Available October 22, 2026

Episode 038: Measuring What Change Feels Like – The Joyful Change Quotient and the Signals Leaders Miss (Part 2)

DURATION: 41 minutes
HOST: Kevin Novak
GUEST: Dr. Michelle Pipes, Creator of Joyful Change and Author of Stewarding Joyful Change

FORMAT: Guest Conversation, Part 2 of 2

SHOW: The Human Factor Podcast

COLD OPEN

Kevin Novak: Picture a transformation dashboard that’s all green. Milestones are on track. Budget is holding. Adoption has been counted by logins. Now picture the people underneath it. They’re tired. They’re unsure about what the change means for themselves and their jobs. They’re quiet because speaking up stopped changing anything. In part one of my conversation with Dr. Michelle Pipes, we built the case that what change feels like can be measured. Six signals: meaning, safety, belonging, progress, recognition, and play. And that resistance isn’t pushback. It’s a readout of where those signals have broken down. In this episode, we put that instrument under real pressure.

INTRODUCTION

Kevin Novak: I’m Kevin Novak, CEO of 2040 Digital, professor at the University of Maryland, and author of the book The Truth About Transformation: Leading in the Age of AI, Uncertainty, and Human Complexity, along with the Ideas and Innovations weekly newsletter. Welcome to the Human Factor Podcast, the show that explores the intersection of humanity, technology, and transformation, along with the psychology behind transformation success. This is part two of my conversation with Dr. Michelle Pipes. If you haven’t heard part one, I really encourage you to start there. It sets up everything that you’re about to hear. But this part stands on its own as well, so stay with me either way. A quick reminder of who you’re about to hear from. Michelle has spent more than two decades in organizational development, change management, and strategic communications. She has been Prosci certified since 2002 and has consulted on the original foundational Prosci text. What she built from inside that world is Joyful Change. And at the center is the Joyful Change Quotient. She’s the author of Stewarding Joyful Change: The New Executive Soft Skill for a World That Won’t Stop Changing. Three things are ahead. First, what happens to the six signals when the new colleague is not a person, and work that used to define people starts being done by software. Second, change accumulation. The full portfolio of change each person is already carrying at work and outside of it, and the personal discipline Michelle argues everyone now needs. And third, the reflection. What teaching a nine-year-old to navigate change reveals about teaching a 50-year-old executive. We pick up where we left off.

SEGMENT 1: WHEN THE NEW COLLEAGUE IS NOT A PERSON

Kevin Novak: Michelle, I want to explore with you, because you hit on this and I align with it strongly. The environment and the context in today’s world has really changed, and something I think is a challenge for most people. The anchor of this season is the dynamic between artificial intelligence and human beings. And it’s not anything about the technology. We have a real-time case study underway that we can learn from and seek to adapt to. And in talking about identity threat and all those other things, the nervousness, the anxiousness, all these things that are going on. So when the new colleague isn’t a person, and, as we’ve talked a lot about, the human relationship and work that used to define people starts to be done by the software. That’s this. This is AI. The stakes aren’t the same as a system rollout. Robert Karasek gave us the way to see why this one is different. In 1979, he published what became the demand-control model of work stress. And the finding was that strain doesn’t come from high demands alone. It comes from high demands combined with low control over how you meet them. So an AI transformation really becomes, in today’s terms, the textbook case. The pace is set from the outside. The tool arrives on a schedule nobody in the room chose, which is most organizations today.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Right. And it’s not slow.

Kevin Novak: Right. And the person is asked to absorb it with less say over their own work than they had before. And underneath that strain is identity. My own position is that AI adoption is an identity renegotiation before it’s a skills transaction. People have to figure that out. People aren’t resisting it. They’re reacting to what the tool says about who they currently are and who they are going to be. So which of your six signals comes under pressure first in an AI transformation? And what does stewarding joyful change look like when the pace is set from outside the organization and the identity stakes run deeper than any software change?

