Ten take-aways from this session:
- Do a risk assessment
- Engage with duty of care
- Do a PESTLE analysis
- Do a SWOT to head off threats
- Do the Kremer O-Ring analysis
- Consider timing (seasons, cycles)
- Review messaging (style, channels)
- Have a change team
- Work out what triggers your team’s stress
- Give people a voice
***The following transcript has been automatically generated and is presented here unchecked***
LinkedIn Live on leading change in the workplace
Thu, 8/18 [5:50]PM • [1:01:17]
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
organization, people, change, employees, risk assessment, happening, business, bit, talking, leader, plan, vicki, thinking, point, leading, communication, terms, schools, leadership, support
SPEAKERS
Nadine Powrie
Nadine Powrie [00:02]
And we are live. Welcome to my LinkedIn live today. So Thursday the 26th. And we are there. And we are here I should say I’m Nadine Powrie, Executive and leadership, coach and mediator.
I’m journaling. I’m a leadership development consultant and facilitator,
John Danes, and I’m a coach, mostly not another coach for saying I’m a consultant. Obligation paste, I’ll show up doing that we’ll do all 100.
Nadine Powrie [00:37]
Good prep. My name’s Nick sheriff. I’m a school inspector and education consultant. You see it. I’m wondering why today, we’ve all hesitated.
I don’t know. It shows it’s live, doesn’t it.
Nadine Powrie [00:54]
And today, I was talking with somebody else. I did a training this morning with somebody called Janet Marie. And we were actually talking about doing live, you know, like LinkedIn live or on Instagram, you can do some live as well. And we were talking about progress. visa vie. Perfection. So it shows that yes, we are live. So today, we are going to be focusing on leading change in the workplace and how we lead change in the workplace being as important as ever. So same as last week, I’ve prepared a little blank. And our aim is to fill that blank with some ideas that we can give to people about the leading change. I want to start perhaps by talking about McKinsey, who did some research a few years back on change programs and why change program, why 70% of them were failing. And I actually use that for a presentation that I did in Australia two years ago. And McKinsey said, following their research that actually, yes, 70% of change programs are failing, because certain 9% is due to employee resistance to change. And we’ve also got 73%, because the management behavior doesn’t support the change. Now, those are a huge, actually statistics, which from the beginning, it shows that change is doom. So it be quite helpful to explore the resistance to change and the behavior of the of the managers and I would say leaders as well, and all stakeholders actually, in terms of how we can navigate to change so that change can be successful. Because the purpose of our LinkedIn live is not to just do another survey with the same results. The purpose of this LinkedIn live is to give some personal advice and some ideas about how we can make change successful. And sometimes it’s just about tweaking things. It’s not necessarily about redoing everything. So anybody anybody wants to start something, say something?
Yeah, I quite like to start. That’d be right. It’s just in in preparing for this, I’m working with an organization currently, that’s going to a fairly major period of change. And it’s painful. It’s not probably it’s a bit painful for me, because I’m involved, but it’s really painful for this organization. And in reflecting on this and what’s going on. This is possibly a slightly strange place to begin initially. But you know, the seeds for this pain. The stage for the resistance towards change was sown a long time ago that was never sewn in the way the organization was led. And a long time ago, there, there was a lack of dissenting voices. I’m not talking about the change period, I’m talking back in the past. So there was a lot agreement, there’s probably a bit of leader worship going on, so people weren’t able to. So consequently, the organization didn’t evolve in a healthy way. And then that would then we would go into lack of preparation of new leaders, lack of nurture, lack of revenue, recognition of that sort of process. And surprise, surprise when you get to a point when when change is, you know, inevitable. The relationship realize that it’s change or die. It’s a difficult process. And I suppose I mean, it seems a strange place to start but but the reason I thought it was useful is because it links is what you were saying the day, I think this organization had taken stock, they would have decided that now was a bad time to begin to make such major changes. Because they’re just not set up to do. So they just haven’t got resilience within within the organization to be able to see it through and follow through. So it links with that, that sort of timing that you alluded to.
Nadine Powrie [05:25]
It’s really interesting what you’re saying, Jan, because I’m wondering if it shouldn’t be men mandate mandatory in every organization to have a plan where it actually talks about change. I mean, normally, we say, you know, we have a serious plan and five years plan. I mean, it is what the moment, people don’t really have a five years plan because of what is happening. So we’ve, we’ve had to, we’ve we’ve been a little bit derailed, and we’ve had to go into a different direction. But I’m just wondering if if where organizations are failing is because their plans didn’t include some kind of change, you know, more of the same will just continue to do the same because it’s worked. And therefore it will continue to work Pfizer. And you just need to, you know, like, for example, COVID, to throw everything and just to say, well hang on a minute, you do need to think about change. So making change. And you know, we have to discuss it. It’s not only on a piece of paper there in three years time, but actually we continuously discuss what change should look like, because what’s on a piece of paper may not be what we want to or what we need to do. At that moment in time. It may be very different. Just a thought.
No, absolutely. Right. And I think what I’ve found is that a series of supporting things, which if absent, then spoil the whole the whole protest. And you may not know an organization may not know or may be able to anticipate what the change will be or what you know what change will be necessary. But that shouldn’t stop an organization from ensuring that they have a foundation from which they can then spring up to make to respond.
being agile I listened.
