October 14, 2025 • 52 mins
We make the case that organizational change management isn’t a nice-to-have but the painkiller that prevents rework and missed benefits. Leslie Ellis shares how early, human-centered strategy, layered alignment, and capacity planning turn installations into real outcomes.
• involving OCM at the wake-up call, not at go-live
• rework versus course correction and why it matters
• building the foundation upfront: alignment, incentives, capacity
• PM and change leadership in lockstep for shared outcomes
• engaging practitioners early to avoid blind spots
• embracing naysayers to surface truth and improve design
• layered alignment across functions and time
• IT and the business aiming for benefits, not just installation
• breaking silos and coordinating enterprise change
• change rescue and recovery with an honest reset
• change requires effort, not heroics
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the IPX True North Podcast, where we
connect people, processes, andtools.
SPEAKER_02 (00:07):
Hi, welcome back to the IPX True North Podcast,
where we explore the principles,the practices, and the people
driving enterprisetransformation.
My name is Brandy Taylor, andtoday we're diving into a topic
that's often underestimated, butfrom my vantage point, it's
really never optional.
And that's organizational changemanagement, or sometimes we'll
(00:29):
say OCM.
So joining me today is someonewho's made it her mission to
elevate the people side ofchange.
Leslie Ellis is the founder ofMeaningful Change Consulting.
And she's here to help us justunpack this a little bit and why
OCM isn't just a nice to have.
Like we really believe it's apainkiller for transformation
(00:52):
headaches.
And really, I in my opinion,Leslie, it's really the secret
weapon for successful enterprisechange.
So I want to welcome you to theshow.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
And let's just, I'd love to juststart with your story, you know,
let us get to know you a littlebit.
What led you to this work?
Tell us about your background,what keeps you passionate, all
that good stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
So thrilled to be here, Brandy.
Thank you for having me.
Um, so a little bit about me.
So uh currently live on the EastCoast in the Carolinas of the
US.
And um I have had meaningfulchange consulting, previously
called Involved ChangeConsulting for a little over
eight, nine years now.
I probably need to check themonths to know which year that
is.
Um, but I am I'm the classic uhaccidental entrepreneur in this
(01:36):
sp in this space.
So the way I ended up inorganizational change was I got
my master's in human resourcesand industrial relations around
the time that the economy dippedin the late early 2000s, I guess
we should say at this point.
And um I ended up working with amanufacturing company who had a
big four company create theirframework for change, and they
(01:59):
did not have a way or anythingbuilt to help teach leaders how
to use the framework.
And so I actually started inbuilding organizational
capability around change andtransformation in companies in
the global engineered productsector or industrial sectors,
really enjoyed that work, evengot to own a culture assessment,
(02:20):
assessing the culture and themicrocultures in the
organization, and really enjoyedit.
But the one thing it wasn'tgiving me was a significant
amount of go out and hands-onand delivering transformation.
I was helping build capability,but I wasn't doing the work.
So I didn't actually really knowthe pain points at first.
I only know what people told me.
So I went out and I found anexecutive in the organization
(02:42):
who said, yes, come work for meand help me do transformational
change across the globalcompany.
So I did that.
And through that, I started torecognize that the pain points
were really interesting to meand also very frustrating
because it was this constantamount of rework on the back end
of change efforts.
So we install, we implementsomething, we think we've done
(03:05):
all the right change managementwork, right?
So today's traditionaldefinition of OCM or change
management, comms, training, getthe people ready for the go
live, whatever the go live is.
And ultimately, um, we still dida bunch of rework.
We did that perfectly in somecases, but we still had
significant rework to get thebusiness results or the benefits
(03:26):
realization for those changes.
And um, I started questioningit.
And I started saying, why?
What are we not doing?
What are people not telling usabout the OCM space that is
causing this rework?
And I started going out into theprofession to find honestly who
would be the elders of theprofession at this point that
started back in the 70s, andthey're very forward thinkers
(03:50):
about what is happening in theOCM space and what is missing
from it that is causingorganizations to not um achieve
the results that they want.
They can install a technology, anew process all day long.
They can put it all in place,but it doesn't matter if the
people don't adopt, it doesn'tmatter if we didn't do all the
steps needed to ensure benefitsrealization.
(04:12):
And so I realized and started toopen up my eyes and realize how
changes this big process?
And it starts way earlier thanany of us in leadership think it
does.
And that's how I've continued inthe space ever since.
I continue to work withorganizations who really want to
make sure that they achievetheir benefits that they want to
realize in their organizationaltransformations.
(04:34):
So that kind of gets us to here.
And I've been doing the work forI guess we're over 20 some years
now, and um still at it andstill enjoying it and love
watching my clients have theiraha moments and move through all
their own personaltransformations while they
transform their organizations.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
I love it.
I love it.
And I think the rework is areally great way to talk about
it because that everyone theysee that is this nice to have,
as we keep saying.
And but honestly, like therework piece is what we don't
want to do, and that's whateveryone is afraid of.
And I feel like everyone justgoes into these things like with
fingers crossed, if they'venever done this before, and hope
(05:15):
is not a strategy.
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
And I do want to clarify becauseum, you just what you said
triggered for me.
There is some necessary inchange.
There is some we call thatcourse correction in some cases.
Um, there's things that we learnthrough transformation because
it's not a linear process plan.
Sorry, everybody.
Transformation does not get runon a linear point A to point B
(05:38):
process plan.
So we learn as we go, which isnecessary because there's so
much we don't know when westart, but there is unnecessary
rework, which is what I wasreferring to of why are we
basically doing the project overagain afterwards?
And that's what we want to tryto avoid, right?
SPEAKER_02 (05:55):
Yes, I think that's a key point, is to probably set
that up front here is we don'texpect everything to be perfect.
You don't implement perfectly.
You never do.
We're not aiming for that, butinstead of the chaos and the big
oscillations is how do we thentry to narrow those guardrails
and think about it, you know,more in an agile perspective.
We know we need to be agile, weknow we need to kind of revisit
(06:17):
these things.
And it's not just, you know, andwe encourage that, right?
We don't necessarily want thatbig bang approach or that big
waterfall approach.
We want to have some level ofagility here so that way, you
know, we as we as we uncoverthings, there's no way you're
gonna not uncover some surprisesalong the way.
And so you need to be able to dothat.
But that's that's also coursecorrection, and that's you know,
(06:38):
so rework to me is is somethingtruly that we probably could
have controlled if we would havehad some foresight.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
Absolutely.
Tend to set it better.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
Okay, awesome.
All right, so you know, at IPX,we see this a lot.
We see this all the time, whereorganizations invest a large
amount of money in digitaltransformation or harmonization
initiatives, you know, what, butwhat they they fail to
intentionally manage the mostunpredictable variable is the
(07:07):
people.
You know, I think just tell me alittle bit from your
perspective, what are the whatare some of the most common
missteps you see when it comesto managing that human side of
the change?
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Yeah, that great question.
And there's there can be so manyof them, but I'll try to
highlight some of the higherleverage ones, the ones that
really shift the trajectory ofthings.
And so first and foremost, Ilove all the executives out
there, but if you think aproject plan is your
transformation, I'm here to tellyou.
We need we need to realize thata project plan is not enough,
(07:39):
right?
There is alignment work up frontthat needs done.
There is change strategydevelopment that needs done.
There's an entire setup processof setting the foundation for
success in the very beginning ofa transformation that we just
skip right over and we hand thisamazing transformation need,
idea, wake-up call over to agroup of PMs, who don't get me
(08:02):
wrong, we need all of ourprogram managers.
They're fabulous.
They help us get the work done.
But we hand it to them and say,create a plan and execute.
Well, we just skipped over anentire part of what makes the
process as successful aspossible in setting up the right
foundation to lead that changeon.
A project plan is just a tool,it's just a piece of the
(08:25):
proverbial paper, right?
Of tasks.
Um, and it's managing to that,whereas we just completely
skipped over, even at the top ofthe organization, taking care of
the people.
All of the officers, executives,seniors leadership, they're all
people too.
And we just skipped over takingcare of them to ensure that the
(08:45):
change will be successful.
And so it's a true process thatneeds to be looked at and looked
at from a how do we make this anexcellent process so that we
minimize that rework, that chaosdown the line.
And you actually, I'm not sayingyou don't need the traditional
change management elements,training, engagement down the
line, and um communications, butthey're significantly easier and
(09:09):
smoother when we do the upsetwork.
And so that's a big one thatencompasses a lot of different
elements of we got to slow downa little bit in order to go
faster through implementation.
But a lot of times we want tohand it off and expect the
implementation to go faster.
Well, hold on a second.
If it's truly transformationalin nature, then that means we
(09:33):
have a lot of change to do,including personal mindsets,
behavior, maybe, and most likelycultural implications.
All of that implies the humanside of the work.
And we can't skip over that.
If you want to skip over it,say, oh, well, we're gonna do
this transformation, but we'renot gonna touch culture.
Well, okay, then you're notgoing to get all the benefits
(09:54):
that you said that you wanted,right?
So we have to really weigh thepros and cons of our approach
and make sure that we'reattentive to what is required in
our process to be successful bybringing more of the human
element in all the way at thevery, very beginning.
Like before you even think youshould start, you should have
started the human element side,not bring in an OCM professional
(10:16):
or a change strategist, youknow, months down the line,
which I see happen very often.
SPEAKER_02 (10:22):
Same.
We see a lot of that too, whereyou know, companies will say,
Well, we have OCM, we have anOCM team.
Yeah.
Um and that, you know, that thatOCM team may be a nice little
three to five pack ofindividuals doing a lot of great
things.
They've got their methodologies,um, but it's kind of cookbook.
And what they do is the problemis there's too many things going
(10:43):
on in an organization.
So they never we they never getinvolved soon enough.
And and they and when they getinvolved, it's it ends up being
lighter load than what you knowwas originally anticipated.
So and to me, you know, let'stalk about the communication
piece, right?
A light sprinkle of emails or afew town halls, you know, they
just don't cut it.
(11:03):
So, you know, what is what islike that surefire way to to
tank adoption, right?
Like it's like to me, so manytimes we just we see that this
is not what I would say scopedeven.
Like it's like, oh, we'll we'lldo OCM.
Yep, we'll do that.
We got it.
But it's down the line.
I'm like, son, it's it's kind ofmaybe packed as some small tiny
(11:24):
bits, tidbits of milestonesinside the standard
implementation project timeline.
And and we really want to pushthat these this needs to be a
separate initiative that runs inparallel, that's funded, that's
managed, it's got its owntimeline, you know, it's got its
own program manager, its ownresources.
So tell us a little bit moreabout, you know, how to do this
(11:44):
right.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
Yeah.
So actually, I would even umpush back a little bit on what
you just said.
And actually, I would tell you,yes, OCM or your change
strategists need to come inearlier.
They need to come in as soon asyou hear the wake-up call and
you're trying to develop thecase for change and what it's
going to take to set it up forsuccess.
So basically, as soon asofficers say we need to do this,
OCM should have been involved,right?
(12:07):
Um, with the PM.
I'm not saying don't bring it aPM as well.
I'm saying at the same time,right?
Because engagement starts rightthen.
And when we talk about thingslike change communications and
things like that, a lot of timescommunication engagement should
be like hand in hand, bread andbutter, you know, type of thing,
um, so that they're right witheach other from the very
(12:27):
beginning and it's throughout.
Because engagement actuallystarts the second you start
involving people and buildingthe case for change.
