E47 - People-Centric Change - Podcast with Jennifer L. Bryan

So , taking a look at that also , of course , your satisfaction levels across the organization , which can be quantified , your retention levels as well as your productivity levels , because a happy workforce is going to be a lot more productive than an unhappy workforce , yes , from that standpoint . So those are your quantitative measures of success .

With over 20 years of work across various industries and organizations , Jennifer helps clients through taking practical approach , combining her coaching expertise with the focus on the behavioral aspects of change .

A firm believer that learning and change go hand in hand , Jennifer has developed the ABC Change Model , a unique change framework based on established theories of leadership and change . In today's episode , Jennifer and I chat about people centering change , a topic Jennifer is very passionate about and wrote a whole book focusing on that topic .

I am grateful to have Jennifer chatting with me today . Well , Jennifer , thank you so much for joining me in the Inner Game of Change podcast . I'm really grateful for your time today .

In a nutshell , where I'm really coming to the fore in this space is I'm very passionate about making sure people are thought of and are at the heart of the decision making room when it comes to change particularly .

You need the people involved in order for the change to actually happen , and what I know is a lot of organizations were very always focused on the thing that needed to happen , the task of the change .

They didn't focus on the people , and then they would wonder why it would fall flat on its face , and so that's what really made me start to focus and help people in taking a different approach is because without the people , it just quite simply doesn't happen .

So it is looking at what else is going on for them and how are they , as a result , thinking and feeling about life at the moment Much less . Then , how will they think and feel and perceive the change and the impact that may have for them ? How ?

So it's about understanding what all is going on . We used to pick up the newspaper . some of us still do . Some of us look at the newspaper on a screen , we're looking at apps from a news perspective , or we're watching it from television or tablets or whatever it may be . We know what all is going on around us and that has an impact on us .

That has an impact on how we feel , how we think about life , how comfortable do we feel , how confident do we feel in this moment in time , and that then has an impact on us as a person and therefore us as a person at work .

So to try and ignore that that doesn't have impact is just ridiculous , because that would be like trying to ignore that the sky is blue or that a tree is green . That's just not even part of reality . So to bring that to the fore and recognize it and notice it , say okay , this is what's happening . This is what's going on . How is that gonna impact people ?

And then you can start to make a conscious decision . Do we need to do something about this ? Do , even if it's just to say . I know things are difficult , guys , but I really appreciate your helping . hard work , keep going . It just doesn't take very much , but to ignore it makes people really does enormous amounts of damage .

They're sitting outside and you bring the meal to them and they decided whether they like it or they don't like it . A better approach is to actually take the customers with you in the kitchen . You show them , do all the ingredients and you show them what the final meal would need to look like and therefore you work together .

Is that a better approach And is that an early engagement ? Then they sit as passengers and then they decide whether they like it or not .

You're about to take them and making that meal , and so having , for example , make sure there's nothing in there that is gonna set them off from analogy arena Yes , that is , as a result , gonna really hinder things from that standpoint , understanding , as a result , more holistically , what is going to entice them to want to come into the kitchen , yes , and to

actually see the ingredients and see how you pull it all together from that standpoint . So it's about looking at the change from a holistic perspective , asking yourself what is the impact of those external factors that they may have on individuals ? What is the influencing internal factors ? Do we have everything in place ?

Do we have the right tools , processes , systems , culture , people , all of that , or do we need to get some of that in from that standpoint , or is some of what we've got actually gonna hinder us ? So , the knives that we got in order to do the chopping for the ingredients , do they need sharpening ?

Yes , or are they really dull And hence that's gonna stop us from being . It's gonna make it that much harder for us to make this meal .

So there's taking that holistic approach , and then there's also having the right people in the room , in that decision-making room , and understanding things And then saying , all right , what do you , now that we've got all of these , we understand these internal , external elements , then it's about getting their perspective and asking them So , what do you think ?

How do you feel ? Is this something that you're comfortable with ? Is this something that you could work with ? Is this something that's a big priority for you ? Or did you just have a huge meal a couple hours ago and , hints , aren't hungry ?

But from that , that is where all of your change plans , your stakeholder engagements , your management , your analysis of all of that . that's where your training plans , your communication plans they all stem from that . But you've got to do all that work up front first before you can go and start drafting up those plans .

