Welcome back in Your Leadership. I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo on this episode, I want to talk about change management and the elements that go into managing change with a team, especially changes that can be a little on the complex side. Yeah, I like that. I think what we tend to think that all change is simple, and that we say, like change
is the only constant and change we got to figure it all out. But like, change can be difficult most of the time, right, Right, If you it can be simple from a leadership standpoint to change things, if you expect to you know, have to do no work on your own and just expect people to change, right, then that that could be simple,
but it's often not effective. Right. So when you're when you're managing change, complex change, but even change that might not be complex, you have to understand there are elements that go into making sure that it is effective and that it happens. And you know, I saw a kind of a conversation online around this that had some elements listed that are needed in order for change
to happen in an effective way. And there are five elements that go into this, and I want to talk about it from the perspective of what happens when each of these or any of these is lacking. And so, you know, the conversation basically is that for effective complex change to occur, you need to have a vision, you need to have skills, you need to
have incentives, you have resources, and you'd have an action plan. And that seems pretty obvious, like, you know, there could be other that you might be able to think, oh, I need this in this too, But if you have those five things vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan, those are absolute prerequisites to you know, affecting a change in the right way. And if any of those things is lacking, you don't get change. You get something else, You get something other
than the change you're looking for. But what those outcomes are will vary depending on what is lacking. And the reason I think this is an important conversation is because there are leadership teams out there who are trying to affect change on their teams and one of these things is lacking. They're they're really good likely at some of these things, and some of these things they need to get better at doing. And if you're a leader of people and you're not getting
the change you're looking for. Being able to look at it through a lens of which of these things is lacking might help you figure out where to start making some changes, as opposed to just thinking, Wow, this change isn't happening. I wonder why let's start over. Maybe the plan wasn't right.
I think this is a good conversation to have around this. Yeah, And what I like about it too is like I think, in the context of it being about complex change, when we read through this and talk about these things, I immediately think about times where you're looking to have a leader with a team try to work through a strategy. So not even like we can say like change is one thing you hear change, you think of these big drastic movements or something that we used to do we totally don't do anymore.
We have to do this now. And I think about strategy, because strategy on the surface is change. Like you're thinking about what's something that you're looking to have an impact on, and then what do you have to do to work that out so that you can have the outcome that you want. Well,
that's going to be changing some things. And so when I think about this, I don't think necessarily about just the kind of the big elements of major change I think about when I sit down with the leader and I'm asking the questions about a strategy that they have and maybe why that strategy is not
being effective. This works out really, really well when I'm thinking about asking the questions that I need to ask and figuring out why maybe they're hitting some roadblocks on their way to success, right, because likely if they're hitting some roadblocks, it's because one of these five things is missing. And if they're thinking themselves, oh my gosh, like, my vision is amazing here, and my team has told like the skills that are needed to do this.
They have those skills and they're great at them. Why is this not happening? Well, well, clearly it's not lacking vision. It's not lacking skills. There's something else that's lacking. So, you know, the first kind of element of this, if we take away vision, if we just have a team that has, uh, they have a lot of skills and you've incentivized them, meaning there's you know, potential career advancement, or there's you
know, promotions or more money. If the organization or the team is saying, what do you need whatever, we can provide that you need to get this done. Here you go, you got it, and here's the plan. If you if you have all those things but you're lacking vision, this says that what you end up with this confusion. You have people who are
confused about what they should be doing. And that makes sense if you have the team that is a skillful team, and you're recognizing and rewarding them and you're giving them all the resources they need, but they have no idea what it is that they are, you know, looking to go to. It's not it's not like we're we're going to the moon, right, like that's the north star? What are you looking to do? We're we're changing this
organization's branding to you know, to appeal to this customer. Whatever it is, whatever that vision is. If it's not very clear, then you have different people taking those skills and those incentives and those resources, that action plan, and they're kind of directing it in varying directions, not towards kind of like a centralized goal. Yeah, this is kind of the epitome of the start with the why concept around like do people understand, like what is the
vision here? Why are we doing this? Right? You know, what are we trying to accomplish with this? What's the need for this change? And if you miss that part, then to your point, people create their own narratives. And while they may have the skills, incentives resources in an action plan, there's going to be some confusion because they're going to go different
directions. There's not that lighthouse that everybody's heading towards. There's no true clear vision on what's happening, and that's going to create confusion because people are going
