90 percent of the workforce around the world are locked down. That is a scary amount. When you think about it, I saw something the other day that said half to three quarters of the planet are locked down at the moment, and we seem to forget that. Right now, of a total global workforce of just under four billion people, it's highly possible that 25 percent of them will lose their jobs. That's 1.2 billion people. World trade will go down at least 20 percent. It might be as much as 30 percent. The economies around the world are going to be battered senseless. In Europe, with or without Brexit, we're talking of a 6 percent decline minimum. In America, they're looking at a 7 to 8 percent decline. Our own economy in southern Africa is going to go down a minimum of 7 percent. That's a massive amount when you think you take up seven rand out of every hundred rand that was going to be spent in our economy. It's absolutely horrific. In fact, the Chinese are the only people, strangely enough, who are going to grow as a result of this. It will be marginal. It will be just over one percent growth in their economy. They've had a 30-year straight run of economic data, which has just taken them literally out of poverty and into the world-dominating country and trade system at the moment.

Their global growth, which has gone from 11 to 9 all of a sudden, is going to go down to one percent. They will be the only economy in the world that grows because they're responsible for two-thirds of the world's trade, but they're going to take a hammering. This is, right now, we have to realize, the most significant thing I can say to you is that your world will be totally, totally different, literally, come May the 4th. It already is, but it's going to get crazy. Well, food for thought there. We are turning to Michael Jackson, ex-conference speaker, which I like because it makes so much sense. When we come back, though, I'm going to be asking Michael about where we're going. Is there hope? What should we be doing? What plans does Michael have? All of that, and more, when we come back. We're back, and my special guest with me on the line, Michael Jackson. As I said to my guest on the line, Michael Jackson, I remember the days when I was doing the show live in a radio studio, and I was very old-fashioned, and I always used to demand bums on seats. Bums on seats were what it was all about, and these days, it's changed, whether I liked it or not. It changed, I don't know, bang, this is the way we do things now.

Yeah, absolutely, and it's going to change even more into the future. We may never meet face-to-face again, at least without being totally socially distanced, David, in terms of where we are. But look, is there hope for us? Yes, there is, and I think what we need to understand is that businesses need to drive communication, we need to lead through really substantial communication, and that means engaging so from a company to its workforce, from a company and its workforce through to their customers, their supply chain, their partners. Businesses are also going to have to refocus on their own priorities. It may well be that you'll start to see mega mergers, you'll start to see a lot more acquisitions, sworn enemies getting into bed with each other, as markets shift, contract and change, people are going to have to start looking for new things that they can do. Look how the Formula One organization got their people into making ventilators, you'd never have spoken about that two months, three months ago. And now it just seems like it's standard practice that they've gone into something completely new. We're going to have to align everything that we do in terms of our markets and look for a new unique best practice.

There are one and a half, sorry, one and a half billion firms on the world stage registered companies, literally 25% of them are going to disappear. Those people don't just drop off the planet's surface who are involved with them, they're going to have to retrain, relearn, redeploy. And I think it all starts with a solid, sensible sit down in the chat. You know, if you're going to flatten the corona change curve, for want of a phrase, you need to still the fear within people, engage with people, connect with them via very agile channels like this. Put yourself firmly in the driver's seat and look for opportunity to reframe, to identify when new opportunities might be. And you know where the answers lie for any business? In the employee's brains. You know, you can go back and look at KFC and say they've got a secret recipe that the old colonel wrote down and locked in a safe. Well, the recipe for your business is in your head. It's not locked in your safe. People know the right things to do. They need to be allowed now to be put into frameworks and organizations where literally they can sit, reframe, identify new opportunities, start to think about what they could do well, and then shape that new story to get their place into the new world.

Now it's interesting on this because that's a lot to get through in terms of a two minute summary on a podcast. I do have a document called leadership through communication that I've been writing during this time of lockdown. If any of your guests would want it, David, I'm going to give it to you, sir, so that all they got to do is get hold of you through your normal channels and I'll give it away free. You know, the time of paid for stuff has gone. I'm also advertising on Facebook that I'll deliver keynotes free of charge for the next two to three weeks. My brand new key note that I'm working on to help people shape their story is literally about working in the change curve and flattening their own curve, but getting them to a state where they need to start innovative thinking for life into the rest of 2020. So you know, I'm giving away stuff free because hell, how do I get paid at the moment? I haven't figured that out yet. Soon I will. And then I'll start charging for it again. But if anybody wants that document, leadership through communication, I've worked on it with some communication language specialists. I've worked on it with some really cool strategists. We've just decided that, hey, let's give it away free.

