April 7, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode we have the pleasure of hosting Aizhan Zhantayeva, a seasoned strategist and change management expert from Kazakhstan. With a wealth of knowledge from her extensive career spanning government and corporate sectors, Aizhan shares her insightful journey and discussions around the significance of change management as a profession and a leadership skill.
We talk about the hot topics from ACMP's Change San Diego conference, including AI, change management tools, and visualising change. Have you considered using AI to deliver tailored messages and visual elements based on cultural nuances and sensitive messages?
What we were most interested to explore though is the development of change management as a discipline in Central Asia, and Aizhan's role as someone who empowers women. We talk about how strategies like mentorship programs and leadership skill development are helping to develop women's careers, and how things like the inclusion of change management curriculum at universities are helping develop the profession.
This enriching and transformative discussion culminates as Aizhan shares her experiences on various boards, the culture of change in different regions, and how lack of knowledge about change management principles can undermine its effectiveness.
Tune in for an episode enriched with the transformational power of effective change management and much more!
PS If you'd like to hear more from Aizhan, check out her YouTube channel: HerWayinCA - YouTube
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Supercharged, the change and cons podcast. In this episode,
we have a special guest, Aizan, who is a strategist and change management expert
with over 19 years of experience.
She has successfully overseen large-scale projects in both government and corporate
sectors and currently serves as a board member at the Astana Financial Services
Authority and Bank of Asia.
Aizan is also a thought leader, empowering women through her YouTube channel, Her Way in Central Asia.
(00:30):
She's a certified change management professional. So join us
as we dive into her inspiring journey right but
pete how is things in barcelona very
good they've started putting the giant easter eggs in the
shops here so i'm looking forward to easter that'll give
a clue to when we're recording this i think i'm really happy to say we've we've
got isan with us here today and we're really looking forward to finding out
(00:53):
all about you where you're from what kind of experience you've got the good
and bad things that you found through change management so So,
can you tell us a bit about yourself, please?
Well, thank you, Pete, Chris, for
inviting me. It's a quite new form of interaction through podcast for me.
So, looking forward to gain a new experience and share my thoughts,
(01:15):
ideas about the change, discipline, development in Central Asia.
As you mentioned, currently, my career primarily focuses at the board level.
I serve four boards. And my main competence that I contribute to the board are
human resource development,
improvement of business process, internal audit, and, of course,
(01:37):
change management that I did from my previous position.
As you already mentioned, I joined ACMP board last year, and this is something
that aligns with my passion for change management. I would call it as a dream role for me.
I'm also a woman leadership mentor. I love to support women in every way,
(02:01):
at every stage of their career.
I assist them in their growth professionally and personally.
And my mother has two kids. I have a daughter and son.
So my daughter, she is 16 now and standing in front of, I would say,
a key decision in her life.
She's choosing the major at the university.
And I am the mother, support her in every possible way.
(02:24):
This is shortly by myself and how did I come to change management?
You know, recently when I listened to your podcast with Doug,
I realized like many other change managers, I entered the change management
specialization from a completely different field.
My university major from Birmingham University in finance and accounting.
(02:48):
Even though this subject was never my true passion and I thought that I will
never stick to this specialization for the rest of my life.
I hope no one hears me, especially my bosses right now.
Over the years, I've worked on various projects in government and corporate
settings where I utilized my experience in change management profession and
(03:09):
further developed my knowledge in this area.
So the projects were mostly transformational.
And why they are transformational is just because I've implemented quite new
approaches and prostheses from the scratch that had not been used before.
Gradually, I transitioned my specialization from finance to HR field,
(03:33):
and I've never regretted this decision because I love to interact with other people.
And through my work on transformational project, I've witnessed the first hand
of how change is driven by the human element.
So my understanding that change management is not only the competence that every
(03:55):
HR person, HR director should possess, it's actually the whole profession, discipline.
Occurred to me in 2019 during my training courses in the Institute of Independent Directors.
And it became evident to me that change management is a leadership competency
that every independent board director should possess.
(04:20):
In order to carry out their responsibility effectively.
So this is how I entered the change management profession.
And after these courses, I made my firm decision that I would like to get a
certification in change management.
I would like to join SMP community.
(04:41):
And I would like to share with you my personal thought that it was quite revealing
for me that values outlined in ICMP code of ethics are actually my personal
values that I manifest to people throughout my life, like honesty in communication,
like I do what I say I will do. It's like I treat people equally.
(05:05):
So furthermore, I would say that to apply this knowledge, the most effectively
I could apply the knowledge of change management during the COVID time, the pandemic time.
And I think the global pandemic highlighted the importance of effectively managing
change in every company to navigate significant shift, especially in the improvement
(05:30):
of their business processes.
So, thanks to this case, if I may say so, top management in our company and
every other company finally realized how important it is to pay attention to
human aspect of every change?
I think everybody we've spoken to in recording these series across Australia,
(05:51):
India, Malaysia, now you, the US as well, definitely in the UK.
Everybody I think at some point has brought up the impact of COVID on change management.
And I guess it's just one of those things that wherever you are in the world,
it was something that was extremely impactful to the way that any organization
work and a really good proof that change management can be quite helpful.
(06:13):
I think it was a huge transformational project for every company in the world,
the COVID case for everybody.
So I agree with you for 100%. Yeah, no, it's right.
The COVID pandemic was a shifter.
And I think it's changed the perspectives as well across organizational change.
(06:34):
Whereas I think pre-COVID, we were looking at change management through the
lenses of smaller projects and transformation activities.
But because of the effect that the pandemic had on organizations,
I think for the first time that shift came when they started looking across
the entire organization in terms of of what change is happening and
when and I think it ties into your your point Isaiah around
(06:55):
and I had to note this down because it was so insightful is
that change management is a discipline and a competency that every
director should possess now I think you're probably the first person I've heard
say that and I think it's absolutely bang on just through different challenges
I've looked back all over my career and thinking they don't necessarily see
it as a such an important foundation stone to the organization as such you know
(07:17):
your traditional people or HR type processes and policies but
If you think about what the key disciplines within change management are,
you know, we get slung with its comms and training, but actually an awful lot
of it is around that people aspect.
You know, ProSci's 10 aspects of change actually do show that,
don't they? I mean, if you look through the change impact assessment,
it talks about roles and remuneration.
(07:38):
But it's quite interesting to hear that. And I've just noted it down because
I think it's something we should explore further, Pete, actually.
But, you know, I agree COVID was the biggest changer, but I think it's changed
more in terms of creating a recognition of the discipline.
