March 18, 2024 • 34 mins
In this compelling episode we plunge into Siddharth Kumar's change management insights. He is a veteran change management professional based in New Delhi who specialises in the finance sector with Levara Consulting.
Siddharth reveals the intricate workings of successful change management, addressing the cultural intricacies of global operations and the essential skills for adapting financial institutions.
The episode emphasises the importance of change management in major firms, the process of simplifying complex ideas, and maintaining a strategic overview. It delves into Siddharth’s finance background, his favourite change management methods, and his influential role in the ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals).
We conclude by talking about the impact of new technologies like AI on change management and the necessity of staying current and flexible. Siddharth shares his ambitions and preferences, offering valuable insights into the field’s adaptability and growth. A compelling listen for those intrigued by change management’s progression.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Supercharged, the change and comms podcast.
In this series, we've been traveling around the world meeting a whole host of
interesting folk who work in change management, and this episode is no different.
Delighted to have Siddharth with us today. He's based in New Delhi,
currently working for Levara Consulting, and at the moment is helping lead the
finance change for a strategic liquidity platform.
I won't go into much more detail. I'll let Siddharth do that for himself.
(00:29):
But Pete, over to you. Hi, Chris. Looking forward to this one.
Looking forward to finding out a bit more about what change management is like
in India today. Siddharth, we'll start off with an easy question.
Can you just give us an overview of who you are and what you do?
Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Pete. Thanks for inviting me to my debut podcast.
This is the first time I'm speaking to a podcast, so I'm looking forward to
it. And it's a pleasure to be here.
(00:50):
Chris touched upon it, and I am working in the area of finance change primarily.
I have close to 17, 18 years of experience in that field.
I'm currently working for a consulting organization, which is assisting clients
with strategic advisory for change programs. Also, we are working on several
regulatory mandatory initiatives and other transformation initiatives as well.
(01:11):
I'm also working or I should say I'm serving as a board member of the Association
of Change Management Practice, actively contributing to their fulfilling their
vision on leading the way change works.
So that's that's about myself. What's your kind of day to day look like then
in the work you're doing at the moment? Oh, it's a busy day,
honestly, because we are working on a lot of stakeholders.
(01:32):
There are a lot of stakeholder meetings that you've got to attend.
We are driving these changes online.
Across. And because it's a global platform that we are building,
you have stakeholders from EMEA, you have from APAC, and within APAC,
you have China, Japan, Australia.
So you got to hold your working odd hours, I think all the time zones you need to cover.
So your IT team sits in the US, you have your stakeholders in Japan,
(01:56):
which is the headquarters for the client, which I'm currently working on.
So I think it's, I would say your usual day goes 10-12 hours a day.
And then And you have these meetings, you have these stakeholder engagements
that go on for a very long time.
So that's how it looks like. What are some of the lessons that you've learned
from working with people?
Because presumably with all of those stakeholders across the world,
(02:19):
they come from quite different cultural backgrounds.
And perhaps there are some things that you've learned about how to get the best
out of people in different places around the world.
I think change is a chaotic place, to be honest. and what
I've understood from based on my experiences small things
are the big things when you're talking about change so what
works for you in one region may not work
(02:41):
for you in the other so for example if I'm speaking to someone in the UK I think
it's quite important for me to understand that UK people hardly work late but
if I'm speaking to someone in Japan 7 30 and 8 30 is their usual time to sit
and work and they are happy to attend meetings even till 8 o'clock at night.
So those are the small things that you need to be aware of.
(03:03):
Effective communication is something that you should be very fluent with.
And the other thing is, you should be very well clear on how each of your stakeholders respond.
So some of them are happy to get into a call and resolve your queries.
The others are happy to write them down and send it across to any emails.
So those little things matter a lot.
(03:24):
Then you have these little cultural nuances that you
need to be aware of so how you want to
approach these interactions within an
empathetical way you should have a willingness to learn so what
i usually do is when i when i get in touch with a new
stakeholder i start asking with this question what shifts time do they work
what what's their ethnicity where do they come from and then try to find more
(03:46):
probing questions on that so that's that's how i usually approach these these
conversations i just wondered after your observation about the uk which may
or I mean, it might not be true that we don't work too late.
Whether, I don't know, if I was to take on a stakeholder in India,
what would your recommendations be to me?
Not just in terms of working, right? The good part about working in India is
(04:09):
India itself is a very diverse country.
So I think you have multiple ethnicities based out of India.
You have different religions.
You have different regions. Every region has its own language.
So you can expect that person to be quite adaptable and quite flexible when dealing with change.
And if you look at the history of India, and I think we have been people who
(04:30):
have been really adjusting to new cultures. So starting from our history,
and I think British has ruled us for a very long time, and we have taken all
the good and bad things from them. And then we moved on.
And then in the era of the globalization, we have burgers and pizzas from whatever we picked up.
And then we have built upon them on our own culture, which fits our own culture.
(04:53):
So I'll say that's what you can expect for someone.
I assume that they are very flexible and very adaptable. I remember at once
I was speaking to an Indian guy and he was saying that the most important thing
in India was that you needed to get a sense of authority across.
So if you're promoting yourself, if you're putting a profile out there or you're
(05:14):
running an event or something, that the most the thing that people really wanted
to see was that you knew what you were talking about.
You had a great profile picture and that you just came across as someone that they should listen to.
I was curious just to ask you if that was something you'd found as well or if
that was just a one off. Things are changing, to be really honest.
So it used to happen, it has been happening.
(05:34):
But I think how things are, if you, things are quite different when you speak
to someone who's in an urban landscape than someone who's in a rural landscape. So what you said.
Primarily applies to some parts of the country definitely but the
urban india is this kind of developing because they are more globalized
and they have been interacting with a lot of global stakeholders so those
things are kind of yes they are there but slowly and gradually you are seeing
(05:59):
a shift culturally these things are moving into the right direction of how they
should be and you do see a lot of how should i say the the temples of power
are being challenged appropriately and which is why they should be,
because ultimately we are a democratic country and everybody has the right to speak.
Having said that, you do see examples of people in power trying to push their.
(06:22):
Agenda, but that's how it happens.
So this is a balance. It's a nice balance where we stay.
And I think that's true for not just for our country, but for every country
for that matter. Yeah, I would agree. Chris, do you want to tip in?
I've been listening and quite interested, actually, because it's one of those
things which which Pete asked that question about how would you go about understanding
a stakeholder if it's your first encounter with a culture,
(06:46):
and it's really quite an important thing because organisations become more and more global.
I was looking through the profile you shared with us, Siddharth,
and also across your LinkedIn.
You've worked in finance predominantly, haven't you?
That is your strength, isn't it? I often see in a lot of job descriptions,
a lot of job descriptions always say you must have a finance background,
and it always made me curious as to perhaps why that is.
(07:06):
So do you have any insights as to why you think a change management job,
which is working for a financial institution, that person must have a financial background?
Finance is something that I personally believe that people should be aware of.
Because if I take my example, for that matter, what it has done to us is that
we kind of understand the front to back flow.
So you understand how these transactions are getting captured.
(07:29):
What are those different systems that are capturing those transactions?
How they interact with the ERP or the ledgers that you have built in the systems
and ultimately how they are getting reported with the downstream and with the
reporting authorities that are there.
So if you understand that complete flow, it's very easy for you to understand
and generate insights that can help the management in the strategic decision making.