The resources Yeah,
I think I think picking up on the Dean’s point. I was really pleased with doing this today, because in a former life, I was a change management consultant working in schools in the north of England. And I’ve been digging in my files, and finding all sorts of fascinating things. Now, this was a change management stroke remodeling process that all schools went through in about 2004. And it was under the it was under the sort of umbrella of the TDA. If you remember, yeah, those of you were old enough. Yeah. So and I knew that TDA had been disbanded some years ago. But I also know that stuff is archived, so I’ve had a good trawl through. And it’s, I remember learning the process and learning the process about tools to use and the planning format. And it was a very, very structured format, to put into an organization to enable them to get through those statistics that you talked about. And I think that what reflecting on what Jan’s saying is that if change is just seen as a little ad hoc, and oh, well, we’ve got to do this because of such and such, then it becomes an extra thing. Whereas if it’s a fully planned an integrated process and part of the organization, then you’ve got every organization, for instance, should have a change team. And that change team should be from, from from the top down to the bottom, including, you know, some kind of stakeholders within the team. And I think that if you follow a process, and if your organization is geared up to you know, change is inevitable, and the only way you’re gonna get anywhere different is to do something different. So it’s inevitable, it will happen. Therefore, they need to be agile and robust at the same time to enable them to get some really good detailed plans in about what it’s going to look like who it’s going to impact who you’ve got to bring on board, how you get through the dip and all the sort of the different stages that you need to go through they need to be recognized and acknowledged. So I’m passionate for getting all that in place to enable organizations to actually enjoy it and achieve much more than they would do if they didn’t have a really robust plan.
Nadine Powrie [09:53]
Going back to your 59% of employees are resistance to change I would say, if you’ve done your homework, that shouldn’t be a surprise, linking it to last week, homeostasis is the comfort zone. And if you’re moving people out of their comfort zone, they don’t want to go there. And that’s not because they don’t, they don’t make the choice, their brain is working against you to change. So you’ve got to defeat that. And then I’m thinking, Well, okay, well, why is the employee resistant? Their brain is naturally resistant. So so maybe there’s another bit here, which is, how are they perceiving that change? Because I was reading something this week, they need to be ready to react to whatever is given to them, so that they receive it in the right way. You’re looking like an email. Now, with no smiley faces, it could be taken in lots of ways. And this notion, maybe now that is changed the modern landscape, because things are just working too fast. I would I don’t think I’ve see change as being this unique thing. And it comes up every now and again. I think it’s part and parcel of doing business. And in my head just came a quote from when I was at uni in 1998. When I was doing leisure, right? Torkelson. There is no such thing as normality. finality is the position of yesterday. And I think there is this thing that, you know, people that say, if you travelled around the globe started at one point, you went all the way around, would you come back to the same point? The answer is yes, relative to the Earth. But no, because the earth traveling through space, and it would be one long spiral. So you get a sense that it’s always moving, it is always changing, you just probably haven’t thought about it like that. But it also depends what the change is about, because sometimes you can plan to change. And to some extent, when changes plan, it’s a little bit easier to do communicate that to the people that you know, in an organization, and there is no change that isn’t that isn’t planned. However, for me, the change that is in plan is actually planned in the risk assessment document. That that is there. But I’m just I mean, I’m just wondering, how often do you share your risk assessment document with your employee? Because I remember us for we were in Dubai when COVID struck. And we had, I did a risk assessment for the organization that we were working with at that point. And I remember back in January, saying, because COVID, did you know a few people were mentioning COVID, me saying to them shouldn’t recruit COVID in that risk assessment, because then it doesn’t become a reaction. It’s becoming part of what we are doing and sharing that with people saying, you know, if, if this comes, if this becomes a real problem, then at least we’ve got it we’ve got a plan, then it’s not completely a change, because you’ve already talked about it. So it’s the importance of the risk assessment document. I actually love those documents. Maybe I’m sad, right. But I just think that this document is as important as the strategy document of an organization. I’d also say, just to sort of side with the employee, if the change is good, and it works, then why are you going to resist it? If the change is, you know, half baked, and it’s not really relevant, and no one’s taken account of how it applies to you, you’re probably going to resist it. So I don’t know, it’s always the fault of the employee.
Of course, of course not. Don’t Don’t you think next Oh, that you’ve got a spectrum of people’s attitudes to change. I mean, Roger, Roger, a rod Rogers adoption code talks about people varying from innovators at one end, who’s who’s going to jump into it to the laggards at the other end? Who you know, need to bother with. And within that curve, you’ve got a whole spectrum of people who have different attitudes to change. And you know, yourself, you’ve been in organizations where people just jump in and say, Yeah, that’s great. You know, we’re all for it. And they’re the people who you perhaps focused on. Whereas the some in the middle who with a bit of persuasion, and argument, who will see the benefit can be worked with, whereas there’s a hard core and you must have been in schools where there’s a hard core of people who are not going to change even if it’s going to do them good. And I think
Nadine Powrie [15:00]
I agree. Yeah, imagine how that looks in a plan. So this, I could see someone writing a lovely plan. But what they should do is be the football manager, someone needs to kick up the backside, someone needs her arm around them myriad of ways to get that message across to the right person so that they get the reaction. How many of those plans are scaled for each one of those people? Or is that just left to the manager to work out?
