Change: Navigating the Change Train

[00:00:18] Hello everybody. My computer is giving me a warning message that I will now dismiss so that I can continue again. I am one of your hosts, Scott.

[00:00:28] Hello, Scott. I'm Andy, the other host.

[00:00:33] And this is Tea and Timbits, a podcast about global perspectives on business development to help you prosper. Good to see you again, Andy. Thanks everybody for downloading and listening to another episode.

[00:00:45] We're here in the month of January. We're talking about change, because why not? Because it's January and that's what everybody talks about.

[00:00:54] We had a fun episode at the beginning of the month talking about sort of identifying the need for change and incremental versus dramatic change.

[00:01:03] We're going to talk today about leading a team through a change process.

[00:01:10] Before we get into that, got any stories that have come forward yet this year that you'd like to share?

[00:01:15] I suppose they don't have to be from this year, but what do you got, Andy?

[00:01:17] I haven't got one from this year, but I do have one from the previous year.

[00:01:24] Just 2024?

[00:01:26] Exactly, exactly. Reaching all the way back to a couple of weeks ago.

[00:01:30] But no, this is a good thing. That period between Christmas and New Year, there's very little happening in terms of business.

[00:01:37] But fortunately, there are some concerts and some gigs. And so I had in my capacity of the record label, I had agreed to meet up with a big record label executive and promoter at one of the gigs that the bands I work with was at.

[00:01:58] And I made it clear, you know, it wasn't going to be all suits and ties and contracts and stuff.

[00:02:02] It was just going to be come along. What's the band? Have a listen.

[00:02:04] You know, have some casual drinks. And they agreed.

[00:02:07] They still turned up in a suit and tie, which I thought was really funny because it was a punk gig.

[00:02:10] So kind of really out of place and really not their audience.

[00:02:15] But anyway, you know, we we sat down, had a chat over a bit and then sort of halfway through, I was having this chat.

[00:02:26] The crowd started chanting the name of the band that I was there promoting.

[00:02:31] It's like, OK, I'm not going to do any sort of pitching here at all.

[00:02:37] But the great thing was, you know, it didn't matter.

[00:02:39] It didn't matter that I'd had all of this stuff prepared.

[00:02:41] It didn't matter that I'd had all of this, you know, strategies and ideas and thoughts about how we would do it, going to do things.

[00:02:49] Because the environment that we're in, which is the target markets environment, just immediately told this person, even though this person was very uncomfortable, just showed them that actually this was something worth investing in.

[00:03:04] So it just made me think that, you know, in a normal business environment, it's not all about, you know, your pitch and, you know, what you're bringing to the table and things like that.

[00:03:15] It's often about, you know, how you make someone feel given the experience that you give them.

[00:03:20] And, you know, it doesn't have to be that you take them to, you know, to a punk gig or something like that.

[00:03:25] But, you know, it's about, you know, in the way that you present your solution, your offering to the companies that you're looking to, you know, to buy your solution.

[00:03:37] Give them an experience, you know, let them let them feel that they're part of it.

[00:03:41] Let them understand what it is that you're bringing and why you're bringing it and what value it has for the, you know, for the ultimate audience that they will be trying to sell it.

[00:03:52] And absolutely. I think that's a really good example of the benefit of preparedness, though.

[00:03:58] Yeah. Like, you know, imagine that that hadn't happened.

[00:04:02] You know, it doesn't mean necessarily that the that the band wasn't worth investing in it.

[00:04:07] No, no.

[00:04:08] There was a little magic there that you got to leverage and take advantage of.

[00:04:14] But if somebody hadn't started that chant, it wouldn't have, you know, caught fire and you still have to do that.

[00:04:19] You still would have needed the prep and the strategy.

[00:04:23] Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[00:04:24] And you'd be so much less successful without that.

[00:04:35] And and you might have needed to use it and invite them to another gig to get a little bit more familiar, which is when maybe then, you know, some other little magic happens.

[00:04:44] So, you know, you can you can't rely on luck, but it can certainly be a line item in your strategy.