But also that that discipline needs to
be looked at across an organization not just through the lens
of the individual transformations or projects a few
(07:58):
weeks ago you were in san diego at acmp
conference and i wondered if you could tell us a bit about it it was a cold
change san diego so what were the main topics what were some of the interesting
things that came out of that for you well the first experience that will stay
with me for a long time normal human being of course it's a memory of beautiful ocean,
(08:21):
refreshing sea breeze, friendly locusts, delicious food in San Diego.
And I believe that anyone who visits San Diego will have a similar memorable experience.
Secondly, and I said that for the first time we've met with my colleagues from
the board, and I think it's some kind of sign for me of growing interest of
(08:46):
change management discipline discipline in our region, in our country.
And of course, it's personally was a really pleasure to see my colleagues.
It gives me understanding, deep understanding of what motivates them,
their values and what is important to them.
And it was different experience compared to just communicating over the Zoom.
(09:09):
At the end of the conference, I had the opportunity to share my reflection on
the session, and the session was really amazing. Every session is a pressure.
There was particularly one session that resonated with me. It calls trauma-informed change.
It emphasized how trauma survivors may re-experience past trauma when exposed
(09:32):
to certain situations and or environments. And I actually kept asking myself
why this session was so close to me.
And I found the answer is probably because while working on change in any transformational
project, I'm trying to find the key to each person through the awareness of
(09:54):
his or her past experience.
Therefore, for me, this session was once again some kind of confirmation that
change management is a human-centric discipline.
And I was also impressed with one of the sessions where we've been suggested
to visualize the changes within the companies.
(10:15):
Usually at the session, the speaker is talking and making the presentation.
But for the first time, I've seen such kind of unique approach to visualizing the transformation.
So I would say that change management professionals know how to work with the human emotions.
(10:36):
And I can say that it's a lot of the diversity of tools have been suggested
over these two days that you never find like in one library.
So all this diversity of tools that have been presented as our president of
ACMP says, Rich Bachelor, that all the tools provided by change managers,
(11:01):
professionals make other people happier in their lives. Yeah.
What i found about san diego conference did they list
did you take away any tools that you thought were either something
new or something you hadn't seen before or perhaps even
something that you've now seen in a different light uh i think
the exercise that we've proposed to
(11:22):
do is the trauma experience change quite
interesting one where there was um we've done it in a pair when this was suggested
how the person's behavior in the company perceived by the team and how taking
into consideration his or her past experience he actually feel.
(11:45):
It's quite interesting, I would say, exercise that can be applied and taken
into consideration by every change management professional.
So it's quite new for me to look from this angle at people's behavior through
the change. When you talked about the session around visualizing change,
(12:05):
were there any things that you remember from that that really stand out or you
think would be useful for people?
First, it was interesting to see how.
How you express the emotions and try to visualize them, actually.
Not through the communication, but drawing the picture of how a person should behave.
(12:26):
This is a completely different approach, how to place your emotion on white
paper rather than just talking.
So I think sometimes you can use this approach rather than communicating.
I don't know if you listened to it, but the first episode that we've put up
from this series was all about visualizing change.
And I was just thinking from what you were saying that something that we spoke
(12:49):
about in that episode was how if you use cartoons to represent people,
you can show things that you can't necessarily do just by filming them.
And I think probably showing emotions is quite a good way of doing that as well.
I saw something really interesting yesterday, actually, and it comes back to
the visualization of change. And it was something I'd never thought about.
And it does relate to this cross-cultural perspective we've had, Pete and Aizan, right?
(13:12):
So we had a review, an overview of all the different types of AI that's being
applied across organizations.
And there was a designer in one of these talks, and they said,
they described that they were creating campaigns on putting across sometimes
some very important messages.
Where I'm working at the moment, it's all about weather, so it could have been
(13:35):
about flood. or it could have been about snow, or it could be about heat.
And the work that they do is not just applicable to the UK, it's applicable
to different countries across the world.
And they said the one thing that AI has helped with by visualising the change
is that in the old days, we would just send out a bulletin and it would say,
you know, southwesterly wind, you know, 60 knots risk to life.
(13:56):
And everyone would interpret that in a slightly different way.
You'd get the gist, but you couldn't really say what that would mean for me where I am.
And then what AI has helped them do is that when
they would now try to make it slightly more human centric so
when they were talking about snow and they were
trying to suggest that people stay home they were using pictures of
people with pets by a fire as an
(14:17):
example inside their house so it was saying you know it's bad weather
outside it's better to stay indoors where you'll be safer and it
worked really well the next layer on top of
that was what ai was doing was taking different native
species of dogs or styles of homes
and applying that picture so for the US they had a slightly more fluffy brown
(14:38):
white dog slightly bigger the UK had smaller dogs the fires in the UK look slightly
more gas like and the ones in America were very big vibrant fireplaces with.
Pictures all over the place and the British one was slightly more lamps
by a table and AI was then suggesting that
this would land better with the different
(14:59):
audiences based on you know the culture and I never thought
of that it never crossed my mind that actually I couldn't
write that story because I could never help you
see it because it's like when you read a book if you read a book that you like
you would read it and you could read it and we would picture the main
character differently from what they're wearing to their you know
their structure their build and what have you ai's changed
(15:20):
that in terms of you know landing change of
messaging by actually applying a slightly stereotypical
view perhaps but a stereotypical cultural view as to
where the message is going and i thought that was really interesting and i
think that can be applied in change depending on the type of personas
you'd have in an organization i thought it was really quite quite
interesting i might have taken us down the path again sorry using ai
(15:42):
much in your work or is that a hot topic not
really not really at the board level we're not
using ai because you need to express your
own opinion and ai will not be helpful but i agree that first ai can have a
like support function for change management professional but never will be the
(16:03):
substitute the change management professional because only human can work with
can human and understand the emotions.
So the board level, we are not using AI.
I found another interesting use for it, though, in terms of if you were writing
a key message, this isn't my ideas, this is out there, I'm just kind of sharing
something I found, was that if you were writing a key message about a significant
(16:25):
change, and it had been around the houses a bit, and you.
You've had some different directors and heads of, and you can start to tell
very quickly that that message has lost its kind of shape and structure a bit.
But if you pump it into some of these AI things and just ask it a simple question
or a prompt, like what are the three key takeaways you have from this message?
If it's not coming back with the ones that you started with,
you can use that as an evidence to say, back to those who have butchered your
(16:49):
comms or intervention and say, actually, this is not really what we wanted to get to.
And this has now been validated by someone or a thing, I should say,
externally. And I found that a really interesting use for it. So you're right, Izan.
Jenny in an earlier episode did say to us, it's not our jobs that will be replaced
by AI. It is the way that we do them that will change.
