#468 Shifting Gears at the Crossroads - an interview with Darryl J. Heffline by Niels Brabandt
This podcast interview is a must-listen for anyone who is facing strategic, professional, or personal change and wants to navigate it with clarity, structure, and confidence.
In his conversation with author and transformation expert Darryl J. Heffline, Niels Brabandt explores one of the most underestimated leadership challenges: recognising the need for change before disruption forces it upon you. Drawing on Heffline’s book Shifting Gears at the Crossroads, the discussion goes far beyond motivational slogans and addresses the hard questions decision makers rarely ask early enough. When do warning signs become impossible to ignore. How do you distinguish comfort from stagnation. Why do capable leaders and professionals so often realise too late that their environment, business model, or role is becoming obsolete.
The interview provides a structured, intellectually rigorous framework for understanding transformation. It walks listeners through the key stages of change: recognising the need, assessing the current state, defining a credible future state, building objective decision criteria, and managing the psychological barriers that prevent people from acting even when the evidence is clear. Real-world examples illustrate how technological disruption, automation, and shifting markets can render long-established roles and business models vulnerable, and why denial is often more dangerous than the change itself E_468_2026-01-23_Shifting Gears…
What makes this conversation particularly valuable for executives, entrepreneurs, and senior leaders is its realism. It openly addresses fears around loss of status, income, identity, and relevance. It explains why stepping back can be a strategic investment rather than a failure, how rebuilding and reemerging are natural phases of successful transformation, and how long-term leadership success depends on the ability to reposition before external forces make the decision for you.
Listeners gain not only conceptual clarity, but also practical orientation: how to develop situational awareness, how to create robust criteria for major career and business decisions, how to reframe uncertainty, and how to turn disruption into a platform for renewed growth and strategic advantage.
For anyone at a professional or organisational crossroads, this episode offers rare depth, intellectual honesty, and actionable insight. It is not about change as a buzzword. It is about change as a leadership responsibility.
Podcast and Videocasts below.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, Moderator.
Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
You probably all know people who need change. However, maybe it's you who needs change, or maybe you don't. The question is, when do we need change, what to do with the change, and also how to know when we actually are the person who should be affected or should put any change into place? Shifting Gears on the Crossroads is a new book, and I have the author with me here today. Hello, welcome, Darryl Haflein.
Darryl J. Heffline
Hi, Nils. Thanks for having me. Great to be with you today.
Niels Brabandt
Thank you very much for taking the time. So DJ, when it comes to your, your process, you have a very clear chapter process in, in the book. Great book, by the way. And it starts with a very interesting point. It starts with step one, recognize the need for a change.
Niels Brabandt
Probably many people now sit there and think, well, I've been affected by changes, but every single time I was basically too late. Basically, it affected me, and I thought, well, maybe I knew this is going to happen, but I didn't act on it, or I didn't see it coming. So how should I know?
Niels Brabandt
What is your take on that? How can people know that they recognize the need for a change, especially when they're in a place where they say, life is pretty good, everything's running well, so why should I change? Just keep it that way.
Darryl J. Heffline
Yeah, it's a great point, Nils. And I'm going to tell you, I did a little bit of research on that point, in addition to the practical experience I share about. And what I found was about 80% of people that go through disruption are not ready for it. 20% are. That's a pretty staggering statistic. Examples I give in the book, you know, they're very relevant, and they're based on real-life examples, fictional characters, but real-life examples.
Darryl J. Heffline
20% are ready for change. And, and, and that's why the first step, I, there's a couple of frameworks I talk about in the book, and, and one is the five essential steps to build a compelling case for change. The number one, the first step is recognizing the need for change.
Darryl J. Heffline
In the book, I, the first character I talk about, Jim, the entrepreneur, he was so committed to his vision, to his passion, to his business, the things that he had blood, sweat, and tears over the years to, to form that it took a catastrophic event for him to finally wake up and realize, hey, it's time to change. The signs were there all along. He ignored them because of his passion, his vigor, his refusal to quit. But the key is trying to recognize those signs and respond to them sooner rather than later, different than what Jim did, who found out too late and all of a sudden found himself on the outside looking in.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. So when we continue from there, let's say someone sees the sign and say, okay, that, that there might be need for a change. Your next step in the book is assess the current state. And when people say, look, my current state is I'm pretty comfortable, so moving anywhere from here automatically feels like it is not that comfortable no matter in which direction I go.