(07:52):
So that's that's what i i fully believe
that people working in the financial area and finance is something if
if somebody's aiming for a leadership role finance is the
number one thing that they should be able to read and understand
and interpret where the business is heading and what exactly are their areas
of concern if i can put it that way so if i worked for a finance institution
in the uk nationwide you may may have heard of them yeah that's a big one yeah
(08:16):
yeah and we were doing a treasury system replacement so we were taking out an
old treasury system and and replacing it with something more bespoke,
not bespoke, something more suited, Murex.
And at that time, we were one of the first organisations... I wasn't a bad one yet.
Yeah, one of the first organizations in UK and Europe to actually make that
complete end-to-end transformation.
Now, I didn't go into the nation. I did a huge amount of finance experience.
(08:38):
I've come out with an awful lot more knowledge, but I still don't really get a lot of it.
It is such a complex environment, isn't it? It's very complex.
You're right, Chris, because if I talk about, I think we are currently,
because we are working on a strategic platform, there is this new regulation
that's coming up, which is a recovery and resolution planning.
Now and you will not believe we went
into this meeting and people were were debating
(09:00):
what does recovery mean what does resolution mean aren't
they the same thing or not because resolve means that you
want to recover and there is a resolute action that
you need to take and it was a half an hour meeting and i think 20
minutes was spent only on those two words rather than going ahead so
it is very very complex we could not get ahead
apart from the english terms that were written in there so but
(09:22):
yeah you're right it's a complex world out there you need to understand
the reporting guidelines the intricacies and when you're
working on a global platform it's very important that
you understand the local nuances and conversely
because the program was you know so significant to
the organization i can recall that an awful lot
of what you know we would term that you know the bau staff the
(09:43):
people who are running the operation and using the system had to become part
of the program because they had the knowledge and the experience and
the the understanding the business rules if you like to.
Help us shape you know the delivery of what was needed you
know in terms of well before we got to uat or what have you in
terms of just the build and the test but we had
to bring them into our world as well so we had to engage bau staff
(10:04):
into what you know the program terminology was what
the roles within terminology the roles of a transformation were
so whether we're talking about dev environments or pmo or even
change management or you know different types of testing we had
to get them really you know knee deep into the details
of what project life looks like in the same
way that we have to spend time understanding theirs because it's not a
(10:24):
simple transformation is it finance of any kind we're
not looking at just you know a process change or
you know an application change it's it's so significant that
you need their knowledge in with us but for
them to be truly successful we have to impart our knowledge upon them so
you end up with a really interesting but yes and i don't think
that's specific to finance i think involving smes in
(10:45):
a lot of program and change type work is
yeah it was literally the
volume of those smes that we had to have they p it was not you know we weren't
talking to three or five people or the most experienced people we had to have
everybody from their data trading of bonds for example or something yeah you
know i had to get my head around very quickly in terms of explaining what the
differences will be post change
(11:06):
there was only one way i was ever going to learn that and then when i.
Have the benefit of going to uni to do it so i had to go quickly upskill myself
in the business but those people then had to come in and be part of our program
to set the new business rules and to do the set the
test scripts for sciat and uat and and but they didn't know what they were either
so we had to kind of train them more more and if you are never seen anywhere
(11:26):
else i think that's that's why change is a very good place to work on because
you you get to learn so much of new things that probably are not exposed to
in your day-to-day life or in your bau processes i came came from an operations background.
I was managing operations for one of the largest UK mutual fund houses,
Fidelity Investments. I was into operations.
But once I moved into change, there was no looking back for me because no two days are the same.
(11:51):
And like you said, I worked on upstream systems, loans, credit cards.
There's so many products that you deal with on and off. And then how do they
interact with what kind of rules
transformation happen? What is that reporting that is going to impact?
And then when you think of the bigger picture, that this is
is going to impact the balance sheet of the of the group that
you are working for it it tells you the kind of
(12:12):
important stuff that you're doing and that's why i say it's
a great opportunity to look what got you into change then what drove
that change from operations to be really honest it
was not a conscious decision for me to moving into change i had experience in
finance and that they were looking for someone so i applied for a job in hsbc
and they were looking for someone who understands finance very well i don't
(12:33):
know how i cracked that interview but i did thankfully i did which is how I
landed in finance, finance change.
But then, like I said, I think we traveled that journey and we built a system
for HSBC, which globally produced 80% of the group's balance sheet from that specific system.
So it was a significant impact.
And that's why I said that there's a humongous amount of opportunity to learn
(12:56):
a lot of things when you are into this kind of change.
And like Pete rightly mentioned, it's not just with finance, it's
with any other type of change that anybody's working
at yeah i mean sadly i am no better weather forecasting
for working for the met office i am at trading
bonds as i work for nationwide i have i have an understanding but i mean if
you ask me what the weather's going to be i have not been to the stage where
(13:18):
i've learned basic meteorology but i can help them with their change programs
i think that's that's exactly so change is is is at a crossroads whether i say so you have.
I think some time back I was talking to someone and they said that they are
looking for someone supply chain change management.
And I was like, okay, now I thought this is finance chain, now there's supply
(13:39):
chain change management, there's HR change, there's IT change.
And you see how the landscape of change management is evolving into these smaller branches.
And all of these branches, if you understand, there is, like you very rightly
said, there are SMEs and there are change manager specialists.
And both of them kind of are marrying with each
other to make a difference that can
(14:01):
help the organization achieve the strategic objectives so it's
it's a really good time to be in change management you're right
actually because i've just it's just dawned on me actually right
you do start to see no more change being categorized don't
you whether it's technology change or whether it's fast moving
by goods or finance change those categories
are starting to show themselves and the specialism i think that just shows the
(14:22):
cultural and maturity index of
of change management yeah and the other thing that
you will see these trends coming in you see roles
like chief transformation officer and global change leads also
coming in so at one level you see these branches being
developed and at the other level you see change getting consolidated at the
cxo level where one person is responsible for managing all the different change
(14:47):
initiatives and he has the budget and the resources so earlier what was happening
is that each of these silos were working in their own verticals.
But then at a global level or at a group level, you would see,
okay, fine, you have saved 10 million from one of the verticals,
but then you have spent 10 million dollars in a different one.
But all of those things will probably subside.
(15:10):
In the due course of time, if you have a single authority working and integrating
all the different changes that are going across.
So those are some of the good things or good trends that you see coming in the change area.
So if we take somewhere like HSBC, massive global operation,
what does their change management capability look like?
So if I talk specifically from a finance area, so they have this team called
(15:33):
the core finance change delivery team.
And this team is primarily responsible for leading all change initiatives for
majority of the HSBC entities across the globe.
So you have the single team of 2,500 to 3,000 odd people, and they are running
these change initiatives for different regions.
And each of these areas are catering to different stakeholders and different objectives.
(15:56):
But ultimately, that's under a single vertical, which is primarily been been
built to drive change for HSBC. So that's how.
And if I look about my current client, they are doing something similar as well.
So there is this global change team, or if I remember correctly,
global change management team, they're building and all of the different verticals,
(16:19):
because you have that business initiatives being run separately,
you have these downstream transformations happening separately,
there's data transformations happening separately, And all of those will get
consolidated and will sit under one umbrella, which will help you,
how should I say, gain the efficiencies that you do with those kind of technologies.
Multi-faceted transformations. So it's a
(16:39):
conversation Pete and I have had actually recently just on the old WhatsApp
groups as we go about our daily business but it's a good maybe it's a good time
to get some insight from from your experiences actually when you have an organization
as big and broad as that we have so much transformation occurring how do you
impact assess the business impact at an enterprise level or at least a finance transformation level?