And I think actually that is a value use case to say that if I write something,
(17:12):
I can test it to say whether or not the AI is picking up the key sentiment or
messages, because it does do sentiment as well, to say whether or not I've kind
of got across the points I wanted to.
So I think you're right. You can't replace us.
We are intuitive and we understand emotion better than the AI does.
But I think there is a tool in there that can actually ensure that we are probably
(17:32):
reaching our intentions, perhaps is probably the best way to put it.
But can we talk a bit about Central Asia then and your experiences or kind of
reflections on what it's like to be a change expert in Central Asia?
And if I was coming to work with you, what are the top things that you would tell me to look out for?
So I think better to start from time when we gained the independence.
(17:57):
Kazakhstan, it was like more than 30 years ago.
And changes began to play a significant role in our lives. I would say, as we started to be.
Inevitable part of global world. And those time changes were very fast and people
were not spoiled by misinformation as it is now.
(18:21):
I think that those time people have been more adaptable to changes.
And now due to the fact that all exposed to different type of information,
global trends, like social media, social network, artificial intelligence changes.
People have access to a large amount of information and they subject any changes
(18:45):
to careful screening and make their own decisions.
So now everybody understands the importance of individuals who can provide a
comprehensive understanding of change.
The second thing that I'm observing is that there is now growing demand in our
(19:06):
countries for a position with the title of Change Management Lead,
Change Management Agent.
Because previously there was understanding that it's a competency and it should
be within the HR position, as I mentioned before.
And right now, top managers believe that change management should be as an individual
(19:33):
position within the organization,
and there should be dedicated individuals who will be responsible for leading
change within the companies.
Thirdly, it happened not only in companies, corporate companies,
but it happened the importance of change manager lead existence at the government level here.
(19:54):
Like two years ago, government announced the program for choosing industry change
leaders who will drive the positive changes in the key industry of economy.
So, I would say that there is a community of more than 200 people from different
sectors who are ready to drive and sustain the positive changes within their own industries.
(20:20):
And it's good that government as a main sponsor of this program strongly understand
and support the creation of this community.
What else? Looking ahead, I believe there's going to be a next trend,
not only for our region, but actually globally.
It should be the integration of change management discipline into university
(20:42):
curricula. It's essential, I think, to train specialists in change management
already at the bachelor's level.
So after the completion of their degree, we will have already prepared change
management agent with required skills that needed to introduce the changes at various level,
(21:05):
either in government, in companies,
or non-governmental organization.
If I may mention, the role of women in society is also changing in Central Asia.
Over the time, women are venturing into industries that were traditionally male-dominated.
(21:25):
I think it's one of the changes that are significant in our region.
Of course, there are numerous supportive programs for women,
which focus on assisting women to open up their own businesses.
However, I would say that there is a few programs that help women to advance
(21:46):
in their corporate and governmental settings.
And this gap is actually, I think, something that needs to be fulfilled in the future.
So what kind of support do you think women need to be able to excel or succeed
in those types of careers?
Of course, there is educational trainings which teach how to handle time management
(22:10):
and some leadership skills, develop leadership skills.
But I would say that they are fragmented and they do not support the full range
of support for women who want to move up in their career ladder within the company.
And what I suggest is for sure there should be some mentorship program for such
(22:35):
kind of professionals within the company.
There should be some individual plan of development for those who would like
to grow within the company and the governmental level.
Do you find there's a lot of resistance, either within a company or societally?
Previously, I think it wasn't resistance. It was some kind of lack of knowledge,
(22:58):
maybe a previous mentality from Central Asia.
Right now, we are consuming the information.
We are trying to find ways how to help such kind of professionals within the company.
But i'm not observing like strong
resistance on the on this matters i think
(23:18):
sometimes we can tend to see resistance and not
want to engage with it whereas what we should do is
talk to people and find out what support they need and the help they might want
in order to be able to to build their careers and so on i looked at the resistance
yeah look at the resistance quite a different angle when we had a key speaker
in San Diego conference who said that people are afraid.
(23:42):
They are not afraid of changes. They are afraid of loss.
So resistance is created because people expect the loss throughout the change.
And you need to work with this understanding that the person is expecting to
lose something throughout the change.
That in this case resistant could overcome more easily
(24:05):
like loss of power or the things might
go wrong or yeah what what kind of
tips do you have for change managers or people that
might be new if you know people starting out
their careers or or wanting to learn more about it are
there things that you would recommend people do or advice that
you would have may i use this as a a
(24:26):
platform for advertise our upcoming conference
global connect in june
i think it's a huge resource just
to understand how to be introduced
to change management because as i mentioned all
of us being introduced to change management from different
(24:46):
type of trainings from different type of situations
in our life so i think this conference will be
quite a useful where is it tool and platform
and it's virtual virtual conference
it held annually by acmp so it's full of very useful sessions where you can
(25:06):
find out many tools and change management and secondly i think the great resource
which i found for myself is when you start learn something about change management discipline.
You need to find like-minded community.
And such community you can find by joining ACMP Connect, a special platform
(25:29):
where there is a lot of networking.
I would say, groups where you can ask questions, get answers regarding,
with relating to your experience, to cases, to the transformational project
that you're going through.
And of course, there is a really great library with a lot of presentations and
(25:49):
white papers from the previous events held by ECB. When is the Global Connect Conference?
So it's the 11th of June to the 13th of June. Yes.
It's called The Future of Changes Now. Now, I quickly looked at it because I've
seen this pop up before. I think Doug might have shared it or one of the others.
What caught my eye, Pete, was the first three words of the description of the
(26:10):
synopsis of the event, say, from artificial intelligence.
Before we even talk about the rest of it, those are the first three words.
So I'm in. I'm signed up. I'm going. I'm all over this right now.
But yeah, it's a virtual conference. The future of change is now.
So it's talking around initially around the difference in technologies from
autonomous cars, wearables, robotics, AI, machine learning.
That's pretty much what the first sentence says so if you
(26:33):
know you're copywriting that's the bit they want us to know about first that's the
hook so yeah they got me one truly better go and sort my membership out see
if see if doug can throw me a discount code something else i wanted to ask actually
so in your experience so you said you sit on four different boards and i wondered
if you could explain a bit at that board level what it is that you're looking
for in terms of change management?
(26:55):
Because I imagine it's slightly less hands-on and a more strategic view of what
an organization might be doing.
So what kind of role do you play in order to help organizations through change?
There are two boards in the financial sector in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In Kazakhstan, I grew to the board level and had a long career in Kazakhstan
(27:21):
company, starting from chief operation officer, and then I joined this board like two years ago.
