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Chief Change Officer
#263 Colin Savage: The Frequent Flyer of Change Has Thoughts on AI—and Lifelong Learning — Part One
00:28:27
For Colin Savage, change isn’t something you manage—it’s a lifestyle. With a career that spans seven countries, seven secondments, and over 70 global projects, he’s practically got a frequent flyer card for transformation. This 3-part series takes on big topics with big energy: Why lifelong learning is due for an upgrade, what skill stacking actually looks like, and how to develop your own AI strategy before your smart toaster outsmarts you. Let’s get into it.
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- [02:16]
Vince Chen
Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. This is a three part series with Colin Selvich. In part one, the first episode, we'll dive into Collins fascinating journey as a self proclaimed change addict turned change guru. Collins career spans continents, cultures and industries. Seven countries lived in seven more seconded to and projects in over 70 nations. From organizational transformation to to personal reinvention, he has mastered the art of embracing change and applying those lessons to life. In this conversation, Colin unpacks his unique perspective on change. How throwing himself into the unknown led to unparalleled growth and insight. From leaving Canada with nothing but a suitcase and ambition, to navigating industries from telecommunications to financial services. Colin shares how the constant evolution around him became his greatest teacher. In the next episodes, we'll explore the learning required to for transformation, why Colin believes lifelong learning is outdated and skills decking is the future. And finally, in part three, we'll tackle AI human intelligence and why every one of us needs a personal AI strategy. Buckle up. This one is a ride. Colin, finally I got you to my show. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Good morning to you.
- [04:59]
Colin Davidge
Thank you so much for having me, Vince, and good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening everyone.
- [05:03]
Vince Chen
Colin is from Canada, the big North, a very cold place. I used to live in Toronto myself. Colin is in another province or in America, we call it State. So, Colin, let's start with your story. Who are you, what you're doing now, but also what did you do in the past, your past, your journey and your history.
- [05:30]
Colin Davidge
Fantastic. Thank you, Vince. Happy to hear. So I'm Colin. As you introduced Colin Davidge. I am hailing today from the Queen City, which was Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. So I was born and raised here. I lived here until I was probably just out of university and then I left and lived overseas for 20 years. That really isn't that uncommon. During the early 90s in Saskatchewan, a lot of people looked for opportunities elsewhere. And even if I look at sort of my high school graduating class going 60, 70% of them stayed in the city and went to our local university. Another chunk maybe went to a university nearby or in their neighboring province. And a very small bit even left and went elsewhere in Canada, as you mentioned, Ontario. But very few people went further than that. I finished university armed with a great liberal arts degree and a degree in English literature, which obviously at the time when everybody was banging down my door to give me a job, but I needed to go, I needed to go somewhere else. So I left with that degree and with some other experience and decided to test Asia. There's a long story and it's all through my LinkedIn profile, if people can read it. But I managed to over the 20 years build up what I call 7, 7 70. So I lived in seven countries. I was seconded to seven others and I worked in Project 70 nations around the world Split it up and make it simple for others to follow. There's three threads that go through my background. One of them was academics and education. I was heavily involved in my own academics. I studied for three master's degrees in various areas. I worked at a lecturer in universities and countries across Southeast Asia and Japan where I spent almost nine years. Then there was the more of a business thread which involved business development, marketing, market research in a number industries which all looking back link a little bit to each other. But at times we're also quite different particularly because they also not include just all over the private sector but also working with government and governments across different countries I lived in. And then finally the other thread would probably be something where I would and it's more aligned with this podcast almost directly is strategy and change. While I'm working in industries or moving from one to the other, I noticed that things were evolving. An example would be I spent time leading a team of analysts out of London in the UK that focused on telecommunications across so I had a team of 40 people. They were all dedicated and focused on individual countries or market and they were all coming back to me with similar but also at times very different. And now let's look at how those markets were changing. Data was becoming part of what you could put on your mobile phone or you could start searching the Internet. And this led me into financial services where while I was with quite a traditional Japanese major licensure there was Fintech was a bomb and fintech led to things like RegTech where we're doing regulation through all of these different evolutions and changes. There were little things that led me from one to the other. But also I'm really honest to say that a little bit of looking in the rearview mirror and seeing you afterwards at the time it was just a lot of change. And I know today Vince, we're going to talk about something that I mentioned in Change Addict and to Change Guru. I really was a change addict in a sense when I Left Canada in 1994 I just threw caution to the wind and went hit Thailand. I packed the suitcase, I went there. I had no I knew nothing about the language, culture, the working environment or anything. I not only changed the city I lived in, but the country, the culture, the language, the industry and everything at once. And that really put me on path to do it repeatedly until before I moved back to Canada. I joked to myself that look, if I change everything at once and I'm addicted to doing this. The only thing I can do next is maybe move to the moon. There's no more. There's no more I can add into the mix to make it harder on myself. So I think full circle, all of the different industries and markets and cultures and country roles and people that I've dealt with. You can put a lot of energy into promoting it and encouraging it, but to a point before it gets a little bit dangerous. So hopefully that's a good answer to you. Vince, if you've got any other questions for me on that, I'd be happy to delve into it. I could take over a whole hour on myself if you aren't in your self.