That's where all the exceptions come into place and where people saying , oh yeah , you say that , but so and so gets to do X , so therefore I'm going to do Y And in the change as a result does not happen . Yes , so role modeling is really key . Utilizing the AB change model , because that gives you the right .

Once you know the type of change you're dealing with . That then tells you the leadership style you need to be demonstrating for that situation . Coaching people through when it comes to dealing with resistance , because there's lots of ways in which people resist . There's seven different reasons why they resist and coaching really helps people through that .

So those are the key elements when it comes to leadership . It's role modeling , utilizing the AB change model and coaching people in resistance .

But one of the key things that I always notice the interested leaders , when they show up to change and heavily engaged in it , they do offer that psychological safety . If my leader is there to support me is more likelihood that I'm going to be supported .

And obviously you know leadership behavior is going to have to reflect that as well , because you can show up and you can be intimidating and all of those things . Is that your experience ?

Whenever we had a key message that needed to go out across the whole organization , the sponsor actually sent it out .

We crafted it , but it all went from his mailbox through across the whole organization around the globe , and that has a major impact , because when it's coming from the talk like that and with when you've got real active and visible sponsorship , people sit up and pay attention to that .

And then when you're able to take them on a learning journey which is how it , which is very much in sync with the change journey And in my opinion , and hence the the , the kind of philosophy that I utilize people feel right . This is important . You know , when you've got the sponsorship right , they go . this is important for the organization .

This is a huge priority . It also then means that all the other leaders go , and that's right . Yes , it's not just us asking a favor and saying , oh , i need your help . Can you give me somebody from your team to help do yet , yet . yet It is actually . this is a big priority .

I'm going to make sure you've got the resources whether it's people or things in place to enable this to actually happen , and it opens up so many doors . from that perspective , you're then able to do a lot and you've got more , not just autonomy as a change person , but you have the permissions across the whole organization .

Everybody has the permission to go and work on this and to make sure this succeeds , because it's seen as the big priority or a very big priority for the organization . Therefore , it needs to succeed . Yes , from that standpoint . So it has a real , real , major impacts on the success levels of the change and the impact of the change .

And because that's the subtle message out of that , especially when and I work with a lot of executives when I overtly ask them to clearly articulate the expectations at the end of the change , and so those expectations are articulated in the front of the staff and the managers become the accountability and responsibility of the management team as well .

Would you agree with that ?

, when the leadership is not in the right place and what ? or the sponsorship , rather , is not in the right place . And what I mean by that is , if it's a genuine organizational , transformational change that affects all parts of the organization , that sponsor needs to be the CEO .

But many times the sponsor ends up being , if it's a technology change , the CIO , yes , or if it's an HR change , the HRD , and so and so forth , whereas in I argue , that's actually where the leadership of the change needs to be .

Because if it's a CIO and they are going in for a technology change and they're the sponsor rather than the CEO , then the CIO is having to go to the HR director , and then the comms and marketing director , and then the supply chain director and so forth , and effectively they're asking for a favor from them to help him on this change .

Yes , and that becomes and it's not that people don't want to help , they do more often than not , but it's not as seen as the big priority They will say , well , i've got a , yes , i can help you , but once I've , we've got all this other stuff going on , so we'll help as and when we can , whereas if it's the CEO who is the sponsor , that becomes a

priority for the organization . So when the CEO says , this technology change is critical for our whole organization because we need to be digital by default in these areas And so that we don't fall behind and hence lose the clients , and yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

And as a result of that , then the HR directors Priorities change and that's just the nature of the business and , as a result , supporting that change becomes a big priority for them rather than another thing for them to do . You mentioned something interesting It goes up on the priority list .

I have seen in the past CIOs sponsoring and I always had a question mark . But maybe later , after getting a lot of deeper experience , for me they can be a sponsor , but they are an executive sponsor somewhere . There is somebody else that we actually

deliver the change for .

And going back to the example I was sharing with you earlier , when they had the right sponsorship and leadership we had the sponsor was the CEO . That was really key . But I worked towards the CIO . He was the leader of change , but he very much saw himself as the leader .