As soon as you're identifyingsuccess criteria, the change
strategy, building alignmentamongst leaders, you know, as
soon as you're doing all thatwork, that's all a type of
engagement.
And we should be and in it andtracking it and monitoring it
and setting it up for success.
(12:48):
The one thing I would nudge backon you is it's not necessarily a
parallel process to the broadertransformation.
I would tell you that it's donewell and when I've seen it done
the the best is when the PM andthe change strategists or the
change leadership can be reallyin lockstep and supporting each
other and understanding andbelieving each other.
Even if you're a PM who's alittle skeptical, like, well,
(13:10):
I've normally done all thiswork, right?
And and I can handle all this.
You would be amazed at what kindof scenarios your change, um,
your senior change OCM or changestrategist can support you in
with the human dynamics thatwill get you as a PM out of hot
water like that.
I have done it.
(13:30):
I have won over PMs, programmanagers like me.
And sometimes it's the simplestthing.
If Jason ever hears us, he wasmy first PM to ever do something
like that, but he would he wouldlaugh.
But it needs to be done inlockstep with each other as
though it's one entity, but yeta parallel, a full parallel
governance structure today-to-day operations.
(13:51):
Right?
Safety-to-day operations has tocontinue with transformation
alongside it.
But then how do we run thistransformation in parallel and
day-to-day operations as acohesive team delivering on the
same outcomes?
And I'll keep saying outcomes orbenefits realization because a
lot of times we only talk aboutgetting to go lives, getting to
(14:12):
implementation day, and then itjust goes away 30, 60, 90 days
later.
But yeah, we didn't realizebenefits, which is what the case
for the transformation was builton.
SPEAKER_02 (14:22):
Okay.
So some good things to talkabout there.
So and also tell me a littlebit, I guess.
I'm thinking about, you know, ifI'm an organization or, you
know, I'm thinking about whatyou said is having you in there
lockstep with that PM.
Tell me about is is that enough?
Right?
Is one person like yourselfenough?
And, you know, what kind ofresources are needed inside of a
(14:44):
business to make this successfulfor you?
SPEAKER_01 (14:46):
What a great question.
So one person like me can beenough if I'm a full-time person
supporting the transformation,because usually transformations
are fairly aggressive, right?
They're fairly wide, big inscope, far in reach, right?
Um, usually involving a largepart of the organization, if not
the entire, plus maybe going outto your customers, vendors, and
(15:08):
so on, retirees, who knows?
Um, so if you have someonein-house that is actually ideal
and having a change strategist,someone like myself or someone
on my team, we come in and we weconsult and advise to help that
person, that change leaderinside the organization be
successful by partnering closelywith the PM in order to support
the sponsors who should beusually executives in delivering
(15:32):
the the work they're accountablefor in this transformation.
And then there's usually a teamof folks who help support,
whether it's comms, a teamaround training, a team around
impact tracking.
Please don't forget to trackyour impacts, folks.
That's my one plug.
Please please don't forget to dothat.
Um, because how do you know whatthe what the change means if
(15:52):
you're not doing it?
And then um various other needsthat could be needed in that
that sphere, right?
So you could have a team ofpeople, whether they're third
party, if you don't have theskill set in-house or in-house
to support the transformation,but they should be as dedicated
as possible to thetransformation.
Where we see a lot oforganizations struggle is the
(16:14):
size and meaning of thetransformation is so large, but
then they give all of theresponsibility to individuals
who 80% of their time needs tobe focused on operations.
But yet the executives and thesenior leadership say, you know,
um, which it's just it's notthat they're um bad people.
They just don't realize thatsomebody with 20% capacity can't
(16:38):
support a big transformationaleffort that needs to go live in
18 months, two years, or even ayear if they're really pushing
it.
Right.
I've even seen challenges withfive-year programs where they're
doing huge um operation systemimplementations, and they're
still those leaders arestruggling to deliver on a
(16:59):
program when they have an 80%day-to-day job operations
focused and 20, maybe 30% atbest, dedicated to this huge
transformation.
And they struggle and they burnout, right?
So, really taking capacity isone of those things at the very
upfront part of we skip over alot in setting up a change for
success.
(17:20):
Um, we'll throw people on aproject, they might be the right
subject matter experts, but wedon't do anything to prioritize
to help them with theircapacity.
And then we wonder why ourtransformation struggle continue
to be delayed, issue more issuesarise, we can't keep things
aligned because they don't havethe time to do the
transformation and keep thebusiness running.
(17:42):
So that's where a lot of timesthat parallel structure really
supports and helps is if you whoyou can pull out of more of
their day-to-day job to supportand then have either the right
third parties come in and helpthem or supplement with staff
augmentation third parties tohelp if you don't have it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
Makes sense.
And so ideally, would it bebetter from your perspective for
an organization for you to coachthem to basically execute the
OCM themselves so that way itfeels like it's their own?
Or, you know, do you see?
I mean, sometimes I'm sure withthe resource constraints that
maybe they just need you toexecute that.
(18:19):
But but are do you prefer beingmore of like a guide or to
actually go in and actually dothe execution of it for them?
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
I will tell my preference is to be a guide.
We do a little bit of both, wedo a little bit of done for you
as well as um just that a lot ofcoaching and advising.
And here's why.
Many leaders in theorganization, they want to build
capability in their people.
They want to build the muscle,the skill set inside their
organization.
Well, how do you do that?
Well, you need to teach.
(18:47):
You can't, if you just bring inpeople who do and substitute for
your people, they don't buildthe muscle.
They don't build the skill set.
And so we're very big on listen,I I want you to be successful
with future changes.
And maybe you'll bring me, bringme and my team back for some
advising in the future on bigtransformations.
But I want to teach someone whocan be teach them to be really
(19:08):
great change leaders.
Teach them on how to be thatleader who can figure some of
this stuff out or know when, youknow, uh-oh, we didn't, we
didn't, we missed a step.
Let's pause real quick and let'sreset ourselves, right?
That type of leader who paysattention to that and isn't just
driven on getting to theinstallation or implementation
timeline.
(19:29):
They're taking care of thathuman side.
And it it is a skill set andit's a blend of an art and a
science, right?
Engineering, straight science,right?
A lot of process stuff.
A lot of it's more science-basedor um engineering based,
depending on what organizationyou're moving in.
But the people side is a blendof art and science.
(19:50):
And it takes some time to buildthat skill set and that
capability.
It doesn't just exist inorganizations generally, except
maybe in your HR space.
And they're busy folks, as ifyour HR partners and everybody
are busy too.
So you have to bring somebody inwho will help build capability
at the same time that they mightbe doing coaching or advising.
(20:11):
That would be my preference.
Um, and what I recommend leadersthink about when they're hiring
someone to come in and support atransformation.
Can this person also help usbuild capability too?
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
Yeah, because you know, typical program managers
or in a lot of the companies wework with, you know, they're
they're technical engineeringfolks, et cetera.
This kind of capability or thiskind of skill set is not
something that that we're taughtin the colleges or universities,
you know.
So this is um something verydifferent.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
No, when I went through my master's back in the
early 2000s, it was, and this isone of the top public business
schools in the US.
Um, they only taught like it wasthree course elective or three
three credit course, it was likeone chapter was on what we call
change management.
Now, hopefully they've changedand adjusted over the years
because of the importance, but Iremember being like, what is
(21:00):
this that you want me to do?
And I've basically learnedmyself and through my own um
experience on how to do thiswork and wonderful mentors.
I have some really amazingmentors as well who really
stretch your thinking in yourcape, my own capability that
keeps me going.
So it's not something that's inorganizations naturally.
(21:20):
And if you have a leader who hasa tendency for this, I encourage
you to cultivate it in them.
unknown (21:26):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (21:27):
You know, one of the biggest mistakes we sometimes
see is people or organizationsdefining, like you said, not
engaging people soon enough.
And so they're defining theprocess or the tool requirements
or whatever needs to happen inisolation, right?
And so without the people whowill live it.
(21:48):
So it's why is it so critical,you know, to include those
practitioners up front?
And how can, I guess, also howcan we be sure that we've
surfaced every criticalstakeholder so we don't get
blindsided mid-project bysomeone who maybe should have
been involved up from the start?
How do we how do we know?
SPEAKER_01 (22:07):
Uh, what an amazing question.
So it goes back to the wholeengagement conversation, right?
Engagement doesn't start atimplement when you're in your
implementation phases.
I'm using some project programmanagement language when I say
that.
Um, it starts from the very,very beginning.
And if we actually take the timeto set a change up for success,
we start that process wayearlier of saying, who all needs
(22:29):
to be involved?
Who all needs to be part ofbuilding the strategy for this?
What leaders across theorganization?
And those leaders can help tellyou who needs to be involved
where, right?
And then you start that processso early that by the time you
get to the implementation phase,right, you have found pretty
much most of your stakeholders.
Now, course correction exists,right?
(22:52):
So we need to make sure we areconstantly sourcing in an
organization for is theresomeone we're missing or someone
we should be bringing into thatprocess.
So that's that piece.
It's engagement doesn't startdown the line when many
organizations decide, okay,we're coming up on
implementation.
Let's bring our OCM changemanagement folks in.
It should have started wayearlier.
But here's your other risk: designing process and solutions, (23:13):
undefined
let's just deal with the wordsolutions, designing any
solutions without thestakeholders involved, it is a
huge engagement miss.
It's a huge oper, huge miss ongetting their buy-in to the
changes, educating them on whatyou're trying to do and why, and
getting them to be willing toadopt it the minute that you put
(23:35):
it in place, right?
They can help you source all ofthe things that are needed in
order to ensure that solution isgoing to work.
And they are also the first oneswho will be happy to tell you
when it doesn't work when youimplement something, and they're
gonna tell you it doesn't workbecause you didn't ask me.
And I'm gonna resist you, andthen leaders are gonna feel like
(23:56):
it's a resistance factor becausethey didn't bring those folks
in.
So we can either create our ownroadblocks and challenges and
transformation, or we can createa change process that's gonna
make all of that easier on us.
I don't know about you, Brandy.
I could rather go with thesmoother process and make sure
that those folks are in thereearly and that we're building a
(24:18):
solution together that is gonnawork, as opposed to putting all
that time and effort and puttinga solution together that we hope
will work.
And then the subject matterexperts on the front line or
middle management or whereverthey are, they'll just, you
know, give they'll hoo-koo allof it and just let it all go.
And then you're wondering whatyou're doing, and here you are
(24:40):
with unnecessary rework.
All because of what?
Timeline?
Because we wanted to save time,we wanted to save money.
Like those are usually the tworeally big cases.
I can't, you know, and thenthere's a little bit of the
expert development mentality.
Oh, we know how to do this whenyou're not the subject matter
expert.
Right?
So we have to be aware of someof those dynamics that tend to
(25:03):
drive us because predeterminedtimelines and transformation
very commonly don't make itunless you skip over important
parts of the change process thatwill cause you reworking.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
So when people help shape the change, it becomes
their idea.
And then the project reflectsthe voice of the business, not
just the voice of IT orleadership or one function.
And so it really forces thatconversation about the
repercussions of not changing.
(25:36):
And that's where some of thaturgency really lives.
SPEAKER_01 (25:39):
And it gives them a chance to get on board, you
know, even if it ends up being asolution that wasn't one of the
subject matter ideas, they atleast know what you're doing and
why.
And they've had some time tocome along because if they own
the final solution, especiallyif they're the ones who are
gonna have to operationalize itlater, you kind of want them
already down their cheat, oh,through their change curve by
(26:02):
the time that you roll it out.