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Well, I have two frameworks. One’s called Human, one’s called The Line, that deals with AI. And I would say this: how I look at AI myself, and I use it every single day, is it is like an international graduate student whose first language is not English. They want to do a good job. Sometimes they knock it out of the park, and sometimes they don’t. And I think what resonates with me is that AI affects people like a relationship. My AI, I call him Einstein. He has a name, and he has been cussed at, and I’ve threatened to throw the screen across the room. I have had to get up and walk away. But AI is brought to you, for the most part. It is not something that you work through, that you think through, unless it was your idea. So there’s no play involved when it lands in your lap. So you should be given time to play, to learn, to explore, because especially if you have this lovely stuff, it may not be something that you’re really excited about. You’re like, my gosh, all I’ve heard is blah, blah, blah. But yet, when you’re given the opportunity to utilize it in what you’re doing, you start to go, well, that was easier. Okay, so that was easier, which allows me to look at this. Maybe I could do it this way. Versus if you go into it with a negative mindset, you’re not going to be seeing possibility and hope. And again, it comes back to the person, not just the process.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: And as AI allows us to do more, I feel that executives and leadership are more likely to pile it on. But again, AI has infinite capabilities. Humans have finite capacity. What they can process in a day, what they can process in a lifetime. And when you have those two realities, and this one’s zoom, and this one’s like chugga, chugga, chugga, and it’s dealing with all of this other stuff, you have to understand that that resistance, what we’re seeing, may be fear. I don’t even know what AI is. Is it a person? Is it a robot that’s going to take all I have? I’m relating it to scary movies, where the robot comes alive and kills everybody. That does not sound fun to me. But the reality of it is, when you get into it and you’ve got guardrails in place, you have to have the human connection. I say you use the AI data to make your own decisions. And when you find an outcome, if you will, that does not feel like there’s belonging, it does not feel safe, I don’t see the meaning in it, you can push back. And I think the thing is, it’s not this steamroller. I’m starting to see the steamroller get tired, because people are on to the next thing. And this is just like when the internet came out. The world’s going to hell in a handbasket.

Kevin Novak: Yes, we’ve both been around long enough to know that, right?

Dr. Michelle Pipes: And then it was social media. That’s going to kill everyone too. And now it’s AI, and then it’ll be something else. And to me, I look at all of these things as tools. It’s not a savior. It can be something that does help me with my job or make it easier, but I don’t rely on it for decisions that Michelle needs to make, and only Michelle needs to make.

SEGMENT 2: CHANGE ACCUMULATION AND REINVENTING YOURSELF

Kevin Novak: Michelle, though, and you said this earlier, organizations are continuing to try to go overly lean. And that is happening now because of the perhaps overpromise of AI. I always put forward that we’re in a strange time period where the technology itself has not yet matured. People are, to your point, experimenting with it, learning with it. And not to get into the doomsday scenario of we’re all going to be dead in ten years because of AI, but there is: what happens to me in ten years when it has matured to a point, if it meets even half of the promises that are in the news every day? How does one use joyful change? And you have personal experience with this, with having to in many ways redefine yourself and your life. How does someone apply your model to how they may need to change?