- [10:43]
Vince Chen
Introduction. Two words caught my attention. Change addict and change guru. How do you define these two terms?
- [10:54]
Colin Davidge
Regina is a lovely city and like I said, I grew up here and I grew up at a time when it was pretty traditional. Most of us look the same. There wasn't a whole lot of ways to escape it, the right word to use. And so there wasn't a lot of novelty, at least from my perspective. If you wanted to, you could. You grew up here, you went to university, you got a degree in administration, and we're a government now. So you go work for the government, you'd find your partner, start a family and so on. So path was pretty, pretty much laid out and that really wasn't me. And at the time I didn't know. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I knew that wasn't the path that I wanted to take. And so the only thing I could do is basically have my radar on high alert for anything that sort of caught my interest. And that's where I get to the change attic is it's a lot about novelty. Oh, wouldn't it be neat if I moved to Kenya and I worked for a bank? Or wouldn't it be cool if I went to China and I studied? And when I hear people say that, I'm always encouraging them to consider it. But the question afterwards is what? For what purpose? If you go and you could study where you live now because of all the opportunities we have and online and the virtual world has made it easy, for example, us today, you're in Hong Kong, I'm in red Dino. We're talking and very easily we can do whatever we want. Well, why do you need, why do you need to go there and do that? And if the answer that comes back a lot of, I don't know, I saw a movie and China looks really neat or Oh, I saw that one person, social media, that they do this and they're being super successful. So why wouldn't that be neat? And I don't think it's a bad answer. But the reality is that you got to have a little bit more planning behind it. I. And I lived the. The attic lifestyle. Like I said. I. I moved, picked up and moved to Thailand. Then one day in Thailand, I don't really teaching English to adults and at a university. I want to go somewhere where there's no Burger king, there's no 7 11, there's no this, there's no that. And I basically walked into a travel agent. Where can I go? That I hoard. And she said, go to Myanmar. So I did. I went to Myanmar and then nothing about it. Took a suitcase and then I lived there for a year and a half, learning my way as I was there. But looking back, that was just novel. Oh, it's foreign, it's new, it's different, it's unknown. I'll let leap into it and don't do it as a single person. Now anyone can do that. But it didn't really have a purpose in mind. And. And the thing is, novelty is great, but novelty wears off. You're there for a year and a half and then you wake up one morning and it happens again. Oh, on board. Now I've done this. I. I've learned these things. I'm really cool and interesting and okay, let's go move here or let's go try this or let's do whatever. The other thing that I might have is that change attic. Like whenever you're hit with some kind of adversity, it takes as much if not more focus to get through to the end. The lucky thing for me was, well, I've started this degree, I got to finish it or started in this job. I got to be here at least this amount of time. I've started learning this language, focused at least enough so I can do some kind of benchmark. And it's a lot. It's a lot harder when you have to do that, when it is just chasing novelty. So I think, yeah, like the change addict part, there's a lot of people that will do that. And actually I'm a little bit different. If you start something and it's not for you, you should really just chuck it in and go find the thing that you want. There's opportunity cost, as we all know, right? But if you don't wrap things up or if you don't complete them to a Certain extent later on. I don't really know how you could pull out the value and as we get into other topics, but maybe you can apply it teamwork. But if you haven't finished it, you're never going to get there. So the way that I came about this concept of change addict. And addict is a harsh word, but you really can be to change and to know.
- [15:26]
Vince Chen
So being a change addict in Disney, would you say you're one of those who puts in a good amount of calculation behind each change? Or is it more like, oh, it's just that feeling? What type are you? Have you ever thought about that?