I think communications is vital. And actually, Vicki limb has just come in. And Vicki says How is change being communicated reflecting exactly what you’re saying. But she also talks about employees not having the resilience to cope with accelerated change, leading to heightened stress and possible burnout, which I think is quite pertinent at the moment. She’s saying we need to build resilience in to be able to bring the employees along, which is very interesting, considering last week, is exactly what we were talking about. And we’re talking about change this week, as a result of talking about resilience last week. I think
Nadine Powrie [16:02]
it I mean, I was I look, I haven’t seen the Dean put me on to cotta, and I read cause stuff. But I’m just reminded them from Vicki kata was talks about the rush, the creative command, the buzz, let’s get going. Yes, but you know, that’s not gonna work for all the staff, they may not be able to work at 100 miles an hour and make these huge changes as quickly as possible. So I think you’re right, it’s, it’s nuanced, and communication is key. And after all, you know, there’s, I’d always say to the dean, maybe five senior managers in 2000 staff, or 2000, staff are going to change for the five managers are they or don’t ideas from the bottom up, required that just the five managers will go change,
that’s where we change, that’s where you get the change to Nick. And that’s where if you have a change team, that’s representative of say, you know, it could be each department, it could even be a sort of a tiered one. Because I think that if if change is imposed from the top, it’s going to be of limited benefit, if the whole organization and it should be possible within an organization, you know, within various, I mean, we’ve talked about bubbles now, within within various departments to actually have representatives so that everybody’s voices is in some way represented. And if you have a change team as part of your organization, then that will help the process go through. But just to pick up another point about kata, there’s Yeah, and unconscious, eight stages are very, they still hold hold true, even though he’s developed them some years ago. But whenever I’ve done change management training, the thing that I’ve always pointed out is you’ve got your change curve, and you’ve got people going up the excited bit and then dropping down. And the key to that, then is managing the change up the slope. Because once if you predict in terms of the DNS risk plan, people are going to go down that slope, then you have to predict how you’re going to manage going up to slow. But no organization is ever just involved in one change. And so you’ve got multiple change curves happening simultaneously with people in more than one. And that’s where your change team and you’re leading this change become so, so vital.
Nadine Powrie [18:23]
But I mean, at the moment, if we just look at organizations, they’ve had to go through strategic strategic change, because you know, many have, have changed the the mission, you know, of the organization, people have had to change how they are using technology, I mean, rapidly all over us. We’ve had to accelerate how we are using Microsoft and everything else. So we’ve had to train and acquire new skills. We’ve also had to probably, you know, some of my clients have had to change roles and responsibilities as a result of what’s happening. So they’ve been thrown in the deep end, and they’ve not been trained for that. And, you know, at the end of the day, there is also what they called remedial change, where you’re actually reacting to a problem. And here we we are reacting to what’s happening. So this is why I mean, I’m going back to my risk assessment, because I’m thinking if you’ve got that, right, actually, you would never react in the way that we are reacting to what’s happening. It’s less of a surprise, and you can prepare stuff a lot better. I mean, I’m just saying, I’m just looking. I know Jenny, today you’re doing the question. I’m
just gonna come in with you Becky. How involved of employee how involved have employees in this process and planning stage of change? And I think I mean, if somebody wants to ask wants to answer that, that’s fine. But personally, I think it’s absolutely vital that employees are involved in every stage, or representatives of employees, you know, it’s quite often it would be too unwieldy to have all employees involved, but representatives of employees who then go back, it’s not just a one way communication, it’s finding out what the employees think, absorbing that into the plans, and then going back and re connecting with them. So it’s a two way it goes back to communication as well. But that’s, that’s what I think in terms of employees being involved. And Vicki, thank you, your your questions are great, keep them coming.
The organizations that are best set up to embrace change are those that obviously you need, you need a hierarchy and an understanding of that. You need the hierarchy, but I guess you need you need a clear understanding of where responsibilities and things lie. But But if as employees, we see the responsibility for change as being only in the remit of those who are at the top of the organization, or, you know, leading it, then I think we’re missing something there. I’m not necessarily saying the employees are missing something, though weed effectively comes down to that the people who are nurturing those and developing employees and people who were there within the workforce are missing or missing a trick, because it’s developing the attitudes throughout the organization. And let’s face let’s face it is exactly as Nick was saying, change can happen, all series of levels throughout the organization is still change, okay. So some of it might be much more major than others, they still change, and that attitude, and that, and that understanding that, if you’re seeking to bring about a change, one of the most powerful ways that you can communicate it is to is to modeling that change yourself, and encouraging others that you know, to be sort of change evangelists, people, people who get the kind of that you want to make well modeling, and that will start to then pervade the organization. It needs to be led, of course, but but but there’s an aspect of that communication that I think people often often forget to have, you heard the phrase Act into a way of thinking, I like that praise very much, because it, it means it’s not, it’s gonna take it away from communication, just in terms of emails and speaking and the more common ways in the way we go about, it’s the way we act, encourage people to think in a particular way that we want them to,
Nadine Powrie [22:39]
I would pick it up your point about what what the good organizations look like, I think good organizations have this currency, or that it’s how trust flows around the organization. So let me give you an example you probably don’t think of when I was in the military trust is devolved, for the boots on the ground. So you have a plan, you have your risk assessment, and then you deploy, the moment something happens, the person back in HQ, says you’re the person on the ground will trust you to make the next decision. And I think there’s an element of that in, in change, you know, the guy or that or the woman at the top hasn’t got all the answers, Otherwise, they wouldn’t need the rest of the organization. It’s, it’s how the rest of the organization feels it’s involved. And whether I mean, you know, why don’t they what are they resisting? Maybe they don’t feel trusted, or part of this change?