You don't want to introduce thatto them on day one of your
implementation or go live dateand hope that you're going to
get results.
It's usually not going to gowell.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
Yeah, we want to identify even some of those
naysayers early on, as early aspossible and make sure we're
managing that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:20):
Oh, we love naysayers though.
We love them because listen,they might make you roll your
eyes on occasion, but theyusually have some nugget of
truth underneath what they haveto say that we're not hearing.
And they can they can actuallyreally help make a solution
better if we help them reframewhat they're may saying about.
(26:45):
Now, on occasion, you have yourfolks who just, you know,
they're never going to adopt,they're just not interested in
change, but that's actually moreof the minority than the
majority, right?
Um, we just need a critical massto follow us in order for us to
be successful.
And that's not even 50%, right?
Critical mass is actually in the30% range to get the rest of the
(27:06):
organization to start to shiftover.
But you will always have, Ithink we call them the laggards
on the bell curve.
You will always have 10% to 13%of laggards there.
And that's okay.
They'll either come along orthey'll filter themselves out or
they'll somehow be identified tobe filtered out later.
Um, we just can't go aftereveryone.
So I'm I'm a I like thenaysayers.
(27:28):
Um, I try to I try my best toembrace them even on the most
stressful days because they havesomething that is driving them.
And if we can uncover it, a lotof times it's a gold nugget.
Agreed.
Agreed.
SPEAKER_02 (27:39):
And the people are watching those naysayers, you
know, I think they'reinfluencers.
If you can kind of win over thenaysayers, then a lot of other
people just are soldiers.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
They just kind of follow suit, right?
Yeah.
It's so true.
It's so true.
It happens more often than not,but it is, it can be hard
sometimes.
Um, I watch people have a hardtime interacting with the
naysayers because we have thisexpectation of I want you to get
on board now.
Right.
I expect you to get on boardnow, but it's actually okay as
(28:10):
long as you have intentionallydesigned your process that by X
time, if there's still anaysayer, now you know how
you're going to handle it.
Right.
But up until then, allow it tobe part of your change process
intentionally to embrace yournaysayers.
Yep.
Agreed.
SPEAKER_02 (28:29):
Let's talk for lead about leadership here for a
minute.
And how do we ensure alignmentwith our leaders?
Right.
Because even when there's nobudget earmarked, let's say for
OCM, um, or when thestakeholders are in control of
the budget.
So how do we how do we work withour leaders?
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Yes.
Um, it's it's way more commonthan it should be in
transformation, right?
We're willing to spend all ofour money on the technology, on
the solution, but we're notwilling to spend it on the
people, which is reallyinteresting to me often.
But there's a lot of honestconversation that has to happen.
When I'm introduced to a clientand they want to go through a
(29:09):
transformation, there's a lot ofdirect conversation that has to
be had around timelineresourcing that includes budget,
people, capacity, right?
There's a lot of realitiesbecause transformation by nature
is not a transitional or adevelopmental or continuous
improvement type of change,right?
(29:29):
Operations day-to-day generallycan't handle it.
There's a reason it's calledtransformation.
And so having the hardconversations up front, back to
setting up the change forsuccess, is really, really
critical.
And it requires change to beviewed as more of a strategic
discipline in the organizationthan being viewed as an
(29:51):
implementation discipline.
Right now, OCM, the traditionalchange management, most of our
profession is viewed as.
As just in generalities, isviewed as implementation
support.
We talked about that earlier.
Bring the OCM folks in as we getcloser to implementation.
They don't need to be here now.
Right.
So it's an implementation focus.
(30:12):
Where we really need is we needleaders in an organization to be
thinking that change is astrategic discipline that's
going to be required to surviveand thrive going forward in our
organization.
The level of disruption is notslowing down, folks.
It's going to continue.
Pace of change continues nomatter what we want to believe.
It might even get faster if youcan believe it.
(30:34):
So technology goes faster, we gofaster.
And so, you know, leaders haveto start thinking differently
about change.
And they have to start thinkingabout what is it going to take
to set this change up forsuccess?
And are we willing to do itbefore they actually kick off
the transformation?
Because you will pay for it atsome point.
It's just where do you want topay for it?
(30:56):
And pay for it being not justabout money, right?
It comes into the rework, the,you know, people uh resistance,
um, you know, the effort thatyou put in, all the things.
So it's it'll catch up,especially if you push forward
and you don't invest.
SPEAKER_02 (31:11):
Process improvement and some of the digitization
initiatives that we find areoften initiated by one function.
You know, I'll just pick on myengineering folks with you know
product lifecycle management,PLM tools, which is a big one
that we we work with.
And when and what happens iswhen leadership of other
functions, they're not alwaysincentivized to make the change
(31:35):
stick, right?
So, you know, their goals inthis, we find this all the time
in organizations, right?
Where leaders, their goals arepotentially in conflict with
each other.
And so even their bonuses don'treflect transformation success.
So what's the fallout there?
How do we how do we help withone function who's leading an
(31:55):
initiative?
How do we, how do we help theother leaders with that adoption
piece?
SPEAKER_01 (32:00):
Yeah.
So I think it's back to thequestion, and and I know now
that I realize that we didn'treally go back and fully address
it is how do you do alignment inan organization?
Because that's what it gets backto, right?
So you have a sp ideally everytransformation hopefully has at
least a sponsor at the executivelevel in an organization.
And that sponsor, usunderstanding as change leaders
(32:23):
or advisors to them, what arethey, what are they trying to
achieve?
One of the questions is is thisan installation or are we after
benefits realization?
Tells me a lot, right?
Um, tells me a lot about whatthat leader's focused on.
So based on that, and thenunderstanding what kind of
activities need to happen inorder to get layered alignment
across the organization, becauseessentially layers happen all
(32:47):
across the organization, andalignment is what helps us
simplify the complexity acrossthose layers, right?
The more alignment we haveacross all the layers of the
organization, the smoothereverything will run.
Well, if we have two leaders orexecutives who they are not
necessarily aligned in whatwe're trying to achieve, then
that sponsor has some work todo, and we have to support that
(33:09):
sponsor and working with thatleader to find a place of
alignment.
And if they don't find a placeof alignment, then sometimes it
has to go up even further and goup if it's not the CEO or
otherwise of what are we tryingto achieve together.
Because if we don't find thosepockets up front where there's
misalignment, that's where wewill have problems down the
line, right?
Which is what you're expressingand experiencing.
(33:31):
And so um we use the termlayered alignment to understand,
to help leaders understand theamount of alignment that needs
to be done across theorganization.
And then, and that alignment isalso its own process within the
change process.
It doesn't just happen oncebecause something can change.
It could be a multi-yeartransformation, new goals come
(33:52):
out if we just stay with the thefocus on incentives and um new
focus areas for them to gettheir bonuses.
And we have to realign and makesure that nothing's changed.
Or if something has changed, howdo things need to shift?
And so there's all thoseconsiderations that have to
happen when we're in atransformation and alignment and
(34:12):
constant alignment as part ofthe process and journey is
extremely important for thesenior leadership to be willing
to do if they want theirtransformation to be successful.
Other examples can be a newexecutive comes in, right?
A new CIO, right?
You have the head of engineeringor operations that has
engineering, and you have now anew CIO.
Well, technology is a keyenabler and whatever the
(34:34):
engineering transformation is.
Okay, well, we forget what thatnew CIO and make sure that we're
aligned and maintain alignmentas he or she gets through their
first hundred, two, threesixty-five days, that nothing
changes for them and it's goingto disrupt our transformation,
or is the transformation gonnahave to course correct and take
another direction?
It's constant need.
(34:55):
And um, we don't do it.
Most most organizations don'ttake that time to align.
And so when we become sponsorsas executives of transformation,
a lot of times I don't know thatthe executives really understand
what their role is supposed tobe as that sponsor, and that
they have this bigresponsibility to ensure the
change is set up for success andcontinues to be set up for
(35:17):
success as we progress.
SPEAKER_02 (35:19):
Agreed.
Another classic scenario is youknow, when IT holds the purse
strings uh for a new tool andand it's led by IT.
So and something gets pushed outto the business, but the
business is not always involved.
So, how do we handle thatsituation?
SPEAKER_01 (35:38):
Yeah, I would tell IT, uh, you know, times are
changing, right?
And I have a client, uh actuallytwo clients right now who have
this historical legacy scenarioof IT's always owned the purse
strings of all digitaltransformations.
And and the reality being thatIT over time has realized more
and more, generally inorganizations, they're key
(35:59):
enablers of the business beingsuccessful.
Well, once they have thatmindset shift as IT, they start
to recognize in digitaltransformation how important the
business input to solutionsreally is, right?
We can't, if we do it withoutit, we're going to have more
problems on the back end withadoption.
So there's a lot oforganizations that have already
(36:20):
turned this curve.
There are some that are juststarting, and there's some that
aren't there yet.
But, or I should say, and the ITorganizations today need to
realize that we talked about itearlier, early engagement,
bringing the folks along withyou to design the solution that
are going to need to help youoperationalize it later, right?
(36:42):
Or those subject matter expertsor customers if they're going to
be using it, getting that UXinput right from the customers
to make sure that what you'rerolling out is going to work and
we've addressed the glitchesthat are going to prevent ease
of adoption, which ultimatelyprevents or enables our benefits
realization.
So when we think through allthose things, I a lot of times
(37:03):
ask IT leaders, well, what doyou want from this?
Right.
And we have to be listening forare they after an installation
of a technology or are wealigned on going after the
benefits?
And you know I keep saying thatand bring it back to it, but it
is a mindset that exists incorporate.
Um, I was talking with apotential client in the last six
(37:25):
months and could have been agreat piece of work, but they
were their head of IT wasactually after the installation.
Worried about benefitsrealization later.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that's not really for usbecause we're here to really
help you up level your changeand change capability.
But the reality is there arestill leaders out there that
believe in the installationmindset.
And a lot of them do live in themore technical side of the
(37:49):
house.
I don't want to just pin it onIT.
There's some other ones,engineering and other places.
But um we have to switch asleaders.
If we really want to get themost for our investment, the
best for our people, and be athriving company, not just
surviving today, but thrivingtomorrow.
We have to change our mindsetsabout what are we after.
(38:12):
And one of the first ones is arewe after installation or are we
after benefits realization?
SPEAKER_02 (38:18):
And we are seeing some improvements there right
over the years.
IT is getting it is starting toreally, you know, be that that
that yin and yang with thebusiness.
So uh but there are stilloccasions where where we know
that happens, but it is gettingbetter.
And I do really appreciate thoseIT leaders that do set approach,
so yeah, and there's more andmore of them coming around to
(38:39):
it, right?
SPEAKER_01 (38:39):
Some there's some industries that haven't had to
change for a long time.
Yeah, right.
And they're having to changenow, and so they're working on
their own mindsets and their owncultures on how they support the
business in delivering.
And it's great to watch and be apart of.
SPEAKER_02 (38:53):
Yeah, and and you know, that's when you know IT,
you know, we just talked aboutthat scenario where IT is kind
of king, right?
And but we've also seen kind ofthe opposite where IT is not
king, they're treated more likea service provider instead of
what I guess I'd call anenterprise capability owner.
And so, you know, we've seenfunctions, you know, individual
(39:14):
functions spin up their ownsoftware, their own processes,
you know, and they're oftenredundant with other functions.
And so, you know, and they justkind of expect other functions
to just plug in after the fact,but there's redundancies there.
So, what what's the cost of thatsiloed approach with regards to
OCM?
SPEAKER_01 (39:33):
Well, yeah, it's a great question because I the
reality is the siloed approachin general doesn't work well for
transformation, right?
