Supporting Your Team Through Change

Rob: 00:00:00

Something I imagine a lot of leaders struggle with is how do they manage

Rob: 00:00:04

their team through that process with the everyday tasks going on, but also

Rob: 00:00:09

needing to help them through that process.

Rob: 00:00:12

So what can leaders do to support their teams through a change process?

Lisa: 00:00:18

Business as usual at the same time is a big one.

Lisa: 00:00:20

I was going to say that It's always a big challenge for leaders when

Lisa: 00:00:25

they have to deliver business as usual at the same time as a change,

Lisa: 00:00:30

depending on how big the change is.

Lisa: 00:00:32

Whether it's a full transformation will have a big impact on how it

Lisa: 00:00:36

feels for them and for the team.

Lisa: 00:00:38

Whatever happens actually a change program gives you an opportunity.

Lisa: 00:00:44

to strengthen your team and to strengthen your leadership abilities,

Lisa: 00:00:48

but it's also a massive challenge.

Lisa: 00:00:50

And I think it comes down to two things.

Lisa: 00:00:53

Trust and clarity seem to be two big ones for me.

Lisa: 00:00:57

There's a lot of work that needs to be put into the relationships and

Lisa: 00:01:00

building the trust and knowing your team and knowing what they're capable

Lisa: 00:01:05

of and what support they need and what you can let them get on with.

Lisa: 00:01:08

And then having the clarity to actually define what it is that you need to deliver

Lisa: 00:01:14

at the same time as business as usual.

Daniel: 00:01:16

I think I really like the two points around trust and clarity.

Daniel: 00:01:20

Because any change program we go through, clarity of the vision is really important.

Daniel: 00:01:23

And and trust with everybody that, you know, that you need to bring

Daniel: 00:01:27

along that journey, that you need to enroll in taking new actions.

Daniel: 00:01:31

Trust is so important.

Daniel: 00:01:32

It's been said before, change happens at the speed of trust.

Daniel: 00:01:35

So the degree that leaders have that trust and rapport and in the

Daniel: 00:01:40

organization is really important.

Daniel: 00:01:42

So I really like that, Lisa.

Daniel: 00:01:43

I just add that some of the, when you look at the challenge and the problem

Daniel: 00:01:46

that leaders have in organizations that, thinking about leaders who

Daniel: 00:01:49

are sponsoring programs, thinking of executive sponsors, Projects and

Daniel: 00:01:53

programs have little to no training in change management projects in general,

Daniel: 00:01:58

they're business people, they're leading operations, they might be a finance,

Daniel: 00:02:02

they would come up as an accountant, become a finance manager, for example,

Daniel: 00:02:05

and now they're leading a large project on top of a 50 hour a week project.

Daniel: 00:02:09

And so one of the things we can do to answer your question, I think quite

Daniel: 00:02:13

directly that, to empower teams leaders.

Daniel: 00:02:14

Ideally the sponsor has carved out time commensurate with the

Daniel: 00:02:20

gravity and size and complexity and scope of the program and project.

Daniel: 00:02:24

The best project I've worked on have had that allocation and so

Daniel: 00:02:27

it's really important because all of the data process, everybody's data

Daniel: 00:02:31

that looks at this all validates.

Daniel: 00:02:33

It says the same thing.

Daniel: 00:02:34

The leader is the main constraint in terms of the the pace and quality

Daniel: 00:02:38

of the change in an organization.

Daniel: 00:02:40

And it's so important, there's so much uncertainty with these

Daniel: 00:02:42

projects that we need someone with gravitas to work through it.

Daniel: 00:02:46

So that's just a really important point is that leaders have a conventional

Daniel: 00:02:49

amount of time allocated so that they can actually make this work.

Daniel: 00:02:52

Ultimately this comes down to, I think, conviction which is to what extent

Daniel: 00:02:55

is this important project for them personally and the organization generally?

Daniel: 00:02:59

Because if it's important, then people will allocate and

Daniel: 00:03:01

prioritize the time accordingly.

Daniel: 00:03:03

So I think that's really important.

Daniel: 00:03:05

So that leadership priority, that leadership allocation, time allocation

Daniel: 00:03:09

to the project is one of the first places to look in terms of how leaders

Daniel: 00:03:13

can support their teams through change.

Rob: 00:03:14

That makes me wonder how often do you see that leaders have

Rob: 00:03:17

allocated enough time to the change?

Rob: 00:03:20

And how much is that?

Lisa: 00:03:21

I would say it's usually not enough.

Lisa: 00:03:23

Not enough time resources, but also probably not enough people

Lisa: 00:03:27

or time other resources as well.

Lisa: 00:03:29

I think it's really easy to either underestimate the size of the change or

Lisa: 00:03:34

the amount of energy that will be needed.

Lisa: 00:03:36

It's also quite often the case that people from above are saying just get on with

Lisa: 00:03:41

this at the same time as delivering.

Lisa: 00:03:43

So it's not given enough resources and enough focus.

Lisa: 00:03:47

So I think going back to what Daniel, what you were saying, when you need

Lisa: 00:03:51

the commitment first, the leadership commitment to the person who's leading

Lisa: 00:03:55

the change, but also people above them who are going to get proper sponsorship

Lisa: 00:03:59

and say, yes, we need to do this.

Lisa: 00:04:01

We need to deliver this by this time.

Lisa: 00:04:03

And so we're going to allocate the right resources and that the goals that

Lisa: 00:04:08

you're setting are make sense for the resources that you have and also for

Lisa: 00:04:13

their personal learning, development, succession planning, so that you're

Lisa: 00:04:17

hitting two sets of goals with one project, that would be the ideal.

Lisa: 00:04:22

And those are the projects where I've worked on where people have really

Lisa: 00:04:24

enjoyed it because they have delivered.

Lisa: 00:04:26

under pressure what the company needs, but they've also developed themselves the

Lisa: 00:04:32

leader and the team members because there was time put into thinking where are we?

Lisa: 00:04:36

What are your skills?

Lisa: 00:04:37

What's your learning style?

Lisa: 00:04:40

What challenges would you like to take on?

