A presentation at SBS Inspiring Speakers Series in in Sydney NSW, Australia by Eugene Chung
Three Experiments for My Younger Self Eugene Chung | Organisational Design Director 1
The New Yorker 2
When the World Zigs, Zag 3
Dream job 4
Quarter life crisis I don’t want to grow up to be my boss. – Me at 25
A roundabout journey Too long ago Now-ish
My Career Purpose Build teams that embrace people’s differences – – and help them reach their full potential. 7
Who are Mentally Friendly? Mentally Friendly creates wellbeing outcomes by designing products & services that change lives and re-shape organisations.
For teams & organisations, this means: 01. Bring leaders and teams together. 02. Identify what’s holding them back. 03. Get them to try new things, together. 9
Today’s goal 01. Inspire all of you to try three new things. 02. Create the change you want to see in your work life. 10
Starting with Why 11
Questions I asked my 25-year old self Work should and can be so much better. 3 things I asked:
The new reality Why is ‘we’ve always done it this way’ good enough?
The new reality Why does influence depend on tenure?
The new reality Why is my day-to-day disconnected from my ‘why’?
The Strategy-Action Gap 16
Why this exists All work lives on a continuum – from strategy to action. Strategy Action
Why this exists Legacy org structures have created the strategy-action gap. Pull of hierarchy Push of doing Strategy Action
Why this exists The edges make people sad. Strategy Action But no Action But no Strategy
Why this exists How can we close this gap? Empowered Teams A mix of strategy & action Strategy Action
3 Experiments 21
3 Experiments – Your Toolkit Everything you need to try these experiments is in front of you.
3 Experiments – Experiment 1 What are the most painful parts of your day-to-day?
Experiment 1 Impact Start small. Map pain points to this matrix and focus on the things that if you changed them would create a big impact – and are things that you can actually influence. Ideas: ● ● ● Share with a teammate (and talk about why) Co-design how you’d change it together Try it, learn from it, share with others Influence
Principle 1 Focus on changing what you can influence. 25
3 Experiments – Experiment 2 How does what you do fit in with the larger business?
Principle 2 Make it your business to know the business. 27
3 Experiments – Experiment 3 What are the criteria for why you are where you are?
Ray Dalio’s Principles 29
Why I joined MF 30
Principle 3 Learn from your big decisions. 31
Experiments give you permission to try something different to learn something new.
Learning Loop Try Do Learning Loop Learn
3 things to try 01. Change what you can influence. 02. Make it your business to know the business. 03. Learn from your big decisions. 34
Thank you Come say hi! Eugene Chung eugene@mentallyfriendly.com @eugenekchung 35
Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.
Really enjoyed kicking-off the "Inspiring Speaker Series" @SBS today, sharing my career journey starting off in advertising and facing an existential crisis, to building the org design practice @MF_says and leading the audience through experiments to create change. pic.twitter.com/KppcdL7qtT
— Eugene Chung (@eugenekchung) October 10, 2019
@eugenekchung sharing advice to his 25 year old self - questioning the “why” and bridging the strategy action gap. pic.twitter.com/PzxHg86aUc
— Christopher👋 (@christoph_ellis) October 10, 2019