to fill in the blink on their own right. And it will happen not at the beginning, because everybody will think that like the vision is one of those things where if you have of the skills and the incentives and the resources of the action plan and you're not being presented with a clear vision, people will fill that in and they'll think it's right, and they'll start working towards that thing they think is right, and it won't be clear that there's a
problem until people start looking around. I'm thinking, why is everybody going in different directions here? Right? Like it happens after the fact, you know, not at the beginning, and by then you've wasted a lot of time and you've wasted a lot of skills and incentives and resources. The next element that is a requirement. Here are skills. And this is when I'm thinking about, you know, something that I've been asked to do in my life,
like any type of change that I've been asked to do. If I've been presented with a great vision and the person who is expecting this change is incentivizing me to do it, and I've been given the resources, they're saying to me, hey, what do you need, Chris to get this done? And I say I need this and this and this, and they go, here you go, here's the plan. And in my mind, I'm thinking I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. That
leads to a sense of anxiety. And if I don't have the skills necessary to do something, that is where the anxiety comes from. And if they are skills that I think I can learn, that will lessen the anxiety. But if there's a timeline, and oftentimes change has a tight timeline or expectation
of timeline, that can heighten the anxiety. But as a leader, you need to be aware of what skills are needed to accomplish a specific change and where they're lacking, because if you put a team into action and say go do this without knowing where the skills lie, you're going to have some a lot of hesitation from a lot of team members who feel anxiety they won't be able to get it done and they're afraid of failing. Yeah, I think
this is a big one. You know. I talk about skills a lot because I think that we tend to make a lot of assumption of a specific set of skills based upon the title of people, and especially when you kind of get into the role of leadership, there's this assumption that everybody has the skill to do this thing. And while they may have some skill, it might not be the right skill. It might not be at the level that
you need it to be. It may not be a skill they've used in a long time, or maybe a skill that they've been able to kind of just barely get by with. And when you have change, when you have a strategy, when you have something that's going on, this is kind of the one of the first things I sniff out when it comes to just like why people may be feeling anxious about something that's happening, is is you start to ask enough questions you do start to under understand and discover that there can
there can be a skill gap. And that skill gap is what's causing that exacty, Because if everything else is there, you have it all, and there's still some anxiety towards it, it's more than likely going to be the skills and the person maybe they're not comfortable sharing that yet, or maybe they don't know, they don't know what they need to know, but they do know they don't they don't necessarily have what they need to make this happen.
Right, And when it comes to skills too, I also think about, you know, skills on paper versus skills in the in the moment when it's needed. Those are very different. And I think about it from the standpoint of like, let's say that you take self defense classes, right, and you've been taking them for two years, and you you you demonstrate with your instructor on how you can, you know, disarm a person who is trying
to rob you, and and it works well in the classroom. That doesn't necessarily mean it works well if you're actually being robbed, right, That doesn't mean that the moment that it actually happens, you're not going to freeze up
and forget or have the inability to demonstrate those skills in the moment. And so when you are a leader and you're trying to ensure the skills are needed, are there are It's not just about you know, being able to regurge to them or have them reiterate to you these are the skills that are needed
and yes I have them. You need to see them in action in a way that lets you be able to understand whether or not they can do it in the moment when when push comes to shove, and and if they can't, being able to recognize that and help them so that it becomes muscle memory, so that becomes something they can do in the moment, and that they're good enough at to do it when change is happening, not just good enough to do it when that's all they have to focus on is the skill,
but when there's other things going on that might lead them not doing it as well. The third thing that you can take away from you know, change management that will lead to not change management, or that will lead to not having a change is incentives. And you know, I think about this, you know, the the old Adam, the old uh acronym with them what's it what's in it for me? And that can sound selfish, but it
is what it is, like, it is selfish. If you're expecting teams of people to make complex changes, they need to see what's in it for them. And I'm not talking about they need to see that you're gonna, like, you know, give them, you know money, here's here's cash for making this change. That's not what it means. It just means that they need to see why this is happening and be bought into that change for something that is good for them and not just something that is good for other
people. And so if this, if the change is that, hey, you know, we're gonna ask that you start helping four times as many clients as you were currently helping, and and and and the uh, the the incentive is the company is gonna save money because we're gonna fire three fourths of you and one fourth of you is remaining to take on four times the work of the other ones. That's not an incentive, obviously, right, that's