- [15:47]
Colin Davidge
No. That's a great question, Vince. And I think if it's beginning, it's all going to be in hindsight, which is lovely to have. But I think at the time it was like I mentioned adversity, but. And I also mentioned boredom. For me, like when I didn't have responsibility. Right. It's just me. I'm the one that's responsible for myself. I gotta feed, clothe, house me. There were many times where I was just like, you know what, I'm gonna change it and quit my job and I don't have anything out or I don't really have a plan to do anything else and I'll just see what happens. And that's dangerous. And there are people that can do it, but I don't like it. So I'm not going to push through the adversity. It's not going to help you later on in life. Absolutely. If you're not happy with where you are and you're not, you don't think you're where you can be or you're not being supported the way that you would like, then you certainly should look for other avenues and talk a lot people and try different things. But you can try different things while you're doing something else that allows you to do that exploration. If you're just doing it because somebody has slighted you. When I was in Myanmar, I just woke up one day and said, I have $300 on my bank account. I live a very good life, but I'm never going to have anything if I ever decided to leave here. So why don't I just go? And I was out in a week. But it's not. I could have done it in a much more thoughtful way. And I might be an odd cat in that move to so many places and I've done whatever. Maybe that's not going to be the way of the world in the future. But you only get, I would think in your life a bunch of major changes. So you really shouldn't minimize the impact and the importance of or the change of the time. Really give yourself some time to think about, like why am I really unhappy? What do I really want to do? I don't know what I want to do. What are some things I can figure out that might lead me Have I thought in my head and built some scenario planning? Or I'm like what's going to happen if you do it? Am I going to regret it? Regret's an awful thing. Or we're always going to have it. But I think you can minimize it if you've done a little bit thoughtfulness around why you're leaping to change something. Is it really just today I'm having a bad day and I had a bad interaction? Or is it you know what, it's been building up for a long time and I shouldn't be here. I need to go find my place in my tribe. So I think yeah, like a lot of those different components are really important for figuring out am I addicted to change or am I welcoming of it? And I'm using it at Yule to help me find a better place.
- [18:31]
Vince Chen
Digital Riser like you said, one of the threats running through your experience is change and strategy. You've worked with so many firms and organizations, guiding them through their transformations, so you must have seen countless business cases unfold. What have you learned from these consulting projects and organizational change initiatives that could apply to individual situations? Are there lessons from these business cases that also resonate on a personal level, especially when we face dilemmas or crossroads in our own lives?
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- [21:03]
Colin Davidge
Yeah, and I think so there is this is. That's a great question. Again, Vin and I did some soul searching in that I have worked in a number of both the mainstream and odd cases of change in a variety of different countries and industries organization potentially there's two things I would want to start off with and there's it's a misconception, some common misconceptions actually about change. And again we're talking like in an organizational or a business or even a personal professional way. And the first one is we have these people and I support them. Embrace change. Embrace change. It's the same thing as like you're embracing change for success and and then what? How are we defining success? Is it. Is it simply a bunch of key performance indicators in some sales figure than revenue? Is it keeping people? Is it launching ourselves into a brand new space to be wildly successful? Is it keeping status quo? There's a whole variety of different ways to do it and embracing change for success is fine, but don't do it just for the sake of success because the true impact really comes when you are your guiding strategic and thought focus change. And that's a whole different arena with a lot of complicated parameters and you ask me about some specific examples. So I think I've got two and I'm going to make them personal to me because change is personal. One example is going to be a bit of a surprise to people because they will have read potentially how traditional this country is and this is Japan. So I lived in Japan, as I mentioned for quite a long time and then they worked with Japanese organizations or machines for an equilibrium curated and I found yes value and worth put on traditional practices and that also varies across industry and lo and behold I also worked in a very traditional industry Lightning. But from the out, from the outside, it does look like it's stuck. Practices are the same, they move along. So when I was working for one of these big organization out in that yeah there wasn't a lot of, there wasn't a lot of airtime given to hey, why don't we try this? Or hey, why don't we, why don't we consider something completely different? There was incremental change. Change or introduction of new things. And then luck would have it, I ended up traveling to a developing market, book senior people and looked around and just started noticing dots and then thinking, hey, we could connect these dots to make something unique. I'm with the Japanese life insurance company. We're in Brazil. We are seeing something that's a bit unique in Japan. One of the largest minorities are you. And they are people who travel to Japan as you. They have access to visas and other things and they start their working life in Japan. So they're actually indoctrinated. They learn working culture from