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Are you ready to uncover what truly drives lasting change—for yourself, your team, or your entire organization? In this episode, we dive into the powerful RAMPS framework, exploring how results, action, mindset, process, and system come together to spark meaningful transformation. Learn why behavior change alone isn’t enough, how mindset shifts accelerate progress, and why understanding the broader system you’re part of is essential. Whether you're a leader, coach, or someone navigating growth, this conversation offers a practical, insightful guide to intentional, sustainable change.

 

In this episode, Jason and Steve discuss:

  • The foundational questions driving personal and organizational change: “Do people change?” and “How?”
  • The decade-long development of RAMPS — a comprehensive framework for change
  • The metaphor of the Isle of Tortuga as a lens for understanding change and transformation
  • How mindset, action, and systems interact to facilitate sustainable growth
  • Why prescriptive methods often fall short and how RAMPS respects individual differentiation

Key Takeaways:

  • Lasting change is absolutely possible, but it requires a dual focus: honoring the unique journey of the individual while also considering the system they operate within. Ignoring either side risks an incomplete transformation.
  • The RAMPS framework—Results, Action, Mindset, Process, System—offers a fluid, practical structure for navigating positive change. It’s designed to be comprehensive yet adaptable across diverse contexts and leadership levels.
  • Too often, people attempt change through sheer willpower or behavior tweaks, only to stall out. Without addressing mindset, those efforts rarely stick or scale.
  • You don’t need to start at the beginning to benefit from RAMPS. Whether you're targeting action, mindset, or results, the model is built to meet you where you are—while still guiding you through the full arc of transformation.
  • The impact of change doesn’t end at work. When someone grows through the RAMPS process, the benefits often ripple into their home life, relationships, and broader community.

 

“Mindset goes beyond behavior modification — we can’t help people change how they act until we change how they think.”

 - Steve Scanlon

Connect with Jason and Steve:

 

Listen to the podcast here:


Steve and Jason- RAMPS: A Proven Model for Change

Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell, and I've got two guests with me today. I've got my colleague at Rewire, Steve Scanlon. Steve's the founder of Rewire, and without Steve doing what he did 13, 14 years ago, there wouldn't be a Rewire. And then I've got employee number one, even before I started at Rewire, Head of Research and Development, and gosh, all things IT, Steve Longan is one of the best coaches of all time, so Steve Scanlon and Steve Longan, welcome to the show.

Welcome. Wow. I feel like welcoming Longan, too. It's pretty cool that we all get to be on here.

Yeah, yeah, there was a beat there because I wanted you to say hello first.

 

I don't know why. We're both named Steve, so Jason can't go, Steve, what do you think about this? Do we need to go with last names Jason?

So, Longan, we're gonna jump right in. We've got a special episode today. Today marks the official public unveiling of something that we've been working on since we started Rewire, and we've gotten more and more serious, I don't know about serious, but we've just formalized a program about helping people with change and exactly how we do it and what's going on, and we've got this new system. So, Steve Longen, do you mind kind of telling us that story and bringing us into the conversation a little bit about it?

Yeah, I mean, I just want to acknowledge that I'm a guest on the podcast and say hello to everybody listening. And I, like a lot of you listening, get to enjoy the conversations that are happening on the Insight Interviews, and so my thought for today was to bring everyone inside of a conversation that we've been having for basically a decade, and finding ways to clarify it has brought us to this point. And so, we just thought we would bring you inside the conversation and have this conversation between the three of us and invite you all into it. So, that was my thinking regarding today. The basic conversation that we've been having is around two fundamental questions. The first one is, do people change? And that question, do people change, is first, and for everyone who is listening today, that question will drive how you lead and how you work with people. If your answer is yes, people do change, then there's a bunch of follow ons from that. If you're a leader and your answer that question is no, people don't really change, then you're going to lead in a different way. And we've worked with organizations who answer that question with a no. The second question is, if you answer yes that people do change, then the question is, how? How do people change for the better? If people are going to change for the better, what can be done to facilitate that, to speed it up, to make it easier, and that question is really at the heart of what we've been doing, and at the heart of the conversation we've been having for a decade now.