[00:04:52] But you need the rest of the strategy.

[00:04:53] Exactly. You need that strategy as well.

[00:04:56] But but think about the experience that the person's having.

[00:04:59] And so, right.

[00:05:00] Yes. Deliver an experience as opposed to just a message.

[00:05:05] Correct.

[00:05:05] Yeah.

[00:05:07] So today's topic.

[00:05:08] So moving along into into the substance of what we were going to converse about leading a team through a change process.

[00:05:23] You got excited when I reminded you that this was our specific discussion topic that we decided on for this episode.

[00:05:32] I did. I did get excited.

[00:05:33] Andy, what do you what comes to mind when you think about this topic?

[00:05:36] Well, it's a big area of what I've done for the last, you know, 20 plus years.

[00:05:41] And it's about changing the way things are being done or introducing new ways of doing things or launching something new into an existing business or launching into a new market.

[00:05:54] All of those things are change and all of those things are very difficult.

[00:05:58] And and I have had, you know, a lot of difficulties, certainly in the beginning when I started doing this, of understanding how it is working with different people from different cultures and different backgrounds and different job roles and different education levels and so on.

[00:06:15] Because everyone is different.

[00:06:16] But the one common thing that everyone has together is that people are scared of change.

[00:06:21] People are uncomfortable with change, no matter who you are.

[00:06:24] You know, I'm very much, you know, a change advocate.

[00:06:26] You know, I'm I'm big fan of, you know, being bold, being brave and being different.

[00:06:31] But if you do that on your own, then you'll be on your own.

[00:06:35] You need to take your team with you.

[00:06:37] You need to take the company with you.

[00:06:39] You need to make sure that you have that buy in.

[00:06:41] And so the fact that we had included this as one of the topics which I'd forgotten we had done, it really pleased me because it's so important.

[00:06:47] It's such an important part of change that is often forgotten because in many companies they'll know what they need to change.

[00:06:53] They'll know where they need to go.

[00:06:54] They'll have maybe had some consultants come in and given them some guidance and stuff, and they'll have a, you know, an opportunity to start taking things further forward.

[00:07:02] Then it tends to stick with the management team.

[00:07:04] They hash it all out amongst themselves.

[00:07:06] Yeah.

[00:07:07] And then they tell the company, this is what we're now doing.

[00:07:10] And then they wonder why it doesn't work.

[00:07:12] Yeah.

[00:07:13] You know, and they and they they they tell.

[00:07:17] Yes.

[00:07:18] Yeah.

[00:07:19] Yeah.

[00:07:20] As if everybody's been in all those planning sessions.

[00:07:23] Exactly.

[00:07:23] Yeah, because that's the problem.

[00:07:25] The leadership is so familiar.

[00:07:27] Yeah.

[00:07:27] With the situation, with the reason for change and with the ultimate goal that they forget that nobody else in the organization even knows about it.

[00:07:35] I don't think they forget.

[00:07:37] I think they think that context is unnecessary.

[00:07:42] Oh, yeah, maybe that we're going to communicate this change and and either one of two things.

[00:07:50] The business has made a decision and you are a cog in that system and you will come along and assimilate.

[00:07:57] I honestly think that not necessarily that sort of overtly, but I think a lot of expectation is like, well, we're going to implement this and change management means we'll train people to understand what they need to do differently.

[00:08:08] And it will be rolled out and it will be more prosperous.

[00:08:15] And and so I think there's there's there's that.

[00:08:18] But then I also think there's just a a belief overtly again or not that that that that context doesn't matter.

[00:08:28] It's inconsequential to realizing that the change has benefit.

[00:08:35] And and and I mean, I can't like express enough how important and I talk about this and I've talked about it in a lot of my stories and I'll continue to talk about it.

[00:08:45] You know, get people grounded, get the empathy built, communicate the frustration, talk about the challenges, get them to empathize that this might not be something you experience in your role.