(17:01):
This is where your knowledge of change management comes into play
because impact assessment is one of the the things it is
one of the key initial first steps that
you do to understand what is going to be the impact of
the transformation that you are initiating and how
you do that is is you analyze the current state and you always start with the
problem i think because you guys are running a change management podcast you
(17:24):
you you would have heard that term that 70 of the change initiatives fail right
yes and i yeah we have heard that yeah and and i am not very happy when people talk like like that.
And I say you don't focus on the 70%, just focus on the 30% of the change initiatives
that have been delivered successfully.
What are those 30% doing correctly? And once you start analyzing the 30%,
(17:45):
you analyze that they assessed their impact correctly,
they were able to kind of effectively communicate the problem in an effective
manner, which is why those changes got delivered in the right way possible.
So directly impacting of what your change is going to do at a group level may not be possible.
But for your own vertical, if you are able to do that, and then again,
(18:07):
that key person who comes into the play is their global change lead or the chief
transformation officer.
And then you have these different deputies under him. And you are able to present
for your own vertical, what's the impact that that change is going to happen.
Then at a consolidated level, they are able to.
Adequately prioritize and assess the right initiatives which
is why only the key ones go ahead and then
(18:29):
you'll say okay fine these are the ones that i would like to focus on yeah that
makes perfect sense i mean you've got to focus on the ones that are going to have the key impact
on the organization and those ones that sit beneath it which wouldn't have
such broad impact your prioritization is then used by your
heat map isn't it as you say from your verticals up one of the big ones
one of the ones that are going to have the greatest return on investment to the organization
or at least achieve a strategic benefit and then anything else under
that will need to be deprioritized until there's capacity in the
(18:51):
organization there's a lot of politics that also go i'm not
sure if i'm using the right term or not but uh and then you
have this stakeholder power interest grid that you usually use that how are
you going to convince those people high on power high on interest which are
the key ones that have a say in change management so if you are able to identify
those key stakeholders there are times when you understand that this change
(19:15):
is going to to have a significant impact on the group,
but the main stakeholders whose decision-making authority is not in favor of that.
So how are you going to convince them? How are you going to probably,
and that is where your data-driven decision-making comes into play.
So you don't go to them and you say, my belief is this, and my gut feeling is that.
You show them, okay, fine, this is the data analysis that tells us that this
(19:37):
is the impact that this specific transformation is going to have on the organization.
And then you have their trust, okay, okay, fine, this person has done some analysis,
and then you do the talking.
So those are some of the very small steps that you do.
But these are some key competencies that as a change manager,
you should have on your in your bag.
And once you go with them, then it's very, I'll not say it's easy,
(19:59):
but I think it's manageable from there on.
Are there tips or things that you think at that CTO or exec level that people
should be looking out for?
Yeah, I think you very, you touched upon one a very good point
uh pete there because at a cto level you you
would be you should know when to dive in when to kind
of pick your neck out of the water because if you
have that ability to kind of look at
(20:21):
the big picture and then dwell deep on on on specific point or specific program
that's that's been running then i think i would say you have the right tools
to be successful in that role because you will not be in a position you'll never
be in a position to kind of go into to the details of each and every program that's running.
But there would be questions that come up your way as to that this specific
(20:44):
change program is incurring a lot of cost and been running that for five years.
So at that specific, you will not be able to answer that question if you do
not know the details of that.
Point. So that switch is very important.
When to switch back and when to switch in is something that's very key for that.
And then obviously, you have these technical skills that would be required and
(21:05):
what kind of data you would like to present so that your ideas do get by and
how do you visualize that data?
What type of tools that you use? What kind of data?
Because sometimes what you have a lot of data, you cannot present everything to people.
Nobody's going to to understand that so an effective way
i stress upon the effective communication is that
(21:25):
when you translate complex things into simple language and
if you are able to do that then i think you have the
right tools to be successful in that kind of role when i was at nationwide there
was a number of different things i walked in there and it was one of the first jobs
i'd had outside of my previous experiences it's probably the first
job i'd had actually where i went in not knowing much
about the subject matter and it's quite intimidating and on
(21:46):
the first day i walked in we were doing money laundering there's
a project small projects about money laundering and just improving basic
knowledge within the branches to identify the themes and stuff and
this guy walks in and he puts up his presentation on the
screen and on the home page the first page of his presentation is a
tank and i'm sat like a boss on earth and
it's a real good way to humanize banking and
(22:08):
finance because essentially what they were saying to us was that when we get
money laundering wrong more often than not it's going
into you know illegal arms or or forms of
slavery or other of things like that and i thought it was a real eye-opener actually
that the finance industry at least the parts i had experienced were
humanizing aspects for their staff to understand such
serious topics but actually what you know the real outcomes without as you say
(22:30):
just hitting us with loads of jargon or legal language and or finance terms
and that's that's usually a challenge if you're a change manager or if you're
a kind of someone who's established as change manager because people people
expect you to know everything, which usually is not true.
So, and I think it's very important for you to say it loud and clear that I
do not understand this concept, because then you remove that only impediment
(22:54):
out of your way. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I know a bit more about probably retail banking, though I do liquid,
liquid, liquid, say the word liquidity.
And that sounds like it's a lot more complex and perhaps the knowledge I've
got, but it sounds like from your profile, now you're the right guy to do it. No, no, no, I don't know.
I'll be honest. I I mean, I'm not someone who's an expert, but yes,
(23:14):
there's a lot of learning to do.
We've talked around about the stuff that you've been doing in finance and the
types of products you're on, but do you guys use ProSci or a different methodology?
Usually what happens, Chris, is each of the organizations have their own methodologies.
Not everybody kind of goes into that. And which is why, what is it?
If you are using ProSci, you kind of put that I'm using, I'm delivering this
(23:34):
change as per the ADKAR method.
But most of the organizations don't rely on just one methodology.
So they probably go ahead and have their own picking up the key points from
each of the different methodologies out there.
And that's how you kind of deliver these. Yeah, no, I completely agree.
I only swung it to my mind because on your profile, you quote Kotter.
There are obviously some similarities between the two.
(23:57):
I mean, I've read significant books from Kotter. I think he's,
I call him the father of change management.
So I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I've learned a lot from him.
Yeah, I mean, that's where I started all those years ago.
And as you say, you move along and essentially you kind of,
I know people say they pick up their own toolkit, kit but essentially i
find that we have a blueprint before a toolkit don't we we kind of look at
(24:18):
the change we're facing and we're looking at what we're going to need and
then we'll go to our toolkit to go and find out whether or not we've got it
or we need to go get it in and just because you mentioned that
chris so that's where your things like standard
of change management come into play because what they tell you
is that you can use any methodology or any framework like prosci like
apmg like cotter's eight step model but these
(24:39):
are the steps that you need to follow so they don't
tell you that you just follow one specific model methodology like
prosci will tell you or like lemarche model
will tell you but they tell you that any model that you are
going to use this is what these are these steps that
if you follow then you are going in the right direction so and
within the changes that you need because prosci doesn't really go into benefits
(25:00):
realization once you get past that reinforcement piece it kind of projects close
to its end anyway but in the projects that you're working through do you do
you follow through and do you start to measure at the early stages of benefits
realization you're not going to get your budget if you don't do that.