Lisa: 00:04:43

How can we use this team in such a way that we have rotation

Lisa: 00:04:47

of roles where's appropriate?

Lisa: 00:04:49

So that people get a chance to learn new things.

Lisa: 00:04:52

And how much support is there ongoing?

Lisa: 00:04:54

So it's hitting those two sets of goals as well.

Lisa: 00:04:57

I think the company goals and the individual and team

Lisa: 00:05:00

goals and leadership goals.

Rob: 00:05:02

That resonates with me, because for me in my work, conflict is

Rob: 00:05:06

always an opportunity to connect.

Rob: 00:05:08

It can either break people, but if they work through it, talk through

Rob: 00:05:11

it they find a higher level where they can bond of commonality.

Rob: 00:05:15

What it comes to mind is when you're talking about trust and relationships,

Rob: 00:05:19

often companies are working at a deficit.

Rob: 00:05:21

A lot of leaders don't realize that they're working at a deficit.

Rob: 00:05:24

It's not just a level play when you start with a team, but

Rob: 00:05:28

there's the number of factors like the setup of the organization.

Rob: 00:05:31

I keep banging on about the industrial revolution and people often don't see

Rob: 00:05:34

the link, but it means that we're in an environment where our biology is already

Rob: 00:05:37

stressed before we've even started.

Rob: 00:05:39

So we're operating at a deficit.

Rob: 00:05:41

The mentality of organizations where the focus is on money and less on

Rob: 00:05:46

people means that we're operating at a deficit and the basic operating

Rob: 00:05:50

model that we operate from for relationships, I think is at a deficit.

Rob: 00:05:54

So we're already at a deficit.

Rob: 00:05:55

So the leader's role is to make up for that.

Rob: 00:05:58

And I think when you're talking about the trust, there's like a triangle of the

Rob: 00:06:01

people, the leader and the organization, and a good leader who's able to build

Rob: 00:06:06

that trust and carry along their team can make up a lot of that deficit.

Rob: 00:06:10

But if they haven't already done that.

Rob: 00:06:12

The change is the time when you are making an ask of the team members and

Rob: 00:06:17

when you are making an ask and you haven't got any credit in the bank

Rob: 00:06:20

and you are maybe already overdrawn is I think where a lot of the problems

Rob: 00:06:24

and perhaps that's what your work.

Daniel: 00:06:26

Yeah, no doubt.

Daniel: 00:06:27

Leadership is a very hard job, but like these senior leaders and

Daniel: 00:06:30

executives, there's an enormous amount of pressures on them.

Daniel: 00:06:32

I'm very busy, not to mention, like their own personal lives

Daniel: 00:06:36

complex as well, not just their work lives, they're humans as well.

Daniel: 00:06:40

There's there's some stats that about how more senior leaders tend to have lower EQ.

Daniel: 00:06:45

And that may be because they get selected into those roles through the type, the

Daniel: 00:06:51

type of person that I don't know why that is, but maybe they're self selected into

Daniel: 00:06:54

that for some reason, and that could be where some of that thinking, maybe that

Daniel: 00:06:59

some of that observation comes from, I should say that you mentioned, Rob.

Daniel: 00:07:02

When I'm dealing with change I'm thinking through the strengths

Daniel: 00:07:04

and weaknesses of the different, of the strata of leadership.

Daniel: 00:07:08

So I'd encourage change practitioners.

Daniel: 00:07:10

But out there, I'd be thinking, okay, what kind of sponsor do I

Daniel: 00:07:13

have dealing with this project?

Daniel: 00:07:14

There's not a lot you can do about nature that they don't have enough

Daniel: 00:07:17

time to throw out this project or that they're a difficult, they have low EQ

Daniel: 00:07:20

and they're overly assertive, the over index on assertiveness, for example.

Daniel: 00:07:24

So you just got to work through the strengths and weaknesses of that sponsor.

Daniel: 00:07:26

In projects, there's always another powerful person that is not the sponsor,

Daniel: 00:07:30

but another powerful leader that has veto, more or less veto power to

Daniel: 00:07:33

some extent on a program or project.

Daniel: 00:07:36

So for example, if you're implementing a CRM system, it could be driven by

Daniel: 00:07:39

technology, the head of sales is The one, say, hey, this isn't good enough.

Daniel: 00:07:42

We're not going live yet.

Daniel: 00:07:43

So this is fixed, which can, orbit derail a project.

Daniel: 00:07:46

For example, that's just a hypothetical example.

Daniel: 00:07:48

And then you've got the range of frontline leaders, middle managers,

Daniel: 00:07:51

and so on that all through that chain.

Daniel: 00:07:53

And you'd be looking at, okay given that context and the strengths and

Daniel: 00:07:55

weaknesses of the different players, how am I going to Push this message through.

Daniel: 00:07:59

What's how do I create this narrative?

Daniel: 00:08:00

Who are the best people to lead those conversations?

Daniel: 00:08:03

Is it me as the change practitioner or do I take a backseat and

Daniel: 00:08:06

I'm empowering someone else?

Daniel: 00:08:08

So you just thinking through this range of activities, given the strength and

Daniel: 00:08:12

weaknesses and the given context of the program and how you're going to drive

Daniel: 00:08:15

that leadership message and narrative and who's the best place to do it and how

Daniel: 00:08:18

you might, it becomes obvious to you as you start to immerse yourself into it.

Daniel: 00:08:22

But I think the right approach to take is exactly that.

Daniel: 00:08:24

Let's look at the strengths and weaknesses and, assess the context

Daniel: 00:08:26

and then adjust our plans accordingly.

Lisa: 00:08:28

Yeah, I think, ideally you have a leader who is able to use

Lisa: 00:08:35

their soft skills, EQ, let's say is better, but some hard decisions.

Lisa: 00:08:39

And that's a really difficult balance to get that somebody who is an empathetic,

Lisa: 00:08:44

but who can also say, for clarity and to get what we need to, and make unpopular

Lisa: 00:08:49

decisions that is really difficult.