So there are so many other, justeven think about it, even across
an enterprise, there are so manyother programs and projects that
happen in a company.
And if we are only siloed in ourtransformation and not taking
into consideration all thebroader change, the enterprise
(39:55):
strategy around it and how weintegrate with all these other
projects, we will misssomething.
We will not be as successful.
And so, how do we make surewe're appropriate?
We're integrated, we'resupporting each other.
And sometimes it can be assimple, brandy, as well, we're
gonna be going live around thesame time.
So we need to coordinateresourcing around training and
(40:16):
how we're gonna docommunications and where can we
partner up just to help theorganization from a capacity
perspective, right?
So that's the simple side of it.
But there are usually otherintegrations that if we don't
make sure that we're talking,then we're gonna have that
siloed approach and somethingwill be something big will be
missed, right?
So it happens at the enterpriselevel, it happens at the the
(40:39):
corporate function level, ithappens at the teams within
corporate function levels.
I've seen it in variousfunctions, HR finance and
others, where even teams withinthose those um umbrellas don't
talk to each other regularly andthey're they just have a siloed
approach.
It doesn't mean that at somepoint in their history that
didn't serve them.
(41:00):
But in today's world, with theamount of disruption and the
amount of change, we have tobreak down those silos if we
want to be the most effective,right?
Because if we're not, the siloswill create the rework for us.
SPEAKER_02 (41:14):
They do.
Yep, they absolutely do.
SPEAKER_01 (41:16):
Yeah, it's a good call out.
SPEAKER_02 (41:18):
I'm pretty sure, you know, like in reality, that we
know many organizations may cometo you once they're already
sealing some failure.
And maybe they want some help.
Help me salvage this project,help me save this thing.
So what do you do when a projectis half implemented and the red
flags are flying?
Talk to me about what you dothen.
SPEAKER_01 (41:40):
That's great.
We call that change uh when it'shalfway through the change and
leaders or someone all of asudden gets the hair on the back
of their neck standing upsaying, uh-oh, we need help,
something's not right.
We call that change rescue.
We come in and rescue theproject or the program or the
transformation.
So we'll actually, uh, ifleaders are open to it and based
on a list of criteria,including, are you willing to
(42:02):
look at timelines?
Are you willing to prioritizeand look at people's capacity?
Are you willing to invest in X,Y, and Z?
And assuming certain factors arethere, we will come in and help
the leadership assess wherethey're at and where what's been
missed.
Generally, it goes all the wayback to somewhere along the
lines we did not establish afoundation that would be
(42:23):
successful for thistransformation.
And we have to pause, resetourselves.
We call that don't be afraid ofthe reset and go back, catch it
up so that we can move forwardeffectively.
Right.
So there's a lot of um, there'sa lot of human dynamics in a
change rescue and starts all theway up a lot of times with the
(42:45):
sponsors and the leaders of howthey feel about needing to
respause and reset because thatcan be scary for leaders.
They sometimes will view it as abig mistake or a failure, that
it means we we failed already ifwe have to do this.
And I'll actually hopefully bespeaking with an executive that
she did it with her team earlierthis year on an HR
(43:06):
transformation on in the nextyear at a women's conference.
But the power of the resetactually isn't like an
acceleration or a catapultstrategy that is very often
overlooked because of our fearof what the perception is of it.
Oh, this isn't working.
Oh, it's falling apart, all thethings we might be worried
about, as opposed to just takingthe risk, doing it so that we
(43:28):
can actually go faster.
So we come in and help leadersbasically do that reset on their
transformation or their complexchange.
We also have leaders who willcome to us after the
implementation and say, well,you know, we got the system in,
we got the technology in, we gotthe processes in, or whatever it
(43:48):
was.
Um, but we're not seeing thebenefits that we need to.
And it's I'm getting dinged onit, or it's hurting the business
or client customers are in achaos or whatever.
Would you be willing to come inand help us set up a second
phase of this for success inorder to get adoption up, help
us realize our benefits, help usadjust whatever is needed.
(44:09):
So we do that and we call thatchange recovery because that's
recovering the project on theback end.
SPEAKER_02 (44:13):
So when we're in the recovery, for example, when I
think about this, you you mayhave already fed what we call
food poisoning to theorganization, right?
They already have a bad taste intheir mouth for this process,
this tool, whatever it may be.
Um and so then, you know, whenyou guys come in and do that, do
you do you have to reset yourexpectations for what success
(44:36):
looks like?
Because I know you said, likeyou said, a successful project
could be 30% of so 30% adoption.
Um, so how do you how do youneed to reset those expectations
in a different way?
SPEAKER_01 (44:46):
Sometimes with the leaders who are leading it, we
have to, but if I'm interpretingwhat you mean by reset there,
the you can actually overcome amajority of the legacy food
poisoning or the poison and youknow, that bad taste in your
mouth kind of thing to use someof your language.
It's all about the leadershipbeing willing to own what
(45:07):
happened and bringing theirhuman forward in order to regain
the trust, maybe the respect oftheir people that they're
willing to step back and fixthis.
And I've run into scenarioswhere some leaders aren't
willing to do that for their ownreputation, whether and for
(45:28):
their reasons, right?
You can come up with all thehuman psychology reasons of why
they wouldn't necessarily dothat.
But then a lot of times you dohave the leaders that say, no,
we invested 30 million.
And it's like, I need this, Iwill do whatever you tell me to
do, right?
Which are ideal because thenthat means all right, so we need
to work with you and on you,miss or Mr.
(45:50):
Leader, so that you can be readyand step in front of your
company or your people and say,Hey, we messed up, or hey, we
didn't do, or that we missedsome things.
Here's the good of the came outof this and all the effort, but
we know we need to fix this inorder to regain our footing.
And I'm asking for your help.
It can feel like a bigreputation hit for some leaders
(46:11):
to do that.
What they don't realize is onthe back end, their reputation
will soar because they showedtheir people that they're human,
right?
And they brought their humanside, we call sometimes
self-disclosure, to the table inorder to help reset what is
needed.
That's like a post-reset kind ofconcept.
Um, but it can be extremelypowerful with your people and
(46:34):
let them know that we're all init together and we're gonna
figure it out.
But yet you whoever wasoriginally accountable takes
some of that ownership, right?
Isn't pointing the fingers,isn't, you know, trying to say
it was the third-party vendor'sfault or it was a like, no, set
it all aside, own it so that wecan figure out a way to move
forward together.
Um, a lot harder than peoplewould think it is to be willing
(46:57):
to do that kind of work.
SPEAKER_02 (46:58):
Yes, indeed.
And, you know, leaders who'velived through, I guess I don't
know if I want to call it afailed change, but you know, any
kind of a recovery or a rescuemission, they know the
importance of this, right?
It is it is not a luxury.
It is the painkiller.
It is the one thing that's gonnahelp them, you know, have some
control over the adoption andthe success of these projects.
(47:19):
They're the ones that often pushfor, you know, that separate
funding and fully allocated teamfrom from early on, and and they
value that.
Um, unfortunately, sometimesthese big initiatives just don't
happen often enough where youknow, we everyone has had to
live those experiences.
So they'll only need to live itonce.
They do.
SPEAKER_01 (47:38):
It's not and then after that, they're like, this
cannot fail, or I had thishappen in the past, I cannot do
that again.
Sometimes it's I don't want todo that again, right?
So I want to do it differently.
And those are, I mean, ourfavorite leaders because they,
to your point, they felt thatpain and they understand.
And we might still have to workwith them and convince them of
(47:58):
certain things, you know, oldhabits die hard kind of thing,
but they're at least open to it.
And it makes a huge differencewhen the leaders really do want
to achieve results um andoutcomes because their
orientation is different to whatit takes to achieve it.
SPEAKER_02 (48:14):
Thinking about the leaders' organizations who may
have not experienced this in thepast, and they think that maybe
they've got a really greatculture and they don't need to
do a whole lot of OCM becausetheir people are just gonna do
what's needed because they'reloyal people and they're hired
to do their jobs.
Tell me what you would say to aleader who feels strongly in
(48:35):
that direction.
SPEAKER_01 (48:36):
That is great.
I'm thrilled for you.
And I would ask them somequestions about so I'm I'm
assuming that I have anassumption that you've already
thought of this, and how wouldyou handle it if this happens?
How will you handle it if thisgoes wrong?
What will happen if this?
And they may have answers intheir mind for all of it, which
is totally fine.
(48:56):
And they might not have answersand it might cause them to think
a little more deeply than theycurrently are and open their
eyes earlier.
And if they're able to put it inand get it in and achieve all of
that, given what they believe isthe truth, what their truth is,
great.
I guess I've learned over timeis I don't overfight that,
right?
But if they're on a call with measking me about it, then there's
(49:19):
something that they areuncomfortable with, and we just
have to find what that is tohelp them.
Yep.
And then that builds trust andcredibility.
And then over time, next thingyou know, you're getting pulled
in for various conversations.
Because the reality is, iseverybody needs some advice and
some coaching, especially intransformation, which we've
(49:39):
already said is nonlinear.
It's got a ton of coursecorrections, a lot of emotions
and feelings are built up intoit, and there's a ton of human
dynamics.
So it's like a perfect recipefor things to go wrong.
And how we lead it and how wedesign that process is critical
depending on what the leaderwants.
And so I will never ever force aleader beyond.
(50:00):
I might ask them some questionsto see, you know, if it triggers
anything for them.
And I might ask them why they'retalking to me if they feel that
good and they have all theanswers.
But um, outside of that, Ireally do kind of let it go,
Brandy, because there's so muchchange out there and there's so
many people who who do need andwant the help.
Yep.
I think I've heard once you cantry to teach a pig to sing, but
(50:22):
you're just gonna irritate thepig, right?
It is, it is.
I'm a believer in not wantingsomething more than my client
does for themselves.
Yeah, agree.
I I can want it so badly forthem, but I'm I might be setting
myself up for disappointments,right?
If they really don't want thatfor themselves.
So I'm very careful to give theclient what they want, what they
need, um, as opposed to, youknow, what I think they need.
SPEAKER_02 (50:45):
Makes sense.
So lovely, I don't know.
I think this is a reallypowerful conversation.
If there's one message that youwant our listeners to walk away
with, is there anything specificthere that that you'd like to
leave us with today?
SPEAKER_01 (50:58):
I I will.
Um, one of my it's very simple.
It's one of my things I sayquite often.
Um, I'm not one of the folks whosays that change is hard.
I'm actually one of the folksthat just say change requires
effort.
And that effort doesn't have tobe hard unless you want to make
it hard.
It just requires effort.
And so thoughtful effort,intentional effort, sometimes
(51:19):
not intentional because youdidn't know what was coming, but
it doesn't have to be hardunless you make it hard.
And there are ways to make iteasier, set it up for success so
that it won't be so harddownstream.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
I like it.
All right, Leslie, well, how canpeople reach out to you or learn
more about you and your businessif they're interested in talking
to you?
SPEAKER_01 (51:36):
Oh, that's really, really great of you.
So, MeaningfulchangeConsulting.com is our website.
It has all of the contactinformation out there.
You can also find me online uhand LinkedIn and Leslie Ellis
find me, but you also find methrough Meaningful Change
Consulting's business page.
So, whatever suits, pleaseconnect with me.
And if anything, drop me apersonal note.
If you heard this podcast, I'dlove to hear um any of the
(51:58):
insights that you have.
SPEAKER_02 (52:00):
Okay, excellent.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us on the True North
Podcast.
