Embracing the Flux Mindset: Navigating Change with April Rinne

April Rinne (00:00.819)
Good.

Gerry Scullion (00:01.583)
So where you you're in Portland? Yeah.

April Rinne (00:03.632)
So in Portland, Oregon, Pacific Northwest today with Jerry just nearby. So Jerry's, know, I know. And I've always wondered why he didn't stick with the G -R -R -Y, but you know, well, it's his, his birth name is Gerald with a G. Yeah. And he stuck with the G -E -R -R -Y and he did not. And he said it was never really a, it wasn't one way or the other. think it was the era of Tom and Jerry.

Gerry Scullion (00:09.806)
too Jerry's. you want to see?

Gerry Scullion (00:16.374)
Or was he born with a G -E -R -O

Gerry Scullion (00:21.676)
same as me he didn't yeah yeah

April Rinne (00:33.286)
And so you just went with the J, but I've always wondered because I like them both. I like the G. I like the G. Anyway.

Gerry Scullion (00:33.378)
Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (00:40.022)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Well, I'm actually recording straight away. I'm of one of those podcasters that tries to get. Yeah. No, it's just like with you, I kind of know I can expect you're going to be able to talk about most stuff, so it's not a case of like having to warm. Sometimes we bring people on or like, OK, we need to kind of get to know each other a little bit. But I feel like, you know, I kind of know you through proxy, if you will.

April Rinne (00:45.138)
Yeah, that's fine. saw the countdown and I went, we are live. Okay.

April Rinne (01:08.85)
Well, thank you. And it's fine. I thank you for that. And I take that as a, both a little bit of, there's a little bit of a, context, the backstory, the small world connections and so forth. And also hopefully like I've, I've really tried as, as my Jerry has as well to make as much of what I do, you know, publicly accessible and, and, and authentic and like who you're going to see online or on LinkedIn

Gerry Scullion (01:10.679)
if you will.

compliment.

April Rinne (01:38.332)
who you're going to be talking to as well. And I don't know that I have always had that experience with others. but the other fun thing, and I have learned this through different conversations is that there are often those snippets, those really just like golden nuggets that happened before you start recording. I actually, can you go back and say that again? It's like, let's actually just get it all on record. And if you need to edit stuff out later, that's fine.

Gerry Scullion (01:58.382)
100 % I used to not do

Gerry Scullion (02:03.99)
It is like. Yeah, completely. We've only started doing it in the last six months, but going back to that point, why is it important to you feel to be authentic and not have two versions of yourselves?

April Rinne (02:18.414)
such a, well, such a good question.

April Rinne (02:25.798)
I continue to be more more stunned by how many people don't feel like they can be themselves or they have these double lives or triple lives depending on, you know, how many different persona they want to present to the world. And if we talk about being our better self, our best self, our full self, whatever that might be, it's almost like categorically impossible when you've got different versions of yourself.

And what I find is when you're presenting a version of many to the public, obviously you're hiding some piece of that. It's not, none of those are your full self. And so you're always going to feel a bit like incomplete. And so for me, the authenticity, it's not that you share everything all at once, but to be able to walk the talk of

particularly what I'm doing, know, on change and uncertainty and how we show up, how we show up for change, how we show up for uncertainty, how we show up for life. If I don't actually model that and if I don't walk my own talk and be fully me, then not only do I look like a complete hypocrite, but I'm also not able to help people in the ways that I'm able to, in the ways that I would like to.

Gerry Scullion (03:28.076)
Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (03:47.296)
Yeah. Do you think do you think there's a certain amount, a certain aspect as well of privilege to be able to do that? In the modern world, I'd love to get your your take on that, because the future workplace is something that I feel I could probably, you know, stir the pot a little bit, get a little bit of interest into the conversation from your experience in that space. I'm concerned that there might be a certain amount of privilege.

about being able to show up and being yourself, like, especially for emerging talent in the design world or just generally in professionalism, not being able to be, you know, kind of their full self to hold back in order to get a job. And what's your take on that?

April Rinne (04:34.826)
Well, and let's talk about this because I think, mean, privilege is a word and a dynamic and an issue on so many levels. And I actually have gone.

Gerry Scullion (04:44.515)
Yeah.

April Rinne (04:50.602)
not overboard. I've spent a lot of time kind of unpacking, even in my own work and particularly my work, which the first 15 years of my career were focused on global development. In particular, working with the economically active poor around the world. So have lived and worked in urban slums, have lived and worked with people who never, you know, they never mind college, they didn't get an elementary school education.

Gerry Scullion (05:00.961)
Okay.

April Rinne (05:13.362)
are looking at access to finance and how many of them are actually designed out of the financial system altogether. They're designed out of the education system. They are designed out of the systems, plural, of leadership. They don't meet any of the criteria we think of traditionally as what great leaders are, et cetera. And yet, what I was finding across the board, that is where the best entrepreneurs are. That is the kind of leadership that a world influx demands in terms

When you think of, and here it's where sometimes it's the economically active poor or it's refugees. mean, that is actually the most, those individuals often have a much closer relationship to change and uncertainty than those people who would have more privilege and be in these like protected ivory towers or whatever. So there's that piece of privilege. The other piece I want to bring up is when we talk about privilege, there are so many kinds of privilege.

