Mel: Hello, friend. Welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter, the communications podcast. My name is Mel Loy and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, Brisbane. If you're a first time listener, welcome to you. If you've been listening for a while, welcome to you two. We love having you here.

So today is episode four of a five part series that I have co-hosted with the very excellent Prina Shah. Prina is an author, a podcast host. She is a global coach, speaker, uh, trainer. You name it, she does it. She also has some amazing hidden talents like her ability to cook, and she also is a fine arts graduate.

So there's lots about this woman that, uh, is very impressive. But what's really impressive is the way that she talks about leadership and the way that she helps leaders to uncover their best selves... Really. And so that's why I wanted to have this conversation with her over this series to really unpack leadership, communication, and leading during [00:01:00] change.

Which brings us to the topic of today's episode, which is all about leading through change. So in this episode, Prina and I cover all sorts of things, like what does change actually look like in an organisation? Where does leadership come in? What's the role of the change leader? And how do we put some frameworks and things in place that will give you the confidence to really communicate well during change?

This is a really great episode if I do say so myself. So without further ado, let's get amongst it. Here's Prina.

Prina: Cha Cha Cha changes is what we are talking to you about today, leading change. And, hello, I am Prina Shah, the host of The Ways to Change Your Workplace Podcast, and I'm talking with a brilliant person who is...

Mel: Mel Loy! And I run the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast and treat: Prina, tell us A fun fact that some of our people may not know about you.

Prina: I'm left-handed. And I love cooking. If, if I wasn't doing what I was doing work-wise, [00:02:00] I think I'd have something in the cooking world I'd be doing. That's my other passion.

Mel: Oh, and I would eat it.

Prina: Mel what do we know? What do we not know about you?

Mel: Uh, well, I was left-handed as a small child. I was, but it was the eighties man. And, uh, went to a kindergarten with a teacher who was, uh, convinced that the left hand was the hand of the devil. And so I, now, I still brush my teeth with my left hand and, and do a few other things, but, um, yeah, predominantly right-handed.

Prina: Wow.

Mel: Uh, and if I'm not here, I'm probably running a gym class or actually running, uh, doing yoga. Like to move. Can't sit still.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: So today, speaking of can't sit still, change.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: So we do live in a world that is where change is the new normal. This is, this is BAU for us these days, and that's every organisation, [00:03:00] no matter your shape or size, where you're located. Some of the biggest changes are of course, being driven by technology.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: Which is moving so quickly. So we're seeing a lot of AI driven change. Uh, but also just, you know, along with that comes different skills that people need for the future. There are different jobs and industries popping up, economies, you know, they change the way that businesses have to operate.

And all of that is impacting every business, but particularly leaders, you know, leading through change is now. A skill that you just have to have or build very quickly when you become a leader, what are some of the changes you're seeing in the clients you're working with, Prina?

Prina: So much. So there's always restructure, reshuffled, you know, they've been there since the beginning of time. Yes, definitely technological changes.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: But, but what I'm seeing are more changes in relation to the way that the person, uh, connects with the workforce.

Mel: Mm.

Prina: The psychological contract that I have with my workforce [00:04:00] is very different to this, you know, one page contract that I have, which is my official job contract.

That psychological contract evolves, evolves, evolves depending on my life needs, depending on the way that I'm treated at work, depending on my entitlements. COVID really opened up people's brains in a different way. We've all had some kind of an existential crisis, I think, in one way or another.

We've all been through some kind of funk, and I think the way that we connect with our workplace and our workforce and our peers has completely changed as well. Therefore, I think the role of leadership or management is completely different, completely different, right? So you're not just, you know, the manager, you are often a counselor.

You're often a friend. You're often, gosh, the listener, but you have to have these boundaries as well, right? Because you're still the boss. Hundred percent. So I think leadership is even harder over the last five years than it has been. I [00:05:00] think this is the hardest time of leadership at the moment, I'd say.

Mel: I would totally agree with you on that. And I see a lot of leaders struggling with this as well. Um, and you know, I've just had an experience of working through a big change with some leaders, uh, of the four or five of them, maybe two, were well equipped to lead that. Uh, and you know, there, it can be frustrating too as a consultant coming in where, you know, like, I've done everything I can possibly do to help these people and.

They're just not stepping up. Um, and the challenge is, you know, that has flow on effects as well, because if you're not leading well through change, then it makes change that much harder. Not just for the business, but for the people who are actually experiencing the change. And as you say, so much of the change we see now, it's not just technology and, and mergers and acquisitions, that sort stuff, it's people change.