Yeah, thank you for that. Steve Scanlon, anything additional?

No, I love that, and it is the question. And you know, Steve Longan, right when you said that, I thought of that quote by Will Rogers. Will Rogers has a saying, at least I think it's Will Rogers, somebody attributed it to him, but he said, “people change, but not much.” And even as a quote, unquote saying, I like the way you framed it, because whether people change or don't, or how much they do, or how quickly and all that stuff, what's interesting about the whole question is, and I like how you framed it, because you framed it as a question. You have the freedom to think what you want and if people change, and how they change, and how much they change, what might be really relevant for you is just to examine your own thinking around that. And I do think it's fair to say that, you know, even though we are totally open to people's thinking, that it's been our experience that they both do and can.

That’s exactly right. I mean, we're in the business of helping people change. You know, people don't come to us because they're 100% completely satisfied with their life and their health and their business and whatever. No, no, they come to us because there's a gap that exists between where they currently are today, maybe it's in their business life or other aspect of who they are, but a gap between where they are and where it is that they want to go. So, some change, some development, something is going to have to happen to fill that gap, and so that's the business that we're in. Well, which one of you want to tackle exactly what this system is called, and start to dive into it a little bit?

Well, I'm going to vote for Longan.

Take it away, brother.

But before I do, Jason, really quickly, I want to just point out what we're about to lay out, and Steve can say this is sort of at least our best stab, and it took 10 years at an answer to that question, right? So yeah, Steve, help the people and invite the people into the conversation by sharing how we spent the better part of a decade trying to answer that question, and what it culminated into.

Sure, well, for me, as long as we're bringing people inside of our conversations, there is a metaphor that we've been using inside of Rewire for over a decade now, and it comes from the cinematic masterpiece The Pirates of the Caribbean. And it's this idea of the Isle of Tortuga. And for those of you who have seen the movie, that's a major plot point for them. No one knows where the Isle of Tortuga is, except those who have already been there. So, if you've already been there, you know where it is, but if you haven't been there, there's no point. And that metaphor has actually been working inside of Rewire for over a decade, and here's how. If you have gone through a change process before, you know what it looks like. If you have elevated your game in terms of your work, if you have achieved better results, you know what that process looks like. If you have led a team or an organization or a group of people through elevating their performance, helping them to work better, helping them to like their work more, it's not just results, like, they're enjoying the journey, if you've gone through that process before, you know what it looks like, and if you haven't, it's tough to describe. And so, when people are staring at some proposed change that they want to make, if they've gone through that process before, it’s very easy. They're ready to work with Rewire and ready to jump in and ready to do it. If they haven't, it's tough to describe it. And so that's been our little joke inside of Rewire for over a decade now, is the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Isle of Tortuga, and how do you describe a positive change process to someone who hasn't gone through it before, much less gone through it intentionally? It's one thing to go through a change process, but it's another thing to do it on purpose, which is what we're hopefully doing. So, Steve, did I tell that story right? Let's start there. I wanna make sure I've got the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I think you did. There could be some aficionados that know that part of that movie better than you and I do. But yeah, I loved how you said that. Like, yeah, if you've already been there, we get to speak to you and work with you at a great level. And I love the element that you added of intentionally. But as we roll out this program, because basically the way you laid that metaphor out, Steve, is, for 10 years, we've been trying to tell people where Tortuga is.

Yeah.