And my main competencies is actually working with the business processes,
working with team, executive team, and I'm actually the mentor for current chief
operation officer in helping to set up the operations,
(27:45):
helping to lead through the transformation project that initiated by executive team.
And the board was called Kamka Network.
It's a network of young leaders from Central Asia, Caucasus,
Mongolia, and Afghanistan.
(28:06):
Actually, this participation at the board give me insight into the regional
developments, particular in education and potential business ventures.
So my roles there mostly just oversee where we can interconnect.
Within the region, between different countries, particularly in Central Asia.
(28:31):
And right now, I see the rise in interest for a cooperation within the educational project mostly.
And I think this is a good opportunity to implement change management discipline at the university.
As I mentioned, it's going to be the next trend, and I would like to contribute
(28:52):
personally to implementation of this trend using the CAMCA board, Central Asian board.
As in when we were talking to Doug and Gilbert on a previous episode,
we were talking about the types of reaction to change within an organization
in both in America and Australia.
We might have done it with Siddharth as well. I can't quite recall it off my head.
(29:14):
And they were describing a kind of like this essentially like,
I was going to say pot noodle, but you might not know what that is,
but like a microwavable effect where there's an investment and they want that
change to happen immediately.
So you pop it in and rather than you taking three hours to slow cook some stew
or some beef, it's a case of pop
it in the microwave, put it on for 30 seconds and it's got to be ready.
(29:35):
Is that a similar culture to what you find in the places where you work or is
there slightly more patience and a slower build-up to the change aspects?
Yes, I don't think that there is a huge difference between other sculptures.
I'd like to see that right now, in standard, there is five stages of implementing the change.
(29:59):
And the first one is that you need to answer the question to those who will
be impacted by changes, why these changes should happen right now?
What in these changes for me?
I observe that this is coming to be a really like culture for us in Central
Asia, that that before introducing any changes,
(30:21):
you should answer this question for everyone within the company before starting
any changes, if you would like to gain the support from everyone.
So in some way, yes, you need some time to implement.
You need to make some pre-work, some homework, before starting any changes in the company.
(30:46):
One thing I've noticed more so, So, and I don't know whether that's just because
it's an evolution of the methodologies or what have you.
But when I started out years ago, going back into the noughties.
We used to do a lot more on audience analysis, the segmentation of the audiences.
And then, you know, maybe using more of a comms type approach, but the no feel do.
And you would break down your hierarchy of the organization from the top right
(31:08):
down to the bottom and across to say, depending on the levels or the personas
to which you're working at. You would then look across those questions. What's changing?
Why is it changing? And when? and then what do you want people
to know feel and do as a result of those things and it would kind
of start to build you a pretty broad plan as a as a you know
an idea as to how you're going to have to frame it and take into
account how people feel to your point it's not
(31:29):
it's not the fear of changing it's the fear of loss and you can
start to ping these things out through no feel do but I
don't see that so much in a lot of the projects I've been working on over the
last few years and I suspect that's because this demand of instant change and
perhaps it's the volume of change that that organizations are facing means that
we don't have so much time or we're making assumptions that perhaps we didn't
(31:52):
make before that we knew it.
I don't know whether you find the same where you are, but I've just noticed
it myself over the last few years.
I think I agree with you about volume. And I would like to add on absence of
knowledge because people treat change management, as I said,
still as a human development competency,
(32:12):
as summed up from the human development competency.
So first, they don't have a time to talk with people.
And second, they don't have a knowledge how to speak with people.
And they don't want to hear and listen what people will give it back,
why they don't like to be changed in the way.
So I think it's volume first and absence of knowledge what is change management.
(32:37):
Yeah, I think that's right. The volume of change, and I think that is a post-COVID
thing as well, isn't it? I don't recall so much change having to happen.
And that might be kind of a bit of cause and effect with the move to remote
work and hybrid working means that we have to have more technology than we've ever needed before.
Those are having both you know downstream and
upstream effects based on legacy systems that can't
(32:59):
engage or interact or changing the investment profile for what
we need in the future so this this this perspective of
change mapping where you know the nice to have the must have and the legal to
have we're not really looking at those three things as they're joined up we're
just getting it done and then as you say we need more people so we bring in
more more you know project people more change people but like they may not have
(33:21):
the knowledge and the experience and And if I suppose it's a slight flaw,
and I can't remember who said this as well, but centres of excellence mean that we contain knowledge,
we don't actually share it, then we're not actually enabling more people to
have the knowledge to be able to communicate and engage effectively.
I think that's kind of what we're agreeing on, isn't it?
We have a question that we like to ask all of our guests to wrap up the episode,
(33:42):
and it is very simple, but we like to ask people what their favourite biscuit is.
What is biscuit? A biscuit is... I haven't got any here. I usually have a packet
on my desk. I didn't even know. How do you describe it?
They are, they're, they're.
So when you studied in Birmingham, didn't you, Aizan? You studied, yeah.
(34:03):
So with a, with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, we'd often have like a small
sweet treat, which is either covered in chocolate or sugar because that's what we're like.
And we call them, there's like digestives or cookies and.
And the Dutch have like a waffle. So it's like they've got caramel wrapped around wafer.
And the Australians have Tim Tams, I think they're called, different things.
(34:26):
But a bit like, I don't know if you know, Kit Kats or stuff like that.
That's like a biscuit. I'm probably going to set someone on a divisive wave somewhere.
But do you have a sweet treat that you have with a hot drink in Central Asia?
Yes, of course. We happen to be a very coffee-consuming nation, amazingly.
Recently but i should disappoint you because i'm
(34:49):
not eating sugar and i don't want sweets because
there we go yes but
we're eating a lot of horse meat so yeah
yeah horse meat have you ever tried not knowingly
it's our national food yeah so we're
not in sweets but we are meat eaters very
(35:11):
strong meat eaters right anything i can think there
we go let's see and that's something i just love
about this there was a thing a few years ago in the uk
where where they'd found that a load of supermarkets were
selling horse meat and selling it as beef right
yeah they did they yeah they substituted it i think didn't they they i don't
know if it was intentional or not but we ended up with a lot of horse meat in
(35:34):
a lot of our meals and we weren't knowingly eating it so so it was a bit of
a news item over here because the supermarkets aren't allowed to just take something
out and not tell us, so it did make the news.
The national cuisine is called besh parmak because you're eating by five fingers.
Besh, it's a five in Kazakh.
(35:55):
So it's called besh parmak, and the main attribute to this food is horse meat.
That is probably quite far from a biscuit that we'd have in the UK, to be fair.