It's the expectation. Of, you know, people's customers, their expectations are changing, but [00:06:00] as a workforce, expectations are changing and have always been changing, but they are probably changing more dramatically, I guess, than ever before. You know, we think about hybrid work, for example, and we're seeing a lot of companies.

Uh, big tech companies in particular, forcing people to come back to the office five days a week, that's gonna blow up in their faces at some point because who wants to do that anymore when I've had a taste of hybrid? Um, but it is grappling with those sort of, I guess, not existential questions, but, and not even operational.

I think it's more the, the workflow of, of change and how do we want, you know, people to contribute really well and productively. In an organisation in ways that work for us and work for them. Because you've still gotta attract talent at the end of the day and keep the talent.

Prina: Totally. So change can be individual, it can be organisational, it can be behavioural change, it could be systems change, it could be process change, but usually it's all [00:07:00] interlinked in some way or another.

And we have to remember that we can't just do. And you've probably seen this. We can't just have a new system change and then plunk it on people and then just tell them to deal with it.

Mel: Yep.

Prina: We need to remember the humane aspect and the fact that there's five generations within the workplace now and we all have such different brains and different needs as well.

Mel: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think the other thing is to. Understanding what change is.

Prina: Ah, yeah.

Mel: When we talk about change management, which has become, you know, a, a, a thing in the past 20 years and rightly so. Uh, but I think a lot of leaders think change is just comms and training. Like it's just, well, we sent some emails, had town hall and um, we're gonna give them some training and tick. Change. Um, but there are actually five elements to change management. And this is something I talk about in this book, which is Change Isn't Hard.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: And those are, well, number one is comms. Like there is absolutely, [00:08:00] communication is a part of change, but it's not... The silver bullet; training is absolutely a part of change.

But then you also have governance, so that's things like: Are there policies and procedures that need to change to enable the change as well? Yeah, but also how is the change governed so that we make sure we're hitting the mark and being accountable and all those things as well. Then there is a stakeholder engagement, so this often gets confused on a project team.

I've had to do a bit of education recently that stakeholder engagement is not the same as comms.

Stakeholder engagement is when you as a subject matter expert, a project lead, a change leader, you're going out, you're talking to your stakeholders about what's important to them, what's not, um, what are the potential roadblocks to this change?

You know, how are you guys gonna have to work together to get it through over the line? That is different to communication, and that is a project team responsibility.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: And a leader responsibility. It is not a comms person's responsibility.

Prina: No. [00:09:00]

Mel: And then the final piece, which is the biggest piece is leadership.

Yeah. And this is walking the talk. It's helping to remove the roadblocks. It's giving feedback, it's listening, all those things. The thing is, I can create the world's most amazing communication strategy in the history of communication strategy. But if leaders are not showing up, it doesn't matter what I put on paper.

It doesn't matter what words come in out during a town hall or an email, it, it's, the change just isn't gonna happen or it's gonna be really, really hard if leadership is not happening. So this is why we have to start going, well, actually yes, there's five elements to it, but they all, they're all hinge on each other.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: And of those, I would say leadership is absolutely the most important thing.

Speaker: And if leaders don't believe in it. We've talked about this in the past episode, Mel, the concept of cognitive dissonance where

Mel: mm-hmm

Prina: The powers that be have stated this new world, but I don't feel it. So as a leader, you're still the messenger of that change or the doer of the change often, [00:10:00] right?

Like from a change management perspective. And the big conversation that you have to have with yourself is how do you move from that cognitive dissonance aspect to cognitive resonance and actually feeling the change and believing in it. Now, you know, in the past episode, I'm, I'm just gonna summarise it, talk to the people, ask a million questions about it.

Really try to understand why this change is happening so you can believe in it. If you don't believe it, you have influence to have a conversation and tell people why. And then, you know, the course of change might adjust, but you really have to get to a stage where you believe in the change before you start to enact anything or even communicate anything, you know.

Mel: Yeah. And that leads to sort of one of the other roles apart from, you know, helping to identify the roadblocks and getting feedback and those sorts of things.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: One is that you need to create safe spaces for people to have those conversations as well. Yeah. So that is, that is part of the skillset.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: But you also need to make messages meaningful for your team. Yes. It is not good [00:11:00] enough to go, well, you know. The project team or the group comms team sent out a list of key messages and I'm just gonna read them off this piece of paper at the next team meeting. And I've seen that happen.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: It's actually, as a leader, you've gotta go. Okay, well that's the baseline.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: What does this mean for my team specifically? Yeah, so go away, find that information out if you don't know and ask questions so that you can actually make those messages meaningful and personalized to your team. Because if they're just the high level generic kind of messages, what's happening, why, when type of thing that isn't helpful for anybody and everybody's thinking about themselves in change.