And, and it's been hard for us, you know? And again, I'm envisioning Johnny Depp for his characters in that movie, you know, they finally just gave up. You can't tell anyone where it is. You can all the people that can only go there, that have already been there. But we've been determined, but we've also noticed that's why it's a metaphor, because it's actually really difficult to explain a change process, and I would partly offer to the listeners and people participating, because you might have your own opinions about this, and we hope you do, that it's difficult because it's not prescriptive. It's not this one size fits all thing. That's one of the difficulties. And so, what we see is a lot of people in their attempts to describe Tortuga come up and go five ways to go through change. Well, we've noticed that that really devalues the humanity, and people just do that differently. And so, it's been difficult for us for 10 years, even as we've helped people go through it, and so, yeah, it's been a little challenging, but I think you nailed the metaphor.

And so, what you're looking for is essentially a way to talk about what works in positive change. You need language to describe it, because people, I'll just say, you know, for myself, Jason, Steve, we do believe that people change for the better, otherwise, this would be a very short podcast episode.

True.

But secondarily, we have some answers to the second question, which is, how? How do people change for the better? And it's not the case that no one knows how it happens. There is research on how individuals and groups of people go through positive change. The issue is, how do you describe it in non-technical, non-academic language that is easy to follow for every level of an organization, whether it's an individual or a leader looking to elevate the performance of the leaders underneath them? How do you put it into a process that's easy to grasp so that everyone knows where they're at in the process and what to do next? So, the discussion that we're having is basically, how do you take what we know about positive change, because to us, it's not a mystery, it is a real thing that we guide people through. The challenge is, how do you put it into an easy framework that you can understand, people know where they're at, and they can start to see the pathway towards positive change for themselves and the people around them?

 

And still honor the differentiation between people.

Correct. Yeah. And that's really important. It’s that whole thing of continuums. That is the dynamic that we're inside of, is there has to be some space on the continuum to move between, this is artistic, no one has ever done this before, we're going to make a bespoke process that's a one off, and no, this is what change looks like, this is all we have to offer, if you don't go through positive change this way, then there's nothing here for you. And so, being able to have some framework or system that captures what we know about positive change, that makes it easy to understand, that makes it easy to replicate, frankly, but also leaves space for the individual organization and the individual leader to navigate that process, that's been a key component of the challenge.

Great. What is it, fellas? I mean, I know what it is, and I'm excited. And you did, like, you literally did what you said you were going to do, you two, which has brought us, the listeners, into the conversation, but man, I want the punch line. What is this cool thing that we're doing with people and how it works?

I just wanted to say, well, and we'll see you next time on the Insight Interviews.

That's right.

Totally, totally, yeah, that's right. Everyone has to sit around and wait a week. So, the framework is called ramps: R, A, M, P, S. That is the answer that we are providing to this question that we have been working with for over a decade now, and honestly, the three of us have been doing in our careers for much, much longer than that. And so, RAMPS is an answer to a question. It's a way to present our answer to that question of, do people change, and how do they change for the better, and how do we make that faster and easier for individuals and groups of people? RAMPS is our answer to that. It's our map of the Isle of Tortuga. And so, we just are excited to share with you guys. Essentially, whether you're working with an individual, whether you're working with a team, when you're working with leaders, there has to be some framework to guide that change process, to present what we know works, and RAMPS is our way of presenting what we know works.

So, and to make it simple, Steven, we'll go through the acronym. One, maybe it took us at least two years to come up with a cool acronym, right?

I mean, you can write a music album in a month, but then you got to figure out what you're going to title it when you go to the market with it and that takes a really long time.

And we were stuck on SNARP for a while because we just needed to rethink it. No, I love what you said. Two questions that we're answering. Do people change? Our answer is yes. Again, we want to honor your answer. If you're under the, you know, not much, or people don't change. Just get new people. That's fine. Just know that that's how you think. Two questions, do people change? Yes. How? RAMPS. So that we're super clear that at least that's what we're bringing to the table, and we want to tell you why the RAMPS model has worked so effectively for so many people over time.

And I think what I'd like to do now, if it's okay, Jason, you can call me on this, but I'll just briefly give a flyover of RAMPS, and we can get more in depth as we go, but first we wanted to give you the questions that give rise to RAMPS, and then, just as a quick overview, we can come back and drill into it. Does that work?