No i know but it's interesting is it because some places i've
worked they insist that the business do it and other places i've worked
(25:21):
they insist that it becomes part of the change management process and i think
it does sit within the change management process because i think that's your
true measure as to wherefore not the intervention you've applied have been successfully
adopted and responded it definitely sits with the change manager is what i think
because you are the the one who's taken that initiative of delivering that specific change.
So if we switch over to your role at the ACMP, which is the Association of Change
(25:44):
Management Professionals, you've got quite a significant role there,
haven't you? ACMP was something that
is working in, they have this vision of leading the way change works.
And they have published the standard of change management, which has been recognized
by the Forbes as a key standard that any aspiring change managers can refer
to. And I joined there as a volunteer.
(26:06):
And I think I was part of the finance committee as well.
I'm still I'm the part of the finance committee. But then I think I was asked
to apply for the board role.
And we went through that. So now ECMP is also so undergoing change.
And we were joking the other day that everybody is a change.
Everybody comes from the background of change management. But I think transforming
(26:27):
the organization when everybody's from change is also difficult because nobody
agrees on one thing and everybody has their own ideas of how to proceed about change.
And we are talking about the next level. We are talking about how to get more
members to the organization. There is a lot of growth story that we are building.
But it's an exciting time there as well. So we are working on taking the organization
(26:50):
to the next level or the association to the next level. So it's really exciting.
You have a plethora of resources that you can rely on.
You have things like ACMP Connect, which has different communities.
If you want to understand something about agile change management,
there is a community on agile change.
If you want to understand about technology, then you have have come into on it
(27:11):
there's something called innovation lab then there is there are
all sorts of different communities so you get these resources at
your disposal so i may be struggling with a
difficult stakeholder and i can raise that or i'm someone
who's not very inclusive in the way he speaks and i
have that dei community raise that question on how should i deal with that
and then you have these committee participants answering all of those questions
(27:32):
for me so these type of association the this kind of a platform is someone i
see aspiring change managers should be should be joining because they provide
those resources that can really help you come up to terms pretty quickly because
of all these resources that they provide.
I wanted just to pick up on something you said about the ability of change managers
(27:52):
and change management teams to change themselves.
And if I just dive in a little bit on that, I wondered if you had any tips in
terms of managing change or uncertainty in your own life, whether there's things
you've learned in your career or outside of your career that you've kind of
taken on and that might be useful to listeners?
I would say that expect the unexpected
always. I've spoken about being adaptable and open to new ideas.
(28:17):
In my personal professional life, I have had some really harsh feedbacks,
but I think it's your attitude of whether you take that as a criticism or you take that as a feedback.
If you take that as a feedback, then I think your growth story is going to be
very different because sometimes those feedbacks may be harsh,
but they help you become a good person and they help you assess your weaknesses,
(28:37):
which you would have never otherwise thought of.
If I talk about in my professional life, we have seen certain challenges and
the COVID time was once a challenge.
Even when you were managing your personal life, I became dad for the second
time in 2019 and 2020 is lockdown.
So my wife was working, I was working and we had these two little kids to take
(28:59):
care of all locked in the same house.
And it was a very difficult area to manage your professional life.
And then you also understand the importance of these things.
And now hybrid work is becoming the norm.
So you try to respect people who are working.
And I touched upon it at the start that when you are able to understand your stakeholders,
(29:21):
so if I understand that Pete today is working from home and he's taking care
of the kid, I'll probably not keep very long calls for you or will not keep
the calls when you are taking care of your child. So those kinds of things do matter a lot.
So just an example that came to my mind and I was mentioning that,
I'm not sure how good that was.
Nice, good example. It is a good example. Well, I can think of many years we've
been on where even children have appeared on the screen.
(29:43):
I like to try and get them to tell me things. It's funny, as soon as you reference
the COVID and the lockdowns, particularly the people we talk about in change,
it always brings a smile to people's faces.
It's going to be a true anchor of our generation, isn't it? That we look back
and go, yep, significant change in the world, significant change in the workplace,
a significant change for us.
It's kind of like, and as a change manager, we're dealing with all of it and
(30:04):
then trying to make life easier for others. It was a period,
yeah. Again, that was an opportunity.
Most of the people, it was a big change that was going globally.
I think most of the certifications that I've gathered was during that time.
Because you were sitting at home, you'd stopped wasting a lot of time in traveling.
So you kind of try to gather how you utilize that time.
So again, something that you can use every opportunity or every disruption to your advantage.
(30:30):
Yeah, I'd never thought about how much money training organizations must have made from COVID. Yes.
From people with the time. And I saw this graph that I think the training organization
graph is now going downwards because people have been asked to join offices of BACs.
That's true. What do you do for your own personal self-development and change sense, Siddharth?
Aside from the usual type of significant courses and significant investments,
(30:54):
what do you do to stay fine-tuned or keep the pencil sharp?
That's a good question, Chris, because now we are into change management and
we spoke about finance change as well.
So apart from that, there are a lot of changes that are happening on the technical sides as well.
So you have generative AI coming into the picture. You have the cloud migrations
that are happening. So we did this digital transformation and we were not sure
(31:18):
how cloud works, what exactly is on-prem, off-prem or those kind of stuff that usually happens.
So when you are in the middle of that change, probably you come back and you
try to read about all of those things, all of those new developments that are ongoing.
When a chat GPT happened, that generative AI happened, I think the first thing
that comes to a change manager's mind is how is this going to impact me?
(31:40):
What kind of change initiatives are you going to expect in the next three to
four months? And that's exactly what happened.
We worked on, with a recent client, they now want to build a tool which is based
out of a generative AI language.
And they have already started working on it. Now we are in the middle of it
as change managers. So we need to understand how will that work?
(32:00):
What are the kind of requirements that you need to put in place? so you
use this as opportunities to read about
new stuff to read about read about new
technologies that are evolving you have different languages
so sql i learned sql because
i had to do something of the visualization stuff and python
and all of those stuff so it's it's not just that you only
(32:22):
read about chain you probably need the execution of all
of these evolving technologies that come your way i
agree it's something i really enjoy about it yeah it's taking
just just the first two inches of the depth isn't it and that's just to have
enough of an understanding to have a conversation to get
started otherwise we'd be experts in everything wouldn't we what
are your goals and aspirations or what's coming up next for
you i want to work on a change initiative that makes people's life
(32:44):
better that's that's that's what i really aspire for and you will ask that aren't
what you're doing making people's life better i'll say yes there it is but i
want to contribute or i will give it back to the profession of change in the
best way possible and that's That's how you would like to contribute to a change initiatives,
wherein you directly impact the lives of people around you.
(33:06):
And I'm not sure if I will be able to do that.
But if I am able to do that, then definitely that will be something that I'm
going to be proud of once I hang my boots.
So that is that's what something I'm really motivated to do sometime in the future.
When that is, I don't know. Do you think that would be in finance? It could be.
It could definitely be in finance,
given the fact that I have spent a good amount of time in this field.
(33:30):
But it could be otherwise also, which is why change is the most unexpected thing,
and you should always expect the unexpected. That could be our tagline.
I like it. It's just so true, isn't it? Zidav, so one thing we do in each of
our podcasts is we do like to ask our guests what their favourite biscuit is.
Ah, my favourite biscuit is the one that I take with my morning tea,
(33:52):
McVitie's. Okay, yeah, we know what McVitie's is.
Yeah, it's a good biscuit. You can't go wrong. Chocolate?