What does this mean for me? What does this mean for me? Yes. You know what if it's a researcher, do I still have a job? Am I gonna get a redundancy? What does this mean for the work I've been working on? What is about this project that I've just put the last 12 months of my life into? What about X, Y, Z? It's all about me.

So you need to find out granular information, and that is the difference between, in my worldview anyway, the [00:12:00] world according to Mel. One of the big differences between internal comms and change comms is that change comms is very granular. They're very different. What's the impact? What's the message for that particular impacted group?

And it's different for everybody. And so as a leader, you need to understand that. You need to get into the nitty gritty of the detail and really get to understand, you know, well what does this mean for us now? Yes, caveat to this is there are gonna be known unknowns. Yeah. Especially. Restructures number one.

Like, you know when you go out there immediately going, look, we're gonna restructure. And they're like, do I still have a job? The answer might be, I don't know.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Um, and that's an uncomfortable place for leaders to be to say, I don't know. But if you just start making stuff up, like that's even worse. No.

So it's okay to say you don't know, but commit to finding the answer out or letting people know as quickly as you can

Prina: permission to get on my high horse.

Mel: Yes. All right. I'll bring, [00:13:00] I'll even bring the horse to you.

Prina: Bring it. Okay. This is me or my high horse, and Mel, I'm stepping back. You talked about creating safe spaces, right?

For people to have the conversation or for this change to be discussed. I'm on my high horse about this concept, especially that we have in Australia. When there's change that happens. It's a legal concept that HR have to do, and it's called a consultation period. It. I either love it or I hate it, depending on how well it's run.

Mel: Yeah, yeah.

Prina: Sometimes, unfortunately, and let's be honest, because we can say what other people cannot, I'm really glad we can. Sometimes the decision has been made by the powers that be, and this change is what it is, and tough luck. So consultation period means nothing like, yep. Tick in the box, legal, tick in the box.

The good change though, the good kind of change that Mel and I get involved with from a support perspective behind the scenes. When this consultation period happens via hr, who usually lead it, ideally, it should be the leaders who lead it though, because you are the one who's delivering the [00:14:00] change. You have to have at least two weeks, ideally more in listening to people, in getting their feedback, in really listening to the naysayers, because again, naysayers are often probably saying what other people are not saying, right?

Mm-hmm. Seek that feedback, listen to it, filter it. I've just worked with this beautiful team who've had what they've called a reshuffle and this consultation period, Mel was just so beautifully done where HR actually listened to the pain points that people were bringing, and therefore HR have worked with the director to say, okay, we've actually messed up.

We shouldn't be doing this, we shouldn't be doing that. So they've reformatted the change process altogether. Based on the feedback that they've received. So that consultation period is really important if you want to create a proper, safe space.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: Reminding others. Also, when you are delivering information in that HR consultation period, you've probably been working on messaging with the brilliant minds like Mel and you know, [00:15:00] brilliant people internally and externally to support you as that leader to deliver that message.

This is the first time your people might be hearing about it. Okay, so you've psychologically built up. You are completely in the gang. You worked on all of your, you know, cognitive dissonance to cognitive resonance. Your people haven't please remember that. So it's that compassionate aspect as well of just being, okay, I'm just dropping this bomb right now.

It's the first time you've heard about it. Let's be curious about the way forward now.

Mel: Yeah, and I think there's a few things there I want to expand on, and one is. You know, you talked about the legal requirement of consultation. Yeah. Um, and from a comms perspective, you know, there's lots of things you have to do around that.

You know, you have to call everything a proposed structure until it's done, and then you've got, then you can call it a final structure, and you've gotta be very careful about the words you use around all of that too. Not just as a comms person, as a leader, you have to actually, you know, talk to, talk about as a proposed structure before.

It becomes a final structure and then you might [00:16:00] have a redeployment period and, and all those sorts of things as well. Um, but from a legal perspective as well, and this is something that I'm often shocked that senior leaders I work with don't have in Australia have no idea about is that the workplace health and safety legislation was updated, uh, almost two years ago now.

And under psychosocial risks, and that's been included in there for a while. They added poor change management as a psychosocial risk. Yes. Now this includes things like lack of genuine consultation that is in there. Uh, it's also not enough time on top of BAU to actually do the change. So if people have to do training and they're expected to do it out of hours or whatever, that's not okay.