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Well, I’ve seen a change even in my own work. The technology can make things easier, but I’m almost becoming more human myself, because I’m very much putting those guardrails in. I know what I need, and I’m very decisive about what needs to be me, what I can get help with, and what that means going forward. And I think that no matter what age you are, you are going to have to have the capability to continuously change throughout your lifetime. It’s no longer from here to here. You’re not going to get a job and forty years later the gold watch. You’re going to move, you’re going to move, you’re going to move. It’s going to continuously do that. If you do not continuously do that in a joyful manner, in a positive manner, what happens to you? You get old and crusty. Like, my gosh, I shut down. I’m not going to learn that. I’m not going to do this. I’m not, not, not, not. Versus what joyful change does is say, okay, my job’s going away. Let’s look at the skills that I have. Let’s bring in people and say, okay, you’ve worked with me. What am I great at? What do you think that I would be good at? Bring in your network and say, okay, does anybody have a position in this? I’m reinventing myself. I’m going to go learn AI, if you will. Which is kind of funny, because that’s almost like calling Walmart Walmarts. But when you’re continuously learning and you have a lifelong learning mindset, this is just something else to learn. It is another tool for me to have. And I’m continuously looking forward. I’m trying to be present and enjoy, utilize what is available, encourage and support those around me.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: And every night I go to sleep going, okay, tomorrow’s going to be a new day. There’s going to be new tech, new people out there to meet. I’m looking forward, and I’m reading The Serendipity Mindset. Even since I’ve changed, just to be open to more possibility, you’ll go in somewhere and go, I don’t know any of these people. This is boring. It’s not worth my time. Or you can go into it and go, I’m going to make a new friend today. I’m going to do some new networking. And you start introducing yourself. It changes who you are. And if you are more human, what are other humans going to be drawn to? They’re going to be drawn to you, because they want what you have. Teach me what you have so that I can be like that in the days ahead. And when you are constantly having to literally reinvent yourself over and over and over again, that is a skill.

Kevin Novak: Yes, it is.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: That is continuous change. And if you don’t learn how to navigate continuous change joyfully, you will come out bitter instead of better out of every change. And you’ve seen those crusty old people in the movies that live in the house and peek out the window and nobody likes.

Kevin Novak: And watch TV all day, right.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Or you can be that person who is embracing life, seeing how they can utilize this opportunity to maybe springboard them into something else. I’ve even thought about it. I used to teach IT classes and software and digital photography and all these things, and I have enjoyed AI so much. Creating something, call it the gray-hair people AI class or whatever. But what I try to do is learn, navigate that change, get through it, then turn around and tell the next person: here’s how it’s easier. On LinkedIn, I do something every single day. And if I’m going to be in the hospital, I have it queued up, because every day something is changing. Every day. We all have something that we can learn about change, because we all have something to learn, but then we all have something to teach. And so the people that I want to be around, and that I emulate, are joyful people. They’re positive. They’re taking AI and they’re utilizing it in a business. They’re creating something new that was not there before, and that reinvented them. But you know what? They’re not stopping there. They’re already looking ahead. And that’s the mindset and presence that we have to get. That’s where our children are going to be raised, and our grandchildren, because their software, their tech ability, all of that is constantly reinventing itself. If we don’t teach them how to do that in a positive manner, you’re seeing complete overwhelm. You’re seeing shutdown. You’re seeing toxic mindsets.