Isn’t it’s about ownership, isn’t it? And I think that what you’re saying is that if you want the organization to be trusted, and to come on board, then they need to have some ownership. And I think, picking up on John’s point about getting trusted, you know, evangelists out there, it’s it’s identifying who the key influences are. And very often in an organization, the key influencers might not necessarily be the people that you think they are. And I mean, in the school situation, very often, there would be a key parent, who you knew, if you’ve got that parent or that group of parents on board, they would become evangelical about the changes. But if you didn’t bother with them, or or any other group, then they will start thinking, Well, you know, what’s in it for me? So I think that that that Evangelical, sort of key representative is really important.
Nadine Powrie [24:37]
But I think it depends on the type of change that we’re talking about. Because and, and Vicki, who is mentioning involving employees in the process, well, there are times when actually you can’t involve employees in the process. That’s such a debate very beginning. I mean, I’ve led restructuring in different organizations. And you can’t possibly involve people at the very beginning because, you know, it’s their job. And and when ask well, would you? Would you like your posts to be made redundant? I mean, you can imagine the kind of discussion is just not possible. So I think it just depends on the type of change. I mean, it depends on the type of change for consultation, you can, of course, ideally, yes, involve people in the planning. Absolutely. And that’s why I keep saying, you know, the more that risk assessment is distributed and talked about on a regular basis, the more the better people are prepared for that. But there are, unfortunately, some changes, and many organizations at the moment are going through that with redundancies, where clearly, it’s done to the people, not with the people. So when it’s done with the people, it then it’s then Late in, in the plan of redundancies, because, you know, we are trying to support those people in the best that we can, we are trying to, you know, do some mock CVS, we are helping them to, to have better CVS, we will, we are helping them with, you know, mock interviews, so there is a support mechanism that is put in place, but by then it’s kind of too late, because the decisions have been made, that that’s going to be happening. I mean, I think what you’re describing is just a very difficult version of the same thing. So the outcomes of your engagement for the employee, it’s ultimately they’re going to leave the organization, but what you try and do is give them things support them, so they leave in the best fashion, they’re equipped for things, you’re still engaged in the workforce in change, I think your points were made, though, you know, if you only find out as you’re going out the door, that’s probably, you know, poor management, I feel very strongly, I mean, I always use the expression, you know, the duty of care. And for me, as a, as somebody who’s been at the top, you have a duty of care towards your employee. And it’s always a very difficult decision to, you know, make anybody redundant in any post redundant in your organization, but you have a duty of care, until they exceed your organization to do everything you can to a keep them somehow. And also keep keep them going, you know, you have a duty of care, to their mental health, to their well being to everything. So I feel very strongly that depending on the type of the change, and no matter what type of change, you have to support your your employees, and that will mean different kinds of communication, different types of communication. I absolutely agree with that. And I think coming back to John, what you were saying about, you know, your your top, your top team role modeling the behavior and the attitude and the language, I think this is so important in this difficult moment. Because you want to be impeccable in what you do, until people are leaving the organization, for those who are saying, because for those who are staying, it’s equally traumatic to see their colleagues who, six months ago, nobody had, you know, if you would have said to people, actually, we are going to be losing, you know, 6070 people within this organization, nobody would have thought of that. So now there is the difference between those who stay and those who go as part of this change and leading that as a top leader is actually quite, quite quite demanding. You have to be very resilient. Jan, you want to say,
by putting my hand up?
Nadine Powrie [29:08]
That’s good again.
It’s been helpful to think of change, particularly big, significant change. I’d like the one you described a little while ago, as a series of smaller, smaller changes. And yeah, so quite clearly, you can’t involve employees at the start of that particular redundancy making journey that that that That’s completely not appropriate. However, when it becomes clear what what is going to happen as in what you know what the shape of that change is, like, overall, you can then begin to identify some of that. And then you can begin to apply your duty of care and work within employees. And don’t forget that at the end of the process, there’s people left often quite Often we we neglect those who are left behind after the change juggernaut has sort of worked its way through. And what a surprise, you know, the change hasn’t achieved the thing that we hoped, perhaps it would do. Because what we’ve done is neglected to, to support those who are well actually going to need to deliver the change, the change, scenario, the chain setting. So yeah, I just, I just think I just think breaking a bigger change into micro changes, which then disseminate to an organization. Is it a really sensible thing to do? Do you
Nadine Powrie [30:41]
see? Glove Jenny, sir,
I think it’s also about being transparent. You know, you might not be able to involve everybody in all the discussions, but it’s really important to be transparent about why these decisions are being made, and communicating these to people. Because I think if people feel they know the rationale why this is happening, very often, it’s actually out of the leaders of the organization’s hands to some of the some external factor, that’s meant that these redundancies or changes got to be made. And just to pick up a point that Vicki’s made, she’s talking again, about back that back to the importance of resilience, and building resilience through the organization. And I think that if you have gotten a resilient organization, and one that has the Deans plans, and has the risk assessment attached to them all, then the whole process, no matter what’s thrown at you, if you’ve got those characteristics, as an organization, you are better equipped to be able to move forward. Whereas if you’re entrenched in ideas, and you’re not communicating with people, and people are in little, little sets of Not, not not being transparent about what’s happening in people worrying about the future, then you’ve got a very non toxic organization, perhaps that’s a bit but ineffectual. And certainly in terms of people’s well being that won’t be helping them through that process.