Niels Brabandt
So the usual reaction is I stay where I am, usually with phrases like it always went well, I figure it out on the way, let's wait till it happens, we don't have to preemptively do something. So how would you deal with these people who say, look, I, I probably assess the current state and I think moving away from where I am is just not desirable for me?
Darryl J. Heffline
So, and it's, it's not, it's not an unusual conclusion to draw if you assess the current state and, and really end up not moving. Assessing the current state is all about recognizing the, the catastrophic event or the wake-up call you just had, the pain that, that made you aware that it might be time for change. But when you assess the current state, you look at the good things that are happening, the bad things that are happening in context to that wake-up call that happened.
Darryl J. Heffline
But that's where the third step comes in when you start to say, okay, what does the future state look like? Am I on a path that's going to get me where I want to go? I talk in the book about, you know, developing vision and developing mission. Vision's what you want to be. Mission's what you want to do. It drives you to an end state. And so many people don't take the time to do that. Therefore they're floating around, really not knowing where they're going.
Darryl J. Heffline
But knowing where you're going is as critically important as recognizing the need for change. Assessing the current state is just being fair and balanced and taking the assessment of where you're at, but also be aware of, of, of where you're going. Because if your, if your current situation, after you balance the ins and the outs, the pluses and the minuses, say, I'm not on track to get there and I want to get there, that's when the decision is made, I need to make a change.
Darryl J. Heffline
And that's where the four transformational stages I, I discuss in the book come into play. Repositioning is the first of the four transformational stages. And that's really when you recognize a need for change, you look at the current, the future state and you say, I ain't headed that way and I need to do something different. That's where you begin to shift your gears and start to reposition, go from here to here, because here, I'm making hand signals here, but over here is, is where I need to be to get to that future state.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. Excellent. So let's say someone is at the moment looking at the future state, and I, I give you a real world example with one of my clients. They have, they have an agricultural business, and they, as many agricultural businesses, farming businesses, struggle to find people who want to work when it comes to the harvest. Pretty hard labor. You don't get rich by it. It's very hard to find people who want to do it.
Niels Brabandt
And suddenly one of the workers who's still doing the job, doing the harvest, found out, look, there's one job which I usually do, and that is getting the boxes where everything is in there into the hole where everything is then cooled down. So it's not going to go over the due date. And now he found out there are suddenly robots who can do that. Robots see the boxes and robots can carry four boxed at once instead of one. He can only carry one.
Niels Brabandt
So he said, look, when I look into the future state, the future state looks like I'm not here anymore. So why should I investigate what's going on there instead of just manipulate that they get these robots in and try to keep them out as hard as I can? So how do you want to make people actually move when they say, when I look into the future state, let's say AI, robotic, automation, they say, I, I just have the fear no one needs me anymore. And then they probably say, I only know this one trade. I never learned anything else. So the future state looks like no one needs me anymore. What kind of future state is this?
Darryl J. Heffline
I think that's a great revelation for your colleague, your friend, your client to have, because the sooner he or she recognizes that, the sooner he or she is going to, to change.
Darryl J. Heffline
Because in the book, I tell about Jim, the entrepreneur, and I set up the whole discussion on Shifting Gears on the Crossroads over his story. He saw flags, red flags. He saw signs that he should have been changing, but he didn't. It came to a point where he was on the outside looking in. There was no choice. He had been moved out of the company. They, you know, it was a startup venture. They didn't fire him, but he didn't have an income, and his ownership had dwindled to nothing. So there was no reason for him to stay there. His vision was gone. His dream was gone. So he had to make a change.
Darryl J. Heffline
I hope that you're the, the person that you're talking about in this example will be realistic about the signs that he is seeing, because if he doesn't react, there will be a time when he'll be on the outside looking in. That's why he's got to spend some time looking at the future state, saying, okay, I don't like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm resistant to change, like 99% of the other people on planet Earth. But I've got to go do something. I've got to now start researching what that future state looks like. And oh, by the way, maybe I need to rewrite what my vision is for what I want to be long term and, and what I want to do. That's my mission, because it might be that this is something that's not a negative event, but there's something designed about this that is going to force me to get onto a different curve that will get me to a much greater end than I ever could have experienced had I not made that change to begin with. That's the perspective that has to be employed in this kind of situation in order to have productive, positive, progressive attainment after this transition occurs.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. So, and when now some, okay, let's say the person, okay, I need to do something. So we're now at the stage, let's say step four, map out a plan to get there.