Prina: No

Mel: poor communication is listed in there. As a psychosocial risk. There's a whole bunch of things that are in there, so it's not just because it's the right thing to do, but also you are on the hook and this legislation is already being tested. So University of Technology, Sydney. [00:17:00] Is already been investigated under this workplace health and safety legislation because of a restructure.

So it is not something to just, you know, stick in the back pocket. No, you can't get away with that anymore. At least not in this country.

Prina: No.

Mel: And you don't wanna be the first, you know, um, pancake in the frying pan and be the test case for your, for your industry. So. You know, it's a reputational risk as well.

But the other important point you made was context. And a lot of the change we work with businesses on is a new organisational strategy. So most companies refresh their strategy every three years. Um, sometimes it's because they've got a new CEO. Sometimes it's because, cool, we achieve that last lot.

Let's, and customer expectations have changed. Things have changed. We need new strategy.

Prina: Okay.

Mel: And. Executives and the strategy team, whoever is involved, they've been living and breathing that strategy for months. It's their baby. They know it inside out, back, the front upside down. [00:18:00] They will be able to tell you every piece of research that went into it.

Every, you know, version 67 of it, you know how that differs from version 85 and all that sort of stuff. And then they go, cool, it's time to launch a strategy. And then we have a town hall, and then we have maybe some packs go out to some leaders. Um, and then they're like, why doesn't anybody know about the strategy?

And the reality is, again, from, we're seeing this with a lot of research around the world. Most, uh, only one in three senior leaders can actually name three to five of their organisation's goals.

Prina: Wow.

Mel: Right? Yeah. So if they don't get it. Wow. There's no chance in hell that Maryanne in the mail room gets it.

And that's what they're finding. It's like less than a third of frontline employees actually understand the strategy or have know what it is or have any affinity to it.

Prina: Gosh.

Mel: So you know, they've been living and breathing in this bubble and then cannot understand why nobody else has.

Prina: Wow.

Mel: So well, as a leader, once again, [00:19:00] this is your role to play. If you don't get it. Go and find out. Yeah. Ask the questions, understand what it means for you and your team. Break it down, and then work with your team to create an understanding together of what that looks like. Because we also know this communication cascade. It's broken.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Middle management, they're not passing stuff on. They're too busy, they've got other stuff to do.

Prina: No.

Mel: So get everybody involved in understanding and unpacking what the change means for them. That co-creation is so much more sticky and people feel a sense of ownership. Which brings me back to something else you said about resistance and or reactance.

And this is the thing. People, uh, reactance is high when we feel like change is happening to us.

Prina: Yeah,

Mel: that somebody's telling me what to do. I don't like being told what to do. No human does and reactance just goes through the roof then.

But if I feel like I've had a say, a sense of ownership, a sense of create co-creation,

Prina: yeah.

Mel: [00:20:00] Then that brings the reactants down a notch. Yeah. And also, like you said, sometimes that reactance or resistance is actually really good feedback. You know, reframe it in that way and thinking, okay, well my team aren't. Doing this, I need to understand why. And maybe it's because the instructions just weren't clear or, you know, something was said in a meeting a couple weeks ago and it was just an offhand comment, but you didn't think anything of it at the time.

Like, oh, okay. Whoops. You know? Yeah. That was, I didn't realise that, had that effect. So use it as a, as a, you know, you get. Why are people not doing the change? And as a leader, what can I do about that?

Prina: Very cool. And I have completely changed David Rock's scarf model to apply in this context. Okay. So the scarf,

Mel: love the scarf model, love it.

Prina: It's a good one. But the scarf model stands for status. So I still need status within the workplace, even during change. I still need to feel like I'm important. I need certainty, so I still need business as usual [00:21:00] aspects and guaranteed with any change, there's still BAU as well as whatever's happening.

Mel: Oh yeah.

Prina: Elsewhere, I need autonomy. A is the autonomy. I still need to feel like I'm still doing my own job and that I'm an adult and being treated like an adult. I need, I think the R is relatability, so I feel like I still need to feel like I belong. Right. In relation to that. And then the f is the fairness aspect and this is what you're really talking to here.

We need to have that conversation from a fairness perspective and co-design things as well. Um, I, I presented to a group of my HR peers once Mel, a couple of years ago, and I had 150 people staring at me like, oh my God, my people, they're the hardest people I feel to present to. 'cause you know, I'm one of them, they're my people.