Nadine Powrie [32:08]
I was thinking that there are two elements to this change. One is change with a long run up, which you could have said is evolution, and, and plenty of time for planning. And then you’ve got where we are now, and it’s probably changed the reaction to crisis. So so you don’t want no one’s at their best, you know, time is, is as as a premium at the moment. And you wonder whether, you know, I’ve just read here business resilience mitigates the need for unnecessary change. And historically, if business talked about hyper lean efficiency, maybe they’ve been led into this false sense of security, and, and they don’t have a huge amount of resilience. So like Vicki says, maybe the staff are feeling the forefront of that, because there’s change every five minutes? Well, really are the leadership meant to be looking ahead at the landscape to ride out the bumps, so that they’re not so dramatic for the, for the business. It’s, I mean, you know, thinking about if I, if I was at the top of an organization, as I, you know, we were all head at some point. And, in fact, if I was working again, as a, as a head of indeed, as a head of an organization, I’d probably spin spin time on my PESTEL analysis. I, I mean, perhaps I should just briefly remind people of what studies but I do think I should, yeah, okay. So pestle is all about the external influences on an organization. So there are six of them. So the P stands for political E for economical s for sociological, tea for technological, l, for legal, and E for environmental. So if we do, but you see with me, because I’m, I’m thinking, my left brain is really driving me here. If I’ve got risk assessments and my PESTEL analysis, and then I always share that with we staff on a regular basis, then nothing really comes as a surprise. I mean, you know, it depends on the depth of those documents, of course, but then you’re, you’re more prepared, you know, you’ve kind of laid some foundations. So, so yeah, COVID-19 might have been mentioned on that. It was certainly mentioned in one of the document that we worked on in Dubai, and I have to say, you know, when we work there, and we know that they’ve responded well, particularly in terms of schools and how they’ve adapted straightaway to, you know, going online and just getting on with it, not questioning anything we know that they’ve done And actually, you know superbly well. So when you prepare people, when you communicate with them on a regular basis about what could happen without being a threat, you know, it’s just this is this is external influences that we need to be aware of, then people get aware of it. And I think that that may help.
Yeah, one of the things I like so much about that sort of analysis, and that sort of strategic level, is it enables you enabled leaders to be open, and importantly honest, and let’s face it, there isn’t really a better platform to begin to conduct a change, or indeed, you know, one, one an organization form. And, you know, if you can use a real honest and open approach, you know, okay, via analysis or such as a pestle analysis, then it’s just creating an opportunity for you to do just that. I think that’s, I think that’s really important. Because what that does is get to the heart of what someone leading an organization really is paid that massive salary for, might not be a massive salary, of course, you know, what I mean?
Nadine Powrie [36:19]
Then leadership style, is very much relative creates the climate for change. So, you know, certain ways of running the place, you know, we’ve been in organizer with silo eyes. So you can imagine making change is really difficult. And one thing to say about Dubai, you know, to not to big them up or anything just to work here COVID-19, their response to COVID 19 wasn’t what was great at that point, was the fact that a year later, they’d already been looking at a big learning management system to put across the entire public school system. So when COVID came, they were so far ahead of the game, that they could concentrate on maybe the other things, and it was a bit more manageable, it was very,
you could see that as well, because very impressive,
Nadine Powrie [37:08]
very impressive. Now, you have to congratulate those leaders, to how they responded very quickly in adapting to changing a drastic changing situation. They may well have saved if you look at all the research from the OECD that says COVID-19 in education is a negative experience for the isolation, loneliness, people regressing in their learning, not keeping up the standards. Well, that’s not the same here.
No, no. And talking to principals the reassurance that they got, as well, they felt they didn’t feel threatened by it, they were very much you know, we’ve had this support, we’re doing this and it was a very, very positive feel. Can I just change, change, change the discussion slightly, we’ve got a link coming from LinkedIn user here, which is really interesting. Name. But he’s, he or she is working aviation, where redundancies have been stopped with continuing uncertainty change, reception by employees has been extremely receptive. In an industry, traditionally resistant to change really interesting. We’re therefore able to use this time to bring in strategic change at a time of least resistance. I mean, that’s fascinating, because aviation at the minute is has been hit. I mean, they’ve been decimated. I mean, Ryanair, or someone was saying they’re not going to be having a normal normal flight at least next autumn. So how the aviation it’d be interesting LinkedIn user, if you can give us more details, because I think it’d be fascinating to know, how that being communicated and worked in your industry.
