Minola Jac calls herself a “change enthusiast.” Which is either deeply optimistic or slightly unhinged, depending on how many org restructures you’ve lived through.
She grew up in an environment that valued conformity. Did what she was supposed to. Followed the rules. And then realized: “They couldn’t educate the rebel out of me.”
So she stopped trying to fit in and started using that energy for something useful.
In this episode, Chris talks with Minola about how she went from journalist to change professional, and why embracing curiosity (instead of pretending to have all the answers) actually makes change work better.
What They Actually Talk About
There’s a difference between being a “change manager” and a “change enthusiast.”
Change managers have frameworks. Gantt charts. Stakeholder matrices. They manage the process.
Change enthusiasts are curious about why things are broken and what might work instead. They ask annoying questions. They challenge assumptions. They don’t take “that’s how we’ve always done it” as an answer.
Minola’s argument: you need both. But most organizations over-index on the first and suppress the second.
(Then they wonder why the change initiative failed and everyone’s burnt out.)
The Stuff That Actually Landed
Playfulness isn’t leisure.
Work, leisure, and play are different things. Play is what happens when you’re fully engaged, curious, and not trying to perform for someone else. You can play at work. Most people just don’t because they’re too busy pretending to have it all figured out.
Bringing your whole self to work isn’t corporate fluff.
Minola talks about how her journalism background, her creativity, her “too many interests” problem all feed into how she approaches change. When you pretend to be a one-dimensional professional, you’re cutting off most of what makes you useful.
“Bounce forward” instead of “bounce back.”
Resilience isn’t about returning to how things were. It’s about adapting and moving forward. You can’t go back. The ground shifted. Figure out what’s possible now.
Self-rejection kills creativity.
If you’re constantly editing yourself to fit in, you’re using all your energy on performance instead of actual thinking. Playfulness helps with that. It gives you permission to stop performing.
Why This Matters If You’re Leading Change
Most change initiatives fail because they treat people like resistors instead of humans.
Minola’s point: if you create space for curiosity, experimentation, and people bringing their actual selves (not their “professional persona”), change gets easier.
Not because you made it fun. Because you made it real.
And people can work with real. They can’t work with corporate theater.
Listen
(If you’re leading change and it’s not going well, this might be why.)