Have to try it absolutely opposite i
would say yeah and it's
a vegetarian as well probably even less likely to be in it
(36:17):
yeah so he's not going to try it but i'm definitely going
to have a go yeah i'm going to have a go i like
the idea of that cool thank you so much for your time it's been super great
to uh to chat with you you've been a super guest i've kind of as i always do
i note things down through our conversations because it's just triggers to me
again and again And I've just shared your YouTube channel with a friend of mine
(36:38):
who I know will be super interested.
So I wouldn't be surprised if that gets shared further and wider for you, okay?
Thank you. Thank you. Super. I really had fun because for me,
as I said, it's quite a new format of interaction.
But I didn't know that it could be really fun.
So really looking forward to see you.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
Welcome to Supercharged, the change and cons podcast. In this episode,
we have a special guest, Aizan, who is a strategist and change management expert
with over 19 years of experience.
She has successfully overseen large-scale projects in both government and corporate
sectors and currently serves as a board member at the Astana Financial Services
Authority and Bank of Asia.
Aizan is also a thought leader, empowering women through her YouTube channel, Her Way in Central Asia.
(00:30):
She's a certified change management professional. So join us
as we dive into her inspiring journey right but
pete how is things in barcelona very
good they've started putting the giant easter eggs in the
shops here so i'm looking forward to easter that'll give
a clue to when we're recording this i think i'm really happy to say we've we've
got isan with us here today and we're really looking forward to finding out
(00:53):
all about you where you're from what kind of experience you've got the good
and bad things that you found through change management so So,
can you tell us a bit about yourself, please?
Well, thank you, Pete, Chris, for
inviting me. It's a quite new form of interaction through podcast for me.
So, looking forward to gain a new experience and share my thoughts,
(01:15):
ideas about the change, discipline, development in Central Asia.
As you mentioned, currently, my career primarily focuses at the board level.
I serve four boards. And my main competence that I contribute to the board are
human resource development,
improvement of business process, internal audit, and, of course,
(01:37):
change management that I did from my previous position.
As you already mentioned, I joined ACMP board last year, and this is something
that aligns with my passion for change management. I would call it as a dream role for me.
I'm also a woman leadership mentor. I love to support women in every way,
(02:01):
at every stage of their career.
I assist them in their growth professionally and personally.
And my mother has two kids. I have a daughter and son.
So my daughter, she is 16 now and standing in front of, I would say,
a key decision in her life.
She's choosing the major at the university.
And I am the mother, support her in every possible way.
(02:24):
This is shortly by myself and how did I come to change management?
You know, recently when I listened to your podcast with Doug,
I realized like many other change managers, I entered the change management
specialization from a completely different field.
My university major from Birmingham University in finance and accounting.
(02:48):
Even though this subject was never my true passion and I thought that I will
never stick to this specialization for the rest of my life.
I hope no one hears me, especially my bosses right now.
Over the years, I've worked on various projects in government and corporate
settings where I utilized my experience in change management profession and
(03:09):
further developed my knowledge in this area.
So the projects were mostly transformational.
And why they are transformational is just because I've implemented quite new
approaches and prostheses from the scratch that had not been used before.
Gradually, I transitioned my specialization from finance to HR field,
(03:33):
and I've never regretted this decision because I love to interact with other people.
And through my work on transformational project, I've witnessed the first hand
of how change is driven by the human element.
So my understanding that change management is not only the competence that every
(03:55):
HR person, HR director should possess, it's actually the whole profession, discipline.
Occurred to me in 2019 during my training courses in the Institute of Independent Directors.
And it became evident to me that change management is a leadership competency
that every independent board director should possess.
(04:20):
In order to carry out their responsibility effectively.
So this is how I entered the change management profession.
And after these courses, I made my firm decision that I would like to get a
certification in change management.
I would like to join SMP community.
(04:41):
And I would like to share with you my personal thought that it was quite revealing
for me that values outlined in ICMP code of ethics are actually my personal
values that I manifest to people throughout my life, like honesty in communication,
like I do what I say I will do. It's like I treat people equally.
(05:05):
So furthermore, I would say that to apply this knowledge, the most effectively
I could apply the knowledge of change management during the COVID time, the pandemic time.
And I think the global pandemic highlighted the importance of effectively managing
change in every company to navigate significant shift, especially in the improvement
(05:30):
of their business processes.
So, thanks to this case, if I may say so, top management in our company and
every other company finally realized how important it is to pay attention to
human aspect of every change?
I think everybody we've spoken to in recording these series across Australia,
(05:51):
India, Malaysia, now you, the US as well, definitely in the UK.
Everybody I think at some point has brought up the impact of COVID on change management.
And I guess it's just one of those things that wherever you are in the world,
it was something that was extremely impactful to the way that any organization
work and a really good proof that change management can be quite helpful.
(06:13):
I think it was a huge transformational project for every company in the world,
the COVID case for everybody.
So I agree with you for 100%. Yeah, no, it's right.
The COVID pandemic was a shifter.
And I think it's changed the perspectives as well across organizational change.
(06:34):
Whereas I think pre-COVID, we were looking at change management through the
lenses of smaller projects and transformation activities.
But because of the effect that the pandemic had on organizations,
I think for the first time that shift came when they started looking across
the entire organization in terms of of what change is happening and
when and I think it ties into your your point Isaiah around
(06:55):
and I had to note this down because it was so insightful is
that change management is a discipline and a competency that every
director should possess now I think you're probably the first person I've heard
say that and I think it's absolutely bang on just through different challenges
I've looked back all over my career and thinking they don't necessarily see
it as a such an important foundation stone to the organization as such you know
(07:17):
your traditional people or HR type processes and policies but
If you think about what the key disciplines within change management are,
you know, we get slung with its comms and training, but actually an awful lot
of it is around that people aspect.
You know, ProSci's 10 aspects of change actually do show that,
don't they? I mean, if you look through the change impact assessment,
it talks about roles and remuneration.
(07:38):
But it's quite interesting to hear that. And I've just noted it down because
I think it's something we should explore further, Pete, actually.
But, you know, I agree COVID was the biggest changer, but I think it's changed
more in terms of creating a recognition of the discipline.
But also that that discipline needs to
be looked at across an organization not just through the lens
of the individual transformations or projects a few
(07:58):
weeks ago you were in san diego at acmp
conference and i wondered if you could tell us a bit about it it was a cold
change san diego so what were the main topics what were some of the interesting
things that came out of that for you well the first experience that will stay
with me for a long time normal human being of course it's a memory of beautiful ocean,
(08:21):
refreshing sea breeze, friendly locusts, delicious food in San Diego.
And I believe that anyone who visits San Diego will have a similar memorable experience.
Secondly, and I said that for the first time we've met with my colleagues from
the board, and I think it's some kind of sign for me of growing interest of
(08:46):
change management discipline discipline in our region, in our country.