It’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because, yeah, fine. We’re kind of sneaking in, you know, it’s a bit like the government using, you know, disaster to sort of sneak in some bad news. There’s no one noticed. Just in application, there’s a kind of a flavor that, but what I what I like about that, is it it links to what I’ve said right at the top, which is about the tight about timing? Yeah. You know, sometimes it’s not a good time. Don’t do it. Don’t I know, you know, this is a change has been forced on us. But but but and here’s a, here’s a very interesting example of how that force chain is being used, is being used and managed to teach sickly to bring about other changes. Yeah, I mean, whatever you think of it, and that’s smart. I think, yeah.
Nadine Powrie [39:34]
I’m reminded. I’m reminded of a phrase I’ve got here now, necessity is the mother of invention. And I think many people organizations that were quite resistance to change, they didn’t have a choice. And you just you what you’re sort of wondering now is bad organization before attempts change. Are you surprised that that didn’t go well for you know, the The workforce, I think that these points worth dwelling on, you know, you always have to prepare for change as a process as a concept. So everyone, we sort of run that up in the organization, and everyone knows the role they’ll play, just in case it happens. I think leaving it and saying, right, we’re going to make some changes. By the way, here’s a brand new set of processes. I’m not sure that’s, that’s really change management. I think not enough, I think not enough time is spent on alchemy, I come back to my, the PESTEL analysis, or the risk assessment, I think not enough time is spent on that we spend a lot of time on strategic documents, you know, the big strategy documents and the priorities, and the lovely values, you know, and the mission and, and if you look at many organization that’s really very well defined. But sometime when I go on to some websites, because I work with their company, and I want to know a little bit more about, you know, what’s the risk? I can’t find anything? And I think it may be, I don’t know, but it may be just WORTH IT spending more time looking at. Okay, so what could happen, actually, an investing, you know, team looking at that, because those are real threats, you know, I mean, we’re, we’re into COVID. Okay, so we know more now about COVID. But what about, you know, is there something else that could actually strike in in such a powerful way, as we’ve been, you know, hit by coop COVID? I mean, what are the other threads? That should be we should be concerned about? And can we talk about them? It within organizations, not only producing white papers, and, you know, lovely blogs on websites, but actually sharing that with employees and saying to them, this is potentially what we are facing?
My mind, actually, one is, is it possible to do this in a generic way, because, obviously, the capacity of an organization that its limits the extent to which you they can they can do that, that they can look into the future. One of my friends has worked works for an organization that builds and runs nuclear power stations. And he’s taught, he’s part of a team and get this. They look at their charts, they’re looking up to 10,000 years into the future. Now, how are they doing, they’re looking to predict events, the likely likelihood events, I’m prepare, and I hope I’ve got this right, Mike. But there’s a there’s a place being built in the UK, and they’ve raised the level of that four meters. They built, they built the entire site up four meters, think about that. Amazing. And then they built their building the plan is to build I hope I’ve got that kind of like, climate change jam. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because they, they, they, you know, are fairly sure. And obviously, you didn’t look 10,000 years ahead to realize that sea level rise, but But I mean, you know, how about that for an organization that’s looking into the future? But, but of course, you know, I mean, my school couldn’t have done that. A bit, you know, in the middle of town can’t do that. The capacity to
scale, though, it’s not about scale, because it’s, yeah, I mean, I would always use it, and what most, most or any, I don’t know, you decide, organizations have the ability to be creative, and agile, and risk reactive, if not proactive, so that the businesses that you see at the moment that are thriving, I mean, some that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But some of them are actually being incredibly creative in how they’re changing their, their modus operandi. I mean, you think of pubs, you know, we’ve just been put into tier three, which means the pubs are still closed and will be for the foreseeable future. But the way pubs are getting rounded by you know, that they’re active on on internet, they have little little trucks outside, they’re doing takeaways, they’re getting people to join in virtual dinner parties. You know, that the Pope’s and the organizations that are reacting to this present crisis, in an imaginative and creative way without the sort of we’re not, we don’t do that because we do this, but you can’t do this anymore. So I do feel that creativity and it’s risk taking as well because they may not have a strategic plan to do takeaways, you know, or to do. T You see T baskets, you know, you can buy your own T basket and things like that. They want to have those in the plans but they’ve been agile enough to respond to the need to change what they do. And whether we will ever go back to having the same everybody going into an office. And, you know, pubs, just doing what pubs do, I don’t know.