Lisa: 00:08:51

So I would agree, like looking at the landscape of who is in, which

Lisa: 00:08:55

stakeholders, which leaders, who has leadership role, and it can be the one

Lisa: 00:09:00

with the title leader, but it can also be someone who hasn't got that title,

Lisa: 00:09:05

maybe somebody who's doing admin.

Lisa: 00:09:07

I've certainly worked in change projects where a person who's got a much, less

Lisa: 00:09:12

formal role in terms of leadership can be the one who can really help.

Lisa: 00:09:18

to build the empathy or the enthusiasm, motivation.

Lisa: 00:09:21

And then yes, perhaps the person who's very like an implementer, somebody

Lisa: 00:09:25

who's very focused on completing the task is more in the background.

Lisa: 00:09:30

So I think that's, yeah, good approach, but I would also agree with what you said,

Lisa: 00:09:34

Rob, about, starting with the deficit.

Lisa: 00:09:36

If you have the trust to start with so much easier.

Lisa: 00:09:39

Those times when you're not in a massive change program, which may be quite rare

Lisa: 00:09:44

nowadays, then, use that time to have to build relationships, to understand,

Lisa: 00:09:49

without having to be in everyone's business, but to be understanding of

Lisa: 00:09:53

what people's personal styles are, what their values are, which hopefully should

Lisa: 00:09:58

be in line with the company as well.

Lisa: 00:10:00

That's also a big challenge for a lot of organizations that they

Lisa: 00:10:04

will have some values, but are they the ones that they actually live?

Lisa: 00:10:08

Knowing all that background of your team members really helps as

Lisa: 00:10:11

well, but you have to start where you are and what you have as well.

Rob: 00:10:15

It's interesting about senior leaders having lower EQ.

Rob: 00:10:19

But it makes sense in the way that most CEOs, managing directors tend

Rob: 00:10:25

to have been the finance director, which we tend to overemphasize the

Rob: 00:10:30

logistical or the financial or.

Rob: 00:10:32

analytical aspects rather than the people like the HR.

Rob: 00:10:35

So I wonder if it's worth looking at the best examples, maybe you've

Rob: 00:10:38

seen of teams supporting for a change or, and maybe the worst examples

Rob: 00:10:44

to see some of the differences.

Daniel: 00:10:46

So best in work is worst examples of leadership.

Rob: 00:10:50

Yeah.

Rob: 00:10:50

Yeah.

Rob: 00:10:51

During a change, really.

Daniel: 00:10:52

In terms of best examples, one comes to mind, a project I worked

Daniel: 00:10:54

on a few years ago, which was a large ERP accounting software rollout.

Daniel: 00:10:58

And the sponsor, yeah, she was great when it came to the EQ and also

Daniel: 00:11:02

just fully allocated to the program.

Daniel: 00:11:04

It was a very large program.

Daniel: 00:11:05

It was really no way not have that, but she was fully allocated to

Daniel: 00:11:08

the program and, several hundred million dollars worth of investment

Daniel: 00:11:11

over several years in this program.

Daniel: 00:11:12

Very high risk.

Daniel: 00:11:13

But she was, yeah, fully invested, which really made it work.

Daniel: 00:11:17

And it was so important.

Daniel: 00:11:18

And in the detail, maintain a strategic vision, would get on the phone and speak

Daniel: 00:11:23

to everybody from, right on the front line to everybody in the program on a

Daniel: 00:11:27

regular basis as many issues came up, but also just, proactively keeping in touch

Daniel: 00:11:32

about what was happening in extreme.

Daniel: 00:11:34

That was really proactive and engaged leadership and we were able to then I

Daniel: 00:11:38

then, had cascaded those messages and we started to give a voice to different

Daniel: 00:11:42

players, underneath that reported into her for different spots from it to, the front,

Daniel: 00:11:46

the actual work, the technical work.

Daniel: 00:11:48

And then we even cascaded it down lower again to try, as we started to

Daniel: 00:11:52

go down the chain so we could build, we really ladder those leadership vibes,

Daniel: 00:11:56

if you will, all the way through.

Daniel: 00:11:58

And that was a, that's an example of it.

Daniel: 00:11:59

Done.

Lisa: 00:12:00

I can give a good examples of things not working so well if

Lisa: 00:12:03

you want and then we can stop.

Lisa: 00:12:04

I think it's good idea.

Lisa: 00:12:05

But yeah, having to work with people to change things, turn things around.

Lisa: 00:12:09

I think two examples that come to mind.

Lisa: 00:12:11

One was actually where the leader was a really nice guy, really focused on

Lisa: 00:12:18

his team, but there wasn't the clarity.

Lisa: 00:12:20

So that's why I came back to that work.

Lisa: 00:12:22

Nobody was quite sure why they were doing the change and what, and even

Lisa: 00:12:26

though, the atmosphere wasn't toxic, it was just, why are we doing that?

Lisa: 00:12:31

And then, as human beings, if you feel you don't need to do it.

Lisa: 00:12:34

You won't do it because there are lots of other things that are much more important.

Lisa: 00:12:39

So we really had to work on them, the clarity there and what were the goals.

Lisa: 00:12:43

And, some of it was actually just dropped because it wasn't as important.

Lisa: 00:12:48

So I think, sometimes You have to be brave to say we're not going to go forward with

Lisa: 00:12:52

this because it's not really a priority.

Lisa: 00:12:55

And some change just doesn't need to happen.

Lisa: 00:12:58

And another one would be a sort of a toxic environment where I

Lisa: 00:13:01

think the most difficult to turn around as well is where people are

Lisa: 00:13:06

not saying what they're thinking.

Lisa: 00:13:09

Leaders are not saying what they're thinking.

Lisa: 00:13:10

There's so many different agendas, political agendas.

Lisa: 00:13:14

People are briefing behind other people's backs, the teams have no trust, and I

Lisa: 00:13:19

think in that sort of environment it's difficult to even deliver business

Lisa: 00:13:23

as usual properly, although you may have Processes that are just almost

Lisa: 00:13:28

so automated, even involving humans.