And of course, it's personally was a really pleasure to see my colleagues.
It gives me understanding, deep understanding of what motivates them,
their values and what is important to them.
And it was different experience compared to just communicating over the Zoom.
(09:09):
At the end of the conference, I had the opportunity to share my reflection on
the session, and the session was really amazing. Every session is a pressure.
There was particularly one session that resonated with me. It calls trauma-informed change.
It emphasized how trauma survivors may re-experience past trauma when exposed
(09:32):
to certain situations and or environments. And I actually kept asking myself
why this session was so close to me.
And I found the answer is probably because while working on change in any transformational
project, I'm trying to find the key to each person through the awareness of
(09:54):
his or her past experience.
Therefore, for me, this session was once again some kind of confirmation that
change management is a human-centric discipline.
And I was also impressed with one of the sessions where we've been suggested
to visualize the changes within the companies.
(10:15):
Usually at the session, the speaker is talking and making the presentation.
But for the first time, I've seen such kind of unique approach to visualizing the transformation.
So I would say that change management professionals know how to work with the human emotions.
(10:36):
And I can say that it's a lot of the diversity of tools have been suggested
over these two days that you never find like in one library.
So all this diversity of tools that have been presented as our president of
ACMP says, Rich Bachelor, that all the tools provided by change managers,
(11:01):
professionals make other people happier in their lives. Yeah.
What i found about san diego conference did they list
did you take away any tools that you thought were either something
new or something you hadn't seen before or perhaps even
something that you've now seen in a different light uh i think
the exercise that we've proposed to
(11:22):
do is the trauma experience change quite
interesting one where there was um we've done it in a pair when this was suggested
how the person's behavior in the company perceived by the team and how taking
into consideration his or her past experience he actually feel.
(11:45):
It's quite interesting, I would say, exercise that can be applied and taken
into consideration by every change management professional.
So it's quite new for me to look from this angle at people's behavior through
the change. When you talked about the session around visualizing change,
(12:05):
were there any things that you remember from that that really stand out or you
think would be useful for people?
First, it was interesting to see how.
How you express the emotions and try to visualize them, actually.
Not through the communication, but drawing the picture of how a person should behave.
(12:26):
This is a completely different approach, how to place your emotion on white
paper rather than just talking.
So I think sometimes you can use this approach rather than communicating.
I don't know if you listened to it, but the first episode that we've put up
from this series was all about visualizing change.
And I was just thinking from what you were saying that something that we spoke
(12:49):
about in that episode was how if you use cartoons to represent people,
you can show things that you can't necessarily do just by filming them.
And I think probably showing emotions is quite a good way of doing that as well.
I saw something really interesting yesterday, actually, and it comes back to
the visualization of change. And it was something I'd never thought about.
And it does relate to this cross-cultural perspective we've had, Pete and Aizan, right?
(13:12):
So we had a review, an overview of all the different types of AI that's being
applied across organizations.
And there was a designer in one of these talks, and they said,
they described that they were creating campaigns on putting across sometimes
some very important messages.
Where I'm working at the moment, it's all about weather, so it could have been
(13:35):
about flood. or it could have been about snow, or it could be about heat.
And the work that they do is not just applicable to the UK, it's applicable
to different countries across the world.
And they said the one thing that AI has helped with by visualising the change
is that in the old days, we would just send out a bulletin and it would say,
you know, southwesterly wind, you know, 60 knots risk to life.
(13:56):
And everyone would interpret that in a slightly different way.
You'd get the gist, but you couldn't really say what that would mean for me where I am.
And then what AI has helped them do is that when
they would now try to make it slightly more human centric so
when they were talking about snow and they were
trying to suggest that people stay home they were using pictures of
people with pets by a fire as an
(14:17):
example inside their house so it was saying you know it's bad weather
outside it's better to stay indoors where you'll be safer and it
worked really well the next layer on top of
that was what ai was doing was taking different native
species of dogs or styles of homes
and applying that picture so for the US they had a slightly more fluffy brown
(14:38):
white dog slightly bigger the UK had smaller dogs the fires in the UK look slightly
more gas like and the ones in America were very big vibrant fireplaces with.
Pictures all over the place and the British one was slightly more lamps
by a table and AI was then suggesting that
this would land better with the different
(14:59):
audiences based on you know the culture and I never thought
of that it never crossed my mind that actually I couldn't
write that story because I could never help you
see it because it's like when you read a book if you read a book that you like
you would read it and you could read it and we would picture the main
character differently from what they're wearing to their you know
their structure their build and what have you ai's changed
(15:20):
that in terms of you know landing change of
messaging by actually applying a slightly stereotypical
view perhaps but a stereotypical cultural view as to
where the message is going and i thought that was really interesting and i
think that can be applied in change depending on the type of personas
you'd have in an organization i thought it was really quite quite
interesting i might have taken us down the path again sorry using ai
(15:42):
much in your work or is that a hot topic not
really not really at the board level we're not
using ai because you need to express your
own opinion and ai will not be helpful but i agree that first ai can have a
like support function for change management professional but never will be the
(16:03):
substitute the change management professional because only human can work with
can human and understand the emotions.
So the board level, we are not using AI.
I found another interesting use for it, though, in terms of if you were writing
a key message, this isn't my ideas, this is out there, I'm just kind of sharing
something I found, was that if you were writing a key message about a significant
(16:25):
change, and it had been around the houses a bit, and you.
You've had some different directors and heads of, and you can start to tell
very quickly that that message has lost its kind of shape and structure a bit.
But if you pump it into some of these AI things and just ask it a simple question
or a prompt, like what are the three key takeaways you have from this message?
If it's not coming back with the ones that you started with,
you can use that as an evidence to say, back to those who have butchered your
(16:49):
comms or intervention and say, actually, this is not really what we wanted to get to.
And this has now been validated by someone or a thing, I should say,
externally. And I found that a really interesting use for it. So you're right, Izan.
Jenny in an earlier episode did say to us, it's not our jobs that will be replaced
by AI. It is the way that we do them that will change.
And I think actually that is a value use case to say that if I write something,
(17:12):
I can test it to say whether or not the AI is picking up the key sentiment or
messages, because it does do sentiment as well, to say whether or not I've kind
of got across the points I wanted to.
So I think you're right. You can't replace us.
We are intuitive and we understand emotion better than the AI does.
But I think there is a tool in there that can actually ensure that we are probably
(17:32):
reaching our intentions, perhaps is probably the best way to put it.
But can we talk a bit about Central Asia then and your experiences or kind of
reflections on what it's like to be a change expert in Central Asia?