[00:09:01] But the business itself is having a tough time and there's people over here that need you to change so that they can like you have to get the the buy in using all of that, using using empathy, putting things in context and giving people time to mentally digest it.

[00:09:25] It needs to be you need to you need to prime the pump before you deliver the the information.

[00:09:32] You got to get them out of whatever they whatever lane they were in, even if it's a change that is going to support what they do.

[00:09:43] They came in, you know, a nanosecond before the announcement, their head was somewhere else, even though they knew this was the meeting that they were going to walk into.

[00:09:54] They didn't sit down and clear their calendar and go, OK, wait a minute.

[00:09:57] What do I need to think about and how do I need to be prepared for this and then walk in?

[00:10:00] They just walk in. And so it's your job is the communicator of change to to read the to read the room.

[00:10:10] It's easier in a small room if you're physically sitting down with some people.

[00:10:13] It's much more difficult if you're doing larger enterprise size sweeping changes and whatnot.

[00:10:21] But, yeah, I mean, I could I could go on, you know, you're exactly right.

[00:10:28] You're exactly right. The the biggest issue with with everything that, you know, that we talked about there and, you know, that you dove a bit deeper into was.

[00:10:39] There's there's a thing called that if it's officially called that, but I call it that it's the change curve.

[00:10:44] It's sort of based on the Kubler-Ross model and it refers to the different stages that people go through when they're going through a change.

[00:10:53] Right. And the problem is that the leadership team often has, you know, they started out realizing, oh, you know.

[00:11:01] Well, why do we need to do this? Right. And then they moved on to, oh, well, you know, doing this change is probably going to be a waste of time.

[00:11:09] It's not going to make any difference. And then in the end, they go, OK, well, let's figure this out.

[00:11:13] And then they get to the point of going, right, I can see how this will help.

[00:11:17] And they start building the plan around it. Right. So they are at that end of the change curve.

[00:11:23] And then they introduce it to the organization after they've been through that, not knowingly, you know, it's not some it's not a linear thing that these people have gone through.

[00:11:31] OK, now we're ready to move on to the next step of accepting this.

[00:11:34] You know, it's something that just happens in individuals at different times.

[00:11:39] But typically as a group, you will tend to move naturally along together.

[00:11:45] So if you then go and introduce this to the organization and you're at one end going, you know, I can see how this helps.

[00:11:50] I understand it and I see why we need to do it. And the organization are introduced to it for the first time.

[00:11:55] The first reaction they're going to get is shock and denial. Why do we need to do this?

[00:12:00] And so, of course, the problem is you're at different ends.

[00:12:03] And so you're trying to convince and persuade. And then, you know, then this leadership team start trying to push these people.

[00:12:10] And then it moves into frustration and anger, of course. Well, this is just a waste of time. Why are we doing this?

[00:12:15] And so they get all of that resistance and then the leadership kind of just give up.

[00:12:18] And then they never help the organization to get through to that acceptance and commitment phase, which is the problem.

[00:12:24] And that's why these changes typically fail.

[00:12:27] So I think we've also kind of let's let's make sure we're putting the right frame of reference on the topic of taking a team through change.

[00:12:38] Because it's also occurred to me just in this conversation that there's everything before change and then there's everything after change.

[00:12:50] And if you can involve the team in both of those phases, it's going to go better.

[00:12:57] Completely right.

[00:12:58] And so I've been in rooms where people don't want to get too many cooks in the kitchen and too many people involved in before the change.

[00:13:08] But that's not what I'm talking about.

[00:13:12] I empathize and sympathize and probably would advocate for that, too.

[00:13:15] Like you need, you know, good, clear, confident decision making.

[00:13:18] And if you if you make it overly democratic in a business situation, that can not that can be a challenge sometimes.

[00:13:25] But it doesn't mean you don't give visibility or some amount of transparency to the fact that the conversations are happening.

[00:13:30] It's involving these people.

[00:13:32] The problem we're solving for is this.

[00:13:34] The the the leading ideas are this.

[00:13:38] The ones that haven't been brought into consideration are are this.