Lisa: 00:13:31

So you can, but you're limping along, but when it comes to change again,

Lisa: 00:13:36

as we said, you're putting another layer of asking of energy on it,

Lisa: 00:13:40

onto it that can be catastrophic.

Lisa: 00:13:43

Yeah.

Rob: 00:13:43

It's interesting that you say about clarity because you

Rob: 00:13:47

can have teams that are too nice.

Rob: 00:13:49

They think that they have to please each other and appease each other to get along

Rob: 00:13:54

as opposed to actually being honest.

Rob: 00:13:56

And so the lack of clarity can come from that and it can also come from

Rob: 00:14:00

a leader that is scared of saying something threatening to their team.

Daniel: 00:14:04

No doubt.

Daniel: 00:14:05

I'm wondering if people have worked in those toxic environments that, that Lisa's

Daniel: 00:14:10

pointing out and that you're speaking to Rob, yeah, it's very difficult to work in

Daniel: 00:14:13

and really get anything meaningful done.

Daniel: 00:14:15

I can recall one organization I worked in that just churned through

Daniel: 00:14:18

top notch professionals and it was a very difficult place to work.

Daniel: 00:14:21

And each one of those professionals before that place had, had good

Daniel: 00:14:25

careers, they'd go to that place, really struggled, questioned themselves.

Daniel: 00:14:28

And then left there and went on to have a fulfilling work in these other

Daniel: 00:14:31

organizations was all included in one one does just like, how did this happen?

Daniel: 00:14:35

And you question yourself and it's just really bad leadership and

Daniel: 00:14:38

you just can't work through it.

Daniel: 00:14:39

either leadership changes or nothing really changes and and, I think Edward

Daniel: 00:14:43

Deming talks about the system in which people work and part of that

Daniel: 00:14:47

is the leadership context and that cultural leadership context that's

Daniel: 00:14:50

created is part of that system.

Daniel: 00:14:52

I see it anyway and very difficult to work in those environments,

Daniel: 00:14:55

let alone cause meaningful change.

Rob: 00:14:57

It when you talk about that, it reminds me of in football, you

Rob: 00:15:00

might not be aware Daniel but there's you can see it play out where you

Rob: 00:15:05

can have a great manager that's proven himself club after club and

Rob: 00:15:09

I look at Man United at the moment.

Rob: 00:15:11

Successful, great manager left ever since then they've had the best

Rob: 00:15:14

managers, the most money and yet everyone's gone in there and failed.

Rob: 00:15:18

And it just seems to be a system and this similar thing

Rob: 00:15:20

with our national English team.

Rob: 00:15:22

We've had great managers who've won leagues everywhere else come in and

Rob: 00:15:26

no one's been able to make it work.

Rob: 00:15:27

So a lot is the the cultural context within which you're operating in, because

Rob: 00:15:33

that's what's going to determine whether it's high trust, low trust and all those

Rob: 00:15:36

other, how much communication is going to determine how much clarity there is.

Rob: 00:15:41

And where people know their roles, isn't it?

Rob: 00:15:44

Definitely.

Rob: 00:15:45

Absolutely.

Rob: 00:15:45

Absolutely.

Rob: 00:15:46

I

Lisa: 00:15:46

think it is possible.

Lisa: 00:15:48

And I have seen it worked for not within a toxic environment, but

Lisa: 00:15:52

let's say within a company culture, which is not conducive to change.

Lisa: 00:15:57

You can have a sort of micro subculture of the team where, you

Lisa: 00:16:01

know, because it's actually the team is actually operating with the clarity.

Lisa: 00:16:06

Let's say the trust is there, but normally the clarity isn't.

Lisa: 00:16:09

So if you then have a smaller group and obviously smaller groups

Lisa: 00:16:13

are easier, to manage as well.

Lisa: 00:16:15

Up to 50 is the ideal, isn't it, for a company?

Lisa: 00:16:17

If you know everyone's name, then you're going to be more

Lisa: 00:16:20

likely to work better together.

Lisa: 00:16:22

But yeah, then if you suddenly have if you're able to deliver a change

Lisa: 00:16:27

with a group, which can add another level of clarity or trust on top of

Lisa: 00:16:32

the, perhaps not ideal company level.

Lisa: 00:16:35

I think you can see, that's where you see really high performing

Lisa: 00:16:39

team and results that you wouldn't have necessarily expected from that

Lisa: 00:16:43

organization and that's great to see.

Lisa: 00:16:45

But then you would like to replicate that.

Lisa: 00:16:48

You need an actual reason, that's why I said the change can be the catalyst

Lisa: 00:16:52

and can be the opportunity, because if there's a really strong reason to change,

Lisa: 00:16:56

a really exciting or scary reason to change, that can really get the best out

Lisa: 00:17:01

of people as well, if it's well managed.

Rob: 00:17:03

In one of those difficult companies say you're a mid level leader, you

Rob: 00:17:08

can't change the culture, you can create the trust within your team.

Rob: 00:17:11

I suppose really it is just to focus on your team and then

Rob: 00:17:14

communicating as clearly as you can.

Rob: 00:17:16

And I suppose you just operating within a context where your results will be

Rob: 00:17:21

limited by the amount you can communicate and function with externally leaders,

Daniel: 00:17:27

yeah, I think what you're saying, so you're saying like, what can you

Daniel: 00:17:30

effectively do if you're working in a low trust poor leadership environment?

Rob: 00:17:34

Yeah, basically

Daniel: 00:17:35

yeah, to my way of thinking, managers, rather mid level managers,

Daniel: 00:17:39

senior managers who are not the ones responsible and accountable and, for the

Daniel: 00:17:42

overall culture and the organization.

Daniel: 00:17:44

I was thinking it comes down to those spheres, your sphere of influence

Daniel: 00:17:48

and you just want to, as much as you can run a tidy shop in that regard.

Daniel: 00:17:51

Then be the change you hope to see, all those sort of cliches, but I think

Daniel: 00:17:54

it's true, is that you just want to run the best game that you possibly can.

Daniel: 00:17:58

And in the context with what, which that you've got to work with.

Daniel: 00:18:02

Now, no organization is perfect.