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: And so, like the children’s books, when they look at social media, one of the questions is: does this make me feel good about myself? You can unfollow, unfriend, and curate your own feed so that it fills up with things that make me a better person, because every day I am becoming someone. Am I becoming a better someone, or am I becoming a bitter someone? And as we go through change, we make that choice every day. It may not be a fun yay, yay, yay. I had lost my mom in less than seven days to the most aggressive form of leukemia before I lost my husband. We had lost three babies in our family, three baby boys. My brother died of glioblastoma brain cancer three weeks after my husband died. That was the tip of the iceberg. It was change after change after change. And I had to find a way to come out of change joyfully. And I believe the reason for my life, what I’m going to leave behind, my legacy, is that I had to go through so many things in order to learn how to do it joyfully, so that I could help others go through their change and come out joyful. Because the older you get, the more you question: why am I here? What’s my purpose? Why did I go through so many things? And I think it is to get to this day, to be on your podcast, to share this framework that I believe can help everyone become a more joyful person, a more successful person, more successful organizations, a more positive mindset, so that it resonates out through our community and we’re looking for solutions and not just bringing up problems. When you’re dealing with change and you have that person who always brings up, well, this isn’t going to work. Okay, do you have a solution? Do you have anything that you could bring to mind? I want to leave behind people who are looking forward, who are questioning, who are not just saying, my gosh, I learned this, but telling the people behind them, this might make your trip a little bit easier. And so I think that’s the difference in the framework. It’s a difference in me. I mean, who created this? It was an academic. Why did I even get a doctorate? Because I was a widow and I couldn’t teach at our college without a terminal degree.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: So there are so many things that you can learn. And if you have a mindset where you’re continually learning, then when you have grandchildren and they’re communicating through all their tech ways, you’re going to understand it. I don’t have to like TikTok in order to do it. I like Facebook. Instagram’s not my favorite, but I do it because I want to communicate with people for whom that is their favorite. And so it’s getting outside of who we are and helping everyone else. And as change becomes more positive, who does that impact? Me. It makes my life better. When I go into a bank and they meet all my needs and I don’t even have to ask, or something that I said, hey, this would be a great thing, and you go into the bank and they’ve done it, or it’s there. When you feel heard and seen, when you make a good impact, you’re more likely to impact. And when more people are positively impacting the changes as that’s going along, then that change is being fueled with positive instead of negative. Well, this is never going to work. Well, I hate this. Well, this is one more thing added to my plate. We’ve all had that. And a lot of us are there. I mean, honest to goodness, I get it. But when you think about it, one person can change the environment. And then when that changes their environment, it moves out, and it moves out, and it moves out. I’m about ripples in a pond. And when joyful change goes out, it teaches other people things. Well, think about when it hits a rock. What does a ripple do? It comes back to you. Now, it probably doesn’t come back the same, because somebody’s used it in a different way. Guess what? I’ve learned. Now I can elevate my collective wisdom and approach the next change with more knowledge, more networks, more ideas of what works, what doesn’t work, how I can apply it to the situation, what probably may not work with this person. Those are the things that you gain. And as you become, I would say, more aware of your own change, then you can help others with theirs. And when leadership becomes more aware of what is going to be required from them, when practitioners get the assistance, the protection they need, the authority they need to move through the change together, then your outcome and your navigators are going to be so much better equipped. Your return on investment is going to be so much higher, because your changes are going to work instead of getting to this point and failing because all of the stuff up to it was not in line, and you haven’t built that foundation. You have to have a strong foundation of your people, of your purpose, your process, your organization, and then you build on that. And if you’re building on this rickety old scaffolding that you’ve seen in scary movies, you know what? It is going to fall, because it can’t hold people up.