[00:13:43] And and then to sort of incrementally broaden the circle.

[00:13:50] So, you know, OK, the the the primary, you know, solution team has got a direction on this.

[00:13:58] Great. Let's let's let's bring in, you know, another layer of stakeholders.

[00:14:03] Let's get a few more senior managers involved so they know what's coming.

[00:14:07] They can start some conversations with their team.

[00:14:09] Then we've got a clear, you know, actionable solution architecture, you know, broad communication.

[00:14:17] And if you can do that before change, it's going to help you with your messaging, your support, your communication and the rollout after change.

[00:14:27] Because I think after change, we need to do a lot of the other things that we've already talked about to get to get people on board and and supporting the direction this needs to go.

[00:14:36] Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:14:38] It's you know, it's so important that you communicate that, you know, why the change is happening and what the benefits are and how it will impact the team.

[00:14:46] But also not being, you know, not being afraid to be transparent about what the challenges and risks are as well.

[00:14:53] That's the key, because if you don't share them, they will find them and they will identify them and they will focus only on those.

[00:15:00] So, yeah, it's you know, it's about communication involving the team early, you know, providing training and support, celebrating the small wins, you know, making sure that the little milestones on the way through that change are celebrated.

[00:15:14] That, you know, well done. You're now using this process. You've now adopted this process.

[00:15:18] You've now started doing this in a way that we said that's really good.

[00:15:22] Look how the impact that has had. Oh, great.

[00:15:24] And that, you know, incentivizes people to continue on the change journey.

[00:15:29] But it's also important to stay flexible and understand that, you know, you may need to adjust.

[00:15:34] You mean, yeah, yeah, that that's a yeah, I like I like that celebrating those those mini milestones along the way and having a flexible posture.

[00:15:45] Sure. We've certainly both been in the room when a leader has said, well, this will be difficult, but we're just going to have to tell people that this is what we're going to do.

[00:16:00] Yeah.

[00:16:03] Is there ever a time and place for that?

[00:16:07] That never works. That never works out very well, does it?

[00:16:10] Yeah. I mean, it it. OK, so let me I agree with you, but the rationale is I don't have the time.

[00:16:18] I don't have the the energy personally, emotionally or financially to.

[00:16:29] To do it the right way.

[00:16:31] So we're going to muscle this through.

[00:16:35] It's there. And I think there are some really.

[00:16:40] I think I can empathize with that leader sometimes going, you know, well, you're as long as.

[00:16:50] When you decide to do it that way, first of all, don't it.

[00:16:55] But if you do.

[00:16:56] You have to do it knowing you're breaking the rule.

[00:17:01] You have to do it going.

[00:17:03] I am using a marker here.

[00:17:06] I am imposing on everybody's good graces and I am going to have to ask forgiveness and expect collateral damage or fallout.

[00:17:15] And I'm going to have to accommodate for that or manage for that in another way.

[00:17:18] And I'm going to punt a problem down the line.

[00:17:21] I'm going to trade, you know, the negative outcome of a firm hand now for something that's going to fall out later.

[00:17:33] That's right.

[00:17:33] And you can always save my details and find them on TNTinbits.com to get in touch when things do go wrong in that change process.

[00:17:42] There you go.

[00:17:43] I'll be happy to jump in and help you out like I have done for many other companies over the years.

[00:17:49] Absolutely.

[00:17:50] Absolutely.

[00:17:51] Well, let's leave it there then, Andy.

[00:17:53] It has been a good chat.

[00:17:55] I think it's been good.

[00:17:57] And hopefully some of the listeners sort of been, you know, reflecting on everything it takes to get a team on board before, after.

[00:18:05] And the process that you and the steps along the way to support that.

[00:18:10] And then your contact details when it all goes sideways.

[00:18:16] Very good.

[00:18:17] Thanks very much, Scott.

[00:18:18] Thanks, everybody.

[00:18:19] We'll see you on the next episode.

[00:18:20] Take care.

[00:18:21] Bye.