So, and thanks to everyone who'slistening.
SPEAKER_00 (52:07):
Thank you for tuning in today.
Don't forget to subscribe andreview the show.
And for more information on IPX,visit IPxHQ.com.
Welcome to the IPX True North Podcast, where we
connect people, processes, andtools.
SPEAKER_02 (00:07):
Hi, welcome back to the IPX True North Podcast,
where we explore the principles,the practices, and the people
driving enterprisetransformation.
My name is Brandy Taylor, andtoday we're diving into a topic
that's often underestimated, butfrom my vantage point, it's
really never optional.
And that's organizational changemanagement, or sometimes we'll
(00:29):
say OCM.
So joining me today is someonewho's made it her mission to
elevate the people side ofchange.
Leslie Ellis is the founder ofMeaningful Change Consulting.
And she's here to help us justunpack this a little bit and why
OCM isn't just a nice to have.
Like we really believe it's apainkiller for transformation
(00:52):
headaches.
And really, I in my opinion,Leslie, it's really the secret
weapon for successful enterprisechange.
So I want to welcome you to theshow.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
And let's just, I'd love to juststart with your story, you know,
let us get to know you a littlebit.
What led you to this work?
Tell us about your background,what keeps you passionate, all
that good stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
So thrilled to be here, Brandy.
Thank you for having me.
Um, so a little bit about me.
So uh currently live on the EastCoast in the Carolinas of the
US.
And um I have had meaningfulchange consulting, previously
called Involved ChangeConsulting for a little over
eight, nine years now.
I probably need to check themonths to know which year that
is.
Um, but I am I'm the classic uhaccidental entrepreneur in this
(01:36):
sp in this space.
So the way I ended up inorganizational change was I got
my master's in human resourcesand industrial relations around
the time that the economy dippedin the late early 2000s, I guess
we should say at this point.
And um I ended up working with amanufacturing company who had a
big four company create theirframework for change, and they
(01:59):
did not have a way or anythingbuilt to help teach leaders how
to use the framework.
And so I actually started inbuilding organizational
capability around change andtransformation in companies in
the global engineered productsector or industrial sectors,
really enjoyed that work, evengot to own a culture assessment,
(02:20):
assessing the culture and themicrocultures in the
organization, and really enjoyedit.
But the one thing it wasn'tgiving me was a significant
amount of go out and hands-onand delivering transformation.
I was helping build capability,but I wasn't doing the work.
So I didn't actually really knowthe pain points at first.
I only know what people told me.
So I went out and I found anexecutive in the organization
(02:42):
who said, yes, come work for meand help me do transformational
change across the globalcompany.
So I did that.
And through that, I started torecognize that the pain points
were really interesting to meand also very frustrating
because it was this constantamount of rework on the back end
of change efforts.
So we install, we implementsomething, we think we've done
(03:05):
all the right change managementwork, right?
So today's traditionaldefinition of OCM or change
management, comms, training, getthe people ready for the go
live, whatever the go live is.
And ultimately, um, we still dida bunch of rework.
We did that perfectly in somecases, but we still had
significant rework to get thebusiness results or the benefits
(03:26):
realization for those changes.
And um, I started questioningit.
And I started saying, why?
What are we not doing?
What are people not telling usabout the OCM space that is
causing this rework?
And I started going out into theprofession to find honestly who
would be the elders of theprofession at this point that
started back in the 70s, andthey're very forward thinkers
(03:50):
about what is happening in theOCM space and what is missing
from it that is causingorganizations to not um achieve
the results that they want.
They can install a technology, anew process all day long.
They can put it all in place,but it doesn't matter if the
people don't adopt, it doesn'tmatter if we didn't do all the
steps needed to ensure benefitsrealization.
(04:12):
And so I realized and started toopen up my eyes and realize how
changes this big process?
And it starts way earlier thanany of us in leadership think it
does.
And that's how I've continued inthe space ever since.
I continue to work withorganizations who really want to
make sure that they achievetheir benefits that they want to
realize in their organizationaltransformations.
(04:34):
So that kind of gets us to here.
And I've been doing the work forI guess we're over 20 some years
now, and um still at it andstill enjoying it and love
watching my clients have theiraha moments and move through all
their own personaltransformations while they
transform their organizations.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
I love it.
I love it.
And I think the rework is areally great way to talk about
it because that everyone theysee that is this nice to have,
as we keep saying.
And but honestly, like therework piece is what we don't
want to do, and that's whateveryone is afraid of.
And I feel like everyone justgoes into these things like with
fingers crossed, if they'venever done this before, and hope
(05:15):
is not a strategy.
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
And I do want to clarify becauseum, you just what you said
triggered for me.
There is some necessary inchange.
There is some we call thatcourse correction in some cases.
Um, there's things that we learnthrough transformation because
it's not a linear process plan.
Sorry, everybody.
Transformation does not get runon a linear point A to point B
(05:38):
process plan.
So we learn as we go, which isnecessary because there's so
much we don't know when westart, but there is unnecessary
rework, which is what I wasreferring to of why are we
basically doing the project overagain afterwards?
And that's what we want to tryto avoid, right?
SPEAKER_02 (05:55):
Yes, I think that's a key point, is to probably set
that up front here is we don'texpect everything to be perfect.
You don't implement perfectly.
You never do.
We're not aiming for that, butinstead of the chaos and the big
oscillations is how do we thentry to narrow those guardrails
and think about it, you know,more in an agile perspective.
We know we need to be agile, weknow we need to kind of revisit
(06:17):
these things.
And it's not just, you know, andwe encourage that, right?
We don't necessarily want thatbig bang approach or that big
waterfall approach.
We want to have some level ofagility here so that way, you
know, we as we as we uncoverthings, there's no way you're
gonna not uncover some surprisesalong the way.
And so you need to be able to dothat.
But that's that's also coursecorrection, and that's you know,
(06:38):
so rework to me is is somethingtruly that we probably could
have controlled if we would havehad some foresight.
SPEAKER_01 (06:44):
Absolutely.
Tend to set it better.
SPEAKER_02 (06:46):
Okay, awesome.
All right, so you know, at IPX,we see this a lot.
We see this all the time, whereorganizations invest a large
amount of money in digitaltransformation or harmonization
initiatives, you know, what, butwhat they they fail to
intentionally manage the mostunpredictable variable is the
(07:07):
people.
You know, I think just tell me alittle bit from your
perspective, what are the whatare some of the most common
missteps you see when it comesto managing that human side of
the change?
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Yeah, that great question.
And there's there can be so manyof them, but I'll try to
highlight some of the higherleverage ones, the ones that
really shift the trajectory ofthings.
And so first and foremost, Ilove all the executives out
there, but if you think aproject plan is your
transformation, I'm here to tellyou.
We need we need to realize thata project plan is not enough,
(07:39):
right?
There is alignment work up frontthat needs done.
There is change strategydevelopment that needs done.
There's an entire setup processof setting the foundation for
success in the very beginning ofa transformation that we just
skip right over and we hand thisamazing transformation need,
idea, wake-up call over to agroup of PMs, who don't get me
(08:02):
wrong, we need all of ourprogram managers.
They're fabulous.
They help us get the work done.
But we hand it to them and say,create a plan and execute.
Well, we just skipped over anentire part of what makes the
process as successful aspossible in setting up the right
foundation to lead that changeon.
A project plan is just a tool,it's just a piece of the
(08:25):
proverbial paper, right?
Of tasks.
Um, and it's managing to that,whereas we just completely
skipped over, even at the top ofthe organization, taking care of
the people.
All of the officers, executives,seniors leadership, they're all
people too.
And we just skipped over takingcare of them to ensure that the
(08:45):
change will be successful.
And so it's a true process thatneeds to be looked at and looked
at from a how do we make this anexcellent process so that we
minimize that rework, that chaosdown the line.
And you actually, I'm not sayingyou don't need the traditional
change management elements,training, engagement down the
line, and um communications, butthey're significantly easier and
(09:09):
smoother when we do the upsetwork.
And so that's a big one thatencompasses a lot of different
elements of we got to slow downa little bit in order to go
faster through implementation.
But a lot of times we want tohand it off and expect the
implementation to go faster.
Well, hold on a second.
If it's truly transformationalin nature, then that means we
(09:33):
have a lot of change to do,including personal mindsets,
behavior, maybe, and most likelycultural implications.
All of that implies the humanside of the work.
And we can't skip over that.
If you want to skip over it,say, oh, well, we're gonna do
this transformation, but we'renot gonna touch culture.
Well, okay, then you're notgoing to get all the benefits
(09:54):
that you said that you wanted,right?
So we have to really weigh thepros and cons of our approach
and make sure that we'reattentive to what is required in
our process to be successful bybringing more of the human
element in all the way at thevery, very beginning.
Like before you even think youshould start, you should have
started the human element side,not bring in an OCM professional
(10:16):
or a change strategist, youknow, months down the line,
which I see happen very often.
SPEAKER_02 (10:22):
Same.
We see a lot of that too, whereyou know, companies will say,
Well, we have OCM, we have anOCM team.
Yeah.
Um and that, you know, that thatOCM team may be a nice little
three to five pack ofindividuals doing a lot of great
things.
They've got their methodologies,um, but it's kind of cookbook.
And what they do is the problemis there's too many things going
(10:43):
on in an organization.
So they never we they never getinvolved soon enough.
And and they and when they getinvolved, it's it ends up being
lighter load than what you knowwas originally anticipated.
So and to me, you know, let'stalk about the communication
piece, right?
A light sprinkle of emails or afew town halls, you know, they
just don't cut it.
(11:03):
So, you know, what is what islike that surefire way to to
tank adoption, right?
Like it's like to me, so manytimes we just we see that this
is not what I would say scopedeven.
Like it's like, oh, we'll we'lldo OCM.
Yep, we'll do that.
We got it.
But it's down the line.
I'm like, son, it's it's kind ofmaybe packed as some small tiny
(11:24):
bits, tidbits of milestonesinside the standard
implementation project timeline.
And and we really want to pushthat these this needs to be a
separate initiative that runs inparallel, that's funded, that's
managed, it's got its owntimeline, you know, it's got its
own program manager, its ownresources.
So tell us a little bit moreabout, you know, how to do this
(11:44):
right.
SPEAKER_01 (11:45):
Yeah.
So actually, I would even umpush back a little bit on what
you just said.
And actually, I would tell you,yes, OCM or your change
strategists need to come inearlier.
They need to come in as soon asyou hear the wake-up call and
you're trying to develop thecase for change and what it's
going to take to set it up forsuccess.
So basically, as soon asofficers say we need to do this,
OCM should have been involved,right?
(12:07):
Um, with the PM.
I'm not saying don't bring it aPM as well.
I'm saying at the same time,right?
Because engagement starts rightthen.
And when we talk about thingslike change communications and
things like that, a lot of timescommunication engagement should
be like hand in hand, bread andbutter, you know, type of thing,
um, so that they're right witheach other from the very
(12:27):
beginning and it's throughout.
Because engagement actuallystarts the second you start
involving people and buildingthe case for change.
As soon as you're identifyingsuccess criteria, the change
strategy, building alignmentamongst leaders, you know, as
soon as you're doing all thatwork, that's all a type of
engagement.
And we should be and in it andtracking it and monitoring it
and setting it up for success.
(12:48):
The one thing I would nudge backon you is it's not necessarily a
parallel process to the broadertransformation.
I would tell you that it's donewell and when I've seen it done
the the best is when the PM andthe change strategists or the
change leadership can be reallyin lockstep and supporting each
other and understanding andbelieving each other.