Chocolate, yeah. Fair enough. i think you're
the first person that said that i've always said that that's my
favorite but i don't know we've had biscuits and gravy biscuits you hit on your
head all kinds of things so thank you so much for your time today we've thoroughly
(34:12):
enjoyed having you on the supercharged change on comms podcast thank you chris
thank you pete it's been an honor i think it's a pleasure to be here and i would
love to speak to you guys again thank you very much see you soon.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Supercharged, the change and comms podcast.
In this series, we've been traveling around the world meeting a whole host of
interesting folk who work in change management, and this episode is no different.
Delighted to have Siddharth with us today. He's based in New Delhi,
currently working for Levara Consulting, and at the moment is helping lead the
finance change for a strategic liquidity platform.
I won't go into much more detail. I'll let Siddharth do that for himself.
(00:29):
But Pete, over to you. Hi, Chris. Looking forward to this one.
Looking forward to finding out a bit more about what change management is like
in India today. Siddharth, we'll start off with an easy question.
Can you just give us an overview of who you are and what you do?
Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Pete. Thanks for inviting me to my debut podcast.
This is the first time I'm speaking to a podcast, so I'm looking forward to
it. And it's a pleasure to be here.
(00:50):
Chris touched upon it, and I am working in the area of finance change primarily.
I have close to 17, 18 years of experience in that field.
I'm currently working for a consulting organization, which is assisting clients
with strategic advisory for change programs. Also, we are working on several
regulatory mandatory initiatives and other transformation initiatives as well.
(01:11):
I'm also working or I should say I'm serving as a board member of the Association
of Change Management Practice, actively contributing to their fulfilling their
vision on leading the way change works.
So that's that's about myself. What's your kind of day to day look like then
in the work you're doing at the moment? Oh, it's a busy day,
honestly, because we are working on a lot of stakeholders.
(01:32):
There are a lot of stakeholder meetings that you've got to attend.
We are driving these changes online.
Across. And because it's a global platform that we are building,
you have stakeholders from EMEA, you have from APAC, and within APAC,
you have China, Japan, Australia.
So you got to hold your working odd hours, I think all the time zones you need to cover.
So your IT team sits in the US, you have your stakeholders in Japan,
(01:56):
which is the headquarters for the client, which I'm currently working on.
So I think it's, I would say your usual day goes 10-12 hours a day.
And then And you have these meetings, you have these stakeholder engagements
that go on for a very long time.
So that's how it looks like. What are some of the lessons that you've learned
from working with people?
Because presumably with all of those stakeholders across the world,
(02:19):
they come from quite different cultural backgrounds.
And perhaps there are some things that you've learned about how to get the best
out of people in different places around the world.
I think change is a chaotic place, to be honest. and what
I've understood from based on my experiences small things
are the big things when you're talking about change so what
works for you in one region may not work
(02:41):
for you in the other so for example if I'm speaking to someone in the UK I think
it's quite important for me to understand that UK people hardly work late but
if I'm speaking to someone in Japan 7 30 and 8 30 is their usual time to sit
and work and they are happy to attend meetings even till 8 o'clock at night.
So those are the small things that you need to be aware of.
(03:03):
Effective communication is something that you should be very fluent with.
And the other thing is, you should be very well clear on how each of your stakeholders respond.
So some of them are happy to get into a call and resolve your queries.
The others are happy to write them down and send it across to any emails.
So those little things matter a lot.
(03:24):
Then you have these little cultural nuances that you
need to be aware of so how you want to
approach these interactions within an
empathetical way you should have a willingness to learn so what
i usually do is when i when i get in touch with a new
stakeholder i start asking with this question what shifts time do they work
what what's their ethnicity where do they come from and then try to find more
(03:46):
probing questions on that so that's that's how i usually approach these these
conversations i just wondered after your observation about the uk which may
or I mean, it might not be true that we don't work too late.
Whether, I don't know, if I was to take on a stakeholder in India,
what would your recommendations be to me?
Not just in terms of working, right? The good part about working in India is
(04:09):
India itself is a very diverse country.
So I think you have multiple ethnicities based out of India.
You have different religions.
You have different regions. Every region has its own language.
So you can expect that person to be quite adaptable and quite flexible when dealing with change.
And if you look at the history of India, and I think we have been people who
(04:30):
have been really adjusting to new cultures. So starting from our history,
and I think British has ruled us for a very long time, and we have taken all
the good and bad things from them. And then we moved on.
And then in the era of the globalization, we have burgers and pizzas from whatever we picked up.
And then we have built upon them on our own culture, which fits our own culture.
(04:53):
So I'll say that's what you can expect for someone.
I assume that they are very flexible and very adaptable. I remember at once
I was speaking to an Indian guy and he was saying that the most important thing
in India was that you needed to get a sense of authority across.
So if you're promoting yourself, if you're putting a profile out there or you're
(05:14):
running an event or something, that the most the thing that people really wanted
to see was that you knew what you were talking about.
You had a great profile picture and that you just came across as someone that they should listen to.
I was curious just to ask you if that was something you'd found as well or if
that was just a one off. Things are changing, to be really honest.
So it used to happen, it has been happening.
(05:34):
But I think how things are, if you, things are quite different when you speak
to someone who's in an urban landscape than someone who's in a rural landscape. So what you said.
Primarily applies to some parts of the country definitely but the
urban india is this kind of developing because they are more globalized
and they have been interacting with a lot of global stakeholders so those
things are kind of yes they are there but slowly and gradually you are seeing
(05:59):
a shift culturally these things are moving into the right direction of how they
should be and you do see a lot of how should i say the the temples of power
are being challenged appropriately and which is why they should be,
because ultimately we are a democratic country and everybody has the right to speak.
Having said that, you do see examples of people in power trying to push their.
(06:22):
Agenda, but that's how it happens.
So this is a balance. It's a nice balance where we stay.
And I think that's true for not just for our country, but for every country
for that matter. Yeah, I would agree. Chris, do you want to tip in?
I've been listening and quite interested, actually, because it's one of those
things which which Pete asked that question about how would you go about understanding
a stakeholder if it's your first encounter with a culture,
(06:46):
and it's really quite an important thing because organisations become more and more global.
I was looking through the profile you shared with us, Siddharth,
and also across your LinkedIn.
You've worked in finance predominantly, haven't you?
That is your strength, isn't it? I often see in a lot of job descriptions,
a lot of job descriptions always say you must have a finance background,
and it always made me curious as to perhaps why that is.
(07:06):
So do you have any insights as to why you think a change management job,
which is working for a financial institution, that person must have a financial background?
Finance is something that I personally believe that people should be aware of.
Because if I take my example, for that matter, what it has done to us is that
we kind of understand the front to back flow.
So you understand how these transactions are getting captured.
(07:29):
What are those different systems that are capturing those transactions?
How they interact with the ERP or the ledgers that you have built in the systems
and ultimately how they are getting reported with the downstream and with the
reporting authorities that are there.
So if you understand that complete flow, it's very easy for you to understand
and generate insights that can help the management in the strategic decision making.
(07:52):
So that's that's what i i fully believe
that people working in the financial area and finance is something if
if somebody's aiming for a leadership role finance is the
number one thing that they should be able to read and understand
and interpret where the business is heading and what exactly are their areas
of concern if i can put it that way so if i worked for a finance institution
in the uk nationwide you may may have heard of them yeah that's a big one yeah
(08:16):
yeah and we were doing a treasury system replacement so we were taking out an
old treasury system and and replacing it with something more bespoke,
not bespoke, something more suited, Murex.