He was driving it from a delivery perspective , making sure that things were in place and giving me the opportunity to enable things to happen . But we had the sponsorship from the CIO .

So when the big things had to get communicated , it came from the CIO and those key messages Because you also know , Ali , when it comes to messaging , at the end of the day , if you or I send out a message , the likelihood of people opening it , much less reading it , is one to two percent , Whereas if the CEO sends it out , that's 56 percent .

So there's a big difference there .

Because , of course , we work with everybody , works with them on a regular basis , yes , so that's really key .

Then you have your champions , and then your project team , and , and , and then your line managers , middle managers , team managers , and , and and everybody else . They all form part , a part of the change network . They are all involved with it .

The question is , at what level , with what responsibilities and with what actions as well , because not everybody has to be doing everything . Yes , so it's about unpicking a lot of that , and so that's that to me is what a change network is . So I just I just think that needs needed defining that in regards to the management of it .

What I've discovered So I was working on a research project with the university last year And this , this business school .

They have a membership group of loads of different organizations in the private and the public sector And they went to their membership group for volunteers to come on to this research project And what the project was about was integrating full site into people centric change .

Now I think rather naively myself and the other researchers on this project we came in a bit naively thinking people would because they volunteered to be a part of it , they would be really gun-ho to actually integrate a lot of the tools in the approach that we were testing effectively in this research project .

What was really fascinating is that they started out quite gun-ho but very quickly they lost the motivation and stopped doing it in many ways . What we discovered is that when people are faced with there's a couple of things , when people are faced with having to deliver change within an organization , there are a lot of things that get in their way .

One is themselves , because what , i must admit , i took for granted was that when I do a stakeholder engagement , i'm incorporating everybody . I'm not looking at just the project team , because I know this change is going to affect people all over the business and across .

Even if it doesn't affect absolutely everyone , if it's quite a very small , discrete piece of work that's only really going to impact a certain part of the business , there's still a slightly wider network that's going to need to help support people , whether that's your comms and marketing team , your training team , your HR team , whatever that may be .

I incorporate all of those people in a stakeholder mapping exercise and map them out , whether they are somebody who needs to be active in this and really act , or just kept informed , or someone who just needs to support every now and then on certain pieces of work and so forth .

But what I discovered is not a lot of people think in that way , because these member groups and there was 20 people involved across four different organizations they were only managing their stakeholders within their project team .

They're working in a very narrow perspective and that had a huge ramification in regards to the impact , because , of course , then they didn't make an impact in the organization for one . Also , the internal organizational DNA had impact on them as well .

So , for example , one of them mentioned how she was trying to do this change that was not going to realize for two to three years , which is fine . That's not that unusual for a change project to take a few years to realize the outcomes on that front .

But what she then struggled with is that she was being performance managed on an annual basis And she had issue on the fact that she didn't feel she was going to be able to illustrate how she is not poor performing when the changes that go into realize the outcomes aren't going to be realized for two to three years and in the first year she can't show any of

that progress . So there's all these different elements that really have an impact on change that didn't entirely appreciate going into this , because as an external consultant I don't get so much involved in those internal processes and so forth .

But they do have an impact on people unless you can help them actually put it into bite-sized chunks and make sure you've got that really broad perspective across the organization .

They have their performance reviews in November . Their budget starts in January , so the first quarter of the year is about three months . That's only reviewing priorities and all of that . So really when you start implementing the changes they won't happen until probably the January or February the following year , but then in November they have their performance reviews .

There's always out of alignment in there . And the other point is that I want to mention that I do find it curious that sometimes the ultimate goal of a change they are not articulated properly , especially at the business case stage And , for example , they will put different measures but they don't classify them as a lead indicator or a lag indicator .

And , as you would know , they're completely different things And for me it's like what sort of a lead indicator is that they're going to realize in two years ? A lead indicator can be way short of time . The lag indicator will be later , but certainly certainly your lead indicator . So when I start articulating and I worked with a client

in particular I looked at their business case And , although that was not my job , however , what I wanted to do was to articulate to them that you probably need to review your aims and targets and goals at some stage before you start , and it's in the best interest of the middle management because they will be questioned on them .