The more people read it and work on it, the better it is. So if you want the PDF, get hold of David, he'll tell you how. If you don't know how already and it's yours with my compliments and his back to you, sir. Mr. Michael Jackson, thank you so much. That is that is incredibly generous of you. One of the things that you mentioned, and I've noticed this, is that companies have been, for the most part, from what I've heard, have been very bad at communicating with their staff. And if I look, for example, at my sister, you know, and her company, she works for a big catering institution, they said to them, okay, Corona, lockdown, go away, goodbye. We'll see you. We might not see you. We might be opening in three months. But not. So there's this entire company and there's many people that I've spoken to in different organizations. And again, we don't know what's happening. And this is where this concept of leadership through communication, to me seems absolutely vital. I agree with you. And you know, most companies have done this in an extremely poor manner, as you say, if you want as a listener to this now to go and find out the best organization in the world that communicated with its customers, look no further than Nando's and look at Robbie Brosom, the CEO.

I so wish I'd worked with him on this communication, sadly, I didn't get the chance to. But Robbie recorded a video that he sent out to all of his Nandokas, the people who work inside Nando's. And it's a video that got onto YouTube, unsurprisingly. It's not a Nando's advert, we're used to their brilliance always. But this is communication. This is Robbie recording a message to his staff to explain to them why during lockdown they were, as he said, turning off the flame temporarily and giving them a sense of future and a sense of what was to come and why they come back even stronger. Go and Google that on YouTube. It's just called Nando's lockdown. It is the finest piece of communication ever. Now, I've been out all over the world during lockdown virtually looking for bloody good examples of this, of really cool leadership examples of communication. I've asked people to search all over the planet for me for really great examples. The ones I've been sent are no more than standardized PR at best and corporate puffery at worst. They're crap, quite frankly. No one has done it better than Robbie. And what we need to do is understand that our leaders need to be engaging with our people. That was just the start of his process that went public, by the way.

The rest of it you'll have to know from working inside Nando's. But publicly, at least we can see that. And I think it's the really brilliant benchmark that we could look to, Nando's lockdown, just to see exactly the way that communication should begin. And we need it sadly, and it's massively lacking. It is indeed. We are heading to Michael Jackson, change agent and along with everybody else, I think, on the face of the planet, trying to figure out what is our next. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more to Michael about what is next, what's happening. And maybe discuss a little bit about how our country's leadership seems to be doing. Right, we're back with Michael Jackson. It is what's involved. Good to have you along with us. So, Michael, I said we'd talk to you a little bit more about this whole communication thing. And you and I are both sort of, well, we're not known for our tact all the time, but how do you think the press is doing so far? Because I've seen sort of there's been, initially, everybody's like, yay, we love you, press. Cyril is the man. And then some of them were like, why have you taken away our alcohol, cigarettes and roast chickens? What is your feeling there?

How are we doing? It's intriguing there that I think that our president has given out some firm leadership communication guidelines. Sadly, the people below him haven't really taken that mantle up and led on with it. And that's part of the problem. We've got a cabal of government ministers, one who wears a hat and insults people, one who goes out to lunch with her family friends. I think it's bizarre. And, you know, all of that leadership that he gave out when we all got behind him, as you say, to applaud our president for what he was doing, you know, when he announced the relief packages, how many of us thought, oh, God, all that money is going to disappear in terms of corruption? I mean, it's just it's bizarre. You see, you can pull the wool over people's eyes to a certain extent. But sooner or later, the voice of public opinion is going to come back and crucify you. I think we're trying to do a good thing in South Africa with a lockdown. I think our planned release will be a good thing, our staged release, even though most people will rebel against it. We'd like to see leadership in action and real money getting to where it really matters. But beware again, because even our glorious president's words, you know, when he talks of a new economy and a new style of things and a new social equation, as he did a couple of nights back, a few nights back now, it all means very different stuff.