Even if you're a PM who's alittle skeptical, like, well,
(13:10):
I've normally done all thiswork, right?
And and I can handle all this.
You would be amazed at what kindof scenarios your change, um,
your senior change OCM or changestrategist can support you in
with the human dynamics thatwill get you as a PM out of hot
water like that.
I have done it.
(13:30):
I have won over PMs, programmanagers like me.
And sometimes it's the simplestthing.
If Jason ever hears us, he wasmy first PM to ever do something
like that, but he would he wouldlaugh.
But it needs to be done inlockstep with each other as
though it's one entity, but yeta parallel, a full parallel
governance structure today-to-day operations.
(13:51):
Right?
Safety-to-day operations has tocontinue with transformation
alongside it.
But then how do we run thistransformation in parallel and
day-to-day operations as acohesive team delivering on the
same outcomes?
And I'll keep saying outcomes orbenefits realization because a
lot of times we only talk aboutgetting to go lives, getting to
(14:12):
implementation day, and then itjust goes away 30, 60, 90 days
later.
But yeah, we didn't realizebenefits, which is what the case
for the transformation was builton.
SPEAKER_02 (14:22):
Okay.
So some good things to talkabout there.
So and also tell me a littlebit, I guess.
I'm thinking about, you know, ifI'm an organization or, you
know, I'm thinking about whatyou said is having you in there
lockstep with that PM.
Tell me about is is that enough?
Right?
Is one person like yourselfenough?
And, you know, what kind ofresources are needed inside of a
(14:44):
business to make this successfulfor you?
SPEAKER_01 (14:46):
What a great question.
So one person like me can beenough if I'm a full-time person
supporting the transformation,because usually transformations
are fairly aggressive, right?
They're fairly wide, big inscope, far in reach, right?
Um, usually involving a largepart of the organization, if not
the entire, plus maybe going outto your customers, vendors, and
(15:08):
so on, retirees, who knows?
Um, so if you have someonein-house that is actually ideal
and having a change strategist,someone like myself or someone
on my team, we come in and we weconsult and advise to help that
person, that change leaderinside the organization be
successful by partnering closelywith the PM in order to support
the sponsors who should beusually executives in delivering
(15:32):
the the work they're accountablefor in this transformation.
And then there's usually a teamof folks who help support,
whether it's comms, a teamaround training, a team around
impact tracking.
Please don't forget to trackyour impacts, folks.
That's my one plug.
Please please don't forget to dothat.
Um, because how do you know whatthe what the change means if
(15:52):
you're not doing it?
And then um various other needsthat could be needed in that
that sphere, right?
So you could have a team ofpeople, whether they're third
party, if you don't have theskill set in-house or in-house
to support the transformation,but they should be as dedicated
as possible to thetransformation.
Where we see a lot oforganizations struggle is the
(16:14):
size and meaning of thetransformation is so large, but
then they give all of theresponsibility to individuals
who 80% of their time needs tobe focused on operations.
But yet the executives and thesenior leadership say, you know,
um, which it's just it's notthat they're um bad people.
They just don't realize thatsomebody with 20% capacity can't
(16:38):
support a big transformationaleffort that needs to go live in
18 months, two years, or even ayear if they're really pushing
it.
Right.
I've even seen challenges withfive-year programs where they're
doing huge um operation systemimplementations, and they're
still those leaders arestruggling to deliver on a
(16:59):
program when they have an 80%day-to-day job operations
focused and 20, maybe 30% atbest, dedicated to this huge
transformation.
And they struggle and they burnout, right?
So, really taking capacity isone of those things at the very
upfront part of we skip over alot in setting up a change for
success.
(17:20):
Um, we'll throw people on aproject, they might be the right
subject matter experts, but wedon't do anything to prioritize
to help them with theircapacity.
And then we wonder why ourtransformation struggle continue
to be delayed, issue more issuesarise, we can't keep things
aligned because they don't havethe time to do the
transformation and keep thebusiness running.
(17:42):
So that's where a lot of timesthat parallel structure really
supports and helps is if you whoyou can pull out of more of
their day-to-day job to supportand then have either the right
third parties come in and helpthem or supplement with staff
augmentation third parties tohelp if you don't have it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
Makes sense.
And so ideally, would it bebetter from your perspective for
an organization for you to coachthem to basically execute the
OCM themselves so that way itfeels like it's their own?
Or, you know, do you see?
I mean, sometimes I'm sure withthe resource constraints that
maybe they just need you toexecute that.
(18:19):
But but are do you prefer beingmore of like a guide or to
actually go in and actually dothe execution of it for them?
SPEAKER_01 (18:26):
I will tell my preference is to be a guide.
We do a little bit of both, wedo a little bit of done for you
as well as um just that a lot ofcoaching and advising.
And here's why.
Many leaders in theorganization, they want to build
capability in their people.
They want to build the muscle,the skill set inside their
organization.
Well, how do you do that?
Well, you need to teach.
(18:47):
You can't, if you just bring inpeople who do and substitute for
your people, they don't buildthe muscle.
They don't build the skill set.
And so we're very big on listen,I I want you to be successful
with future changes.
And maybe you'll bring me, bringme and my team back for some
advising in the future on bigtransformations.
But I want to teach someone whocan be teach them to be really
(19:08):
great change leaders.
Teach them on how to be thatleader who can figure some of
this stuff out or know when, youknow, uh-oh, we didn't, we
didn't, we missed a step.
Let's pause real quick and let'sreset ourselves, right?
That type of leader who paysattention to that and isn't just
driven on getting to theinstallation or implementation
timeline.
(19:29):
They're taking care of thathuman side.
And it it is a skill set andit's a blend of an art and a
science, right?
Engineering, straight science,right?
A lot of process stuff.
A lot of it's more science-basedor um engineering based,
depending on what organizationyou're moving in.
But the people side is a blendof art and science.
(19:50):
And it takes some time to buildthat skill set and that
capability.
It doesn't just exist inorganizations generally, except
maybe in your HR space.
And they're busy folks, as ifyour HR partners and everybody
are busy too.
So you have to bring somebody inwho will help build capability
at the same time that they mightbe doing coaching or advising.
(20:11):
That would be my preference.
Um, and what I recommend leadersthink about when they're hiring
someone to come in and support atransformation.
Can this person also help usbuild capability too?
SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
Yeah, because you know, typical program managers
or in a lot of the companies wework with, you know, they're
they're technical engineeringfolks, et cetera.
This kind of capability or thiskind of skill set is not
something that that we're taughtin the colleges or universities,
you know.
So this is um something verydifferent.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
No, when I went through my master's back in the
early 2000s, it was, and this isone of the top public business
schools in the US.
Um, they only taught like it wasthree course elective or three
three credit course, it was likeone chapter was on what we call
change management.
Now, hopefully they've changedand adjusted over the years
because of the importance, but Iremember being like, what is
(21:00):
this that you want me to do?
And I've basically learnedmyself and through my own um
experience on how to do thiswork and wonderful mentors.
I have some really amazingmentors as well who really
stretch your thinking in yourcape, my own capability that
keeps me going.
So it's not something that's inorganizations naturally.
(21:20):
And if you have a leader who hasa tendency for this, I encourage
you to cultivate it in them.
unknown (21:26):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (21:27):
You know, one of the biggest mistakes we sometimes
see is people or organizationsdefining, like you said, not
engaging people soon enough.
And so they're defining theprocess or the tool requirements
or whatever needs to happen inisolation, right?
And so without the people whowill live it.
(21:48):
So it's why is it so critical,you know, to include those
practitioners up front?
And how can, I guess, also howcan we be sure that we've
surfaced every criticalstakeholder so we don't get
blindsided mid-project bysomeone who maybe should have
been involved up from the start?
How do we how do we know?
SPEAKER_01 (22:07):
Uh, what an amazing question.
So it goes back to the wholeengagement conversation, right?
Engagement doesn't start atimplement when you're in your
implementation phases.
I'm using some project programmanagement language when I say
that.
Um, it starts from the very,very beginning.
And if we actually take the timeto set a change up for success,
we start that process wayearlier of saying, who all needs
(22:29):
to be involved?
Who all needs to be part ofbuilding the strategy for this?
What leaders across theorganization?
And those leaders can help tellyou who needs to be involved
where, right?
And then you start that processso early that by the time you
get to the implementation phase,right, you have found pretty
much most of your stakeholders.
Now, course correction exists,right?
(22:52):
So we need to make sure we areconstantly sourcing in an
organization for is theresomeone we're missing or someone
we should be bringing into thatprocess.
So that's that piece.
It's engagement doesn't startdown the line when many
organizations decide, okay,we're coming up on
implementation.
Let's bring our OCM changemanagement folks in.
It should have started wayearlier.
But here's your other risk: designing process and solutions, (23:13):
undefined
let's just deal with the wordsolutions, designing any
solutions without thestakeholders involved, it is a
huge engagement miss.
It's a huge oper, huge miss ongetting their buy-in to the
changes, educating them on whatyou're trying to do and why, and
getting them to be willing toadopt it the minute that you put
(23:35):
it in place, right?
They can help you source all ofthe things that are needed in
order to ensure that solution isgoing to work.
And they are also the first oneswho will be happy to tell you
when it doesn't work when youimplement something, and they're
gonna tell you it doesn't workbecause you didn't ask me.
And I'm gonna resist you, andthen leaders are gonna feel like
(23:56):
it's a resistance factor becausethey didn't bring those folks
in.
So we can either create our ownroadblocks and challenges and
transformation, or we can createa change process that's gonna
make all of that easier on us.
I don't know about you, Brandy.
I could rather go with thesmoother process and make sure
that those folks are in thereearly and that we're building a
(24:18):
solution together that is gonnawork, as opposed to putting all
that time and effort and puttinga solution together that we hope
will work.
And then the subject matterexperts on the front line or
middle management or whereverthey are, they'll just, you
know, give they'll hoo-koo allof it and just let it all go.
And then you're wondering whatyou're doing, and here you are
(24:40):
with unnecessary rework.
All because of what?
Timeline?
Because we wanted to save time,we wanted to save money.
Like those are usually the tworeally big cases.
I can't, you know, and thenthere's a little bit of the
expert development mentality.
Oh, we know how to do this whenyou're not the subject matter
expert.
Right?
So we have to be aware of someof those dynamics that tend to
(25:03):
drive us because predeterminedtimelines and transformation
very commonly don't make itunless you skip over important
parts of the change process thatwill cause you reworking.
SPEAKER_02 (25:16):
So when people help shape the change, it becomes
their idea.
And then the project reflectsthe voice of the business, not
just the voice of IT orleadership or one function.
And so it really forces thatconversation about the
repercussions of not changing.
(25:36):
And that's where some of thaturgency really lives.
SPEAKER_01 (25:39):
And it gives them a chance to get on board, you
know, even if it ends up being asolution that wasn't one of the
subject matter ideas, they atleast know what you're doing and
why.
And they've had some time tocome along because if they own
the final solution, especiallyif they're the ones who are
gonna have to operationalize itlater, you kind of want them
already down their cheat, oh,through their change curve by
(26:02):
the time that you roll it out.
You don't want to introduce thatto them on day one of your
implementation or go live dateand hope that you're going to
get results.
It's usually not going to gowell.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
Yeah, we want to identify even some of those
naysayers early on, as early aspossible and make sure we're
managing that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:20):
Oh, we love naysayers though.
We love them because listen,they might make you roll your
eyes on occasion, but theyusually have some nugget of
truth underneath what they haveto say that we're not hearing.