Mel: Yeah, yeah.

Prina: And I gave them a two by two framework because 'cause. Consultants love it. And this framework is trust against change. Okay. So when you have low trust and low change, I call it a sinking ship. 'cause that's where you are. No [00:22:00] trust, no change. If you've got high trust, but low change, you're kind of flying blind.

Okay? Things are kind of, you're just like, oh, okay, we're just sticking our finger in the air. If you've got high trust, but low change. Your people are ready to take off. They're just waiting for clear direction. They're just the waiting and then the utopia, high trust and high change. Okay. Plain sailing, right?

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: That's the utopia. So I asked this group of HR people, okay, so you've been trained in the best, you know, ADKAR, Prosci, Cota all of the sexy change management models. I know your super brains in this aspect. If I was to ask you where your people see out of 1, 2, 3, and four, where do they sit? Most people told me that they're in an organisational culture where it feels like it's either a sinking ship or people are flying blind.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Prina: To which I say, why are you applying these sexy change management methodologies when your people are not even [00:23:00] ready for it?

Mel: Uh-huh.

Prina: So we need to meet our people where they're at as well. And our organisational culture where it's at, we can't make it too logical. You know, sometimes we can over, uh. I don't know.

We could over academia things just because we've been trained, whatever, but we need to bring it down as well. Have you come across this yourself?

Mel: Yeah, absolutely. And uh, you know, there's a lot of faith put in these change management models too.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but a lot of them, like ad car, are very outdated, pro size, the same.

Um, you know, they're still flogging them, they're still making a lot of money out of them. Um, but it gives the impression that change is linear. And it absolutely is not. It absolutely is not. Uh, change, the change often changes as we're changing - goalpost shift, you know, other things come along like, oh, I didn't expect that to happen. You know, all that sort of stuff.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Um, but again, like you talk about if you've, if you've got a culture there that's not ready for change, so they're going, you know, then you'll probably [00:24:00] find some teams are and some teams aren't.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Um, but if you've got people who are just not ready for it. That makes it so much harder.

And so that means you can't just throw your hands up in the air and go, oh, it's too hard. They're not ready for it. Okay, well what can you do to get there? And what's within your control as well?

Prina: Yeah, perfect.

Mel: So it could be, as we say, co-creations a great way to get people there because solve the problem together. Typically change is help, is trying to solve a problem, right?

Prina: Yeah. Yeah.

Mel: Um, and so this is about going. Again, getting them eng involved, whether it's a restructure or technology or whatever. You've told us this. So going back to feedback that you're getting from people, you know, what are the pain points that they're experiencing every day, whether it's for themselves or the customers or whoever. Help us solve the problem.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: So then again, skin in the game. And when you've got skin in the game, you're more likely to invest in it. Um, the other thing [00:25:00] is talk about what's not changing.

Prina: Yes,

Mel: because you need to sometimes, like you said it, you know, uncertainty is not great for people. We, we hate uncertainty.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: And uncertainty breeds fear. Fear breeds poor behaviour, if you've heard me say that before.

Prina: Mm-hmm.

Mel: So talk about what's not changing as well, not just in change. We tend to have, uh, and I've been guilty of this in the past when we create our key messages and all that sort of stuff, we just talk about the change and benefits and blah, blah, blah.

But actually we also need to talk about what's not changing, what stays the same, to give people something to anchor to.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: And also talk about what's gonna be tough. Yeah. Be open about it. Like,

Prina: okay,

Mel: you know, coming this new system is going to be, it's gonna take time to learn and we're probably gonna have some teething issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, you know, be prepared for that. We'll give you the training, we're here to support you. It's not gonna be an overnight success. We know that it's gonna take time, but we'll get there. And in that, if you've got prior examples to refer to as well. To [00:26:00] give people that confidence. Like remember how we did this system change three years ago?

Yeah. It was messy to start with, but now we're all using it every day Fine. We're just gonna do the same thing again. And so it gives people that confidence, oh yeah, we have done this before. Like this isn't, you know, this isn't all new. So there's lots of different ways you can build that readiness.

Mm-hmm. You've gotta try some things. Just try something, experiment, you know, see what works, what doesn't, and learn from them. Yeah, absolutely. There's something else you talked about too. Um, sorry, I'm, I'm on my high horse now. It's my turn. Another two by two matrix. Let's get into it. So this is probably the one from my first book that everybody goes back to.

Speaker 3: Okay.