being in Japanese companies, a lot of them. And otherwise they learn things like hey, life insurance is important, you need to have it. The discussion one, how are we going to go build this business by here? And what came about was I learned that change, individual, team and otherwise comes from talk doing a lot of promotion. So Japan is a lot about individual conversations to get support or get direction. Big organizations are great at providing that direction, but often indirect. You have to be acute to the human. So hey, why don't we consider this why we do that? But also it measured and it's planned change. You can't just come up with an idea and throw it at people and get them to say yes or no. You've got to research your idea. This is the market side. These are the people, what they would buy. This is how it would benefit them if they stayed where they are or then when they moved back. This is how we could then dovetail or a pipeline into getting new people in a new market we might make. So it took a lot of time, but I was very surprised and very proud that we actually managed to get this kind of religion. I got support from lovely people within the organization. They provided their time to me. We moved ahead. It took two years. But the change did happen. And it was actually a real shining example of just because you think a culture and a group of people are traditional in their practices doesn't mean they're averse to change. You just need to be in that change addict thing we were talking about, not willy nilly, not hey, let's just do it for the sake of doing it. Be measured, be strategic, be researched in what you want to change, and then find the kind and supportive voices. And if you find enough of them, you'll get groundswell and you'll be able to do it. If you don't, maybe your idea really isn't that great. Maybe you need to go back to the drawing. So learn to take the. The interest and the novelty and the energy that comes from a potential change and have it fuel you to do the really important steps, the fundamental steps to maybe make that change happen in the. The flip side would be actually back here in Canada, I worked for a quite traditional marketing company. Probably if I tell you who it is, people will know right away. They brought me in as a changed person. That's how I was recruited. Please come here. We know our industry is on the decline. We're not really entirely sure where to go with it. We've seen what you did in other places. We're eager to change. We want to transfer. They used all the right word. They were very receptive to the idea. Before I moved in house, I got in there and I asked, do you want me to be disruptive? Would you like me to push new initiatives? Absolutely. This is what we want. And within a month of me doing that we don't really like, or that was a little too much. The reality is they were a different kind of. They were hooked on a legacy of very high revenue and high profit margin, and they weren't willing. They really weren't willing. And they hadn't done the time to figure out, do we want to change? Are we willing to forego some of that to potentially make it somewhere else? Or maybe not. And even though they had all of the support, allegedly support from people above and their ownership and others, they were incredibly reluctant to do it. So I was sitting in a role where change was in my title. But I couldn't do anything. And I had tried. I had built up goodwill, I'd got some champion. I was doing everything that change management told you to do, pushing the needle here, scaling you down here. And for the time period that I was there, they were wholly unwilling to take on. And at a certain point, I had to. You know what? It isn't going to work for me. I'm pushing the rock uphill as whatever the Greek myth did, and I'm not getting anywhere. And I'm being told two different stories. So we dig into it with Maida, really that like an external push from other people. So we don't want to do it. And it ended up being a failure for myself and it's something that I, I'd taken on and I accept and learned a lot of really good lessons from it and frankly had some work with some wonderful people that were driven to do it. But when the entire organization has been dictated change and not really trusting of the person who's supposed to pilot it, then it's not going to happen. But in this instance, it's a little bit about, it's maybe less about the change addict thing but learning about that change guru, if that's a good word or change guide, which is all right, maybe we need to take a step back, figure out what is your definition of change. Is it collectively the same? Do we all think it's just a good idea? Okay, maybe we need to tailor it a little more specific and then move on from there. And that's hopefully where I am now and how I actually go about it. A little bit more. There's a little bit less. Less. Put on the gas more. Let's put the car in park for a second and let's have a talk. We'll drive a block down the road and then we're going to have another talk and that way we can get to the kind of again change that we're all trying to achieve and back to that definition of success. It's not just keep that directed by the outside or financial reasons, only the wholesome way that we're going to evolve and change for the better.
- [30:32]
Vince Chen
Just now Colin unpacked his unique perspective on change. Change addict turned change guru. From leaving Canada with nothing but a suitcase and ambition to navigating industries from telecommunications to financial services. Coland shared how the constant evolution around him became his greatest teacher in part two, tomorrow we'll explore the learning required for transformation. Colin has I don't even know how many degrees under his belt. Why Colin believes lifelong learning is outdated and skill stacking is the future. And part three for Friday we'll tackle AI human intelligence and why every one of us needs a personal AI strategy. Come back tomorrow and join us. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.
- [32:18]
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