Gerry Scullion (05:53.016)
Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (05:58.882)
Yeah.

April Rinne (06:08.286)
And we often talk about, you know, obviously access to education or the color of your skin or how much financial privilege you have. There's the privilege of being born into a loving, caring family. There's the privilege of having stable mental health. There are all these different types of privilege. Some are more visible than others. But I say this because I have been extremely privileged in many ways, no question. And I try

Gerry Scullion (06:12.856)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

April Rinne (06:34.898)
not just own that, to be very aware and humble and forthright about that. At the same time, know, many people would say, and this typically comes up in like, how did I get interested in flux and change? And I say, well, it's like my story. When did I really get interested in this? It's not about my resume. It's not about all of those traditional hallmarks of privilege. It is the story

Gerry Scullion (06:50.286)
future.

April Rinne (07:03.882)
when I was 20 and I was at university and I was halfway around the world so there's privilege baked into all of that but I got the phone call that both of my parents had died in a car crash and that is where my story begins and so you can say my gosh I mean is that that's that's like the antithesis like privilege but then you go through something like that and that was my my

Gerry Scullion (07:16.375)
Wow.

April Rinne (07:31.112)
baptism, my entry into this world in flux was when I lost my family, I lost my home, I lost my sense of, I think, identity, sense of self, I lost my support system, I lost what I thought my future was going to look like. And so I bring this up because I think it's this word privilege is it's it's a really loaded term. It's really important to understand and to recognize that each person. So, so for me,

Gerry Scullion (07:41.74)
Absolutely.

Gerry Scullion (07:52.682)
I want to spend.

April Rinne (07:59.646)
Did I hide that story about my parents? I for a long time, I always, I wanted to talk about it. I was very open to talking about it, but like employers didn't want to hear it. People were afraid to hear it. They ran for the door. And yet, as I've shared it more and more over the years, so actually sharing that piece that people say is like not, it's anything but privilege. It's kind of hardship. That's what makes me feel. That's why people actually are interested in what I have to say.

And so I think that the more we can share those deeper, more difficult stories, because everyone has them, and I think the less often underprivileged you'll have those stories, that is actually a strength. That is actually something that the world needs to hear more about. I don't know if that makes sense, but.

Gerry Scullion (08:46.466)
Yeah. And I guess my question comes from the place of, you know, social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, you know, this self of or the state of kind of like having to project a certain type of lifestyle and dynamism around how we actually operate. And that creates a stress and like being able to be authentic to yourself and saying, actually, you know what? I'm going to post something that's really from the heart today. I don't really.

April Rinne (08:57.012)
Thank you.

Gerry Scullion (09:14.946)
I don't really care because I'm in mid 40s. know, I'm working, I'm privileged in that sense. But not everyone can do that. you know, not everyone has that situation. And that's where the question came from. It was less around, you know, race in that aspect and how you actually have to attract that kind of work, I guess. Like, you know, if you want to think about it just through the lens of the workplace.

April Rinne (09:29.865)
Yeah.

April Rinne (09:38.822)
Yeah, well, and I'll bring this up because I think too, and I'm very aware and not to make this too self -referential and we can talk about examples that are more general or examples that are third person. But I do think about the fact that like when, when my parents died in 20s, a really interesting age, right? Because I was old enough to be able to care for myself day to day, but young enough that like my career hadn't started. But this was before the era of lots of LinkedIn posting and Facebook and all the rest.

And I was able to keep that part private, so to speak. And I think now about would I have been able to share like the deepest, darkest days, the mud that you have to walk through, the like the really hard times. And frankly, for my own, and I think it's different for each person, but for my own grief journey, there would have been a part of that to be able to connect with others that would have been really helpful and a part of that that would have been absolutely toxic.

in terms of I actually needed to do this work privately, internally, but it was all very, very messy. And so I do think, I mean, I don't know that there's one answer. I think there's a pretty universal definition of what it means to be authentic. But for each person, when we think about whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, we think about your age, your past history that

Everyone's gonna set that sweet spot of how much of themselves they want to share with the world, I think a little bit differently.

Gerry Scullion (11:13.216)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much to unpack in that. And we've jumped straight into a big topic. If we were to take a step back, April, just for, you know, a brief introduction to who you are. And we mentioned Jerry, that's Jerry Mikalsky. He's been on the podcast in the last couple of months for people to think because there's another Jerry floating around this podcast. Not me, Jerry McGovern, who's in Spain, but Jerry Mikalsky is, you

close friend of Dave Gray and probably Mike Parker as well. So there's there's a whole kind of there's a whole kind of. Yeah, a little pocket.

April Rinne (11:50.172)
Yeah, there's whole small little, small but mighty, posse of good humans.

Gerry Scullion (11:56.514)
Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, but how would you describe what you do? Imagine you're at a dinner party, you're sitting beside an ex person and they say, I'm an accountant. And how do you respond to that question? They say, what do do, April?

April Rinne (12:08.168)
Yeah. And it's fun because for most of my career until about five years ago, I would have to say like, well, I'm an advisor and I'm a lawyer and I'm, I invest from time to time and I was a travel guide and, I do handstands. And they'd be like, I'm sorry, we asked you what you do. And thankfully, yeah. So this actually, I just want to plant a seed. Maybe you come back to it because it definitely relates to the future of work and the future of talent and career development.