Nadine Powrie [45:14]
I will probably taking the themes point say, you probably need to spend some time looking at who the disruptors are in your, your industry. And they’ll be around, you know, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. But the disruptive for all of us on the back of COVID is technology. And when January’s saying about, you know, this, this thinking 10,000 years ahead, whatever, well, I’ve got a friend who works nuclear submarines, what’s built into nuclear submarines is elements of redundancy. So they, you know, that means system failure before the whole thing falls over. You wonder whether a resilient business has to look at how much redundancy not getting rid of people that how many things can go wrong or being different before it affects the core business. And I just wrote that here, by the way, even the military war game, and I didn’t I hear politicians were gaming, Brexit and all the potential outcomes to see what might happen. So I think the principle of looking ahead is there. But I think no business deserves to stay. As of right. I think you have to earn your position as a business and you changes, can I change something, and stay broadly the same business to keep up? And then general, what you might have to completely throw away what you’re doing and start again. And that might be a really good decision. You know, the life doesn’t owe you anything. And I think the sooner you realize that sooner, maybe you’re a little bit more resilient enough and willing to accept something different. Yeah. I think it’s really, it’s really interesting, what you’re saying your question, how many things can go wrong, be fine to affect the business? So, I mean, I’m good. I mean, I keep quoting CIPD. But actually, when I was doing my essays, I used the pestle analysis, but I also use the SWOT SWOT analysis, you know, it’s very simple. And the threats that you are talking about Nick could be part of the SWOT analysis, but not like, Okay, well, what are the threats? You know, asking deeper question, and your question, how many things can go wrong before it affect the business? What at what point? It just go in? You know, completely change everything? I think that’s a really good question. Oh, ring theory. I think we might have talked about that. When it blew up because of the O ring failed? Yeah. What’s your theory commandment says you need to look for the O ring in your business, because that’s the bit it’s going to break. So so at the moment, we’ve got about 13 minutes left at the moment, in terms of take home messages, I have risk assessment, done duty of care, because I think people need to think about that. And we’ve talked about it, I’ve put PESTEL analysis of good SWOT analysis, maybe isolating the whoring what you’ve just said, Nick,
find your own ring.
Nadine Powrie [48:19]
So maybe you do something. When Yeah, but yeah, probably rephrase that phrase, that weakest part of your business. Yes. We need
something about timing and priorities, I think. Yeah.
Nadine Powrie [48:32]
In terms of, can you explain? Well,
well, is this the season to make the change that you’re proposing to make? You know, is this is this the right time? You know, so that’s been underlined by our mister or missus LinkedIn user here? Who, but and the thing that I sort of said at the top, and you know, organizations have seasons, don’t they? And, you know, you know, summer season maybe or maybe not the time to I don’t mean summer, I mean, summer season with an organization and stuff.
Nadine Powrie [49:05]
Do you think is well, that season bit? Mike, I’d stretch it to cycles. Yeah, yeah. But cuz it’s COVID. Now, I don’t think this is unique. When we move from the horse to the motorcar. Yeah, the same thing happened, didn’t it? We didn’t say well, let’s hang on to the all the horse businesses. Everyone pretty much in I think about two years jumped to two cars. Yeah. So maybe it’s
a cycle. Not everybody. But yeah,
Nadine Powrie [49:32]
we’ve got far more. Okay.
Communication, transparent,
including role modeling, inclusive modeling.
And I will also put something about a change team about a change team being an integral part of the organization. You see them all.
Nadine Powrie [49:56]
Yeah, when you say change team, do you mean have a team that is separate from everybody. And that is constantly looking at. No, you mean absorbing every part. So one person you need joopa nht.
Yeah, that has this has a sort of a could be a watching brief if that’s all they could actually have a very much a leadership brief. So their brief would depend on where the organization was in terms of their change. Yeah. But if you’ve got it as a constant, then it’s not suddenly going to be have to be far more COVID. Come quick, let’s get a group of people together to sort this out. It’s really important, I think that that should be integral.
Nadine Powrie [50:33]
Okay. So we need to mow
because coming about relationships in there, I think, I think that if you are managing change with a group of people in an organization, you, you that is when your relationship chickens come home to roost with, that’s not too much of a mixed metaphor, you need to know your people to know where their stress points are, you need to be able to anticipate the issues that will arise, you need to better plan approaches, develop support options, and a whole series of things. You know, open channels of communication is a whole series of things, which you can only do if you have developed relationships with the people.
Nadine Powrie [51:22]
Exactly, exactly. And you know what it really it really irritates me, actually. And I will say that, it really irritates me when now, some organizations are offering mutual coffee to their employees, right to get to know them better. I feel like saying, Mr. boat here, that, you know, you should have got to get to know them better before, then hopefully, which is, you know, it’s bad enough to be on Zoom and everything. People are not necessarily going to open up virtually just now because we need to know our employee. So I think John, your point is really, really good, you know, get to know. So yeah, yeah, really. I think there is something around giving, giving people a voice. But from a leadership perspective, like trawling for that voice, you’ll get get people to tell you where the weaknesses are, you know, if something’s gonna go wrong, whereas in their department, but you’ve got to go looking for that you just can’t think well, the they will tell me when they see the problem. But doesn’t that depend on the culture, Nick? Because I mean, I think somebody mentioned unions. And you know, people, it depends on the organization, there might be some very open communication and people share opinions, and it’s fine, you know, good relationship with unions in organizations, and that’s fine. Yeah, when was the last time a principal was actually in the classroom teaching? That there are there are things in a COVID environment, for instance, that only a teacher knows that this leader now has no concept of how that’s working. And I think it’s beholden upon leadership to go looking, you know, you one, you’re right, you can’t wait for the the bottom up scenario, because in a union system, that won’t work. But I think a leader could go and ask. And I think depending on the quality of the organization, the trust and how they lead, they are likely to get a result. They may not like the result, but they’re going to get a result.
That goes back to your leadership styles, doesn’t it? And if you were a poor leader before, it’s certainly not going to enhance what’s happening at the moment. And you would be if you were an effective leader, you would have all sorts of processes in place to ensure that that voice was there and heard, it’s not an add on, it’s it I keep using the word integral? Because all this should be integral in an effectively lead organization. Yeah, absolutely.