And at that time, we were one of the first organisations... I wasn't a bad one yet.
Yeah, one of the first organizations in UK and Europe to actually make that
complete end-to-end transformation.
Now, I didn't go into the nation. I did a huge amount of finance experience.
(08:38):
I've come out with an awful lot more knowledge, but I still don't really get a lot of it.
It is such a complex environment, isn't it? It's very complex.
You're right, Chris, because if I talk about, I think we are currently,
because we are working on a strategic platform, there is this new regulation
that's coming up, which is a recovery and resolution planning.
Now and you will not believe we went
into this meeting and people were were debating
(09:00):
what does recovery mean what does resolution mean aren't
they the same thing or not because resolve means that you
want to recover and there is a resolute action that
you need to take and it was a half an hour meeting and i think 20
minutes was spent only on those two words rather than going ahead so
it is very very complex we could not get ahead
apart from the english terms that were written in there so but
(09:22):
yeah you're right it's a complex world out there you need to understand
the reporting guidelines the intricacies and when you're
working on a global platform it's very important that
you understand the local nuances and conversely
because the program was you know so significant to
the organization i can recall that an awful lot
of what you know we would term that you know the bau staff the
(09:43):
people who are running the operation and using the system had to become part
of the program because they had the knowledge and the experience and
the the understanding the business rules if you like to.
Help us shape you know the delivery of what was needed you
know in terms of well before we got to uat or what have you in
terms of just the build and the test but we had
to bring them into our world as well so we had to engage bau staff
(10:04):
into what you know the program terminology was what
the roles within terminology the roles of a transformation were
so whether we're talking about dev environments or pmo or even
change management or you know different types of testing we had
to get them really you know knee deep into the details
of what project life looks like in the same
way that we have to spend time understanding theirs because it's not a
(10:24):
simple transformation is it finance of any kind we're
not looking at just you know a process change or
you know an application change it's it's so significant that
you need their knowledge in with us but for
them to be truly successful we have to impart our knowledge upon them so
you end up with a really interesting but yes and i don't think
that's specific to finance i think involving smes in
(10:45):
a lot of program and change type work is
yeah it was literally the
volume of those smes that we had to have they p it was not you know we weren't
talking to three or five people or the most experienced people we had to have
everybody from their data trading of bonds for example or something yeah you
know i had to get my head around very quickly in terms of explaining what the
differences will be post change
(11:06):
there was only one way i was ever going to learn that and then when i.
Have the benefit of going to uni to do it so i had to go quickly upskill myself
in the business but those people then had to come in and be part of our program
to set the new business rules and to do the set the
test scripts for sciat and uat and and but they didn't know what they were either
so we had to kind of train them more more and if you are never seen anywhere
(11:26):
else i think that's that's why change is a very good place to work on because
you you get to learn so much of new things that probably are not exposed to
in your day-to-day life or in your bau processes i came came from an operations background.
I was managing operations for one of the largest UK mutual fund houses,
Fidelity Investments. I was into operations.
But once I moved into change, there was no looking back for me because no two days are the same.
(11:51):
And like you said, I worked on upstream systems, loans, credit cards.
There's so many products that you deal with on and off. And then how do they
interact with what kind of rules
transformation happen? What is that reporting that is going to impact?
And then when you think of the bigger picture, that this is
is going to impact the balance sheet of the of the group that
you are working for it it tells you the kind of
(12:12):
important stuff that you're doing and that's why i say it's
a great opportunity to look what got you into change then what drove
that change from operations to be really honest it
was not a conscious decision for me to moving into change i had experience in
finance and that they were looking for someone so i applied for a job in hsbc
and they were looking for someone who understands finance very well i don't
(12:33):
know how i cracked that interview but i did thankfully i did which is how I
landed in finance, finance change.
But then, like I said, I think we traveled that journey and we built a system
for HSBC, which globally produced 80% of the group's balance sheet from that specific system.
So it was a significant impact.
And that's why I said that there's a humongous amount of opportunity to learn
(12:56):
a lot of things when you are into this kind of change.
And like Pete rightly mentioned, it's not just with finance, it's
with any other type of change that anybody's working
at yeah i mean sadly i am no better weather forecasting
for working for the met office i am at trading
bonds as i work for nationwide i have i have an understanding but i mean if
you ask me what the weather's going to be i have not been to the stage where
(13:18):
i've learned basic meteorology but i can help them with their change programs
i think that's that's exactly so change is is is at a crossroads whether i say so you have.
I think some time back I was talking to someone and they said that they are
looking for someone supply chain change management.
And I was like, okay, now I thought this is finance chain, now there's supply
(13:39):
chain change management, there's HR change, there's IT change.
And you see how the landscape of change management is evolving into these smaller branches.
And all of these branches, if you understand, there is, like you very rightly
said, there are SMEs and there are change manager specialists.
And both of them kind of are marrying with each
other to make a difference that can
(14:01):
help the organization achieve the strategic objectives so it's
it's a really good time to be in change management you're right
actually because i've just it's just dawned on me actually right
you do start to see no more change being categorized don't
you whether it's technology change or whether it's fast moving
by goods or finance change those categories
are starting to show themselves and the specialism i think that just shows the
(14:22):
cultural and maturity index of
of change management yeah and the other thing that
you will see these trends coming in you see roles
like chief transformation officer and global change leads also
coming in so at one level you see these branches being
developed and at the other level you see change getting consolidated at the
cxo level where one person is responsible for managing all the different change
(14:47):
initiatives and he has the budget and the resources so earlier what was happening
is that each of these silos were working in their own verticals.
But then at a global level or at a group level, you would see,
okay, fine, you have saved 10 million from one of the verticals,
but then you have spent 10 million dollars in a different one.
But all of those things will probably subside.
(15:10):
In the due course of time, if you have a single authority working and integrating
all the different changes that are going across.
So those are some of the good things or good trends that you see coming in the change area.
So if we take somewhere like HSBC, massive global operation,
what does their change management capability look like?
So if I talk specifically from a finance area, so they have this team called
(15:33):
the core finance change delivery team.
And this team is primarily responsible for leading all change initiatives for
majority of the HSBC entities across the globe.
So you have the single team of 2,500 to 3,000 odd people, and they are running
these change initiatives for different regions.
And each of these areas are catering to different stakeholders and different objectives.
(15:56):
But ultimately, that's under a single vertical, which is primarily been been
built to drive change for HSBC. So that's how.
And if I look about my current client, they are doing something similar as well.
So there is this global change team, or if I remember correctly,
global change management team, they're building and all of the different verticals,
(16:19):
because you have that business initiatives being run separately,
you have these downstream transformations happening separately,
there's data transformations happening separately, And all of those will get
consolidated and will sit under one umbrella, which will help you,
how should I say, gain the efficiencies that you do with those kind of technologies.
Multi-faceted transformations. So it's a
(16:39):
conversation Pete and I have had actually recently just on the old WhatsApp
groups as we go about our daily business but it's a good maybe it's a good time
to get some insight from from your experiences actually when you have an organization
as big and broad as that we have so much transformation occurring how do you
impact assess the business impact at an enterprise level or at least a finance transformation level?
(17:01):
This is where your knowledge of change management comes into play
because impact assessment is one of the the things it is
one of the key initial first steps that
you do to understand what is going to be the impact of
the transformation that you are initiating and how
you do that is is you analyze the current state and you always start with the
problem i think because you guys are running a change management podcast you
(17:24):
you you would have heard that term that 70 of the change initiatives fail right
yes and i yeah we have heard that yeah and and i am not very happy when people talk like like that.