Speaker 2: And I hear about a lot, but it's how people respond to change. And you probably heard, and your listeners probably heard of the change curve as well, that sort of thing. The change curve. Again, it's quite old... A piece of academia. Now, again, not to say it was wrong at the time, but again, it does presume a linear kind of [00:27:00] path and that everybody follows the same steps.

But we know that's not the case. So from a leadership perspective, you gotta put your audience hat on and think, well, what are the likely ways that people are going to respond to this? Yeah. And how am I going to communicate or act in a way to either mitigate that response or to accept it and work with it?

Um, so two by two bottom, uh, axis is where we talk about processing time. So some people process new ideas and new things really quickly. You know, maybe they're brought up in a way where they always had new things to try and those sorts of things. So their brains are kind of wired for it. Others take a bit more time to process and think through stuff

Prina: correct

Mel: before they come to a decision.

And then on the vertical axis, you've got risk aversion. So. Some people are very highly risk averse and there's lots of reasons for that.

Prina: Yeah,

Mel: it could be.... You've had really bad experience, a change in the past.

Prina: And trauma.

Mel: So then yeah, trauma. Absolutely. You've got really [00:28:00] shit leaders, you know, they're not making it helpful. Um, but some people are just, I think, a bit innately risk averse anyway, by nature.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: And then you've got other end of the spectrum where people, so other people are not risk averse at all. They're the ones who are doing the bungee jumping. They're the ones who are happy to try a new piece of. Software, technology, whatever it might be, give it a go.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Uh, so in that bottom quadrant where you've got low processing time and low risk aversion, they're what I call the happy Helens. So happy Helens typically, and again, it's not gonna be for every change. If you're being told you'd be made redundant, maybe you won't be so happy about it. But in most changes, they're pretty up upbeat about it.

They're like, yeah, cool. All right. Oddly, give that a go. Uh, even in a redundancy, they might be like, oh, silver lining. Well, you know, I'm just gonna go do this now, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, they don't dwell on it necessarily. They're off from racing. Um, the challenge with our happy Helens is they can go too far too fast.

So if you had a [00:29:00] whole team of Happy Helens dead set chaos, absolute chaos, you'd never get anything done 'cause shiny thing syndrome, that's chasing the dopamine, right.

Prina: Yep.

Mel: Um, and that's great. They're great change champions. They're great people to, you know, be advocates for the change.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: But sometimes you need to pull them back a little bit and go, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea, but let's just solve this first. Let's get this done. Then you've got a higher processing time, but still low risk aversion.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: So that's what I call our cautious Cals.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: You know, they're typically optimistic about change. They, you know, happy to see the good in it. Uh, they're not going to, you know, react badly, straight away, but they will have questions. And as a leader, you need to be prepared to answer a lot of questions.

Prina: Cool.

Mel: They are very good for pulling the reins on the help. Happy Helens, you know, like just sort of going, uh, that's great guys, but have you thought about this? So you need those [00:30:00] people on your team too. Where we have high risk aversion and low processing time, I call them your nope Nelly.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: The default answer to change is, nope. Just, no, it's, we tried that before and it didn't work. Kind of scenarios.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You know, all that sort of stuff. So they are often straight away. This is bad.

Prina: Mm.

Mel: Now, how do you deal with those types of people? Number one, sometimes, like I said earlier, they have really good reasons for saying no.

Yeah. So dig into that. Be curious. Okay. Can you tell me why you think that's a bad idea or why that didn't work or, okay, so it didn't work last time you tried this. Why not? What would you do differently this time to make it work? Yeah, so get them involved. They've often got a lot of organisational knowledge that you may not be aware of.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: But again, challenge their perception of what they know. So ask specific questions. Say, what about this specifically don't you like or [00:31:00] that you think is bad? Because when they're challenged to think about specifics, sometimes they actually can't because they just made a rash decision that negativity, this is bad.

Okay. So you might not change their minds over... Overnight, but you might plant a seed that grows. And then the final quadrant is that top right where you've got high risk aversion and also high processing time.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: And they're what I call my fence sitting Freds. So they are just gonna go freeze. That's their response. It's a freeze or a, you know, I'm just, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing until somebody tells me I don't have to do that anymore and I'm gonna hitch my wagon into the winning horse.

Prina: And they're watching.

Mel: Yeah, yeah. They're watching and people around 'em are going, this is terrible. And other people go, this is great.

And they're like, oh, I'm just gonna see who wins this debate and then go with them. They can be hard ones to shift because they can also be a little bit defensive. Um, they can, you know, just be apathetic to the whole scenario anyway, and just find a workaround. [00:32:00] They might leave, they might just go, this isn't for me, and that's okay too.

