 It's easy, it's not interesting, right? The question is always, do you want to change an organization? And of course the answer is always no. How can we change resistance to change? And is it something bad? The job is easy, but people are not. Michael Fries, so good to see you today. Yeah, it's good to see you, thank you. Thank you for calling all the way from Germany. And today we're going to talk about some of the work that you're doing for the ASB Eclipse Executive Education Center. But before we do that, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? Okay, I'm a psychologist by training. I've done work in pretty much every area in which humans are important for organizations. So I've been interested in how humans help to change organizations, how people changed, are changed by the organizations, and how the interaction of organizational dynamics and human performance happens. That's fascinating. There's nothing more physical than working with people and dealing with people, right Professor? A beach. And it's nothing more fascinating than humans. And one of the few things that can't be computerized. It's easy, it's not interesting, right? At least that's how we do it here. So you're teaching this very interesting program at ASB Eclipse. It's called Leading Organization Change. Can you tell us a little bit about the program? The question is always do you want to change an organization? And of course the answer is always no, actually really not. Because every change is difficult. And every change is terribly difficult. And sometimes you're forced to change. And the problem here in this particular situation after COVID and in COVID and in the new normal, whatever, we now know we cannot just continue on as given. We need to be more agile. Organizations need to be able to actually change tremendously quickly. And often they have shown that they are able to do that. So that's the major point. So what do I mean by that? I mean by leading that people have to lead the organizational change. It doesn't come about by nature. To some extent, of course, organizations change, but usually they ossify. Usually they become sclerotic. And that's exactly what you don't want to have. So therefore you want to change organizations into the dynamics of the situation and the interaction with the situation. That's the major point. Now you have to always think there can be very personal types of changes that can happen. And that's absolutely fine and important. But if you want to change a bigger organization, it often only works via organizational culture. You can, of course, argue. No, no, no. I just changed the boxes and who is responsible for what and the relationship between them. And I can tell you that's okay. It's good, but it only goes so far. You have to probably change organizational culture. And so I will be concentrating on the change of organizational culture. And that, of course, implies a tremendously different type of leadership than what we are typically doing in well-structured organizations. Very interesting and very complicated. And like you said, if it's not complicated, we shouldn't spend time learning about it, right? So what I'm hearing, Professor Fries, is that participants who attend your program should be interested in a dynamic change, an intentional change, or react to a change, an environmental change, the way COVID has happened, or if you think about the industrial revolution, the 4.0, whatever cataclysmic changes we have around us. So when you have people sitting in your program and you've been doing this for a long time, why do people take away from this program? Why do they feel like they got most out of this? Okay. I think what they typically get away is what kind of problems do I need to deal with and for which kinds of problems should I be open? And there are fascinating issues around change. One of the big issues around change is resistance to change. And we all know everyone doesn't like change. I mean, it's true. So therefore, there will be resistance to change. Now we have to always ask the question, how can we change resistance to change? And is it something bad? So my major point will be it's not something bad because the alternative is passive acceptance and you don't want passive acceptance. And the other alternative is people who are already hot for change and they're very seldom. And therefore, you have to change resistance to change. And therefore, you have to go and work with the resistance. That's difficult enough. The second big thing that you will learn from this is how do you actually go about getting a coalition of the willing that will be a bit hotter, a bit more initiating in the change process that you want to achieve? And how do you do that? And then the third aspect will be that at the end, you will need to know how you as a leader have to be inspirational enough to actually commit to the change, continue with the change, and actually drive the change. And of course, I will be talking also about all the processes that can be enhancing the change. For example, the processes by all the leadership that you have in your company. So in an essence, I hope that after this course you will understand why change is necessary. You will know how change leads to negative effects that you did not necessarily anticipate. You will know how to prevent those negative effects. And you will know how to make the organization in such a way that it is responsive in the future to organizational change processes. Thank you, Professor Michael Fritz. You might all know that at ASB we have an expression or at least this is my expression. The job is easy. The people are not. What you're working with is exactly this. I think by nature, by our DNA, we do not like change. But the reality is that every single organization has to stay agile, not become agile, but stay agile. So I am sure that everybody who takes the ASB Eclipse course in leading organizational change by Professor Michael Fritz is going to experiment the true nature of disruptive change and the wonderful lessons that Professor Michael Fritz can share with us. So we'll see you soon in class, Professor. It was great to be with you. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Michael Fritz.