And I say you don't focus on the 70%, just focus on the 30% of the change initiatives
that have been delivered successfully.
What are those 30% doing correctly? And once you start analyzing the 30%,
(17:45):
you analyze that they assessed their impact correctly,
they were able to kind of effectively communicate the problem in an effective
manner, which is why those changes got delivered in the right way possible.
So directly impacting of what your change is going to do at a group level may not be possible.
But for your own vertical, if you are able to do that, and then again,
(18:07):
that key person who comes into the play is their global change lead or the chief
transformation officer.
And then you have these different deputies under him. And you are able to present
for your own vertical, what's the impact that that change is going to happen.
Then at a consolidated level, they are able to.
Adequately prioritize and assess the right initiatives which
is why only the key ones go ahead and then
(18:29):
you'll say okay fine these are the ones that i would like to focus on yeah that
makes perfect sense i mean you've got to focus on the ones that are going to have the key impact
on the organization and those ones that sit beneath it which wouldn't have
such broad impact your prioritization is then used by your
heat map isn't it as you say from your verticals up one of the big ones
one of the ones that are going to have the greatest return on investment to the organization
or at least achieve a strategic benefit and then anything else under
that will need to be deprioritized until there's capacity in the
(18:51):
organization there's a lot of politics that also go i'm not
sure if i'm using the right term or not but uh and then you
have this stakeholder power interest grid that you usually use that how are
you going to convince those people high on power high on interest which are
the key ones that have a say in change management so if you are able to identify
those key stakeholders there are times when you understand that this change
(19:15):
is going to to have a significant impact on the group,
but the main stakeholders whose decision-making authority is not in favor of that.
So how are you going to convince them? How are you going to probably,
and that is where your data-driven decision-making comes into play.
So you don't go to them and you say, my belief is this, and my gut feeling is that.
You show them, okay, fine, this is the data analysis that tells us that this
(19:37):
is the impact that this specific transformation is going to have on the organization.
And then you have their trust, okay, okay, fine, this person has done some analysis,
and then you do the talking.
So those are some of the very small steps that you do.
But these are some key competencies that as a change manager,
you should have on your in your bag.
And once you go with them, then it's very, I'll not say it's easy,
(19:59):
but I think it's manageable from there on.
Are there tips or things that you think at that CTO or exec level that people
should be looking out for?
Yeah, I think you very, you touched upon one a very good point
uh pete there because at a cto level you you
would be you should know when to dive in when to kind
of pick your neck out of the water because if you
have that ability to kind of look at
(20:21):
the big picture and then dwell deep on on on specific point or specific program
that's that's been running then i think i would say you have the right tools
to be successful in that role because you will not be in a position you'll never
be in a position to kind of go into to the details of each and every program that's running.
But there would be questions that come up your way as to that this specific
(20:44):
change program is incurring a lot of cost and been running that for five years.
So at that specific, you will not be able to answer that question if you do
not know the details of that.
Point. So that switch is very important.
When to switch back and when to switch in is something that's very key for that.
And then obviously, you have these technical skills that would be required and
(21:05):
what kind of data you would like to present so that your ideas do get by and
how do you visualize that data?
What type of tools that you use? What kind of data?
Because sometimes what you have a lot of data, you cannot present everything to people.
Nobody's going to to understand that so an effective way
i stress upon the effective communication is that
(21:25):
when you translate complex things into simple language and
if you are able to do that then i think you have the
right tools to be successful in that kind of role when i was at nationwide there
was a number of different things i walked in there and it was one of the first jobs
i'd had outside of my previous experiences it's probably the first
job i'd had actually where i went in not knowing much
about the subject matter and it's quite intimidating and on
(21:46):
the first day i walked in we were doing money laundering there's
a project small projects about money laundering and just improving basic
knowledge within the branches to identify the themes and stuff and
this guy walks in and he puts up his presentation on the
screen and on the home page the first page of his presentation is a
tank and i'm sat like a boss on earth and
it's a real good way to humanize banking and
(22:08):
finance because essentially what they were saying to us was that when we get
money laundering wrong more often than not it's going
into you know illegal arms or or forms of
slavery or other of things like that and i thought it was a real eye-opener actually
that the finance industry at least the parts i had experienced were
humanizing aspects for their staff to understand such
serious topics but actually what you know the real outcomes without as you say
(22:30):
just hitting us with loads of jargon or legal language and or finance terms
and that's that's usually a challenge if you're a change manager or if you're
a kind of someone who's established as change manager because people people
expect you to know everything, which usually is not true.
So, and I think it's very important for you to say it loud and clear that I
do not understand this concept, because then you remove that only impediment
(22:54):
out of your way. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I know a bit more about probably retail banking, though I do liquid,
liquid, liquid, say the word liquidity.
And that sounds like it's a lot more complex and perhaps the knowledge I've
got, but it sounds like from your profile, now you're the right guy to do it. No, no, no, I don't know.
I'll be honest. I I mean, I'm not someone who's an expert, but yes,
(23:14):
there's a lot of learning to do.
We've talked around about the stuff that you've been doing in finance and the
types of products you're on, but do you guys use ProSci or a different methodology?
Usually what happens, Chris, is each of the organizations have their own methodologies.
Not everybody kind of goes into that. And which is why, what is it?
If you are using ProSci, you kind of put that I'm using, I'm delivering this
(23:34):
change as per the ADKAR method.
But most of the organizations don't rely on just one methodology.
So they probably go ahead and have their own picking up the key points from
each of the different methodologies out there.
And that's how you kind of deliver these. Yeah, no, I completely agree.
I only swung it to my mind because on your profile, you quote Kotter.
There are obviously some similarities between the two.
(23:57):
I mean, I've read significant books from Kotter. I think he's,
I call him the father of change management.
So I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I've learned a lot from him.
Yeah, I mean, that's where I started all those years ago.
And as you say, you move along and essentially you kind of,
I know people say they pick up their own toolkit, kit but essentially i
find that we have a blueprint before a toolkit don't we we kind of look at
(24:18):
the change we're facing and we're looking at what we're going to need and
then we'll go to our toolkit to go and find out whether or not we've got it
or we need to go get it in and just because you mentioned that
chris so that's where your things like standard
of change management come into play because what they tell you
is that you can use any methodology or any framework like prosci like
apmg like cotter's eight step model but these
(24:39):
are the steps that you need to follow so they don't
tell you that you just follow one specific model methodology like
prosci will tell you or like lemarche model
will tell you but they tell you that any model that you are
going to use this is what these are these steps that
if you follow then you are going in the right direction so and
within the changes that you need because prosci doesn't really go into benefits
(25:00):
realization once you get past that reinforcement piece it kind of projects close
to its end anyway but in the projects that you're working through do you do
you follow through and do you start to measure at the early stages of benefits
realization you're not going to get your budget if you don't do that.
No i know but it's interesting is it because some places i've
worked they insist that the business do it and other places i've worked
(25:21):
they insist that it becomes part of the change management process and i think
it does sit within the change management process because i think that's your
true measure as to wherefore not the intervention you've applied have been successfully
adopted and responded it definitely sits with the change manager is what i think
because you are the the one who's taken that initiative of delivering that specific change.