We're going to have to pay for what this is. There's no escape from it. There's no dressing it up. We're going to have to get used to some very tough language and some very tough communication. Let's hope the rest of the government can can stick firm and show us that they'll put the corrupt in jail where they belong. I'm with you there. I'm with you 100 percent, because one of the things is, and this is one of my fears, because human nature is such that we will go along and we'll sort of be going, oh, yes, you know, when this changes, the changes will happen and it's going to be a new reality. And then you get a couple of weeks into it and it all reverts back to the same old, same old. I'm not sure that's going to happen. And I think if we try and return to the same old, same old, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. They'll never be a same old, same old. We're going to have to learn that things are going to be incredibly different, incredibly tough and incredibly unusual. Our world, because of a microscopic virus, has changed now forever. We've lived through an epochal timeframe where literally what happened before, which was normal, will never, ever be normal again, and we haven't yet got our heads around it.

It's scary, it's terrifying, it's expensive, it's depressing. And that's why what we need to do is, as this all starts to unfold, is change our own thinking. We've got to realize that there is a place for humans on the planet. You might just not be doing what you were doing before the virus as the virus gets defeated and after the virus has finally gone. Yeah, and this is the thing we said to them, and I'll share with you now, the first week or two of this lockdown, I was in that fear panic, absolute numbness pace. I was like, okay, I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know. And I was imagining horrific things happening and almost sort of the zombie apocalypse coming in the form of this virus. And slowly I think I've progressed a bit along that curve. And we now sitting thinking, okay, how do we take what we do online? From a radio perspective, it's fairly easy for us. One thing I think is going to become a massive priority in this country is internet connectivity because that is the way that's going to drive a lot of our economy, I believe. I mean, I live on a plot in Victoria East, and the only form of internet that we can get is wireless internet, and we can only get a 10 meg line at best.

And you know, that's not brilliant, but we make do with what we have. And we've now spent time figuring out online learning. How do you do this? How do you put stuff online? How do you protect it? How are you going to pay? What are you going to charge? You know, we've also, we're starting to give a lot of stuff away now, but at some stage we are going to have to charge, but I don't think we're going to be able to charge what we would have charged for face to face things. I just don't think so. What is your feelings? I think it's going to take an awful lot of adjustment. And I hope that everyone has used their lockdown wisely because like you, you know, it's everyone goes through that initial anger, the frustration, the denial. Then we moved into a state of almost, well, it's just maybe an extended holiday. And then we all got sick of the kids at home or the spouse at home or the significant other. And we're itching to get back into normality. Right now, there is no normality to go back to. You know, you're not going to be able to pop into your local coffee shop. You're not going to get into your regular commute to work. You're not going to be going on vacation. You're wow. Things are going to be massively different.

You must retrain and internet connectivity is massive, but it's not just the middle class or the upper classes. Think of what we need to do now with the poor in this country, you know, and that's why I think where the biggest danger is right now is in the highly concentrated urban areas, the former townships, the shanty towns, the shacks that have sprung up. We've got massive fundamental problems there. And you're going to see an awful lot of government money being spent to uplift those. It is amazing, by the way, how quickly red tape by an awful lot of businesses and an awful lot of government departments can be cut through when the need is there. We're going to have to see an awful lot more of that, not only from business and government, but also from our own businesses. We're going to have to rethink our place on this planet. It's changed everything, everything. Now, Michael, you've spent some time, but obviously you've been very kind and you've offered us the PDF and we'll be able to distribute that on your behalf. And again, thank you for that. What are some of the things that you are looking at? I mean, you mentioned earlier on October, you think that, you know, for you, some sort of uptick in business, but, you know, specifically, I think for us living in the Hauteng region in South Africa, I don't think we're going to get let out very quickly.

I really don't. So what are your plans going forward? Well, I think at least for the next six months, I'm going to be replacing a desk with a studio. What little cash I've got left with, I'm going to be getting myself better connectivity in terms of I've got fiber at home. Thank God. I intend to be working from home, not from an office. I'll be letting an office go or reconverting the minimal office space that I do have into some kind of a TV studio where I can work with myself and fellow speakers. There's a massive fundamental change. I don't expect to be on an aircraft until at least October. I've got some inquiries for the rest of the world, you know, literally into November and beyond, but I think for the rest of us in Hauteng, we're going to have to start to realize that even if you don't think about the change as an individual, your company is going to be right now. You know, has your company worked out how expensive all that rent is? Do they want you an hour and a half a day in traffic barreling down the M1 or the M2 or whatever the hell it is that we do in two directions every single day? You know, it's that everyone's going to be thinking differently and what you need to do is make sure that your voice is heard within all of that.