Gerry Scullion (12:26.911)
I move.

April Rinne (12:37.546)
I like to always call it, and it's part of my work as well, I've never sought to climb a career ladder or pursue a linear career path. It has always for me been about creating and curating a career portfolio. So all of those things I just talked about, they're all in my portfolio, they're all central to what I do and they'll fuel me in different ways. But in terms of what I would do now, I'm often referred to as the flux lady, which I think is fascinating, but it is, what do I do? I focus on all things flux.

Flux is not just change. Sorry. Your flux, and I love this back to the future, 40 years later. It is one of my favorite words. I have what's called a fluxicon, which is my flux lexicon. And your flux capacity is actually your capacity to deal with not just change, but constant relentless change and uncertainty. This world in flux, this future in flux, this future of work in flux.

Gerry Scullion (13:08.714)
flux capacitor is the first thing that comes into my mind. The flux capacitor from black to the future.

April Rinne (13:36.68)
And so that means I am known mostly as a futurist, an advisor, a speaker, author. I'm that self -contained, independent professional, but that is my North Star. And so I'm leading and advising teams, organizations, leaders, as to how to better show up for and navigate and lead through this world in

Gerry Scullion (14:03.564)
So I'm on your website straight away. I'm stalking you here now at the moment. That's me and your Google Analytics. That's the one person there. OK, there's probably more than one. But talk to me about this flux mindset because it's straight away caught my attention. Tell me you mentioned there about the peaks and troughs and living amongst constant change and stuff. But it's a really nice kind of phrase that sums up the change making kind of mindset.

April Rinne (14:07.696)
All right.

Gerry Scullion (14:32.684)
What's your definition of your flux mindset?

April Rinne (14:35.186)
Yeah, the definition, and then I want to come back to the context of how I arrived at it and why it's helpful, why it matters. So this is all about your relationship to change. And I want to come back to the difference between change management and having a change mindset, so this flux mindset. But the flux mindset is essentially the ability, the state of mind, the mental muscle, if you will, that allows you

to see all change. We probably want to unpack the word change because we love it and we hate it and it's hard and awful and it's yet beautiful and magical and it's all these things at once. So it's the capacity, the mental muscle that can see all change. So whether that's quote unquote good change, bad change, expected change, unexpected changes, but it's especially the changes you don't control and the changes you didn't see coming. So that flux, it's the ability to see all of those changes as opportunities.

to learn and grow and improve.

Gerry Scullion (15:36.184)
Yeah, there's lots to unpack. where did this come from in your own perspective? Obviously, you've asked that question. That segue has been done before, I'm sure. But we mentioned.

April Rinne (15:41.546)
So this, yeah, so this came

Yeah, it's good. And usually sometimes I do it before, but like, I want to provide this context because it's helpful. Like anyone tuning in where they can just listen and reflect and think about examples or moments in time where this has happened to them or their colleagues, or they've been observing a conversation. Like everybody's like, -huh, you're right. So, it also, I just want to say, going back to some of my earlier work in global development and different cultures for the last 25 plus years.

I've been trying to pay really good attention and take really good notes around how humans react and respond and ultimately navigate change. And I've done that for me, my real, I guess one of my unique features is that I have had a very global career. So I've worked, traveled in more than a hundred countries and I've been looking at how different cultures.

approach the unknown. And I bring all this up because I'm trying to get it. I've been noticing patterns that show up. And one of the patterns that led me to this mindset is exactly what we've been talking about. In modern society, we focus so much on, in the business world, certainly, change management. And like, some, there is a change, and I'm going to have my framework, or my flow chart, or my six point checklist.

And you're going to give me this change and I'm going to put it into my framework. And at the end of these six steps, this change will be managed, solved, done. can check it off our list and move on. And I did this again. I saw these systems, these change management systems in companies, in governments, in nonprofits.

Gerry Scullion (17:24.098)
rather clean.

April Rinne (17:42.402)
in all different kinds of markets and sizes and all of that. And I want to be clear, these are helpful tools. I am not saying that change management is bad or flawed. No, it's a helpful tool. However, it doesn't acknowledge or work like the world that we live in works. And so I started getting really frustrated. was having these conversations. would be like advising a startup and advising a government that wanted to work together, but there was massive

tension and friction because they had very different views of change. They had different views on the pace of change, the value of change, how change should look and feel and be managed and all the rest. And what I realized was that change management is useful, but it's completely incomplete for the world we live in today because it eliminates, yeah, it eliminates the human experience of change. And that is all about your mindset. That is all

Gerry Scullion (18:30.284)
Yeah, it's very narrow.

April Rinne (18:37.844)
How do you feel about change? How are you showing up for it? How are you seeing it? And I kept pulling on that thread for a long, long time. And that ultimately led me to develop not just the concept, but the actual, how do you build and groove and strengthen a flux mindset?

Gerry Scullion (18:53.382)
Mm hmm. It's really good. You mentioned governments there, and that's a lot of a lot of my work. I absolutely adore working with governments. It aligns my purpose, aligns to the work that I do with the podcast and the network. And from your perspective and your experience, when you're working and you're advising governments.

