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“Look at every change as an opportunity.” – Andy Freed, Virtual, Inc. CEO

In this episode of 5 Minutes with Andy, Virtual, Inc. CEO Andy Freed shares his playbook for navigating change as a leader — with curiosity and confidence.

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Andy covers:

• Why curiosity is one of your best tools as a leader.
• How bringing in tech “native speakers” can help your organization adapt smarter.
• The importance of honoring what already works.

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Hi. Welcome to five minutes with Andy. My name is Andy Freed. I'm the CEO of Virtual, Incorporated. For 25 years, we've been helping membership organizations that are forming, growing and changing. And as I introduce myself, I should really introduce my best friend too—my cell phone and I are hardly too far apart.

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Now, what's funny about that is 25 years ago, when we started this organization, smartphones like this didn't exist. The idea of social media didn't exist. The internet was a thing, but it was very different. All of that speaks to how much technology can change and how much things can change in just the course of 25 relatively short years. But we've gotten better as a company because of that change. We've leveraged all of that change. We used that to help our organizations that we work with every day.

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Now, as you're doing that and every day, it feels like the pace of change is breakneck. Now, it's funny, I always love thinking of when people say that things have never changed as fast as they are now. I always think back to the 70s, you know, and of course, I mean the 1870s, when in just 10 short years you had the transcontinental railroad, electricity and the telegraph. That's a lot of change. What we're dealing with is child's play compared to that.

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But as you're thinking about change, there are a few rules that I think are important as you're thinking about how to deal with change. And, you know, I'll check my phone to see what it tells me those rules might be.

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Number one is look at every change is an opportunity.

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Don't look at change as being something which is taking things away from you. Look at change as what are the doors that it's opening up? So many doors have opened up because of the internet. So many doors have opened up because of technology. You can't resist it as some people do with change. You can't be the Luddites that were taking down the machines of the Industrial Revolution. You need to embrace change and think about where it's going.

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As you're doing that, the next piece kind of comes from Ted Lasso. You know, be curious. You know, be curious about change.

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I spend some of my time walking the aisles of Best Buy and just seeing what's new all the time. I read magazines, I look at what's new? I look at the ads to see where is this heading in another industry? Where might that impact us?

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Third is to hire native speakers of that change.

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Now, an interesting thing happened in the early 2000. So you had folks like myself who learned the internet after they had been in the workforce, and other folks who came up with that.

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Same thing’s happening right now. There are kids right now in college and kids in high school, for which AI has always been a thing. They're looking at in a very different way than I do and others do. Think about how do you engage those native speakers to bring in, you know, to bring in these ideas and make sure your organization's staying current?

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You know, the last piece I'll say about change is, you know what? Change is important. And change matters. But you also want to make sure sometimes you’re retaining some pieces and retain what works.

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Change doesn't mean lurching all the way with a tiller to the other side. Sometimes change means being more incremental, making sure that as you change things, you also are honoring what works and making sure that you're keeping your organization true to its values and what it believes. And not getting to a place that change means that you're zigzagging all over the road.

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So, as you're listening to this and remembering that podcasts are another thing that didn't exist 25 years ago, I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope this has been five minutes well spent. I'd encourage you that if you've enjoyed this, please take a minute to like us, subscribe to us, follow us and join us again. Thank you so much and we'll see you soon.

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