THE REFLECTION

Kevin Novak: So, Michelle, I want to close with a question I ask every guest. And I want to frame it around the part of your work that most surprised me, and this is in the best way. You’re extending joyful change well beyond the enterprise, and I think everything you talked about gives every reason as to why you’re doing that. So three books for three audiences, from the executive suite to anyone navigating change, and story-form programs that teach elementary, middle, and high school students how to process change at their own level. I’m inspired. I’m changed by this episode, and I find it remarkable and admirable. Most of us in this field spend our careers trying to help a 50-year-old executive build the fluency that you’re giving a nine-year-old. So what does building change fluency in a nine-year-old teach you about building it in a 50-year-old executive?

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Well, if you look at the children’s mindset, they’re actually programmed at that age, brain-wise and everything, to learn and to soak up and to expand, if you will. This is their time to do that. If you look at people who, I would say, have given up, they’ve retired, they don’t have a hobby, they don’t do anything, they quickly degrade, because they’re no longer feeding their brain. They’re no longer creating those cognitive pathways and growing and learning. And when you become stagnant and set in your ways, that this is just how it is, and you’ve got all these people around you who are moving and learning, and they know that is no longer the reality, you have this mismatch and this misfit. So the decisions you make are not going to apply to the reality that is. And so that’s why this shared carry architecture is so important, because each of the roles has something to do. If one of these is missing, then the rest of them suffer. But when they all work together, that’s where you’re going to find the success. And I would say, with your 50-year-old people who are a little bit resistant, what drives them? Success? Finances? Leaving behind a legacy. If you can leave behind a legacy of an organization that takes change and becomes better for it, no matter what it is, they don’t rely on a single person to make it happen. You’re expecting and receiving financial rewards. Those are the things that change leadership, because of the drivers behind what their success is. What my success is, is different. I want people to learn. I want them to understand. I worked in higher education for 25 years. Obviously, it wasn’t about money. But I saw the transition from what you’re getting in higher education, what the kids new coming into it learned going through it, and then transitioning to, say, professional education and continuing education, what went on from there. And so you see the different people at different stages in their life, whether they’re programmed for learning or whether they have to make that a priority in their life.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: But see, executive stewards aren’t the only ones who have to change. They have to understand their part, and that it’s different. Not that it’s one more thing added to their plate. Joyful change isn’t saying that. It’s saying that change has changed. Our culture has changed. And because of that fact, leadership has to change with it if they want to be successful. If they are resistant to that, their organization is going to suffer. They’re going to continue to have high failure rates. The best people are going to go elsewhere, because other places are moving forward. And right now, with the generations in the workplace, what they’re doing is always moving forward. It’s not really where I’m at, it’s what’s next. And if you don’t have a what’s-next mindset, then you are not creating an environment where the best people are going to want to come. Your organization is going to continue to fail, and other organizations are going to thrive, and you’re going to see a shift. And so you can see the organizations that announce an AI initiative, and the next morning ten thousand people get, sorry, you no longer have a job. Well, then that AI didn’t work, and they’ve lost all that historical knowledge about how do we back this up, what does this mean, how do we reconnect, how do we survive. Well, we just let go of everybody who had all that knowledge. And so there has to be this understanding that if organizations are going to do these things, they’re also going to reap the repercussions of them. And as people see these massive layoffs and all of these things, what is that telling them? You don’t matter. This is what matters: cha-ching. And if it comes down to you and cha-ching, you’re out of here. Does that make me want to go, I’m going to be loyal to this company, because they’re not loyal to me, and I’m going to do my best and I want to work there? No. Most people don’t want that disruption. They’re not going to seek out an organization that is getting a reputation for that type of inhumane personality. And if I’m hired and I know that I’m no more important than a number, I’m really not wanting to go to work for that organization. I want to go where they respect who I am, they listen, they consider. Even if they don’t take my opinion, they’ve at least heard it and made me feel like the things I’ve lived through, the education that I’ve gotten, the expertise that I have, that it matters.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: And I think those are the organizations that are going to take change, this constant change, and use it as a strategic advantage in hiring, in tech, in customer service, because it has ripples throughout the organization. If people are happier doing whatever it is they do, that’s going to go all throughout the organization. And when I, as a customer, interact with them, you don’t have to tell me. I’m going to feel it. And what am I going to do? I’m going to tell other people. Word of mouth is still the best marketing that you can get. And through social media, I can market it pretty darn fast. But the opposite is true. When you are inhumane and you treat me like less than a number, or you walk around like you’ve been sucking on a dog turd, then I don’t really want to interact with you, and I’m going to seek other opportunities or other choices, because I have them. There’s choice almost everywhere that you go. And it’s going to be the organizations that are smart enough to go, this is a strategic advantage for our organization, not for any one person, not for any one team, but for everyone. And as we learn, we’re going to be elevated with collective wisdom, more contacts, more education, more expertise. And the higher we go, the better that we are, the more success we’re going to have.