Daniel: 00:18:04

And no leadership structure or leaders are perfect.

Daniel: 00:18:06

And there's always these, and there's not, There's never perfect clarity

Daniel: 00:18:09

on a project or, and there's always competing priorities in a complex

Daniel: 00:18:13

dynamic environments we work in.

Daniel: 00:18:15

And so all of that's true.

Daniel: 00:18:17

And so we just want to work through, I think you just

Daniel: 00:18:18

working with what you've got.

Daniel: 00:18:20

Now, if it's truly a toxic environment, you can't work

Daniel: 00:18:22

there and you're not well suited.

Daniel: 00:18:23

Then, a manager might want to question whether or not

Daniel: 00:18:25

they continue to work there.

Daniel: 00:18:26

Assuming that.

Daniel: 00:18:27

No, I'm balance.

Daniel: 00:18:27

It's okay.

Daniel: 00:18:28

Then you influence what you can and then you advocate for change

Daniel: 00:18:31

to the degree that you can.

Daniel: 00:18:32

I think that's the way I approach it, but I think one, one needs to have a high

Daniel: 00:18:35

degree of pragmatic the thing I'll say though, is that like when I coach change

Daniel: 00:18:38

managers who are working and often they just, especially the more junior ones,

Daniel: 00:18:43

like don't have the skills and experience.

Daniel: 00:18:44

They're not getting the response that they're looking for, and they're

Daniel: 00:18:46

thinking that it's poor leadership or toxic behavior, but actually

Daniel: 00:18:49

they're approaching things wrong.

Daniel: 00:18:50

They're more complaining.

Daniel: 00:18:51

They're not really approaching things with data.

Daniel: 00:18:54

I'm thinking one person, I coached her on, okay I think, if you approach

Daniel: 00:18:57

your manager in this way, in this sense, you brought data, you frame

Daniel: 00:19:00

the problem in a certain way, and I've coached them through how they would

Daniel: 00:19:04

bring the data and frame the problem, advocate for a solution present options.

Daniel: 00:19:09

The reaction was chalk and cheese from the manager, right?

Daniel: 00:19:12

And so you've got to think that through.

Daniel: 00:19:14

And then I think a lot of middle level managers have unrealistic

Daniel: 00:19:17

expectations of what the boss is actually can and will do for them.

Daniel: 00:19:20

Haven't really thought through how to.

Daniel: 00:19:22

Like how a boss is thinking and how a boss is thinking about them and the range of

Daniel: 00:19:27

complexity and breadth that a boss has.

Daniel: 00:19:30

There's a world there where people need to manage themselves a little bit better

Daniel: 00:19:32

and that needs some coaching on that.

Daniel: 00:19:34

And that's definitely what I help people with.

Daniel: 00:19:36

And I can appreciate one person's toxic environment is another person's sort of

Daniel: 00:19:40

place to flourish in some regards as well.

Daniel: 00:19:42

On LinkedIn, a lot of people are throwing around the toxic environment working

Daniel: 00:19:45

in a toxic culture and so on, and they give the 10 points of what to do about

Daniel: 00:19:49

that, or 10 points of definition, like it's all valid but on balance you

Daniel: 00:19:52

wanna look for patterns of behavior.

Daniel: 00:19:53

But before you get to that, how can you improve your game and and

Daniel: 00:19:57

manage through that as best you can.

Lisa: 00:19:58

Yeah, I think it's a good point that I would say there was only one company

Lisa: 00:20:02

that I really worked with where I would say it was toxic because it was at so

Lisa: 00:20:06

many levels and over so many years of poor decisions and also political, from

Lisa: 00:20:12

outside and everything that had an effect.

Lisa: 00:20:15

Normally, I think, yeah, what you're talking about, Daniel, is yes, stakeholder

Lisa: 00:20:19

management and managing efforts, the management piece in change management is

Lisa: 00:20:24

very often just too sketchy, you need to think about the actual groups of people

Lisa: 00:20:29

and individuals that you're managing for the project and for your career,

Lisa: 00:20:34

for the team, for the whole longevity.

Lisa: 00:20:37

So there's a lot of different layers to it.

Lisa: 00:20:39

And I don't think people are taught that or, you develop that

Lisa: 00:20:42

with experience quite often.

Lisa: 00:20:44

But yeah, for change management, I think starting with the

Lisa: 00:20:47

stakeholders is a really good point.

Lisa: 00:20:49

And yeah, knowing that something could come across to you is really

Lisa: 00:20:54

passive aggressive or toxic or whatever you want to say, and actually

Lisa: 00:20:58

just be someone's natural response given what their priorities are.

Lisa: 00:21:03

And yeah, just that whole piece around the EQ to be able to

Lisa: 00:21:09

recognize that and to manage your own reaction to that is massive.

Lisa: 00:21:13

And yeah, that's where there is a lot of challenge and even for people

Lisa: 00:21:17

with a lot of experience, as you were saying, if you've really been measured

Lisa: 00:21:20

all your life on delivering results and the bottom line, it is really

Lisa: 00:21:25

hard to think about the stakeholder management piece with enough clarity

Lisa: 00:21:30

and put enough effort into it, I think.

Rob: 00:21:33

It always comes to leadership that there's two journeys.

Rob: 00:21:35

There's what you have to do.

Rob: 00:21:37

And then there's the like personal character challenges of not wanting

Rob: 00:21:41

to speak up or feeling defensive or whatever that you have to overcome.

Rob: 00:21:46

It's like personal development before you can professionally develop.

Rob: 00:21:49

I'm reminded when I was talking to Niki, he was talking about under

Rob: 00:21:54

stress, people see people as objects.

Rob: 00:21:56

And when you said, Daniel, that often we don't think about the senior leader's

Rob: 00:22:02

position that often I've noticed in conflict, we think someone's against

Rob: 00:22:07

us, but it's really that we're just on colliding paths and we happen to meet.

Rob: 00:22:11

So I suppose it's not taking things personally, it's looking at your, yourself

Rob: 00:22:16

and your own personal defense structures and ways that you operate and at the end

Rob: 00:22:21

it's being focused on what is needed.