So if we switch over to your role at the ACMP, which is the Association of Change
(25:44):
Management Professionals, you've got quite a significant role there,
haven't you? ACMP was something that
is working in, they have this vision of leading the way change works.
And they have published the standard of change management, which has been recognized
by the Forbes as a key standard that any aspiring change managers can refer
to. And I joined there as a volunteer.
(26:06):
And I think I was part of the finance committee as well.
I'm still I'm the part of the finance committee. But then I think I was asked
to apply for the board role.
And we went through that. So now ECMP is also so undergoing change.
And we were joking the other day that everybody is a change.
Everybody comes from the background of change management. But I think transforming
(26:27):
the organization when everybody's from change is also difficult because nobody
agrees on one thing and everybody has their own ideas of how to proceed about change.
And we are talking about the next level. We are talking about how to get more
members to the organization. There is a lot of growth story that we are building.
But it's an exciting time there as well. So we are working on taking the organization
(26:50):
to the next level or the association to the next level. So it's really exciting.
You have a plethora of resources that you can rely on.
You have things like ACMP Connect, which has different communities.
If you want to understand something about agile change management,
there is a community on agile change.
If you want to understand about technology, then you have have come into on it
(27:11):
there's something called innovation lab then there is there are
all sorts of different communities so you get these resources at
your disposal so i may be struggling with a
difficult stakeholder and i can raise that or i'm someone
who's not very inclusive in the way he speaks and i
have that dei community raise that question on how should i deal with that
and then you have these committee participants answering all of those questions
(27:32):
for me so these type of association the this kind of a platform is someone i
see aspiring change managers should be should be joining because they provide
those resources that can really help you come up to terms pretty quickly because
of all these resources that they provide.
I wanted just to pick up on something you said about the ability of change managers
(27:52):
and change management teams to change themselves.
And if I just dive in a little bit on that, I wondered if you had any tips in
terms of managing change or uncertainty in your own life, whether there's things
you've learned in your career or outside of your career that you've kind of
taken on and that might be useful to listeners?
I would say that expect the unexpected
always. I've spoken about being adaptable and open to new ideas.
(28:17):
In my personal professional life, I have had some really harsh feedbacks,
but I think it's your attitude of whether you take that as a criticism or you take that as a feedback.
If you take that as a feedback, then I think your growth story is going to be
very different because sometimes those feedbacks may be harsh,
but they help you become a good person and they help you assess your weaknesses,
(28:37):
which you would have never otherwise thought of.
If I talk about in my professional life, we have seen certain challenges and
the COVID time was once a challenge.
Even when you were managing your personal life, I became dad for the second
time in 2019 and 2020 is lockdown.
So my wife was working, I was working and we had these two little kids to take
(28:59):
care of all locked in the same house.
And it was a very difficult area to manage your professional life.
And then you also understand the importance of these things.
And now hybrid work is becoming the norm.
So you try to respect people who are working.
And I touched upon it at the start that when you are able to understand your stakeholders,
(29:21):
so if I understand that Pete today is working from home and he's taking care
of the kid, I'll probably not keep very long calls for you or will not keep
the calls when you are taking care of your child. So those kinds of things do matter a lot.
So just an example that came to my mind and I was mentioning that,
I'm not sure how good that was.
Nice, good example. It is a good example. Well, I can think of many years we've
been on where even children have appeared on the screen.
(29:43):
I like to try and get them to tell me things. It's funny, as soon as you reference
the COVID and the lockdowns, particularly the people we talk about in change,
it always brings a smile to people's faces.
It's going to be a true anchor of our generation, isn't it? That we look back
and go, yep, significant change in the world, significant change in the workplace,
a significant change for us.
It's kind of like, and as a change manager, we're dealing with all of it and
(30:04):
then trying to make life easier for others. It was a period,
yeah. Again, that was an opportunity.
Most of the people, it was a big change that was going globally.
I think most of the certifications that I've gathered was during that time.
Because you were sitting at home, you'd stopped wasting a lot of time in traveling.
So you kind of try to gather how you utilize that time.
So again, something that you can use every opportunity or every disruption to your advantage.
(30:30):
Yeah, I'd never thought about how much money training organizations must have made from COVID. Yes.
From people with the time. And I saw this graph that I think the training organization
graph is now going downwards because people have been asked to join offices of BACs.
That's true. What do you do for your own personal self-development and change sense, Siddharth?
Aside from the usual type of significant courses and significant investments,
(30:54):
what do you do to stay fine-tuned or keep the pencil sharp?
That's a good question, Chris, because now we are into change management and
we spoke about finance change as well.
So apart from that, there are a lot of changes that are happening on the technical sides as well.
So you have generative AI coming into the picture. You have the cloud migrations
that are happening. So we did this digital transformation and we were not sure
(31:18):
how cloud works, what exactly is on-prem, off-prem or those kind of stuff that usually happens.
So when you are in the middle of that change, probably you come back and you
try to read about all of those things, all of those new developments that are ongoing.
When a chat GPT happened, that generative AI happened, I think the first thing
that comes to a change manager's mind is how is this going to impact me?
(31:40):
What kind of change initiatives are you going to expect in the next three to
four months? And that's exactly what happened.
We worked on, with a recent client, they now want to build a tool which is based
out of a generative AI language.
And they have already started working on it. Now we are in the middle of it
as change managers. So we need to understand how will that work?
(32:00):
What are the kind of requirements that you need to put in place? so you
use this as opportunities to read about
new stuff to read about read about new
technologies that are evolving you have different languages
so sql i learned sql because
i had to do something of the visualization stuff and python
and all of those stuff so it's it's not just that you only
(32:22):
read about chain you probably need the execution of all
of these evolving technologies that come your way i
agree it's something i really enjoy about it yeah it's taking
just just the first two inches of the depth isn't it and that's just to have
enough of an understanding to have a conversation to get
started otherwise we'd be experts in everything wouldn't we what
are your goals and aspirations or what's coming up next for
you i want to work on a change initiative that makes people's life
(32:44):
better that's that's that's what i really aspire for and you will ask that aren't
what you're doing making people's life better i'll say yes there it is but i
want to contribute or i will give it back to the profession of change in the
best way possible and that's That's how you would like to contribute to a change initiatives,
wherein you directly impact the lives of people around you.
(33:06):
And I'm not sure if I will be able to do that.
But if I am able to do that, then definitely that will be something that I'm
going to be proud of once I hang my boots.
So that is that's what something I'm really motivated to do sometime in the future.
When that is, I don't know. Do you think that would be in finance? It could be.
It could definitely be in finance,
given the fact that I have spent a good amount of time in this field.
(33:30):
But it could be otherwise also, which is why change is the most unexpected thing,
and you should always expect the unexpected. That could be our tagline.
I like it. It's just so true, isn't it? Zidav, so one thing we do in each of
our podcasts is we do like to ask our guests what their favourite biscuit is.
Ah, my favourite biscuit is the one that I take with my morning tea,
(33:52):
McVitie's. Okay, yeah, we know what McVitie's is.
Yeah, it's a good biscuit. You can't go wrong. Chocolate?
Chocolate, yeah. Fair enough. i think you're
the first person that said that i've always said that that's my
favorite but i don't know we've had biscuits and gravy biscuits you hit on your
head all kinds of things so thank you so much for your time today we've thoroughly
(34:12):
enjoyed having you on the supercharged change on comms podcast thank you chris
thank you pete it's been an honor i think it's a pleasure to be here and i would
love to speak to you guys again thank you very much see you soon.
Music.
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