Please do, please do. Rock and roll, man.

So you can engage at any point in RAMPS, any part of the model works on its own, and you can enter into the model at any point. However, it's a holistic system for navigating a change process. And so, even though you can enter RAMPS at any point, you'll want to move through the whole model in order to see the positive change. With that in mind, I'm going to present it in order, R, A, M, P, S, but just know, as you're listening to it, you can actually pick different spots to engage. So, R stands for results. What's the end thing that we're aiming towards? A stands for action, which has to do with movement, which has to do with experiments, which has to do with field work, which has to do with some sort of intervention, with something that we're changing. And I just want to explain that word intervention. I know that that has a connotation when I say the word intervention. I'm coming from a background in Organizational Psychology and Communication, so when I talk about interventions, what I mean is a specific, intentional thing that you are changing, that you are dropping into the ecosystem of your life or your work or your team. So just to be clear about that.

Good clarification. We're not going to therapy right now. It's not that type of podcast. Although a handful of listeners were all of a sudden super interested, because they thought, maybe, where is he going?

They’re thinking about specific people at their organization they wanted to do this with.

Sure.

So, what's the action? What's the thing that we're doing, what's the thing that we're trying, what's the experiment that we're running, in order to get feedback about what works and what doesn't in terms of our work? M is a big one for us at Rewire. Steve, you can speak to this. I would almost argue that it is more responsible than anything else for giving birth to the framework and to the work that we do with individuals and companies, and that M stands for mindset. Steve, would you be willing to speak to how that functions in this model?

Certainly, and it's funny that you call on me. Jason could speak to the model as well, because, as you mentioned, we were all doing it. But mindset, we're going to give a bunch of metaphors here, Mindset also is what we might call below the line, right? Actions and results are things that we see, and they're forward, and people can measure them, and they're out there, and they're super important. And Steve, I thought your outline was great. Mindset goes below the line. And we've had a saying around here that we've had for long time, that we can't really help people change how they act, and we can't really have an impact on results until we change how we think. And so, mindset gets under the line to how we're thinking, and it goes way beyond just simple behavior modification. And so, yeah, mindset. I mean, we're going to do probably more than one whole podcast, and Jason and I actually have, on what do we mean by mindset? But in the ramps RAMPS model, it at least defines the fact that when you're working with us and we're going through change, we go beyond just the observable results and actions, which are incredibly important. But like you said, that's very seminal, that we focus on thinking and not just actions.

 

And what we have found is that when you give attention to mindset as part of a positive change process, you make more progress faster. And so, whether we're talking about an individual inside of coaching, or we're talking about a team of people that we are leading through a program, there is going to be a mindset component, because the mindset is integral to the change process. So more to come on that. Watch this space, but we don't just ram things. We're at RAM, so we've got still a couple letters left.

That's how most people try to change. They just ram it. They try to ram it through and ram it. But not at Rewire. We're not stopping there, because typically that doesn't work out too well for people.

The last two are, you know, as much as I can speak to any of those elements, the last two are ones that I am very interested in. So, P stands for process. In the model, the question is, how does this work? Where am I at in this process? I remember going into a shopping mall when I was in junior high, and they have those little graphics, they probably try to put them on phones now, but you walk into the shopping mall and there's a giant graphic that says “you are here”, and it lets you know if you're trying to get to a specific spot where you need to go based on where you are. And so, the model has a delineated process for how change happens in any given program. So, if we're talking about executive coaching, there's a specific process for executive coaching and how positive changes happen in executive coaching. If we are talking about a workshop and how a workshop on communication is going to bring about change, there's a process for that workshop and how the workshop brings about a positive change. So, for any given change process, we need to understand where are we starting, what's the beginning, middle and end of this look like? And how would I know where I'm at on the way towards positive change? So, P is about process, and then, just to finish, S stands for system. You can blame this on my love of organization, you can blame this on my interest and culture, but, for a positive change process to stick, for it to sustain over the long haul, it is going to have to interface with a broader system. Again, I'll go back to executive coaching. The executive that is being coached is part of a system, and the change process that they go through is going to feed back into the system and the systems that they're a part of. And so, whenever we go through a change process, we need to understand what's the system that we're working with here? Let's say that we're working with an ops team and we're doing some program specifically focused on ops. What is the system that that ops team is a part of, and how will their positive change process interface with the system that they go back into? If we go through a change process and we don't understand the systems that our people are parts of, it becomes difficult for that change to stick. And so, whenever we go through a change process, we're going to look at systems before, during and after engaging in a positive change process. So, there you go. RAMPS.