Rob: 00:22:24

What, what needs, what do we need to do and not I think

Rob: 00:22:27

people can be myopic and take it.

Rob: 00:22:29

Oh, I just need to do this and not think about other people as people

Rob: 00:22:33

with their own challenges and their own yeah, their own constraints.

Daniel: 00:22:37

I like how you put that describing people.

Daniel: 00:22:40

We sometimes we might think that people are against us, but we're

Daniel: 00:22:42

perhaps just on colliding paths.

Daniel: 00:22:43

I like that.

Daniel: 00:22:44

That's a good example.

Daniel: 00:22:45

I just think what a good example is.

Daniel: 00:22:48

People who want to get promoted, you're thinking about your career all

Daniel: 00:22:51

the time, all day, every day, your boss is thinking about your career,

Daniel: 00:22:54

almost never and how do you get on your boss's radar in that regard?

Daniel: 00:22:58

Number one is I just don't want you to be a pain because everybody's a pain to them.

Daniel: 00:23:00

Like you just, everybody's bringing them problems all day.

Daniel: 00:23:03

And if you're not bringing them problems, you bring them solutions and ideas

Daniel: 00:23:06

and how you can support their agenda.

Daniel: 00:23:07

Then all of a sudden you're showing up as a completely different person.

Daniel: 00:23:09

And so few people thinking about, so think about it like that.

Daniel: 00:23:13

Because I've never really been a boss in that situation and just how

Daniel: 00:23:15

frustrating it is to have difficult people because they take up all your time.

Daniel: 00:23:20

Once I get people to step out of Themselves for a bit and think it through,

Daniel: 00:23:23

think through the incentive structure and they can say, ah okay, if I want to

Daniel: 00:23:26

make progress here, I'm going to have to get inside my boss's world and build

Daniel: 00:23:29

relationships, at their level and so on and start getting inside what they

Daniel: 00:23:34

need and providing solutions to do that.

Daniel: 00:23:37

Now, all things being equal, this all is broadly aligned in terms of

Daniel: 00:23:41

what you should be doing as a job and what they want to need is aligned to

Daniel: 00:23:44

corporate goals and so on and so forth.

Daniel: 00:23:46

So I'm not advocating for people to betray their values in any way, but

Daniel: 00:23:49

I'm just helping them understand that it's not about them and then doing a

Daniel: 00:23:52

good job and then they'll be rewarded.

Daniel: 00:23:54

It doesn't work that way.

Daniel: 00:23:55

And so that's, so you can apply that to change management.

Daniel: 00:23:58

You're starting to think through, okay what's in it for me, what

Daniel: 00:24:00

everyone's always asking, what's in it for me and that what's

Daniel: 00:24:03

important as a stakeholder to them.

Daniel: 00:24:05

And how do we address that?

Daniel: 00:24:07

And ultimately you're going to have a conversation because you don't really

Daniel: 00:24:09

know you're teasing it out and you get, and you're guessing and you're bringing

Daniel: 00:24:12

some data and some you're languaging the problem and you're providing

Daniel: 00:24:14

options and getting people involved in.

Daniel: 00:24:17

More often than not, you'll get a decent amount of consideration for

Daniel: 00:24:20

from your stakeholders from there.

Daniel: 00:24:22

So that's what I think is important, look, every project I go and work on, every

Daniel: 00:24:26

project, says you need, I want to know how good you are at managing stakeholders.

Daniel: 00:24:30

And there's, because we've got some prickly ones, everybody says Because,

Daniel: 00:24:33

there's always, it's just that's just the law of the world and the universe.

Daniel: 00:24:37

And I think it's important that we I'm going to give an example.

Daniel: 00:24:40

I'm thinking of like an IT project I worked on once.

Daniel: 00:24:43

And there was, one of the IT leads for the, that managed the sort of

Daniel: 00:24:46

central hub of tickets and problems.

Daniel: 00:24:48

Very difficult, very skeptical about the project.

Daniel: 00:24:51

And, and when you sit down and think about it you can understand why, because

Daniel: 00:24:54

he's the one who owns all the problems and anything that's not in, not when

Daniel: 00:24:58

the inevitably there's technical debt that's incurred with these projects.

Daniel: 00:25:02

And he is the person who will own it.

Daniel: 00:25:04

Once I was able to have some coffees, Empathize with him in this regard

Daniel: 00:25:08

and find out what does he really need and what's the range of support

Daniel: 00:25:11

you would need to, to get on board with this project effectively.

Daniel: 00:25:14

About labeling him as being a mercenary in any regard and also say face in front

Daniel: 00:25:18

of his team and all the rest of it.

Daniel: 00:25:19

And then, okay, okay.

Daniel: 00:25:21

I had a, I had something to work with now.

Daniel: 00:25:22

I can build out that training.

Daniel: 00:25:23

We can provide that extra support in that regard.

Daniel: 00:25:25

And yeah, this I agree with you.

Daniel: 00:25:27

You've been left with A box of stuff you don't want.

Daniel: 00:25:30

So how can I'm empathizing with that regard and yeah,

Daniel: 00:25:34

and we've got to support you.

Daniel: 00:25:34

So how can we support you given that it's not the right

Daniel: 00:25:36

situation, not ideal and so on.

Daniel: 00:25:38

This is not just one conversation, this was over several

Daniel: 00:25:41

conversations and consideration.

Daniel: 00:25:43

Large forums and one on one and a few coffee chats and stopping by

Daniel: 00:25:46

their desk and things like this to get a win that relationship over and

Daniel: 00:25:51

supply what they need for the program.

Daniel: 00:25:52

And that's very much sort of the political art, if you will, of

Daniel: 00:25:55

projects and, supporting and really greasing that wheel to move it forward.

Lisa: 00:26:00

Yeah.

Lisa: 00:26:01

And that's not the sort of thing that you've got on the project plan.

Lisa: 00:26:04

There's extra bits of work, which is the whole sort of starting point for

Lisa: 00:26:08

a lot of the change work, I think.