And they can they can actuallyreally help make a solution
better if we help them reframewhat they're may saying about.
(26:45):
Now, on occasion, you have yourfolks who just, you know,
they're never going to adopt,they're just not interested in
change, but that's actually moreof the minority than the
majority, right?
Um, we just need a critical massto follow us in order for us to
be successful.
And that's not even 50%, right?
Critical mass is actually in the30% range to get the rest of the
(27:06):
organization to start to shiftover.
But you will always have, Ithink we call them the laggards
on the bell curve.
You will always have 10% to 13%of laggards there.
And that's okay.
They'll either come along orthey'll filter themselves out or
they'll somehow be identified tobe filtered out later.
Um, we just can't go aftereveryone.
So I'm I'm a I like thenaysayers.
(27:28):
Um, I try to I try my best toembrace them even on the most
stressful days because they havesomething that is driving them.
And if we can uncover it, a lotof times it's a gold nugget.
Agreed.
Agreed.
SPEAKER_02 (27:39):
And the people are watching those naysayers, you
know, I think they'reinfluencers.
If you can kind of win over thenaysayers, then a lot of other
people just are soldiers.
SPEAKER_01 (27:48):
They just kind of follow suit, right?
Yeah.
It's so true.
It's so true.
It happens more often than not,but it is, it can be hard
sometimes.
Um, I watch people have a hardtime interacting with the
naysayers because we have thisexpectation of I want you to get
on board now.
Right.
I expect you to get on boardnow, but it's actually okay as
(28:10):
long as you have intentionallydesigned your process that by X
time, if there's still anaysayer, now you know how
you're going to handle it.
Right.
But up until then, allow it tobe part of your change process
intentionally to embrace yournaysayers.
Yep.
Agreed.
SPEAKER_02 (28:29):
Let's talk for lead about leadership here for a
minute.
And how do we ensure alignmentwith our leaders?
Right.
Because even when there's nobudget earmarked, let's say for
OCM, um, or when thestakeholders are in control of
the budget.
So how do we how do we work withour leaders?
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Yes.
Um, it's it's way more commonthan it should be in
transformation, right?
We're willing to spend all ofour money on the technology, on
the solution, but we're notwilling to spend it on the
people, which is reallyinteresting to me often.
But there's a lot of honestconversation that has to happen.
When I'm introduced to a clientand they want to go through a
(29:09):
transformation, there's a lot ofdirect conversation that has to
be had around timelineresourcing that includes budget,
people, capacity, right?
There's a lot of realitiesbecause transformation by nature
is not a transitional or adevelopmental or continuous
improvement type of change,right?
(29:29):
Operations day-to-day generallycan't handle it.
There's a reason it's calledtransformation.
And so having the hardconversations up front, back to
setting up the change forsuccess, is really, really
critical.
And it requires change to beviewed as more of a strategic
discipline in the organizationthan being viewed as an
(29:51):
implementation discipline.
Right now, OCM, the traditionalchange management, most of our
profession is viewed as.
As just in generalities, isviewed as implementation
support.
We talked about that earlier.
Bring the OCM folks in as we getcloser to implementation.
They don't need to be here now.
Right.
So it's an implementation focus.
(30:12):
Where we really need is we needleaders in an organization to be
thinking that change is astrategic discipline that's
going to be required to surviveand thrive going forward in our
organization.
The level of disruption is notslowing down, folks.
It's going to continue.
Pace of change continues nomatter what we want to believe.
It might even get faster if youcan believe it.
(30:34):
So technology goes faster, we gofaster.
And so, you know, leaders haveto start thinking differently
about change.
And they have to start thinkingabout what is it going to take
to set this change up forsuccess?
And are we willing to do itbefore they actually kick off
the transformation?
Because you will pay for it atsome point.
It's just where do you want topay for it?
(30:56):
And pay for it being not justabout money, right?
It comes into the rework, the,you know, people uh resistance,
um, you know, the effort thatyou put in, all the things.
So it's it'll catch up,especially if you push forward
and you don't invest.
SPEAKER_02 (31:11):
Process improvement and some of the digitization
initiatives that we find areoften initiated by one function.
You know, I'll just pick on myengineering folks with you know
product lifecycle management,PLM tools, which is a big one
that we we work with.
And when and what happens iswhen leadership of other
functions, they're not alwaysincentivized to make the change
(31:35):
stick, right?
So, you know, their goals inthis, we find this all the time
in organizations, right?
Where leaders, their goals arepotentially in conflict with
each other.
And so even their bonuses don'treflect transformation success.
So what's the fallout there?
How do we how do we help withone function who's leading an
(31:55):
initiative?
How do we, how do we help theother leaders with that adoption
piece?
SPEAKER_01 (32:00):
Yeah.
So I think it's back to thequestion, and and I know now
that I realize that we didn'treally go back and fully address
it is how do you do alignment inan organization?
Because that's what it gets backto, right?
So you have a sp ideally everytransformation hopefully has at
least a sponsor at the executivelevel in an organization.
And that sponsor, usunderstanding as change leaders
(32:23):
or advisors to them, what arethey, what are they trying to
achieve?
One of the questions is is thisan installation or are we after
benefits realization?
Tells me a lot, right?
Um, tells me a lot about whatthat leader's focused on.
So based on that, and thenunderstanding what kind of
activities need to happen inorder to get layered alignment
across the organization, becauseessentially layers happen all
(32:47):
across the organization, andalignment is what helps us
simplify the complexity acrossthose layers, right?
The more alignment we haveacross all the layers of the
organization, the smoothereverything will run.
Well, if we have two leaders orexecutives who they are not
necessarily aligned in whatwe're trying to achieve, then
that sponsor has some work todo, and we have to support that
(33:09):
sponsor and working with thatleader to find a place of
alignment.
And if they don't find a placeof alignment, then sometimes it
has to go up even further and goup if it's not the CEO or
otherwise of what are we tryingto achieve together.
Because if we don't find thosepockets up front where there's
misalignment, that's where wewill have problems down the
line, right?
Which is what you're expressingand experiencing.
(33:31):
And so um we use the termlayered alignment to understand,
to help leaders understand theamount of alignment that needs
to be done across theorganization.
And then, and that alignment isalso its own process within the
change process.
It doesn't just happen oncebecause something can change.
It could be a multi-yeartransformation, new goals come
(33:52):
out if we just stay with the thefocus on incentives and um new
focus areas for them to gettheir bonuses.
And we have to realign and makesure that nothing's changed.
Or if something has changed, howdo things need to shift?
And so there's all thoseconsiderations that have to
happen when we're in atransformation and alignment and
(34:12):
constant alignment as part ofthe process and journey is
extremely important for thesenior leadership to be willing
to do if they want theirtransformation to be successful.
Other examples can be a newexecutive comes in, right?
A new CIO, right?
You have the head of engineeringor operations that has
engineering, and you have now anew CIO.
Well, technology is a keyenabler and whatever the
(34:34):
engineering transformation is.
Okay, well, we forget what thatnew CIO and make sure that we're
aligned and maintain alignmentas he or she gets through their
first hundred, two, threesixty-five days, that nothing
changes for them and it's goingto disrupt our transformation,
or is the transformation gonnahave to course correct and take
another direction?
It's constant need.
(34:55):
And um, we don't do it.
Most most organizations don'ttake that time to align.
And so when we become sponsorsas executives of transformation,
a lot of times I don't know thatthe executives really understand
what their role is supposed tobe as that sponsor, and that
they have this bigresponsibility to ensure the
change is set up for success andcontinues to be set up for
(35:17):
success as we progress.
SPEAKER_02 (35:19):
Agreed.
Another classic scenario is youknow, when IT holds the purse
strings uh for a new tool andand it's led by IT.
So and something gets pushed outto the business, but the
business is not always involved.
So, how do we handle thatsituation?
SPEAKER_01 (35:38):
Yeah, I would tell IT, uh, you know, times are
changing, right?
And I have a client, uh actuallytwo clients right now who have
this historical legacy scenarioof IT's always owned the purse
strings of all digitaltransformations.
And and the reality being thatIT over time has realized more
and more, generally inorganizations, they're key
(35:59):
enablers of the business beingsuccessful.
Well, once they have thatmindset shift as IT, they start
to recognize in digitaltransformation how important the
business input to solutionsreally is, right?
We can't, if we do it withoutit, we're going to have more
problems on the back end withadoption.
So there's a lot oforganizations that have already
(36:20):
turned this curve.
There are some that are juststarting, and there's some that
aren't there yet.
But, or I should say, and the ITorganizations today need to
realize that we talked about itearlier, early engagement,
bringing the folks along withyou to design the solution that
are going to need to help youoperationalize it later, right?
(36:42):
Or those subject matter expertsor customers if they're going to
be using it, getting that UXinput right from the customers
to make sure that what you'rerolling out is going to work and
we've addressed the glitchesthat are going to prevent ease
of adoption, which ultimatelyprevents or enables our benefits
realization.
So when we think through allthose things, I a lot of times
(37:03):
ask IT leaders, well, what doyou want from this?
Right.
And we have to be listening forare they after an installation
of a technology or are wealigned on going after the
benefits?
And you know I keep saying thatand bring it back to it, but it
is a mindset that exists incorporate.
Um, I was talking with apotential client in the last six
(37:25):
months and could have been agreat piece of work, but they
were their head of IT wasactually after the installation.
Worried about benefitsrealization later.
Okay.
All right.
Well, that's not really for usbecause we're here to really
help you up level your changeand change capability.
But the reality is there arestill leaders out there that
believe in the installationmindset.
And a lot of them do live in themore technical side of the
(37:49):
house.
I don't want to just pin it onIT.
There's some other ones,engineering and other places.
But um we have to switch asleaders.
If we really want to get themost for our investment, the
best for our people, and be athriving company, not just
surviving today, but thrivingtomorrow.
We have to change our mindsetsabout what are we after.
(38:12):
And one of the first ones is arewe after installation or are we
after benefits realization?
SPEAKER_02 (38:18):
And we are seeing some improvements there right
over the years.
IT is getting it is starting toreally, you know, be that that
that yin and yang with thebusiness.
So uh but there are stilloccasions where where we know
that happens, but it is gettingbetter.
And I do really appreciate thoseIT leaders that do set approach,
so yeah, and there's more andmore of them coming around to
(38:39):
it, right?
SPEAKER_01 (38:39):
Some there's some industries that haven't had to
change for a long time.
Yeah, right.
And they're having to changenow, and so they're working on
their own mindsets and their owncultures on how they support the
business in delivering.
And it's great to watch and be apart of.
SPEAKER_02 (38:53):
Yeah, and and you know, that's when you know IT,
you know, we just talked aboutthat scenario where IT is kind
of king, right?
And but we've also seen kind ofthe opposite where IT is not
king, they're treated more likea service provider instead of
what I guess I'd call anenterprise capability owner.
And so, you know, we've seenfunctions, you know, individual
(39:14):
functions spin up their ownsoftware, their own processes,
you know, and they're oftenredundant with other functions.
And so, you know, and they justkind of expect other functions
to just plug in after the fact,but there's redundancies there.
So, what what's the cost of thatsiloed approach with regards to
OCM?
SPEAKER_01 (39:33):
Well, yeah, it's a great question because I the
reality is the siloed approachin general doesn't work well for
transformation, right?
So there are so many other, justeven think about it, even across
an enterprise, there are so manyother programs and projects that
happen in a company.