And if I was coming to work with you, what are the top things that you would tell me to look out for?
So I think better to start from time when we gained the independence.
(17:57):
Kazakhstan, it was like more than 30 years ago.
And changes began to play a significant role in our lives. I would say, as we started to be.
Inevitable part of global world. And those time changes were very fast and people
were not spoiled by misinformation as it is now.
(18:21):
I think that those time people have been more adaptable to changes.
And now due to the fact that all exposed to different type of information,
global trends, like social media, social network, artificial intelligence changes.
People have access to a large amount of information and they subject any changes
(18:45):
to careful screening and make their own decisions.
So now everybody understands the importance of individuals who can provide a
comprehensive understanding of change.
The second thing that I'm observing is that there is now growing demand in our
(19:06):
countries for a position with the title of Change Management Lead,
Change Management Agent.
Because previously there was understanding that it's a competency and it should
be within the HR position, as I mentioned before.
And right now, top managers believe that change management should be as an individual
(19:33):
position within the organization,
and there should be dedicated individuals who will be responsible for leading
change within the companies.
Thirdly, it happened not only in companies, corporate companies,
but it happened the importance of change manager lead existence at the government level here.
(19:54):
Like two years ago, government announced the program for choosing industry change
leaders who will drive the positive changes in the key industry of economy.
So, I would say that there is a community of more than 200 people from different
sectors who are ready to drive and sustain the positive changes within their own industries.
(20:20):
And it's good that government as a main sponsor of this program strongly understand
and support the creation of this community.
What else? Looking ahead, I believe there's going to be a next trend,
not only for our region, but actually globally.
It should be the integration of change management discipline into university
(20:42):
curricula. It's essential, I think, to train specialists in change management
already at the bachelor's level.
So after the completion of their degree, we will have already prepared change
management agent with required skills that needed to introduce the changes at various level,
(21:05):
either in government, in companies,
or non-governmental organization.
If I may mention, the role of women in society is also changing in Central Asia.
Over the time, women are venturing into industries that were traditionally male-dominated.
(21:25):
I think it's one of the changes that are significant in our region.
Of course, there are numerous supportive programs for women,
which focus on assisting women to open up their own businesses.
However, I would say that there is a few programs that help women to advance
(21:46):
in their corporate and governmental settings.
And this gap is actually, I think, something that needs to be fulfilled in the future.
So what kind of support do you think women need to be able to excel or succeed
in those types of careers?
Of course, there is educational trainings which teach how to handle time management
(22:10):
and some leadership skills, develop leadership skills.
But I would say that they are fragmented and they do not support the full range
of support for women who want to move up in their career ladder within the company.
And what I suggest is for sure there should be some mentorship program for such
(22:35):
kind of professionals within the company.
There should be some individual plan of development for those who would like
to grow within the company and the governmental level.
Do you find there's a lot of resistance, either within a company or societally?
Previously, I think it wasn't resistance. It was some kind of lack of knowledge,
(22:58):
maybe a previous mentality from Central Asia.
Right now, we are consuming the information.
We are trying to find ways how to help such kind of professionals within the company.
But i'm not observing like strong
resistance on the on this matters i think
(23:18):
sometimes we can tend to see resistance and not
want to engage with it whereas what we should do is
talk to people and find out what support they need and the help they might want
in order to be able to to build their careers and so on i looked at the resistance
yeah look at the resistance quite a different angle when we had a key speaker
in San Diego conference who said that people are afraid.
(23:42):
They are not afraid of changes. They are afraid of loss.
So resistance is created because people expect the loss throughout the change.
And you need to work with this understanding that the person is expecting to
lose something throughout the change.
That in this case resistant could overcome more easily
(24:05):
like loss of power or the things might
go wrong or yeah what what kind of
tips do you have for change managers or people that
might be new if you know people starting out
their careers or or wanting to learn more about it are
there things that you would recommend people do or advice that
you would have may i use this as a a
(24:26):
platform for advertise our upcoming conference
global connect in june
i think it's a huge resource just
to understand how to be introduced
to change management because as i mentioned all
of us being introduced to change management from different
(24:46):
type of trainings from different type of situations
in our life so i think this conference will be
quite a useful where is it tool and platform
and it's virtual virtual conference
it held annually by acmp so it's full of very useful sessions where you can
(25:06):
find out many tools and change management and secondly i think the great resource
which i found for myself is when you start learn something about change management discipline.
You need to find like-minded community.
And such community you can find by joining ACMP Connect, a special platform
(25:29):
where there is a lot of networking.
I would say, groups where you can ask questions, get answers regarding,
with relating to your experience, to cases, to the transformational project
that you're going through.
And of course, there is a really great library with a lot of presentations and
(25:49):
white papers from the previous events held by ECB. When is the Global Connect Conference?
So it's the 11th of June to the 13th of June. Yes.
It's called The Future of Changes Now. Now, I quickly looked at it because I've
seen this pop up before. I think Doug might have shared it or one of the others.
What caught my eye, Pete, was the first three words of the description of the
(26:10):
synopsis of the event, say, from artificial intelligence.
Before we even talk about the rest of it, those are the first three words.
So I'm in. I'm signed up. I'm going. I'm all over this right now.
But yeah, it's a virtual conference. The future of change is now.
So it's talking around initially around the difference in technologies from
autonomous cars, wearables, robotics, AI, machine learning.
That's pretty much what the first sentence says so if you
(26:33):
know you're copywriting that's the bit they want us to know about first that's the
hook so yeah they got me one truly better go and sort my membership out see
if see if doug can throw me a discount code something else i wanted to ask actually
so in your experience so you said you sit on four different boards and i wondered
if you could explain a bit at that board level what it is that you're looking
for in terms of change management?
(26:55):
Because I imagine it's slightly less hands-on and a more strategic view of what
an organization might be doing.
So what kind of role do you play in order to help organizations through change?
There are two boards in the financial sector in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In Kazakhstan, I grew to the board level and had a long career in Kazakhstan
(27:21):
company, starting from chief operation officer, and then I joined this board like two years ago.
And my main competencies is actually working with the business processes,
working with team, executive team, and I'm actually the mentor for current chief
operation officer in helping to set up the operations,
(27:45):
helping to lead through the transformation project that initiated by executive team.
And the board was called Kamka Network.
It's a network of young leaders from Central Asia, Caucasus,
Mongolia, and Afghanistan.
(28:06):
Actually, this participation at the board give me insight into the regional
developments, particular in education and potential business ventures.
So my roles there mostly just oversee where we can interconnect.
Within the region, between different countries, particularly in Central Asia.
(28:31):
And right now, I see the rise in interest for a cooperation within the educational project mostly.