April Rinne (18:58.941)
Yeah.

April Rinne (19:04.552)
Mm -hmm.

Gerry Scullion (19:19.306)
What does the future of government look like in terms of being able to evolve and adapt based on the ever growing needs of society?

April Rinne (19:25.5)
BLEUGH

April Rinne (19:29.726)
Gosh, future of government, that is a trillion dollar, euro, whatever.

Gerry Scullion (19:32.75)
I don't think they do. I wondered in 50 words or less, joking, but it is, I know it's a huge question,

April Rinne (19:37.0)
Yeah, no. Well, I just want to back up and say, like, in fact, I love that we share this, this love, this commitment to government, to public sector, to public service work, and like really serving humanity, serving communities, serving people and places like.

That is, that's why I went to law school. I didn't want to necessarily be a lawyer. I was really interested in public policy. And then that evolved into public policy around things like innovation and disruptive innovation, which is code speak also for change. And so I've, I've really been peeling back the layers of this onion to get to flux. But in fact, the role of government and the role of public policy has, has been a real important guide for me because

Gerry Scullion (20:13.464)
Yeah.

April Rinne (20:27.944)
I think we will often say, like, the world is changing so much faster than government. Government just can't keep up. It's slow, it's clunky. it's really easy to be critical about it. And yet, government is designed to change more slowly. And the law, too, is changed. They're designed to change more slowly. They change when it is so clear that society has moved on, but they need to update.

That is by design because if the whole world worked like a startup, we would be breaking things left, right and center every day. Right? So there's this tension. So the future of government, what I love and I still, know, the flux mindset, it's helpful for all organizations, all people, all cultures, like everyone's struggling, everyone can improve, not always in the same way, but everyone can improve. So government, I mean, for me, if I'm very selfish about this, I'm

Gerry Scullion (21:05.132)
Yeah, I love

April Rinne (21:27.142)
across government, need to bring this concept of a flux mindset more to bear. But also, it's really about, gosh, there's so many levels here where I'd love to dive in, because on the one hand, it's looking at government's nimbleness, and I might say agility, but its capacity to change and to evolve more quickly. That's one piece. I think there's also a really interesting conversation around things like borders and

Gerry Scullion (21:47.746)
the

April Rinne (21:56.148)
political borders and how we think about how we conceive not just government but identity in the future. And so the future of government I think looks quite different in terms of the more permeable membranes we have when it comes to things like identity and when it comes to things like some issues are hyper hyper hyper local, other issues are very much global, you know that like we know this and yet we haven't designed government to adapt to that.

Gerry Scullion (21:56.279)
said.

April Rinne (22:25.78)
I don't know which of those threads you want to pull

Gerry Scullion (22:27.328)
No, absolutely. how far in the future can a futurist go?

April Rinne (22:31.794)
Hmm. Well, this is one fun thing. It's been said. So Jerry, you mentioned Jerry Mikulski earlier. I don't know if you mentioned it, but he's my husband. So my husband and I have been guests on this podcast, which I love, and we do different things, but people, people know both of us as futurists who run different businesses. needless to say, we talk a lot and conversations at home are quite interesting and so forth. But how far do you look in the future?

And one time someone referred to us, were like, they were like, Jerry is the low beams and you're the high beams in a car, right? And when you think about it, and that's one of the things I really love about Jerry, he's looking really far into the future, like beyond a person's lifespan, which has all kinds of fascinating questions we can ask. But also for some people, it's hard to imagine because they're like, it's not going to affect me. Why should I care?

It's like, well, because it is going to affect your kids and grandkids and the world at large. I would be considered someone who's looking more the high beams, the shorter term. So for me, I will look at things, let's say beyond, beyond 20, 30 years. But I find that for most people, something that they can grasp is within a generation. Where, so not right or wrong.

Gerry Scullion (23:49.996)
Yeah. Within it, within it, within a generation, but within this generation, if you look at, the US government, OK, where it's currently at the moment, like there's a lot going on there at the moment, especially this week. But but so for context, Joe Biden has just stood down at the presidential race. We've got Kamala Harris now is going to lead the Democratic vote. But what does it look like in situations like that?

April Rinne (23:58.6)
Mm -hmm.

April Rinne (24:03.294)
Yeah. This week, let me tell you.

Gerry Scullion (24:19.338)
where obvious change, hopefully for the better, is going to happen in the US. If it doesn't, where does this flux mindset? How does that work into the the kind of Pandora's box that is most likely going to be opened?

April Rinne (24:39.942)
yeah, no, Jerry, you've like this, and let me just be really clear. I have experience with like, you know, public policy and public servants and that sort of thing. I did not expect that I would be pulled into so many conversations about politics in flux, right? Like the utility of my body of work and my book.

is greater than I actually ever imagined for it to be. And I say that just as a fun, I mean, I get asked, and it really became clear to me when, and I say this in a very heavy hearted way, when war in Ukraine broke out, because I was immediately fielding questions of like, how can a flux mindset help war? And I was like, okay, like, because it was flux, right? It was massive uncertainty, massive unknowns, and a lot of fear. And I thought, I did not write this

book about war and yet it actually has some utility here. So I share this just because I did not, I am being drawn into conversations I didn't envision having. I am thrilled that I can be of use and have something worthy to contribute. But even the one about politics, so for me it's not about.

a particular political party. It's not about an election. It's not even about a particular country. One thing I have learned in 2024 was the first year that I sensed people finally acknowledged because my thesis has always been it's evolved. mean, it's been refined over the years, but it's always been that the future there's more change and uncertainty and flux ahead than less.