And so only when I classify them and to went through them and I classify them , and then I discovered that some of them they only have lag indicators And there's only that which is two years down the track . They're going to forget about them , the benefits will disappear And then , all of a sudden , we actually go in this cycle .

But I want to ask you a question around . So we talked about what people centric changes ? We talked about some definitions and enablers , we talked about the role of the leadership . I want to ask you a question around how do you measure the success of people centric change ?

So taking a look at that , also , of course , your satisfaction levels across the organization , which can be quantified , your retention levels as well as your productivity levels , because a happy workforce is going to be a lot more productive than an unhappy workforce from that standpoint . So those are your quantitative measures of success .

You also , very quickly , can take readings , and that's just across the organization . But you can also , before you even embark on change , understand where people are at . How are they thinking and feeling about things and then potentially about this change .

We talked before about that holistic approach and getting the voice of the people , understanding where they're at right now and then measuring that again , not at the end of the change , but I usually recommend six months after the change has been delivered , for lack of better words on that front and see where they're at .

That can also be another clear indication as well .

We actually , if you join the organization where there's going to be a change , our deal is that we're going to clarify it to you , we're going to engage with you , we're going to ask you to contribute , we're going to support you through it .

But also , i always talk about that change is a mutual responsibility , so we don't expect nowadays the modern workforce should not really just be sitting and waiting for things to happen .

If I feel that the change is going to impact the way I work , i think it's in my best interest to actually be engaged in that change , because that's the only way to influence and contribute .

So I look at that as a change experience and you're right , you're not going to engage that until probably three to six months after I've been going through the change post the implementation .

We need to be able to communicate why I use different avatars I've got Sam and Norwich , jane and Tay , maria and Brazil and why should they care about the change .

Yes , we need to be able to communicate very specifically , not just what the impact is , and we not put it in an all in management spiel of effectiveness and efficiencies because that gets us so excited , but it's about why should they actually care ? What is the impact on them directly , on their day to day world , and hence why they should care about it .

Once they we are able to communicate that as an organization , then it's about them coming on board and being engaged . Yes , that's a real key thing that a lot of organizations forget about and don't realize that . That is the criticality of communicating it in that way .

you offer me that particular space to be able to contribute and be creative in the design process .

If we're asking people to be engaged which , with change , we are we've got to be genuine with it and appreciative of that engagement and not just expect it and take it for granted and as a tick box exercise , which many , i would argue employee engagement surveys and so forth are tick box exercises And there might even be a session afterwards of , oh , let's

understand where this is coming from , but then very rarely does anything actually happen with it . And I think that's very important . That we as change leaders , change managers and the organization is , you know . First of all , we have to articulate the why , why they should care , help them , then get engaged and then show the appreciation of the engagement .

So we don't just to answer your sentiment around . don't take it for granted . That is the simplest way of not taking somebody's work for granted as well , and they will appreciate it . It'll come out of nowhere . We're very strategic . sometimes We send an acknowledgement on a Friday .

That will set them really nice for the weekend before they go for the weekend And we see see their manager , so they know . We would like their managers to know what their employees have actually done . We are coming to the end of the podcast , jennifer , i'm thoroughly enjoying this conversation .

I'd like to ask you to share with me what are the key takeaways that you would like our listeners to think about .

That then defines the type of change so that you can then use the AB change model to then take a look at . All right then , what do I need to do as a leader as a result of , and from there all your change plans come out of , the results of that ?

And whilst you're doing that , it's about taking that in-person , in-mind approach , so creating your own avatars . You don't have to use mine of Jane , tay or Marie , but really take a look at it from their perspective .

What is going on from you know , put on their shoes , see how they feel and take a look at the world around And whilst you're doing that , also check on the assumptions you're making whilst you're doing that and just really get an understanding of what all is happening from that perspective .

So those are the three kind of takeaways that holistic approach with the foresight or organizational development , the AB change model , and that in-person , in-mind , the voice of people .

I already thought of value , the addition to it , and that's a testament that you know , in the business of change , we don't know a lot .

There's my book out there called Leading People and Change , which is available in all of the online bookstores across the globe , And I've written lots of articles as well , so you can Google search those And they've been published in Workplace Insight Magazine and several other industry magazines also .