Kevin Novak: So, Michelle, I can’t express enough how inspirational this has been. I think I’m changed by virtue of this conversation with you. So I want to make sure that we hit, in closing, where people can find you and the books.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: The books are on Amazon. Pre-orders are open for Stewarding Joyful Change, the executive book. Joyfully Bespoke Change, which is the practitioner book, will be available for pre-order soon, and then Joyful Change Fluency shortly thereafter. And the children’s books will be available as well soon, so they can find anything on Amazon. I post original material every single day. And if people have a question, I will answer it. And not only will I tell them, I’ll tell everybody. Like, hey, we got this question. Here’s how I would do it. And we’ve had some scratchy people who are like, I’m not joyful. I don’t know that I want this change. And once I explain it to them, they’re like, okay, that makes sense. I guess my perspective has been wrong. It’s not the command and the thump over the head that’s going to motivate people. That doesn’t motivate me. You know what that motivates me to do? Key your car on my way out to the parking lot. You have to be continuously learning, continuously sharing that learning. And the reason that the second book is called Joyfully Bespoke Change is because change should be custom fit for those people, for that situation, at that time. Another change over here should be that situation, those people, at that time. And we’ve got to get out of that and go, okay, what’s going to work here? What’s going to motivate these people? How are we going to do this? And then I think that’s when we’re going to really start to see our culture change. Those are the things where I want to see a shift happening. That it’s not just in businesses, that it’s in their lives, that they’re able to take the phone and put it down. I’m not big into influencers. You want to know what I’m big into? Experiencers. So I may learn about something from somebody. I’m going to go out and experience it for myself. And then I may tell you about it, but I’m going to encourage you to go do the same. I want to be present with people. I want them to understand technology. How can it make them more human? Maybe give them more time spent with other humans, and grow, and literally reinvent yourself, because that’s the culture we live in, is reinvention. But how can I become a better Michelle tomorrow? Well, it’s based on what Michelle does today. It’s based on the decisions I made yesterday. I can change today how I’m going to be going forward. And that’s the thing that’s so exciting. You don’t have to wait. You can start doing it today. You can start being a different person today.

Kevin Novak: Michelle, I want to end on that, because I want to end on something that’s so very powerful. Thank you for your passion and everything that you have brought today to the Human Factor Podcast.

Dr. Michelle Pipes: Thank you. I appreciate you having me. And if anybody wants to talk, just reach out and we’ll connect.

CLOSING

Kevin Novak: Well, that’s the end of my two-part conversation with Dr. Michelle Pipes. If you came in here at part two, go back to part one. That’s where she explains why the established model stopped short, and where the six signals come from. Here’s how it all connects to the arc of this season. We opened season three by asking what organizations count, who decided, and whether anyone still has the standing to stop. Michelle has answered a question I said out loud that I didn’t know the answer to: whether what change feels like can be measured at all. Well, I now think it can. Meaning, safety, belonging, progress, recognition, and play. They are not soft. They are the conditions that decide whether every hard number on the dashboard means anything at all. Lazarus and Folkman told us people respond to their appraisal of a change, not the change. Edmondson, Amabile and Kramer, Baumeister and Leary, and Deci and Ryan gave us the conditions that appraisal depends on. Hochschild warned us what happens when a feeling becomes something you produce on demand. Morrison and Milliken told us why people stopped telling you the truth about it. And Karasek showed us that strain comes from demands without control, which is exactly what an AI transformation asks people to carry. And Michelle, well, she has spent twenty years inside the established models before building the instrument that reads what those models leave out. And she carried it past the walls of the organization, to the individual, and to the nine-year-old who will someday be someone’s employee. If your organization is mid-transformation and the dashboard is green, the six signals are moving right now. The question is whether anyone is reading them, and whether the people answering believe their answers will change anything.

Kevin Novak: If you found today’s episode valuable, subscribe to the Human Factor Podcast wherever you watch or listen. Leave a rating and a comment, and share this episode with your leadership team, especially with whoever owns the change and transformation dashboard. Subscribe to the Ideas and Innovations newsletter at 2040digital.com or on Substack for weekly frameworks and research on why change succeeds or fails. And connect with me on LinkedIn, where I post regularly about the psychology of transformation. Until next time, remember: it is never the technology, the market conditions, or the strategy that makes change and transformation successful. It’s the people. And the more deeply you understand the human factor, the more likely your transformation is to succeed. This is the Human Factor Podcast. I’m Kevin Novak. Thank you for watching or listening.