And as a result, humans are not very good at change and uncertainty. And so I don't see any signs of change and uncertainty relenting or stopping or seeding. And so unless and until that happens, we all need to massively update and improve and up level our relationship with change and our mindset with change, right? So 20 and 2020 obviously gave us a kind of crash course in that. That was the first year I saw people saying like, maybe she has.

April Rinne (26:58.506)
I've been saying this for quite a while, but they were like, maybe what she's saying, we should pay attention to it, right? And so the last few years, I don't want there to be more flocks in the world, but insofar as there is, and again, the thesis is playing out. So you had 2021 of like, well, okay, we're in this pandemic, but we'll get out of it and then we'll move on. And then it's like people starting to realize like, okay, it's not about a pandemic actually, and it's not about an election. It's

Gerry Scullion (27:02.19)
as a point.

Gerry Scullion (27:09.41)
looks.

April Rinne (27:27.946)
There's on every level, personal, professional, organizational, societal, like take your pick on any given day. It's just like, it's just like mega flux. But 20, I bring this up because 2024, January 1st, I do remember people certainly here in the US and elsewhere from what I gather as well, where they're like, you don't need to tell me that that 2024 is going to be flux. Like, all we need to think about is the presidential

we can tell this is going to be a year in which we're going to have a lot of flux to deal with. So I bring this up because all year I've been tracking and pacing and tracking and pacing and it's not, it's like what we really struggle with is just the not knowing. And so however it goes between now and November, whatever happens in November, there's going to be more flux ahead. And it's that piece. And what I like is this transcends politics.

It's like, how are you gonna show up for everything that happens in your life? Now, we can certainly talk about what are the scenarios where we could anticipate more stability, where we could anticipate more coherence, where we could anticipate, you know, when you say you're gonna do something, you actually do it, or having singular, consistent, coherent messaging. That's all really helpful for tamping down that uncertainty.

Gerry Scullion (28:32.192)
Mm

April Rinne (28:49.822)
But it doesn't mean that on the global stage, there won't continue to be, well, national and global stages, there won't continue to be just a lot of unknowns, right? So to me, I am nervous and I am like, my gosh, right? I need my flux mindset every day. And at the same time, the flux mindset actually brings a great sense of calm and peace, not global peace, but

you're rooting within how you're showing up. And a lot of it is about this dynamic between hope and fear and how we see certain changes from a place of hope versus from a place of fear. And it's not about changes you like or don't like. There can be a change you really don't like, but you can also show up with hope. There can be a change that's good for you that you still see from a place of fear. So just depends.

Gerry Scullion (29:43.182)
Yeah. So if you look at 2020, the COVID pandemic, when it hit, it basically broke boundaries, broke borders, broke ways of working, broke all the conventions that really underpins society for hundreds and hundreds of years. And then what's going to happen is we've kind of leaned back a little bit more. This is my perception on things.

April Rinne (29:49.118)
Mm -hmm.

Gerry Scullion (30:10.988)
where we haven't really taken any of those lessons and applied them and future -proofed ourselves. So what I mean by that in terms of remote working, suddenly they brought back these requirements to come back into the office. But the speed at which government had to design and approve services had to get quicker. It had to speed up. Whereas now it seems like the cadences fall back into the sort of the BAU, the business as usual kind of approach to things.

With that kind of change that is most likely going to happen in the US, is it a case of the future just requiring government? I know you said there that the two different ends of the spectrum, government having to be slower. But is it a case now that governments are going to have to step up and be a little bit more proactive? I've been able to respond to this flux if you want.

April Rinne (31:05.258)
Yeah, well, and I wanted to, this is such a question. I'm like, my gosh, there are like 10 questions in that. All of them worthy of digging into. And just to clarify that when I say that it's not, I don't want it to sound like a blanket statement of government is slower or that that's a good thing. Yeah, well, but it's, but the government that there's a model that dates back to the 1980s is called pace layering.

Gerry Scullion (31:21.827)
We'll just focus on the US government for now.

April Rinne (31:32.622)
I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's the sense of like not everything changes at the same pace. And I love that. And when I say government is slower, it's like by design, we have certain institutions in our societies around the world that have been designed to provide, be more of those meters of stability. And then we've got other layers of society that have been designed to just change more quickly. And so I think those layers will continue.

Gerry Scullion (31:33.186)
I don't know.

April Rinne (32:01.812)
But I think it really requires a reckoning and a reassessment of what issues with which government is tasked with handling. Some of those late, some of those issues actually show up at different layers. So if you were like, the issue is changing a much faster layer than the layer at which government is designed. Then you start coming to like, well, would that be delegation of certain powers?

Gerry Scullion (32:22.305)
Yeah, true.