Man, that was good. I know all this because we've been studying it together and creating it together, and that was very educational. I guess the question that I would have, and Steve Scanlon, maybe you can take this one on. Is there a story, is there a client, is there a situation, since we're inviting, our listeners into the conversation, I mean, we've seen this be very successful over and over again, as it’s had its different elements, but now, we've got this system that we're intentionally and proactively running clients through, is there a particular situation or story, Steve, that comes to mind?

Yes, as you were saying that, yes. Unfortunately, in my brain, I had to narrow it down, because, like you said, we get to work with people that have been at Tortuga all the time. But most recently, I got this random communication from a leader that that I was working with, and they were doing some sort of quiet time or some reflection time, and I, just out of the blue, got this email where they had this epiphany about their own growth. Which is, by the way, sometimes hard to see. When you are you, you often don't see how you grow, right? It's sometimes other people that go, wow, this and that, and that's really cool, but this particular individual had seen their own growth, and I had received this communication, and it was one morning, and it was like, a little bit random, and they had explained to me they were like, they said something to the effect of, they had been trying behavior modification for years, and had not thought about the mindset element. They still needed to get results. They know they needed to take actions. But because there was focus on things like metacognition and other mindset things, and we were doing it within a system, they noticed that the process that we had gone through had just had an indelible mark. And in fact, this person had said to me not only on their work and the culture at work, but they specifically mentioned what they were bringing home to their family.

Yeah.

I should have said, well, welcome to the island of Tortuga.

Exactly.

You found it. So, yeah, Jason, and I could ask you that. You tell me about that all the time, and Longan coaches people, and we get this. And so, we're just excited to have been able to bring it out in this way, and now that we can, how do we further it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, the purpose of this conversation was to do, really, what we've done 95% of already, which is, just introduce the concept, go do a flyover, explain to you, the listener, many of you are existing clients of ours, what process that we formalized, and we're taking clients through it, just to kind of explain that, and it is a tight and dialed, efficient way to close that gap, and not RAM, but RAMPS. And I just really appreciate listening to that and really bringing people into our conversation. And so, yeah. Steve Scanlan, you want to close this out?

Yeah. So, thanks everyone for showing up and Steve Longan, thank you for all the work that you've done with this and continue to do to drive the positive changes that we're seeing and helping as many people as we can find and appreciate the island of Tortuga. So, thank you Longan, and sure, yeah, you know, Jason, you and I end these things all the time with, it really doesn't matter what insights we have, but as you're listening to this, listener, did you ask the question, wow, how do people change? Do people even change? And we can’t answer that for you, you get to answer that, and maybe in asking and answering that, you'll have an insight. If that insight is, wow, tell us more about RAMPS, because that sounds like a really positive way to help my organization, to help my people, to help myself go through change, if that was something you're excited about, please contact us, reach out to us. But like we always do in the Insight Interviews, all of our insights about this are not as important as your insights about this. We just help facilitate those. So, thank you guys. Thanks everyone so much for coming to the Insight Interviews, for being a part of our community, and not only do we do we get excited about welcoming other people to Tortuga, but there’s also a cascading effect where you get to invite people. I don’t know, Longan, maybe Tortuga will be a pretty big place after a while, right? So, thanks everyone for joining us here on the Insight Interviews, and we'll see you next time.

 

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