Now, just to say lots of things are suddenly more difficult, aren’t they? Because we, because leaders are forced to operate in a slightly different way and, and it’s a it’s a threat. So
Nadine Powrie [54:10]
the the, the restaurant that had walk in customers now, and now has turned itself into a takeaway business. Never thought of that before. You wonder how did that come about? Was that sort of the necessities the mother of invention, or did some bright spark in the organization say, Hey, do you know what but felt like they could say, You know what, and we’re gonna get laughed at a time but it down, and a leadership team that we’re thinking, the experts in my organization are at the top face. Yeah. They’re just like, yeah, sorry, Jenny, go. I
just like to bring in the LinkedIn user who’s now identified himself as makers jackets. senior HR advisor in Menzies aviation and Gatwick. Wow, you know, The the issues in terms of change that you must be facing must be phenomenal. It will be really interesting to involve you in this conversation.
Nadine Powrie [55:09]
How can we, how can we get in touch with you, Nikolas Nikolas jackets, how can we it says LinkedIn user? Yeah. Maybe we’ll communicate afterwards, with the new airport looks like is it really just a hospital with planes? Yes. And
that’s interesting. Vicki is now saying I’ve witnessed more command and control leadership. Arguably, this could be through external pressures. And I think that goes back to Nick Nick’s point about leadership styles. And I think that that the command or control the the organizations or the certainly the schools recently that have had command and control type leadership seem to have less doubt, because they’re being told which way to go. Now, that wouldn’t make me feel necessarily comfortable, because that’s not my style of leadership. But I think command and control is known to be effective in time in terms of emergencies. Don’t know what other people think about that?
Nadine Powrie [56:09]
I think maybe it’s because in some countries, we are wrapping up Performance Management and Budget, depending on where you are in the world. So, you know, we’ve I mean, there’s no doubt organizations will have spent a lot of money equipping their organization with technology, training people on how using that technology, and perhaps recruiting people as well that you know, they need to have, this has a cost and now we are in December, and for some countries, review time performance management is wrapped up budget is finalized. And then you know, people are under pressure, there is absolutely no doubt.
How are we with the 10? Nadine, if we got 10,
Nadine Powrie [56:50]
we have 10. We have risk assessment, duty of care, the pestle analysis, the SWOT analysis, and will will include Nick, your Oren the reference, to spell it correctly. I’ve put, do things differently and new things. And that’s referring to Jenny, what you were saying about the pubs, you know that just being creative, being creative, yes, timing, and seasons and cycles. So looking at looking at that communication, including transparency, having a change team in your organization that is there all the time, not just when something comes up. Relationship, looking at how you are building relationships through meaningful relationships in your organization, so know your people to know their stress trigger, and giving people a voice. I just wanted to say, Yes, I just wanted to add something is think about what Vicki wrote earlier about resilience. Change is not just about you working for a company and the company changing, changing, it could also be about you, you know, maybe it’s time for you to move on from the company maybe doesn’t work for you anymore. Maybe there are new opportunities for you. I think the principles of change apply to you the individual equally as they apply to a company reacting to a change in the in the sector.
I think that’s about removing blinkers. Because I think it’s very easy to go, oh, this is what I do. This is who I am, and not actually be able to see what’s just there because you got a blinker in the way. Organizations.
Yeah, some people are like that, don’t they? That’s the work that’s there. So
I can do the stuff that’s in here. If
Nadine Powrie [58:39]
it wouldn’t be a good week, if I don’t have a sports reference, in the iOS development team. If you want to be a striker, you have to spend six months as a goalkeeper because their view is how can you be a good striker if you don’t know what’s going on? Right.
Can I just quickly ask Vicki and Nicolas if they’ve got any that they would add to that term? So even if you don’t get it up in time before we come offline? We can certainly look at it once we’re offline. And Mark, thanks for joining us. Yes, relationships are definitely at the core.
Nadine Powrie [59:12]
Mark. Mark Ryan is from Dubai. Actually Mark was on the leadership conference with Lacey grace. He was it was a speaker is a Dubai teacher. Yes, I know. I know his name. Okay, so we’ve got a lot of strategies here to to hopefully help organizations a little bit. And what I will do is I will take that away and publish that in in a document that we will share on LinkedIn adding some ideas example just you know, underneath the title, and just to support people so I think it was a great discussion, guys. I really enjoyed that. It was gone.
Yeah, possibly really quickly. Yeah. So
Nadine Powrie [1:00:03]
maybe we need to continue next week to look at the concept of change. Because implementation sustaining momentum, we didn’t at all, I think I think we, we ought to actually and looking at a zoo at us, you know, as, as a client, we are experiencing, experiencing change as a client, and I’m saying that because I, I received an email from the new CEO of British Airways, so I’m experiencing change as a client, not because I work for British Airways, but because things around me are changing and that would be quite interesting to to discuss, so maybe we ought to be invoking
that. Yeah, okay.
Nadine Powrie [1:00:51]
Okay. The
Marquis Theatre in Abu Dhabi. Now we are
Nadine Powrie [1:00:56]
run your national school. That’s how I know. Yes. Okay. Thank you, everybody, and see you. Same time, same place. Next week, four o’clock GMT. Thank you, everybody. Thanks. Bye. See you