Lisa: 00:26:10

And I would agree that, the resistance you actually want to surface the resistance,

Lisa: 00:26:15

you want to talk to those people, you want to find out what it is, because

Lisa: 00:26:18

People will say, Oh, yeah, difficult, prickly, Oh, not that one again.

Lisa: 00:26:21

Nine times out of 10, they, in fact, maybe always they have a point and, you

Lisa: 00:26:27

just need to find out what that point is.

Lisa: 00:26:29

You may be able to address it fully, you may not, but you need to find out what

Lisa: 00:26:34

it is because There's something in there.

Lisa: 00:26:36

And that takes time.

Lisa: 00:26:37

Like you said, Daniel, it's not going to happen straight away.

Lisa: 00:26:39

And sometimes it's not even conscious to the per, for the person as well.

Lisa: 00:26:44

It takes quite a bit of digging and cross referencing or, different activities,

Lisa: 00:26:48

getting people involved is also how those sorts of things come out or doing

Lisa: 00:26:53

something like with the process where suddenly it becomes clear that there's

Lisa: 00:26:56

a massive lot of, duplication, which causes a huge amount of frustration,

Lisa: 00:27:02

which has never been actually fully consciously known before or clarified.

Lisa: 00:27:07

So I think some of those sort of the digging can come up with a lot

Lisa: 00:27:10

of interesting things, but you need the time and energy to do that.

Lisa: 00:27:14

And also, I think, just you mentioned before, Rob, the conflict, not

Lisa: 00:27:18

shying away from conflict, but it's really hard because very few

Lisa: 00:27:21

people like it, a few people like it, but very few people like it.

Lisa: 00:27:24

Where I've seen teams do really well is where they have actually allowed for

Lisa: 00:27:28

that conflict to surface and, worked with it in a productive way, rather than,

Lisa: 00:27:33

being really upsetting, but actually to get down to what do you really

Lisa: 00:27:37

think, what are your issues with this?

Lisa: 00:27:39

And then work on that.

Lisa: 00:27:41

If you can get to that point and you're allowed the time to do it, that

Lisa: 00:27:44

there's not, a really hard push for this go live, no matter what, then you

Lisa: 00:27:49

will get a better result in the end.

Rob: 00:27:51

What comes to mind there is the as a quote, I can't remember,

Rob: 00:27:55

I can't remember the name but it's connection before content.

Rob: 00:27:58

That we can only take in content when we have a connection.

Rob: 00:28:01

And it's really interesting for me to listen to what you're saying

Rob: 00:28:04

because it mirrors a lot of what I've done in relationship work.

Rob: 00:28:08

In relationships, we tend to blame other people and we tend

Rob: 00:28:11

to, they did this because of this.

Rob: 00:28:12

And one of the key things that I teach people is you're the hero of your movie.

Rob: 00:28:19

But you're a supporting actor in everyone else's, and because of the nature of

Rob: 00:28:23

being humans, we put ourselves at the center of everyone else's narrative,

Rob: 00:28:26

and it's understanding that the narrative that they're working by.

Rob: 00:28:30

I can remember someone who was complaining Or it was a problem of worrying.

Rob: 00:28:36

Her husband constantly worrying and being very negative about things.

Rob: 00:28:39

But his work was in insurance and his work was all about risk

Rob: 00:28:44

and seeing, being pessimistic.

Rob: 00:28:46

And so you can't change the context of someone's character

Rob: 00:28:50

is how they're going to be.

Rob: 00:28:51

And it really is understanding their narratives.

Rob: 00:28:54

Which when you were talking, Daniel, about understanding bosses, it's

Rob: 00:28:58

understanding their narrative and where you can fit in as an ally.

Rob: 00:29:02

That when you can help them on their hero's journey, then that's when you get

Rob: 00:29:07

what you want, but it takes an, another level of being able to move out of your

Rob: 00:29:12

own story and have that self awareness and being able to perceive the bigger picture.

Rob: 00:29:17

So I'm just wondering around that what are the challenges, but I think

Rob: 00:29:20

we've probably addressed most of them.

Rob: 00:29:22

Is there anything we've missed about that that we should have double clicked on?

Rob: 00:29:26

One

Daniel: 00:29:26

thing I'll add just from a, managing change point of view

Daniel: 00:29:29

is you've got to think about radial sort of relationships out there.

Daniel: 00:29:33

You want to start with winning the confidence of your project

Daniel: 00:29:35

team and your colleagues.

Daniel: 00:29:37

So those immediate people that you're, that you were working with

Daniel: 00:29:41

on a day by day basis, and you often might not even have a direct boss.

Daniel: 00:29:43

You're probably working, In parallel and dotted lines, different people and so on.

Daniel: 00:29:47

So you have to think about that network of just those immediate relationships

Daniel: 00:29:50

and winning their confidence.

Daniel: 00:29:51

And that's the first place to look.

Daniel: 00:29:52

And then you start to expand that to all of the key leaders, whether they're

Daniel: 00:29:55

executive leaders or senior leaders and so on, and then you're building that out.

Daniel: 00:29:59

As it extends to the rest of the organization, frontline leaders,

Daniel: 00:30:02

and they start to build familiarity with you and starting to build

Daniel: 00:30:05

that relationship and that trust throughout the project and program.

Daniel: 00:30:09

That becomes quite important.

Daniel: 00:30:11

So I think, really sitting down and mapping out who are these

Daniel: 00:30:13

people and how can I start building relationships with them?

Daniel: 00:30:15

So that you've really got that trust and from that, from your colleagues

Daniel: 00:30:20

and peers, it becomes really important because when there are those difficult

Daniel: 00:30:23

times, then you've got, a project manager or or business analyst or just

Daniel: 00:30:26

those cool people you work with on a daily basis are there to support you.

Daniel: 00:30:30

You're supporting them.

Rob: 00:30:31

Do you as change managers actually do relationship mapping?

Daniel: 00:30:34

Yeah, we typically would call it stakeholder analysis.

Daniel: 00:30:37

Sometimes there's people do network analysis in organizations.