Niels Brabandt
And then, of course, you probably know, especially as someone who works as a leader in real-world enterprise, you probably heard certain phrases. I don't have the money for that. I don't have the time for this. I don't have the means for this. Or the classic, I am too old for this. I am too old to learn a new X, Y, Z.
Niels Brabandt
So how can people prevent to, to, to, to fall victim for, for these kind of mantras, which they often hear from many sites? So they say, hey, look, I'm not alone with this, so I can't be wrong when hundreds of people around me say the same. How to deal with that situation when they say, map out a plan to get there? I don't think this is possible. So I stay where I am.
Darryl J. Heffline
So there's got to be a rewiring of the thought process. And that's going to be a critical element in positive progression for these, these individuals. I say these, I was that person at one point in time. A lot of what I talk about in the book as some personal reflections, I share some of my own story there, but there was a time when I found myself on the outside looking in.
Darryl J. Heffline
I didn't want to change because I was so committed to the goal. It was hard for me to look at the future, and I just couldn't get my mind wrapped around it. However, because of the transition and the pain, I did have to take a step back, and I had to start reprogramming my mind, and I had to start reading some books that could help be part of the key to the success of unlocking the future for me.
Darryl J. Heffline
I had to think differently. I had to act differently. I had to surround myself with mentors and people that maybe had walked through this process before and had successfully navigated it, or who had seen and known me through the years and enough to be able to help me get through that process. But to your point, there has to be a rewiring, a reframing of how that person thinks and, and the way you do that.
Darryl J. Heffline
And it's got to be, it's got to be willful act. It's got to be a commitment to network and to align with other folks who've been through it before and, and to read books or to watch a video or tune into a podcast and start to think differently.
Darryl J. Heffline
Because when you do that, the barriers drop. The, the things that are blocking that forward-thinking thought process, for lack of a better word, they, they get removed. And all of a sudden you start to discover, hey, here's a couple of paths I didn't think about that, that may be something that, that I could pursue. And, and the neat thing about this is once those barriers are removed and that thought process is opened up, there may be one or two or even three different paths to get to that future state that, that you would never have thought about had you not done that, that rewiring of the, of the brain and, and, and your thought process.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, I think that's a great point here. And of course, at the end of that first, of course, at the end of this re, repositioning phase, there needs to be a decision, make the right choice.
Niels Brabandt
I give, I give you a real-world example. When back in the days, the financial authorities in Germany thought we need to get more digital because the world was going more digital. And then public service said, maybe we should do the same. And the usual answer was, yeah, but there might be a data breach and then we're responsible. So let's wait. And that went to an extent that now the German public service, especially the financial part of it, the equivalent to the IRS, is known for being notoriously letter-focused. Now slowly, very slowly adapting to basically a decade behind where, for example, Switzerland is.
Niels Brabandt
So when, when, when people say, yeah, I can make a choice, but the choice might be the wrong one. So I probably either make no choices or I decide not to change. So how can people have a certain, let's say, a certain assurance that they make the right choice?
Darryl J. Heffline
So when you're mapping out the, the plan to the future state, part of what I talk about in the book is, is setting up key criteria. Once you understand what good looks like or where you want to go, you also set up criteria. How do I know if this is the right path? How do I know that, you know, and, and, and it, it just becomes a, a, a C and E type matrix analysis on, okay, here's, here's the things that if satisfied, will align myself with the proper, proper choice.
Darryl J. Heffline
And so you've got the criteria, you've defined it, you know what good looks like, you know what the elements are that you'd like to accomplish or achieve in this. And once that criteria is set, it's going to give you greater confidence. Now, there's never, I don't think there's ever a situation where you're going to be 100% confident and you're going to know and it's going to be without a doubt. However, setting up objective criteria based on where you think that future state is taking you is key because it'll give you a greater level of confidence that, okay, this is a checklist and these things are satisfied.