April Rinne (32:31.134)
Would that be rethinking who's part of the decision making process? Would that be solving some of these problems through partnerships so it's not all on government's shoulders? I mean, there's so many different ways we can think about how do you create a system that is more nimble and more responsive in real time.

Gerry Scullion (32:48.3)
Yeah. When you look at we're hanging on governments for a little bit longer here, so hold on to your seats. When you look at global governments, like governments out there at the moment that seem to have grasped the flux mindset, have to be very careful how I say that flux, you know, there's too many, I don't want to give too many flux away. But if you look at, say, the UK government, I want to understand a little bit more around your thoughts and who is doing it well.

April Rinne (32:53.48)
Yeah, it's great.

April Rinne (33:03.848)
mm -hmm.

Gerry Scullion (33:18.52)
and who seems to be able to be better prepared for the future based on your own kind of framework, if you want.

April Rinne (33:23.856)
Yeah, what a great question. I won't say, mean, there are so a couple different direction I need to head here because there's a there's a key piece of my framework that we haven't introduced yet, which will help me answer this question. And so let me just do very briefly, you've got this flux mindset and opening opening a flux mindset, you know, that's acknowledging that your relationship to change can improve that you can show up better. Like that's like the foundation.

But then people say, like, how do you do that? Like, what do you do? And so the next level, the second step, if you will, is to harness the mindset in order to develop and strengthen what I call your eight flux superpowers. So there are these superpowers that bolt onto the mindset. Yeah. So, well, each one of them bolts onto a sub theme around change. So one is about the pace of change.

Gerry Scullion (34:06.4)
Okay, you have those over here. us what they are. Tell us what these superpowers

April Rinne (34:19.802)
One is about your relationship to control, so the changes you do and don't control. Another one is just the simple, the sheer fact of not knowing and how that unravels us. Another is about the role of trust, et cetera. I bring this up, so these are the practices, the skills that we can practice and strengthen every day that will help us, again, strengthen that mental muscle, that mindset. I bring this up because in your question, there isn't,

one government in the world that's like, they're just good at this. They figured it all out. There are governments and there are companies and organizations for most institutions. They tend to be, they tend to start by being really strong or investing a lot in one of these sub themes, one of these superpowers. Like I can tell you the kinds of places that have really excelled at.

And again, it's not typically institutional design. A lot of it is culture. Where cultures that are really good at the one -around pace of change, it's something that I call running slower. So the faster the pace of change in the outside world, pace of change, pace of change, pace of change, the more important it is to better be able to mitigate and moderate and understand your inner pace of change. So whether or not you are getting completely caught up in that fast pace of change,

or whether or not you actually have the skills and practices that allow you to slow down. Now there are some places on the planet that do that extraordinarily well. And one of my favorite in this regard would actually be the Netherlands. And the Netherlands, and it's not because of governmental design, although that does factor in and we can look at things like how much holiday do you get and how have you designed public policy design definitely factors in. But one of my favorite examples of all is just this

Gerry Scullion (35:58.252)
Name them.

April Rinne (36:18.686)
that you have in the Netherlands, which is called Niksen. N -I -K -S -E -N. Have you heard of it? So, Niksen, it's a word. Literally, Niksen means do nothing. Now, Niksen is not laziness. The Dutch are one of the most productive societies on the planet, right? It's not about not working hard. It's not about not knowing how to run. Niksen is a collective, culture -wide,

Gerry Scullion (36:25.602)
No.

April Rinne (36:47.676)
recognition and appreciation and prioritization of the importance of rest. It's a reframing of rest and it's a celebration, not just of rest as like, take it easy, but that only when you're able to rest and replenish, are you able to have growth and innovation and new ideas and great leadership and transformation. And so when you live in a country, sorry.

Gerry Scullion (37:09.666)
Yeah. Totally. Which echoes Mike Parker, by the way. That's a lot of Mike Parker's thinking.

April Rinne (37:19.144)
Very much so. so unless you can't run full speed if your battery is drained, a car can't do that, a person can't do that, a company can't do that, a government can't do that. So I bring this up because that's not like an institution didn't say we're going to design a policy around that. But culturally, this concept of Nixon has existed for centuries. And often when people learn about it, they're like,

I just want to go experience that. Like living in a culture where that is the norm, that is the rule, not the exception, creates a very different set of systems around what you're designing. And actually in English, so the word to nix something, you know, we say we're going to nix it, we're not going to do it. That actually comes from Nixon.

Gerry Scullion (38:03.222)
OK, there's Nixer as well. One of the pieces that we're talking here about governments as well, the sudden speed, that sudden increase that's required for a government to respond to that change. When you're working in government, that tension is huge. So you bring in something that needs to get done and they're used to have this kind of self -serving kind of looking at each other, kind of going.

I am on my lunch. I am not responsible. Yeah. So one of the questions I get asked by governments when I'm training is, you know, how do you get this adopted? This new way of working service design like I teach when I bring in complexity and complexity theory into the work. They just look at me and they're like. You know, how do you instill this kind of fire to move quicker?

April Rinne (38:34.694)
Yeah, like we got time, right? And then you're like, no, we don't have time.

Gerry Scullion (39:02.794)
in an organization that is typically responsible for going slower. Not responsible for going slower, you get my point.