Daniel: 00:30:40

That's usually more used than when you're trying to identify people informal

Daniel: 00:30:44

positions of influence throughout the organization and correlations

Daniel: 00:30:47

between groups and so on, and how you might approach different groups.

Daniel: 00:30:49

But a project you would map out all your stakeholders and whether, and

Daniel: 00:30:53

to what degree, are they someone who has a lot at stake for this project,

Daniel: 00:30:57

to what degree are they highly influential, what are their needs and

Daniel: 00:31:00

wants with respect to this project, how are they positively, negatively

Daniel: 00:31:03

influenced by a particular project.

Daniel: 00:31:05

So that's all this.

Daniel: 00:31:06

You do this whole stakeholder mapping and then understanding through it, essentially

Daniel: 00:31:09

what you're doing is you're understanding who the stakeholders are, what their

Daniel: 00:31:12

interest is in the project, what their influences over it, how they're impacted,

Daniel: 00:31:16

and then how you're going to craft messages to support them in the project.

Lisa: 00:31:19

Yeah, I've never done this specifically relationship mapping.

Lisa: 00:31:24

But as a methodology, it's definitely as much information as you can get,

Lisa: 00:31:29

as much feeling as you can have about it so that as Daniel said,

Lisa: 00:31:33

what they need, what they want.

Lisa: 00:31:35

And you know how you can balance that with the clarity of the goals

Lisa: 00:31:38

that you have is really just key to everything you do really in change.

Lisa: 00:31:44

And sometimes there's surprising stakeholders who

Lisa: 00:31:47

actually come to the fore.

Lisa: 00:31:49

Again, maybe somebody who isn't in a formal position of leadership,

Lisa: 00:31:53

but who has a lot of influence.

Lisa: 00:31:55

And this is where things like change agents can be really important where

Lisa: 00:31:58

you identify this person working on the shop floor or this person in admin

Lisa: 00:32:03

actually is really well connected to everyone and very influential.

Lisa: 00:32:07

And either they're really on board with this or they're not going back

Lisa: 00:32:10

to the example of, oh, this is a real pain for them, then put some

Lisa: 00:32:14

time and effort into finding out.

Lisa: 00:32:16

What they need, what would make it work.

Lisa: 00:32:18

And those sort of things just crop up as you go along the whole implementation.

Lisa: 00:32:22

You're not going to start off with a project plan with looking to this

Lisa: 00:32:25

person here, but you actually, you will have to do it if you want it to work.

Lisa: 00:32:30

So that's the sort of exciting, interesting part of change,

Lisa: 00:32:33

but also, when you're on a deadline, it's stressful as well.

Lisa: 00:32:36

So thinking, I really need to get on with this, but there's obviously

Lisa: 00:32:41

something that needs investigation here.

Rob: 00:32:43

It just comes up to mind.

Rob: 00:32:44

It's whack a mole, isn't it?

Rob: 00:32:46

And it's just, whatever, there's always going to be something else popping up.

Rob: 00:32:49

But you just.

Rob: 00:32:51

Okay.

Rob: 00:32:51

Just to wrap up, if you were going to give a message to leaders who

Rob: 00:32:54

are about to go through a change what would be your message and any

Rob: 00:32:57

tips that you might have for them supporting their team and, I'll go back

Lisa: 00:33:05

to

Lisa: 00:33:06

the beginning.

Lisa: 00:33:07

I would just say what I was thinking in the beginning, build the trust.

Lisa: 00:33:11

Hopefully you've already got it, if you're new, if it's a new thing, if it's

Lisa: 00:33:15

a new team, build the trust by doing things like walking the talk, being

Lisa: 00:33:20

honest making, owning up to any mistakes, making hard decisions, all that kind of

Lisa: 00:33:25

stuff, and getting to know people and where they're coming from, what they

Lisa: 00:33:29

need what skills they have, all of that.

Lisa: 00:33:31

What sort of mentoring they could have, what training they might need, look at all

Lisa: 00:33:36

that in terms of trust, and also focus on being really clear, and you need to get

Lisa: 00:33:40

that from your sponsors as well, and the clarity on how important is this change.

Lisa: 00:33:46

What do we need to deliver it?

Lisa: 00:33:48

And make sure that's in place and that you have everybody aligned around that,

Lisa: 00:33:52

and then you work with the team and make sure that the goals are really

Lisa: 00:33:56

clear and that everyone owns them.

Lisa: 00:33:58

That's what I would say.

Lisa: 00:33:59

That's the best start to any project.

Rob: 00:34:02

What you've said there really Lisa comes to mind, what comes to

Rob: 00:34:05

mind is I imagine the carpenter, they've got to measure up, they've

Rob: 00:34:08

got to align everything, they've got to make sure it's straight, balanced.

Rob: 00:34:11

There's always a physical analogy and it is, but it's obviously much more

Rob: 00:34:16

complex to do all of that kind of thing.

Daniel: 00:34:19

What would I say to leaders driving change or leading change?

Daniel: 00:34:21

I'd say number one is just understand that change success or failure will

Daniel: 00:34:25

very much hinge on you and your ability to lead and devote time and

Daniel: 00:34:31

energy and resources to the change.

Daniel: 00:34:33

Number two, I'd say, take a lead on crafting the narrative for this

Daniel: 00:34:36

change, why it's important to the organization, why it's important to

Daniel: 00:34:39

you, why we're doing it now, why it's important for others to get on board

Daniel: 00:34:43

and then really work to communicate that through all levels of the organization.

Daniel: 00:34:48

Then number three, allocate time, space, resource, and money to a change

Daniel: 00:34:52

management team and align the goals between The various parties from project

Daniel: 00:34:56

management and technical people to to the rest of the organization, the change

Daniel: 00:35:00

practitioners and what they're trying to do in terms of having the change

Daniel: 00:35:03

accessible means it's actually in place and used and adopted in the organization.

Daniel: 00:35:07

And that's, if leaders can understand those three things then I think They're

Daniel: 00:35:10

really going to drive successful change.

Rob: 00:35:12

Thank you.

Rob: 00:35:13

Thank you.

Rob: 00:35:13

Thanks, Rob.

Rob: 00:35:14

Cheers.