that's a disincentive. And so but if the if the if it's articulated in a way that says, hey, you know, the the company's about to go under. We can't do this anymore, and we have to figure out a way to stay afloat. Then there are ways of doing this that that keep the people who have to stay on to do more work for them to see what's in it for them is that they're still employed and that they're gonna get through this tough time with the organization and then there will be more doors
that are opening in the future. But let's keep the boat afloat for a while, and you to be honest about what that incentive is it Again, the incentive can be very basic or it can be, you know, very broad, but it has to be articulated in a way where there's an agreement upon what that incentive is. Yeah, absolutely, I think too it's like resistance and incentives. And sometimes it's kind of like when you're talking through some
of the compensation pieces, bonus pieces, things like that. But I think for me, when it comes to strategy, it's like the incentive around what a what are you learning, what are you gaining, what's what's what? What what is this going to do to like kind of help you to move forward? Like I recently think about some conversations I was having and talking about like the not just the skills, but the things that you gain when you
work in retail, and and like these are like lifelong skills. These are things that you can either build a career on when it comes to you know, staying with the company working in retail. These are things that you can take with you as a side hustle, small business, other types of things. If you're really kind of thinking about what you what you get in working in this type of an environment, and those are incentives if you think of
them that way. But it's clear and you talk about it that way, and sometimes people don't think about those types of things, and so like that's where I think it's important to kind of clarify for people, Like when it comes to either the change or the strategy, here and here is kind of where this can go and which you can get from this and how this is going to help you going forward. Right, And if the incentives don't speak
to that person, then they're the wrong incentives. And that means either you need to help that person with incentives that are effective, or you have to understand that they're the wrong person to help manage this change. If the if you can't find an agreed upon set of incentives that work, then that's the wrong person to be, you know, part of this change, and it
might mean the the wrong person for the organization. But if you if you know your people and you work hard enough to make sure that you that you know what their long term goals are, it really shouldn't be that hard to figure out incentives that work. Even if you are limited on what you can you know, pay them or bonus them, there's there are incentives you can come up with that will work. The fourth element that is necessary here that
we've been talking about is resources. And so if you have a great vision and your people are skilled, and you've incentivized them by talking about the what's in it for them in terms of skill building, you know, doors being opened for them, promotions, potential bonuses, whatever that is. And you have a great action plan but you're not willing to put the resources into it,
then you're going to get a lot of frustrated employees. You're going to get employees who really want to make something happen, but they just can't because you have not put the resources into it that are necessary. Yeah, this one's pretty self explanatory. Pretty easy. And I think we all we've all been a part of that before, where it's like you have everything, you
know, everything makes total sense. You just don't have the resources you need to get it done in the time that it needs to get done or with the urgency that it needs to get done. And that can be super frustrating. Yeah, it can. And and you know, if you are a leader and you're noticing this, sometimes you know having to revisit the resources needed
in the moment or throughout the process is necessary. Sometimes you do your due diligence and you think these are the resources needed, and then you realize, you know what, maybe they're different resources are needed, and maybe more resource sources are needed, whatever that is. You need to be noticing this so
that you can react to it in the moment. And oftentimes you maybe you don't have the ability to make that decision to say I need more resources, but there are people you can partner with to at least put that out there and say, you know what, I feel like this is not working because I don't have the resources. You'll get one of two answers, either oh my gosh, here's more resources, or they're going to say, well,
other people are doing it with the resources that we'll be giving. Let's talk more about this, because maybe you think it's a lack of resources, but it's really a lack of skills, Or maybe you think it's a lack of resources, but it's a lack of vision. Whatever it is, you can interpret a lack of You could interpret a frustration as a lack of resources when
it might not be. And sometimes taking a partner with somebody who is not as close to it, who can you know, kind of look at it from a macro view, might be able to help you, you know, get through it. But if you're one of a whole bunch of leaders who is articulating that they don't have the resources and it's a kind of a shared frustration throughout, at that point your organization will have to decide either we need to put more resources towards this, or it was the wrong plan of action
and we need to kind of kind of back off. But but yeah, this is this is a very important one. The last one is a lack of action plan. And with a lack of action plan, you get you get what with this basically is false starting people have the vision, they have the skills, they have incentive incentivized to do it, they have the resources, but no one is really sat down and said, Okay, this is
step one, this is step two, this is step ten. Uh. If you don't have that action plan in place before the beginning, you'll have people who are starting at different parts of a plan, whatever works in their own head and and you won't be working together. There won't be any cohesion. There'll be people kind of like looking at different outcomes as the goal. When when an actuality, you know, you should be kind of level setting to make sure people are doing the same thing. It's a great call out.