And if we are only siloed in ourtransformation and not taking
into consideration all thebroader change, the enterprise
(39:55):
strategy around it and how weintegrate with all these other
projects, we will misssomething.
We will not be as successful.
And so, how do we make surewe're appropriate?
We're integrated, we'resupporting each other.
And sometimes it can be assimple, brandy, as well, we're
gonna be going live around thesame time.
So we need to coordinateresourcing around training and
(40:16):
how we're gonna docommunications and where can we
partner up just to help theorganization from a capacity
perspective, right?
So that's the simple side of it.
But there are usually otherintegrations that if we don't
make sure that we're talking,then we're gonna have that
siloed approach and somethingwill be something big will be
missed, right?
So it happens at the enterpriselevel, it happens at the the
(40:39):
corporate function level, ithappens at the teams within
corporate function levels.
I've seen it in variousfunctions, HR finance and
others, where even teams withinthose those um umbrellas don't
talk to each other regularly andthey're they just have a siloed
approach.
It doesn't mean that at somepoint in their history that
didn't serve them.
(41:00):
But in today's world, with theamount of disruption and the
amount of change, we have tobreak down those silos if we
want to be the most effective,right?
Because if we're not, the siloswill create the rework for us.
SPEAKER_02 (41:14):
They do.
Yep, they absolutely do.
SPEAKER_01 (41:16):
Yeah, it's a good call out.
SPEAKER_02 (41:18):
I'm pretty sure, you know, like in reality, that we
know many organizations may cometo you once they're already
sealing some failure.
And maybe they want some help.
Help me salvage this project,help me save this thing.
So what do you do when a projectis half implemented and the red
flags are flying?
Talk to me about what you dothen.
SPEAKER_01 (41:40):
That's great.
We call that change uh when it'shalfway through the change and
leaders or someone all of asudden gets the hair on the back
of their neck standing upsaying, uh-oh, we need help,
something's not right.
We call that change rescue.
We come in and rescue theproject or the program or the
transformation.
So we'll actually, uh, ifleaders are open to it and based
on a list of criteria,including, are you willing to
(42:02):
look at timelines?
Are you willing to prioritizeand look at people's capacity?
Are you willing to invest in X,Y, and Z?
And assuming certain factors arethere, we will come in and help
the leadership assess wherethey're at and where what's been
missed.
Generally, it goes all the wayback to somewhere along the
lines we did not establish afoundation that would be
(42:23):
successful for thistransformation.
And we have to pause, resetourselves.
We call that don't be afraid ofthe reset and go back, catch it
up so that we can move forwardeffectively.
Right.
So there's a lot of um, there'sa lot of human dynamics in a
change rescue and starts all theway up a lot of times with the
(42:45):
sponsors and the leaders of howthey feel about needing to
respause and reset because thatcan be scary for leaders.
They sometimes will view it as abig mistake or a failure, that
it means we we failed already ifwe have to do this.
And I'll actually hopefully bespeaking with an executive that
she did it with her team earlierthis year on an HR
(43:06):
transformation on in the nextyear at a women's conference.
But the power of the resetactually isn't like an
acceleration or a catapultstrategy that is very often
overlooked because of our fearof what the perception is of it.
Oh, this isn't working.
Oh, it's falling apart, all thethings we might be worried
about, as opposed to just takingthe risk, doing it so that we
(43:28):
can actually go faster.
So we come in and help leadersbasically do that reset on their
transformation or their complexchange.
We also have leaders who willcome to us after the
implementation and say, well,you know, we got the system in,
we got the technology in, we gotthe processes in, or whatever it
(43:48):
was.
Um, but we're not seeing thebenefits that we need to.
And it's I'm getting dinged onit, or it's hurting the business
or client customers are in achaos or whatever.
Would you be willing to come inand help us set up a second
phase of this for success inorder to get adoption up, help
us realize our benefits, help usadjust whatever is needed.
(44:09):
So we do that and we call thatchange recovery because that's
recovering the project on theback end.
SPEAKER_02 (44:13):
So when we're in the recovery, for example, when I
think about this, you you mayhave already fed what we call
food poisoning to theorganization, right?
They already have a bad taste intheir mouth for this process,
this tool, whatever it may be.
Um and so then, you know, whenyou guys come in and do that, do
you do you have to reset yourexpectations for what success
(44:36):
looks like?
Because I know you said, likeyou said, a successful project
could be 30% of so 30% adoption.
Um, so how do you how do youneed to reset those expectations
in a different way?
SPEAKER_01 (44:46):
Sometimes with the leaders who are leading it, we
have to, but if I'm interpretingwhat you mean by reset there,
the you can actually overcome amajority of the legacy food
poisoning or the poison and youknow, that bad taste in your
mouth kind of thing to use someof your language.
It's all about the leadershipbeing willing to own what
(45:07):
happened and bringing theirhuman forward in order to regain
the trust, maybe the respect oftheir people that they're
willing to step back and fixthis.
And I've run into scenarioswhere some leaders aren't
willing to do that for their ownreputation, whether and for
(45:28):
their reasons, right?
You can come up with all thehuman psychology reasons of why
they wouldn't necessarily dothat.
But then a lot of times you dohave the leaders that say, no,
we invested 30 million.
And it's like, I need this, Iwill do whatever you tell me to
do, right?
Which are ideal because thenthat means all right, so we need
to work with you and on you,miss or Mr.
(45:50):
Leader, so that you can be readyand step in front of your
company or your people and say,Hey, we messed up, or hey, we
didn't do, or that we missedsome things.
Here's the good of the came outof this and all the effort, but
we know we need to fix this inorder to regain our footing.
And I'm asking for your help.
It can feel like a bigreputation hit for some leaders
(46:11):
to do that.
What they don't realize is onthe back end, their reputation
will soar because they showedtheir people that they're human,
right?
And they brought their humanside, we call sometimes
self-disclosure, to the table inorder to help reset what is
needed.
That's like a post-reset kind ofconcept.
Um, but it can be extremelypowerful with your people and
(46:34):
let them know that we're all init together and we're gonna
figure it out.
But yet you whoever wasoriginally accountable takes
some of that ownership, right?
Isn't pointing the fingers,isn't, you know, trying to say
it was the third-party vendor'sfault or it was a like, no, set
it all aside, own it so that wecan figure out a way to move
forward together.
Um, a lot harder than peoplewould think it is to be willing
(46:57):
to do that kind of work.
SPEAKER_02 (46:58):
Yes, indeed.
And, you know, leaders who'velived through, I guess I don't
know if I want to call it afailed change, but you know, any
kind of a recovery or a rescuemission, they know the
importance of this, right?
It is it is not a luxury.
It is the painkiller.
It is the one thing that's gonnahelp them, you know, have some
control over the adoption andthe success of these projects.
(47:19):
They're the ones that often pushfor, you know, that separate
funding and fully allocated teamfrom from early on, and and they
value that.
Um, unfortunately, sometimesthese big initiatives just don't
happen often enough where youknow, we everyone has had to
live those experiences.
So they'll only need to live itonce.
They do.
SPEAKER_01 (47:38):
It's not and then after that, they're like, this
cannot fail, or I had thishappen in the past, I cannot do
that again.
Sometimes it's I don't want todo that again, right?
So I want to do it differently.
And those are, I mean, ourfavorite leaders because they,
to your point, they felt thatpain and they understand.
And we might still have to workwith them and convince them of
(47:58):
certain things, you know, oldhabits die hard kind of thing,
but they're at least open to it.
And it makes a huge differencewhen the leaders really do want
to achieve results um andoutcomes because their
orientation is different to whatit takes to achieve it.
SPEAKER_02 (48:14):
Thinking about the leaders' organizations who may
have not experienced this in thepast, and they think that maybe
they've got a really greatculture and they don't need to
do a whole lot of OCM becausetheir people are just gonna do
what's needed because they'reloyal people and they're hired
to do their jobs.
Tell me what you would say to aleader who feels strongly in
(48:35):
that direction.
SPEAKER_01 (48:36):
That is great.
I'm thrilled for you.
And I would ask them somequestions about so I'm I'm
assuming that I have anassumption that you've already
thought of this, and how wouldyou handle it if this happens?
How will you handle it if thisgoes wrong?
What will happen if this?
And they may have answers intheir mind for all of it, which
is totally fine.
(48:56):
And they might not have answersand it might cause them to think
a little more deeply than theycurrently are and open their
eyes earlier.
And if they're able to put it inand get it in and achieve all of
that, given what they believe isthe truth, what their truth is,
great.
I guess I've learned over timeis I don't overfight that,
right?
But if they're on a call with measking me about it, then there's
(49:19):
something that they areuncomfortable with, and we just
have to find what that is tohelp them.
Yep.
And then that builds trust andcredibility.
And then over time, next thingyou know, you're getting pulled
in for various conversations.
Because the reality is, iseverybody needs some advice and
some coaching, especially intransformation, which we've
(49:39):
already said is nonlinear.
It's got a ton of coursecorrections, a lot of emotions
and feelings are built up intoit, and there's a ton of human
dynamics.
So it's like a perfect recipefor things to go wrong.
And how we lead it and how wedesign that process is critical
depending on what the leaderwants.
And so I will never ever force aleader beyond.
(50:00):
I might ask them some questionsto see, you know, if it triggers
anything for them.
And I might ask them why they'retalking to me if they feel that
good and they have all theanswers.
But um, outside of that, Ireally do kind of let it go,
Brandy, because there's so muchchange out there and there's so
many people who who do need andwant the help.
Yep.
I think I've heard once you cantry to teach a pig to sing, but
(50:22):
you're just gonna irritate thepig, right?
It is, it is.
I'm a believer in not wantingsomething more than my client
does for themselves.
Yeah, agree.
I I can want it so badly forthem, but I'm I might be setting
myself up for disappointments,right?
If they really don't want thatfor themselves.
So I'm very careful to give theclient what they want, what they
need, um, as opposed to, youknow, what I think they need.
SPEAKER_02 (50:45):
Makes sense.
So lovely, I don't know.
I think this is a reallypowerful conversation.
If there's one message that youwant our listeners to walk away
with, is there anything specificthere that that you'd like to
leave us with today?
SPEAKER_01 (50:58):
I I will.
Um, one of my it's very simple.
It's one of my things I sayquite often.
Um, I'm not one of the folks whosays that change is hard.
I'm actually one of the folksthat just say change requires
effort.
And that effort doesn't have tobe hard unless you want to make
it hard.
It just requires effort.
And so thoughtful effort,intentional effort, sometimes
(51:19):
not intentional because youdidn't know what was coming, but
it doesn't have to be hardunless you make it hard.
And there are ways to make iteasier, set it up for success so
that it won't be so harddownstream.
SPEAKER_02 (51:29):
I like it.
All right, Leslie, well, how canpeople reach out to you or learn
more about you and your businessif they're interested in talking
to you?
SPEAKER_01 (51:36):
Oh, that's really, really great of you.
So, MeaningfulchangeConsulting.com is our website.
It has all of the contactinformation out there.
You can also find me online uhand LinkedIn and Leslie Ellis
find me, but you also find methrough Meaningful Change
Consulting's business page.
So, whatever suits, pleaseconnect with me.
And if anything, drop me apersonal note.
If you heard this podcast, I'dlove to hear um any of the
(51:58):
insights that you have.
SPEAKER_02 (52:00):
Okay, excellent.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us on the True North
Podcast.
So, and thanks to everyone who'slistening.
SPEAKER_00 (52:07):
Thank you for tuning in today.
Don't forget to subscribe andreview the show.
And for more information on IPX,visit IPxHQ.com.
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