And I think this is a good opportunity to implement change management discipline at the university.
As I mentioned, it's going to be the next trend, and I would like to contribute
(28:52):
personally to implementation of this trend using the CAMCA board, Central Asian board.
As in when we were talking to Doug and Gilbert on a previous episode,
we were talking about the types of reaction to change within an organization
in both in America and Australia.
We might have done it with Siddharth as well. I can't quite recall it off my head.
(29:14):
And they were describing a kind of like this essentially like,
I was going to say pot noodle, but you might not know what that is,
but like a microwavable effect where there's an investment and they want that
change to happen immediately.
So you pop it in and rather than you taking three hours to slow cook some stew
or some beef, it's a case of pop
it in the microwave, put it on for 30 seconds and it's got to be ready.
(29:35):
Is that a similar culture to what you find in the places where you work or is
there slightly more patience and a slower build-up to the change aspects?
Yes, I don't think that there is a huge difference between other sculptures.
I'd like to see that right now, in standard, there is five stages of implementing the change.
(29:59):
And the first one is that you need to answer the question to those who will
be impacted by changes, why these changes should happen right now?
What in these changes for me?
I observe that this is coming to be a really like culture for us in Central
Asia, that that before introducing any changes,
(30:21):
you should answer this question for everyone within the company before starting
any changes, if you would like to gain the support from everyone.
So in some way, yes, you need some time to implement.
You need to make some pre-work, some homework, before starting any changes in the company.
(30:46):
One thing I've noticed more so, So, and I don't know whether that's just because
it's an evolution of the methodologies or what have you.
But when I started out years ago, going back into the noughties.
We used to do a lot more on audience analysis, the segmentation of the audiences.
And then, you know, maybe using more of a comms type approach, but the no feel do.
And you would break down your hierarchy of the organization from the top right
(31:08):
down to the bottom and across to say, depending on the levels or the personas
to which you're working at. You would then look across those questions. What's changing?
Why is it changing? And when? and then what do you want people
to know feel and do as a result of those things and it would kind
of start to build you a pretty broad plan as a as a you know
an idea as to how you're going to have to frame it and take into
account how people feel to your point it's not
(31:29):
it's not the fear of changing it's the fear of loss and you can
start to ping these things out through no feel do but I
don't see that so much in a lot of the projects I've been working on over the
last few years and I suspect that's because this demand of instant change and
perhaps it's the volume of change that that organizations are facing means that
we don't have so much time or we're making assumptions that perhaps we didn't
(31:52):
make before that we knew it.
I don't know whether you find the same where you are, but I've just noticed
it myself over the last few years.
I think I agree with you about volume. And I would like to add on absence of
knowledge because people treat change management, as I said,
still as a human development competency,
(32:12):
as summed up from the human development competency.
So first, they don't have a time to talk with people.
And second, they don't have a knowledge how to speak with people.
And they don't want to hear and listen what people will give it back,
why they don't like to be changed in the way.
So I think it's volume first and absence of knowledge what is change management.
(32:37):
Yeah, I think that's right. The volume of change, and I think that is a post-COVID
thing as well, isn't it? I don't recall so much change having to happen.
And that might be kind of a bit of cause and effect with the move to remote
work and hybrid working means that we have to have more technology than we've ever needed before.
Those are having both you know downstream and
upstream effects based on legacy systems that can't
(32:59):
engage or interact or changing the investment profile for what
we need in the future so this this this perspective of
change mapping where you know the nice to have the must have and the legal to
have we're not really looking at those three things as they're joined up we're
just getting it done and then as you say we need more people so we bring in
more more you know project people more change people but like they may not have
(33:21):
the knowledge and the experience and And if I suppose it's a slight flaw,
and I can't remember who said this as well, but centres of excellence mean that we contain knowledge,
we don't actually share it, then we're not actually enabling more people to
have the knowledge to be able to communicate and engage effectively.
I think that's kind of what we're agreeing on, isn't it?
We have a question that we like to ask all of our guests to wrap up the episode,
(33:42):
and it is very simple, but we like to ask people what their favourite biscuit is.
What is biscuit? A biscuit is... I haven't got any here. I usually have a packet
on my desk. I didn't even know. How do you describe it?
They are, they're, they're.
So when you studied in Birmingham, didn't you, Aizan? You studied, yeah.
(34:03):
So with a, with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, we'd often have like a small
sweet treat, which is either covered in chocolate or sugar because that's what we're like.
And we call them, there's like digestives or cookies and.
And the Dutch have like a waffle. So it's like they've got caramel wrapped around wafer.
And the Australians have Tim Tams, I think they're called, different things.
(34:26):
But a bit like, I don't know if you know, Kit Kats or stuff like that.
That's like a biscuit. I'm probably going to set someone on a divisive wave somewhere.
But do you have a sweet treat that you have with a hot drink in Central Asia?
Yes, of course. We happen to be a very coffee-consuming nation, amazingly.
Recently but i should disappoint you because i'm
(34:49):
not eating sugar and i don't want sweets because
there we go yes but
we're eating a lot of horse meat so yeah
yeah horse meat have you ever tried not knowingly
it's our national food yeah so we're
not in sweets but we are meat eaters very
(35:11):
strong meat eaters right anything i can think there
we go let's see and that's something i just love
about this there was a thing a few years ago in the uk
where where they'd found that a load of supermarkets were
selling horse meat and selling it as beef right
yeah they did they yeah they substituted it i think didn't they they i don't
know if it was intentional or not but we ended up with a lot of horse meat in
(35:34):
a lot of our meals and we weren't knowingly eating it so so it was a bit of
a news item over here because the supermarkets aren't allowed to just take something
out and not tell us, so it did make the news.
The national cuisine is called besh parmak because you're eating by five fingers.
Besh, it's a five in Kazakh.
(35:55):
So it's called besh parmak, and the main attribute to this food is horse meat.
That is probably quite far from a biscuit that we'd have in the UK, to be fair.
Have to try it absolutely opposite i
would say yeah and it's
a vegetarian as well probably even less likely to be in it
(36:17):
yeah so he's not going to try it but i'm definitely going
to have a go yeah i'm going to have a go i like
the idea of that cool thank you so much for your time it's been super great
to uh to chat with you you've been a super guest i've kind of as i always do
i note things down through our conversations because it's just triggers to me
again and again And I've just shared your YouTube channel with a friend of mine
(36:38):
who I know will be super interested.
So I wouldn't be surprised if that gets shared further and wider for you, okay?
Thank you. Thank you. Super. I really had fun because for me,
as I said, it's quite a new format of interaction.
But I didn't know that it could be really fun.
So really looking forward to see you.
Music.
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