You'll find that some people just opt out. Uh, but again, it's about giving them the space. To tell you, well, what are you worried about? What are the questions that you have, you know, that are stopping you from doing this? What could we do to make this easier for you? Brilliant. And that is a big thing we change.

Make it easy.

Prina: Exactly.

Mel: If it's hard, nobody's doing it. That's my, that's my rant. That's my two by two.

Prina: Ah, let me jump on your run. So Kiss principle, keep it simple. Stupid. That's one. Yeah. But then it goes back to the first conversation that we had about adapting your communication style. Right? Look at me,

Mel: Oh look at that full circle.

Prina: Look at my brain working, look at it. So it's really important from a comms perspective and a leadership perspective to tailor my messaging to these various brains and these various psychological responses. So in the past I talked about, you know, one of the past episodes I talked about K Ross's stages of grief.

[00:33:00] Mm-hmm. And I talk about stages of grief. During change because we are losing something to gain something else. Yeah. But this funky period in between is just this unknown space. So we're gonna go through potentially, uh, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or, or acceptance. You know, depending on people are at, some people are just straight to acceptance, as you've beautifully just said.

Or they're sitting in these different funky phases. Mm-hmm. So it's really important therefore, to have that relationship with our team. And, you know, we talked about trust earlier as well. Trust. You have to have trust at this stage. By this stage, you totally have to have trust. Otherwise the change is gonna fail completely.

So I reckon barriers to change as well are that lack of trust, lack of knowing your people and therefore crappy comms as a result. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,

Mel: a hundred percent.

Prina: You know, and I think with any kind of change, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. Even if you don't have anything to share, communicate, and I'm [00:34:00] going back to our days when the pandemic happened and I was still within the workplace.

I nearly quit then, but I hadn't just yet. And I remember the director general of this organisation that I was working for the DG. She was sending videos every single day, even when she knew nothing. The video would be, this is a 30 second video. I don't have any updates for you, but I just wanted to let you know.

Yeah, that just made me feel so much better. Now I'm telling you, my brain was just so relieved. That's it. It's a simple,

Mel: that's, yeah, and that is, I think it's important that you raise the the COVID context there, because I'm a big fan of only communicating when you have something to say.

Prina: Okay.

Mel: That said. know you are in a world of a lot of uncertainty, and that was a lot of uncertainty. This is the first time any of us really had lived through a pandemic, so we're just like. What do we do? Like, um, I think in that context, yes, because there is so much [00:35:00] uncertainty and it is so personal and is so emotional and it's scary.

Like it was scary

Prina: completely,

Mel: then yes, the more reassurance you can give, the better. Yeah. But there's gonna be times like with tech projects and those sorts of things. Nobody wants your newsletter mate. No. No. And if you've, you've got nothing to say. That's okay because there's so much noise in the workplace too.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: That and project managers often think their project is the most important project in the history of projects. Yeah. Um, and everybody must need to know about it. It's like, actually, mate, no they don't. Because there's 50 other projects going on at the same time and people are getting hundreds of emails a day, text messages, teams chats, slack chats, social media messages.

They are bombarded with stuff. So don't make it harder for them to find the information they need. Do it in a way that's, you know, timely as well. And you mentioned trust earlier. One of the [00:36:00] things that I coach leaders in when we're doing change comms is the three T's of trust. So because like we said, leaders are super busy, they're often new to this.

There's a lot to remember and a lot to take in. Okay. So if there's one thing to remember about your communication as a leader during change, it's the three T's of trust. So transparent, timely, and thoughtful. Transparent within boundaries. Of course. Yeah. You know, if people are being made redundant and all those sorts of things, you gotta be careful.

Um, or commercial sensitivities around just strategy and that sort of stuff. But transparent just means open and honest and not sticking your head in the sand, pretending it doesn't exist. I mean, a restructure is a great case in point. Worst kept secret you'll ever have in an organisation, so you may as well just acknowledge it's happening.

Um, thoughtful is like we talked about, tailoring it to your audience, being authentic, being empathetic, all those things and timely means. It's not two weeks too late. You know, I [00:37:00] wish I'd known that change, that policy changed two weeks ago. Like, you know, that would've been helpful. And it's not too early where it's like, Hey, in six months time we're gonna do this.

And then so what? Yeah, there's nothing, no action to take.

Prina: No.