April Rinne (39:07.152)
Yeah, well, and I'm remembering. Yeah, well, and I'm remembering I didn't fully answer a question you had asked earlier as well. This whole sense and part question part comment, but I just want to build on it because it relates to this one as well, which is around just this idea of like, what did we actually learn over the last few years? Because, well, I hear from people pretty much every day and they're like, we're so great at change. Like, look at all we did.

Gerry Scullion (39:26.07)
Yeah, what have we done?

April Rinne (39:36.042)
back to counter a pandemic. Look at how much has changed in the last few years. And I always have to say, like, respectfully, yes, many parts of the world look different, aspects of life look different now than they did before March 2020. I said, but remember, we had our backs against the wall, kind of life or death for many people. We didn't have a choice. And yes, we adapted.

Gerry Scullion (40:01.112)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

April Rinne (40:06.632)
That is a very different situation than choosing to put yourself in a place of changing even when it's not comfortable, changing when it's not life or death, evolving, iterating, keeping up with things. That is not the norm of human nature. So this whole sense of, yeah, we changed a lot because we were forced to, because we had no choice, versus, to your point, well, now

once that immediate life or death threat has passed for the most part, like then what? And what you find is that pendulum definitely goes back towards the center. Sometimes it goes beyond it, sometimes it gets stuck. But I feel like the last few years, many people have a much deeper, they do have a much deeper appreciation for change. And in particular, an awareness

of how much change we don't control. However, that hasn't necessarily led to long lasting, sustainable, meaningful changes in behavior. And so that's the part of flux where I'm like, I'm so glad flux minds have existed. And some people, you some people have that more, but it's not like the work ever finishes. It's not like you get past one crisis and you go back. So

Gerry Scullion (41:29.847)
Yeah.

April Rinne (41:30.846)
to your question, it relates to this question as well, which is like, well, we did that because we ran faster because it was an emergency, but now we're done. And so we're not going to go back to it. How do you start to instill that? And I look at this so much from the metaphor of a muscle, right? You didn't have strong muscles. All of a sudden you had to go to the gym like five times a day to build this muscle so that you could react to an emergency. You finished that and you're like, yeah, I don't want to go back to the gym. And so those muscles are going to get

loose and weak again. And so for me, this this idea of a mindset and these superpowers, these are muscles that you need to practice every day, just like you would exercise your physical muscles. But when you do that, you build a baseline level of strength. So your question almost for me implies, and not to put words in your mouth at all, but like where I would take this is what are those small, achievable, daily practices, those reps?

reps we can do that are not threatening and they're not particularly hard, but each time it's actually building a little bit of a muscle. And so you want to design that kind of low stress, low impact, if you will, exercise into your professional life that then little by little actually becomes quite strong and much more agile, much more

Gerry Scullion (42:34.924)
Absolutely.

Gerry Scullion (42:50.52)
So is that where the likes of agile practices are really nice to say? I know I don't I don't mean words in your mouth this time, but like in agile, that whole kind of scrum and stand up, they do create an accountability of what you what you've done, any blockers and so forth.

April Rinne (42:54.801)
Yeah, this is interesting.

April Rinne (43:07.558)
Yeah. And I do get into conversations about like agile. that what you're talking? And it's like, there is a whole other universe, which is agile and agile teams and agile flows. And I'm somewhat versed in it. I'm not an expert in it by any means. There is, I think the definition of agile and agility and resilience is another

Gerry Scullion (43:11.029)
No, no, no.

Gerry Scullion (43:27.052)
Third difference. Capital A and small a, like capital A, like.

April Rinne (43:30.984)
Right, right. Well, and also those things like resilience, adaptability. I mean, these are all words that we've imbued with some kind of meaning. They are quite similar. Like they're all in, they run in packs, if you will. I'm not, so I would not say that agile, capital A, agile practices or flows are necessarily what I would call fluxy.

It's not like there's a direct correspondence there. But those systems, whether you call them agile or not, those systems that are iterative, those systems where you have things that cascade, that are just doing much more of the feedback loop. The world of polarity management is actually really interesting here too. It's the feedback loops where you're able to take in information and respond to it more in real time, but also

ways that are lighter weight, but super flexible, that is both agile and that would be also flexy. But for me, the flexy and fluxiness and this whole vocabulary around flux, which I love, there's a difference between fluxiness and resilience or adaptability or agility, because I'm really talking about how do we see change and uncertainty? How do we see it? How do we show up for

Gerry Scullion (44:46.328)
Thank you.

April Rinne (45:01.352)
And how do we learn to see it? How do we strengthen our muscles so that we see all change, again, whether you love it hate it, all change, all sources of uncertainty as opportunities for

Gerry Scullion (45:11.534)
Could you tell us, like you said, there are like certain exercises, the low reps. You kind of hinted that you might have had some suggestions on what to do.

April Rinne (45:21.844)
Well, and again, each of the suggestions I will have, they tend to be more specific to each superpower. So the run slower is about the pace of change. There's what's called see what's invisible, which is about our vision and our perceptions of change. The superpower which is called get lost, that is about stretching beyond your comfort zone and improving your relationship to the unknown. There's another one that's about trust. So each of these superpowers,

Gerry Scullion (45:30.546)
Okay.