You're going to have a delta in the ways in which people take action quickly and and how you know, even with the vision, the skills and sentives and resources, like, how they want to go about getting things done when they want to get it done. What's the level of urgency? You know? And and when you leave the ability to have a plan kind of open to all, then you get a lot of variance when it comes to you know, when does it start, when does it end, how does
it get cascaded? What what do the milestones look like? How do you communicate back in and form back it just it creates a lot of just kind of everybody running down their own path and then that you know again that can then then pull back and to cost some other issues there. But it's it
makes it really hard to move teams together. If ever, if everybody doesn't have a clear objective on what they're trying to do together from an action planning standpoint, right, And if you're if you're a retail leader or if you're you know, kind of in middle management in an organization, then oftentimes the action plan is given to you, like oftentimes the plan of action has been figured out by other people in beta testing or in you know kind of you
know, storyboarding things out, and resources have already been put into figuring out what the action plan is, and that it's assumed that if it as long as it's executed, that it will work. If you're fortunate enough to have that, that's fantastic. If you're the person who's putting together the action plan, then it's really important to make sure that the people who have to execute that plan are involved in the planning of it and are involved in the creation
of it. If you're just if you're a leader of people and you are putting together an action plan that your team has to execute, you won't get you You will get resistance from them. You will get this kind of you know, like, who are you to create this plan all on your own? If you are just you know, telling people what a plan is that was given to you, that's fine. It is what it is. And you're you're essentially a part of that plan too. You have your role to
play in that plan. But if you're creating that plan, do whatever you can to make sure that the people are executing it are as involved in that action plan as possible, because they will it will be more likely to buy into it and execute it correctly and be on the same page as far as
what the plan is. You kind of agree on it in advance, on what step one is and where you're going to start, and then you know you're less likely to get those false starts or people kind of acting on what they think is the right thing but doing it doing it in the wrong way. Absolutely, And with that it brings us to this episode to one minute Hack. But first a few words from our sponsors. All right, for
this episode, one minute Heckers wants you to do. I want you to look at this infograph and I'll put a link to it in the podcast description. It clearly lays out what happens when each of these things are are lacking. Look at this in the in the context of a change or a strategy that you're trying to put in place that you're having some difficulty with, and think about it from the perspective of which of these items is missing that could
be leading to it. Having an idea of where where an element is missing from this list of five things can greatly help you figure out where to put your efforts at resources into solving it. And also, and this is equally importan and ask somebody to look at it with you who is not as close
to the work as you are. So if you're the one leading the team and you have to do this, partnering with a person who can look at you and your team and give you ideas about where something might be lacking, that can be important because if they have a different perspective than you have, it could just be that you think one thing is lacking when really it's something
else. Partner with your team as well. If they're being expected to do something and you're not seeing the results, you're looking for, ask them what they think is missing. You can show them this this infograph and say, you know, this is what what we're expecting here, This isn't happening. Why do you think is not happening? Which of these things do you believe is missing? If you have varying answers from people who are all over the
placing what they think is missing, then then that's a problem. If they're all in agreement on what's missing, or if they're all raising their hands saying yep, it's resources, resources, resource. If they're all in agreement, you probably know at least where to start. You know where to start that process going. But it's necessary to manage complex change to have all of these things. If you're lacking any of them, you won't get the change you're
looking for. Yeah. No, I think it's a great practice as well when you're thinking about change or strategy to be able to answer the questions for yourself as a leader. So what is the vision here? Do I think we have the skills or what are the skills necessary? Not even do I think we have them? Like, what are the skills necessary to make this happen? What is the intensive for us to be successful here. You know, do we have the resources? What are the resources? And then and
then what is the action plan? And again to your point, is is it prepared for us or is this something that we have to create for ourselves. But taking that time to kind of answer those questions will be super helpful in either avoiding some of this from happening or minimizing it as much as possible.
Right, And I like that you brought up skills again because I think defining the skills necessary to do something not in the context of whether or not your people have them, but just in the context of what is needed and kind of defining that. You know, we talk a lot about that when
it comes to talent management and talent calibration. Being able to look at what skills are needed to be able to to do something and then applying that agreed upon skill set to the people is far more effective than starting with the question of do my people have the skills necessary to do this? It's much more subjective to start with the person and then to see if they have the skills
necessary. It's far more effective to start with the skills necessary, clearly define what those skills are, and then look at that look at each of your people through the lens of what you've agreed upon the skills are. If you don't do that first, it can be very easy to have different beliefs of who has the skills. You know, you have some leaders thinking that this team does have the skills and other people thinking this team doesn't have the skills.
And it all starts with the fact that no one is level set on what the skills are and how to define them absolutely. And with that it brings us to the end of this episode, this is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.