I recently went one-on-one with April Mills, former Chief Acceleration Officer of Intel Flex.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
April: Two pivotal moments in my life showed me the power we each possess to dissolve unnecessary obstacles and create bold change. I started my career as a civilian nuclear engineer for the U.S. Navy in August 2001. I thought I was joining a stable, peacetime shipyard, and instead, once September 11th happened, everything changed—or more to the point, everything needed to change. The organization and the people in it struggled to hack through layers of bureaucracy to deliver the results the nation needed.
So, I pivoted, hard. I stopped engineering reactors and started rewiring the bureaucracy itself. Within a few years, I was accelerating strategy across a $1.2 billion annual budget shipyard and caught the attention of John Kotter, the global expert on leading change.
Helping the shipyard overcome struggles after 9/11 got me started, but the motivation to overcome challenges didn’t stop there. In 2007, I learned that my second child, a son, would be born with a severe disability, spina bifida. Raising Ted would challenge me in a multitude of ways, including showing me all the barriers to full access that a person with disabilities faces. I used his challenges to motivate me to create a more accessible community. Through leading a beyond accessible playground project, successfully building a 9,000 square foot playground, raising over $500,000 in 3.5 years, I learned some key insights I call the seven change agent essentials. They are principles that anyone can use to create the changes they want right now in their organizations and communities.
Two of the seven change agent essentials I discovered became my daily operating system: ‘drive change, not people’ and ‘create a change buffer.’
When you choose a change for yourself and clear obstacles for others to choose it too, then you’re driving change. In contrast, when you use coercion to compel others to change, then you’re driving people. Whether applying these essentials in my community, the Navy, or at a global tech giant, the essentials scale to whatever change challenges you face. If you’ll drive change, not people, you’ll get immediate improvements with your changes.
Another change agent essential is “create a change buffer.” Too often, a fresh change or habit is swamped by the status quo ways of working or behaving before it can take root and grow strong. A change buffer is a personal conviction, leadership encouragement, policy declaration, or repeated celebration that protects your new change or habit. I’ve used change buffers to protect simple, personal changes to my eating habits and helped an executive protect improvements to a multi-billion-dollar global marketing program. If it matters, protect it with a change buffer.
Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?
April: I encourage everyone working to grow and scale a business to know their “why” behind what they do. Write a one-sentence description of what compels you to do this work, right now, in a way that truly matters to you and the people you serve.
When you know why you are doing something, it adds a spark of joy that shines through the “what” you’re doing. The light from that spark attracts attention, clients, and possibilities. Tending and fanning that positive flame, for yourself and your growing team, is what makes scaling energizing.
Don’t grow for growth’s sake. Grow your “why,” and scale will follow.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
April: You can’t build, lead, or manage a team that you don’t trust. If you’re driving people, forcing them to comply, that shows you don’t trust them. Instead, when you drive change, you invite the team to trust you, to watch your role model behaviors, and to bring their best into service with you.
When I first led a team while working in the shipyard, I drove people. Quickly, they mirrored my mistrust of them by mistrusting me. And I failed to deliver results. When I pivoted to driving change, everything and everyone sped up. I found and took opportunities, and the team stepped up and delivered. We delivered aircraft carriers and submarine maintenance faster; that’s a powerful result.
With the constant change and uncertainty in the world today, we can’t afford the exhaustion of driving people. Once you’re driving change, you’ll find a whole new energetic world of change tactics opens before you. When was the last time you changed first and invited others to join you, instead of mandating it?
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?
April: Obviously, everyone is trying to understand AI and how to apply it to their business. One trend that raises major concerns for me is the use of AI agents. I’m not opposed to AI agents, but I strongly recommend that any leader first give their employees the agency that they are considering giving to an AI. I’ve seen articles calling for AI agents to be given decision rights that no human below a director has been trusted to make for years.
If you won’t let your employees decide, then why would you trust an AI to decide? Ask yourself two questions:
- What am I trying to achieve by granting the AI agency?
- What is stopping me from empowering my employees with that same agency right now?
Hack through your current limitations, and you’ll unlock immediate value, and it’ll only cost you a bit of thinking time. No tech required!
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
April: How you lead matters most. Do you drive change or drive people? If you drive change, you’ll create a wave of powerful results. If you drive people, you’ll leave a wake of burned-out employees. Leaders who are the most effective “do their own sit-ups,” never outsourcing what they must do themselves. If you’re delegating what stretches your thinking, shifts your habits, or bends your organization’s status quo, then you’re outsourcing your own growth.
Lean into your learning and encourage your team to learn with you. The power of your role modeling will propel your team across chasms of difficulty, bonding them to you, their leader.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
April: I discourage leaders and aspiring leaders from following fads. There’s no competitive advantage when you copy the crowd.
Instead, study the outliers, the leaders who started with nothing and created something remarkable, memorable, and sustainable. Two heroes to study and mine for leadership riches are Admiral H.G. Rickover, founder of the nuclear navy, and Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel Corporation. Both started leading boldly when they were a “nobody” and achieved results that changed world history. They consistently drove change and never let the bureaucratic status quo slow them down.
Study the greats, and they’ll show you how to become great too. Find an outlier, someone who has achieved the unexpected, then study how they started. What did they do that broke with the status quo? Look for what’s different, and you’ll find what’s special.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
April: Tip 1: This week, role model the exact change you want to see. That’s what “drive change, not people” looks like in real time. Do something to show everyone that it’s possible, that it’s worth your time, and that you’re willing to help them make it worth their time too. That’s driving change, not people. When you drive change, it’ll make you a stronger leader and create a stronger team.
Tip 2: Protect your team as they try something new. You can protect them and the change in a host of ways, including through personal will, leadership declaration, simple policies, and regular celebrations. Those are all change buffers.
Tip 3: Grant yourself permission to change now. Stop waiting for someone else, someday, to make a change you want to happen. You’ve got everything you need to start now. While everyone else waits for permission, or their next promotion, or the next election, you’ll be making the most of right now.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
April: The best piece of advice I ever received was to focus on what I have, not what I lack. I’ve packed that advice into a motto I live and teach worldwide. I call it the Change Agent’s Motto: I will do what I can, with what I have, where I am. Following that motto has allowed me and thousands of other change agents to create positive changes in our lives, workplaces, and communities.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
April: In a turbulent world, it is easy to feel powerless. The cure for powerlessness is to reclaim every bit of power you’ve accidentally given up. Start by choosing more change for yourself, not just reacting to all the changes happening around you. Then hack through the bureaucracy by driving change and helping others join you. My work has taken me from a post-9/11 shipyard to a global tech giant, to clients and communities worldwide, and in every situation, I’ve found change agents with powerful dreams that started driving change right away. Now’s the best time to change your tactics and deliver remarkable results. Ride the wave of change; don’t be swallowed by it.