If the answers do lie collectively inside an organization's brain through its employees, make sure that the first thing you're doing is connecting to people. As a leader, it's essential. As a worker, it's absolutely equally critical. Yeah, well, this is the other thing that I do find quite interesting, is a lot of people were wanting to do this work from home thing, you know, the virtual office, etc., etc., before this virus hit, and companies were like, it's not going to happen, cannot happen. There's no ways. And suddenly, it was forced upon us. I'm now wondering how many people are going to go when the restrictions start to be eased. They're going to go, but hang on a second. Why must I spend three to four hours a day in traffic to come and sit in an office when I can work from home? And I think there's going to be a big, big shift to this work from home stuff, schooling, education. But now, Michael, people listening to this, maybe they're going to say, yeah, we'd love to have the PDF so we can learn a bit more. But if they're wanting to talk to you specifically, and let's say it is a company, you mentioned something that you'd be doing some keynotes, but are you then going to be prepared to work with companies as well going forward?

How do you see that playing out? Yeah, that's going to be my whole new life for the next at least six months working very closely while I'm not on conference stages with organizations, helping them create their story, helping them engage with customers, I've been working with technologies that can do that from a smartphone upwards, making sure that there's a whole bunch of stuff going through. How do people find me? It's easy. It's known as the other Michael Jackson, for obvious reasons. So if you Google the other Michael Jackson, you'll find my website, which is the other Michael Jackson dot com, all of my links there to my social media. Come and find me on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, you know, depending on what your needs are, and engage with me. I'm just a human. I might be a voice behind a microphone at the moment, but I'm just a guy sitting in my converted dining room at the moment thinking of the way forward to things. I've got a camera so we can do it over zoom. Like everybody else on the planet, we can we can chat. And I guess that's it now. We've all got to figure this out. Let me help you figure it out with you. If there's some things I'll charge you for, well, we'll figure out what those are later on down the line.

But for now, let's just talk. Let's just see how I can help on what we can do. I think that's absolutely brilliant. And you hit the nail on the head. Talking is what it's all about now. We need to we need to discuss this stuff. We need to get it out there. We need to get ideas out there and make things work. I mean, you know, I only recently had mastered Skype, which is what we're on now. And then along comes the Zoom calls. I'm like, I don't know what you were talking about when you say I must zoom you now. But these are the things that we're going to have to take notice of. I mean, if I have a look at some of my website properties, you know, we're going to be having to install and put different bits and pieces on there and get that out there and start. And we've decided as our little what's digital company that is making zero revenue right now, we've decided that we're going to also be giving away some stuff purely just to help people get through this. And, you know, as long as the way we see it, as long as we can have something to eat and a roof over our head, we're sort of way ahead of the game because a lot of people are not as privileged as we are. And those are the people that I'm concerned about.

Yeah, you're right, David. I mean, I've had I've been making a series of short little videos from my dining room table, staring into the camera, talking to my screen, three minute videos that I've been pushing out on my social media. So far, I've had nearly 75000 views of my little short videos that I've been pushing out, kind of encouraging people how to think differently. You know, so maybe that's even more than what have seen me live on stages around the planet. So I'm still connecting with people. I haven't figured out how to charge for it yet. And maybe the time for that comes later. But you know, right now, let's give it away. As you say, let's let's share. Let's think. Let's plan. Let's brainstorm. Because the secret to success in all of this is to keep busy, to keep doing stuff. You know, success is the result of doing things. Inactivity, moaning, Facebook conspiracies is not going to get you anywhere. You need to get doing stuff. And my full intention is to come back stronger. I might not be a conference speaker into my future life. Whatever it is, I'm coming back stronger. And I'm sitting down and working it out now to see what I can do. Big stuff. And you know what? I agree again, because this is what I found is it's so easy to get caught up in the doom and the gloom and the naysayers, et cetera, et cetera.

And you sort of go, oh, well, and then you don't do anything. And the less you do, the worse you feel. So get up, do something. And that something can be as simple as making your bed in the morning and taking it from there. Michael, I want to say thank you so much for chatting to us. And we wish you all the best. Thank you for that PDF. It's Michael at the other Michael, well, just the other Michael Jackson dot com. You'll be able to connect with Michael there. Thank you, Michael. Absolute pleasure. Thank you, David. All the very best. And stay strong. Keep doing the good stuff that you're doing. We'll chat to you soon. Have a great one. Cheers. Bye bye.