April Rinne (45:51.028)
has its own set of practices. So like, what are the little ways that you can learn to build trust, right? That's different than like, what are the little ways you can learn to slow your pace or become aware of your pace, right? So, and in my book, I have, I have series of, like it's written to be very practical and like handy, but I have quite a few of those. And it's everything from breath work to paying, noticing different things when you travel.

to how you approach strangers. mean, lots of things. None of these practices, they don't cost any money. They don't require actually any technology unless you choose to insert that, but you don't need technology. They're just very much like practice that you can integrate into your daily life.

Gerry Scullion (46:28.163)
Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (46:35.222)
Okay, so I'm looking at the book here at the moment.

April Rinne (46:36.66)
So I don't know, one of the ones, so I always like, just take trust and we start getting into there's, we think about trust kind of like change. We think of trust as if it's one thing, it's one word, so it's all the same. But it turns out that trust is super rich and complex and nuanced and complicated. And for example, there's a kind of trust that comes from your head, like a cognitive trust. And there's a kind of trust that comes from your heart.

which is more of an emotional trial, right? And most people have not thought about that before. Most organizations, sorry.

Gerry Scullion (47:07.562)
Yeah,

Gerry Scullion (47:11.212)
Yeah, it's.

I was going say it's interesting to dissect trust.

April Rinne (47:16.062)
Yeah, well in most organizations they invest like your brain is like, do you show up on time? Do you deliver? Do you meet deadlines? Do you do high quality work? That's all good kinds of trust. That's all up here. That is not, can I trust that if I make a mistake I can confide in you? Back to identity, can I trust that I can share my full self with you?

Those are very different kinds of trust, right? Treat them as one. And so I bring up these practices because there are practices for this. I'm not actually worried about the head kind of trust. When change hits this part, the cognitive trust is actually quite simple, not easy, but it's much easier to put in place. Again, it's like operations. It's managed at that change management. It's the emotional trust that most organizations aren't really aware of. They're not investing in, but that's the trust that carries the day.

So things around a lot of the practices are, I mean, it's as simple as strike up a conversation with a stranger and ask them these questions or what, you know, or open the door for somebody or pay for someone pay for a stranger's coffee. Now, what is that? You're like, that's actually a small gesture of trust that you're going to open a different kind of conversation, get to know someone you didn't know before. And it's, it will appeal to your head, but it will really appeal to your

And then we start to fear each other less, et cetera, et cetera. So I just bring that up because there's like a universe of ways to approach this. That's one example for that one superpower, which would then feed into your mindset.

Gerry Scullion (48:56.268)
Yeah, April, we're not going to wrap everything up in one podcast with you. You're you're what's known as a podcast disaster guest because you've just got so much so much stuff. I have to stop myself from interrupting you. And we're going to if you're if you're open for it, we'll have you back on and we'll cover off more around the flux superpowers. We just had Professor Neil Theise back on last week. I don't know if you did, Neil Theise. He's one of my.

April Rinne (49:00.872)
I mean...

April Rinne (49:10.834)
I

April Rinne (49:24.17)
Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (49:25.164)
my new kind of saying you in the last couple of years because we didn't get through everything I've seen in his complexity world and his own story and stuff. But I'm going to put a link to the flux mindset .com into the show notes. If you're watching it on YouTube, you just click in the description and you'll be taken to the book. I'm going to buy this book myself. And, you know, sometimes guests give them to me, but this one I'm going to buy. OK, folks, because.

One, I'm sold on what April's told me and to the website. It looks like it looks like there's a lot I can actually, you know, learn really quickly. So it's really well laid out. So check out the website as well, April best places for people to connect with you, to learn more about what you do and give us a shout out for those links now.

April Rinne (50:12.274)
Yeah, thank you. for all things Flux, it is fluxmindset .com. And there's a list of the superpowers and the mind, like I've tried to make the core framework just easily available and accessible and fun to interact with. So that's for all things Flux. And then for all things April, the website is aprilrinney .com. And so it's R -I -N -N -E. I'm happy to say I'm the only person with my name, so I'm really easy to find.

Gerry Scullion (50:39.59)
Yeah, nice.

April Rinne (50:39.782)
It's been, it's actually very, very nice. My last name is Finish. So you can find me there and then I'm April Rinne. Find me on LinkedIn. Please reach out, connect, follow. And I'm April Rinne on all social media channels as well because there is only one me.

Gerry Scullion (50:55.486)
And this is going to be true anyway. Well, look, April, it's been fantastic speaking with you. You know, I knew it was going to be a good conversation and I was not disappointed. So, you know, some point in the next couple of months, we'll try and schedule another call to talk more around after I've gotten through the flux mindset. The name of the book, just flux. And so let's. Yeah, pretty much.

April Rinne (50:59.057)
Thank you so much.

April Rinne (51:19.314)
It's just Lux, but Lux mindsets at core. Yeah.

Gerry Scullion (51:23.22)
So listen, thanks so much for your time. It's been absolutely fantastic.

April Rinne (51:26.484)
Thank you so much, Gerry. I have literally enjoyed myself as well. And yeah, thank you. And as I always like to say, like, mind the flux.

Gerry Scullion (51:36.686)
great stuff. April.

April Rinne (51:38.787)
Thank you.

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