Darryl J. Heffline
May not be 100% of them, but the, the alternative that checks off and satisfies the criteria that you set that's important to you and your future or your business's future, checking those criteria off is going to give you a greater sense of confidence. Otherwise, without the criteria and the objective method to assess these, these various future states, you can get into that sort of that gridlock that you described. And it's like, ah, you know, I, I don't know if we should do this and I'm really not sure if this is going to work out for us.
Darryl J. Heffline
The other thing that I'll say too is when the fear of change as long as the fear of change is greater than the pain that you're experiencing as you're working toward that future state, it'll dissuade you or me or anybody else from wanting to make that change. But once, once that pain is great enough and it's greater than the fear of change and you've mapped out the criteria, you've mapped out the path and you've evaluated criteria, that's the ideal environment where you can step forward and begin to move toward one of those, one of those paths that seems to be out there.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. And you have, you, you, you then have a chapter in the book which is called the rebuild phase playing catch up. Great title. What do you mean with playing catch up?
Darryl J. Heffline
So four phases of transformation, repositions one, it's where I spend most of the time in the book because it's the most difficult and most challenging.
Darryl J. Heffline
Yeah Then it's rebuild. Rebuild is when after you've moved, sometimes when you reposition, you got to take a step back. Maybe the business is lower or maybe your income is lower. You step to a less status, but, but that's okay because you're, you're positioning yourself on another curve where you're going to end up in a much better place than you would have. That's really where the rebuilding occurs. You start to rebuild reputation, you rebuild networks, you rebuild brand, personal brand, company brand.
Niels Brabandt
You even encourage people, when I may jump in here, you even encourage people because many people say, when I move on, let's say I have to move on because the business I'm working on with right now is not going to exist in the future, but I'm not going for a lower paid job because that feels like failure.
Niels Brabandt
So you say it's not failure. It can be a wise choice to say you go for a lower income to have more in the future.
Darryl J. Heffline
Yeah, I've been through four major shifting gears in the Crossroads myself. Every one of them required a slight step back, either in income status or whatever. But I'm going to tell you, every one of them resulted in a rebuild. And then eventually the third phase is reemerge. That's when you pass up in your new path that place where, where you were headed had you not made the change. And, and that's where it's exciting. But yeah, oftentimes those, those, those Crossroads requires a step back, but it's not a failure.
Darryl J. Heffline
I think of it as an investment. You know, think of an investment payback. You got to make an investment. A little bit of time passes, you do some rebuilding, you do all the things that we talk about in the book, and eventually you're going to be on that upward curve and you're going to get, you're going to be beyond the rebuild phase into the reemerge phase where you pass by where you would have been had you not changed.
Niels Brabandt
Brilliant. And the final phase is the realize phase. Can you tell us something about that when it's about winning the race?
Darryl J. Heffline
When it all comes together, when you look back and you realize the one, two, three, or four transitions that you've been through in your life, the, the step backs, the perceived step backs that really were setups for success, the rebuilding, the reemerging, it's really where you move into that place, that business, that career position, the ministry that you have, whatever it is, your, your life, your family.
Darryl J. Heffline
It's where you move into that place where everything that you had thought about, everything that you dreamed about, everything you built into your vision and your mission, all of a sudden falls in place and it becomes successful, progressively attained worthwhile goals. And you sit back and then that's where the realize, you realize or you achieve or you accomplish the end of that journey, which you were, you were called to achieve.
Niels Brabandt
I think these are the perfect final words. Of course, I have one more question. Shifting gears in the Crossroads, the book is available right now in all good places. Of course.
Niels Brabandt
When I check for guests for this podcast and you got in contact with me, I always check for, do they have a clue about what they talk and do they actually walk the talk? And you ticked all the boxes. That's why we're talking right here. Of course, now some people might think, hmm, this might be a good speaker for our event or this might be a good coach for our people. And now they wonder, how can I reach out to DJ to Darryl? So how, how can people reach out to you when they're interested in working with you?
Darryl J. Heffline
Www.darrylheffline.com. I have a website. There's a contact me form on there on all of my pages. That's probably the best way to get ahold of me. I'm also on LinkedIn. That's another great way to to get ahold of me as well.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. I think these are the perfect final words. Darryl Hefline, thank you very much for your time.
Darryl J. Heffline
And thank you, Neils.