Mel: And people then go, we talked about it in the town hall six months ago, so people should totally know about it already. No, I guarantee you that was forgotten the second they walked out that door.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: So balancing the timing is, is really important as well.

Prina: Hmm.

Mel: If you get those three things, if you can tick those three boxes mm-hmm. You help to build that sense of trust. Um, because imagine, you know, you've got a really thoughtful communication. It's very transparent, but it's two weeks too late. Yes. Like, why would I trust you? Yeah. That's it. You miss the boat too little, too late.

You know, secret squirrel, blah, blah, blah. Um, it might be really timely and transparent, but it's not thoughtful.

Prina: No.

Mel: And so people go, well, what does this mean for me? You don't care about me, blah, blah, blah. So again, it takes these three things [00:38:00] and if there's nothing else you remember, those will help.

Prina: Yeah. While you were talking, it reminded me of something else. So you talk about the difference between internal people and change from people.

Mel: Yes.

Prina: Different brains, different skillset, right?

Mel: Yeah.

Prina: Me on my high horse a second time. Who knew.. There's a huge difference between a difference between project managers and change managers.

Mel: Mm.

Prina: Okay. So I've, I've had the privilege of working with both and Okay. I am stereotyping a bit, but from my experience, what I've come across from project managers perspective is the very technical, yes, there's a go, no go language. The user acceptance testing, all of the kind of stuff that you have to do, and we really, truly need you and your brilliance within the workplace.

But we also need these change managers because they bring in the psychology of change. Mm-hmm. And all of these beautiful things. And Mel's been talking about, you know, talking to the Nope Nellys or the Fence Sitting Freds or the Cautious Cals and co-creating. [00:39:00] Whereas the project managers are offered different mindset and their KPIs are completely different.

Their role needs are completely different as well. So, ending my high horse conversation here for the project managers who I listen. Please get upskilled in change management. Yes, come to conferences. Listen to Mel's podcast. Listen to my Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast. Come to conferences such as We go to a really cool conference.

Pretty much. Well, I started last year. It's called Rethink Change.

Mel: It's great.

Prina: Oh my gosh. The stuff that you like.

Mel: Janine and Doug, we love you.

Prina: Shout out legend legends. Learn from brilliant people. Project managers join us. The door is open

Mel: a hundred percent and I always say a good comms plan. Relies on a good project plan.

Prina: Boom.

Mel: Yeah, my comms plan is not your project plan. I've seen that try and happen before. No good. So a great project plan helps me go, okay, when do I need to plan some of these comms and those sorts of things. If you are lucky enough to have a change manager. It kind of sits in between those two plans.

Prina: [00:40:00] Yeah.

Mel: Um, and the change plan will suck in your comm stuff and the change the training and all those sorts of pieces as well. And the other important role that change managers do is the impact assessments.

Prina: Yes.

Mel: So, you know, they will go through and go, okay, well who does this change impact? What does that look like?

And that is a goldmine for leaders to go, oh, okay. Like this team of mine over here is actually. Gonna really have to change everything about the way they work. But this change over here, not so much.

Prina: And they also do the change readiness assessments, which I love, and it's so needed as well. 'cause then you can tap into the psychology of your people.

Mel: Absolutely. So work with those people. You know, again, as a leader, you're not always gonna be handed this stuff on a silver platter. You need to go and find out, put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and go be a change detective. Go investigate. Damn right. Damn right. Yeah. Well, Prina, we've again covered a lot of ground in this episode.

Yes. What do you reckon our listeners should take away? [00:41:00]

Prina: Create safe spaces. And in an honest way, the consultation period kills me. Please be genuine. Yes. Otherwise, if they're not genuine, let us know. We need some bad case studies, always... or good case studies as well. So if you're doing things really well, let us know as well.

'cause we wanna learn from you. Um, I love your three t's of trust, transparency, timely and thoughtful, super important. You know, uh, talk about what's not changing. Really important for our brains. Talk about prior examples of when we've gone through some, uh, similar situations as well to primers, psychological priming we really haven't talked about.

That's a whole different conversation.

Mel: Oh yeah.

Prina: Well, so, so important there. Right. And then I just wanna end with that high horse thing that I just said. Project managers and change managers are different breeds of people.

Mm-hmm. And we need to marry a bit more.

Mel: Yeah. Uh, I really loved your two by two. So the change in trust model.

Mm-hmm. And you know, the flying blind, gosh, we see that a lot, right? Like, I don't know [00:42:00] why we're doing this. We just kind of are like, yeah. Mm. Um, and when you don't have a purpose for change, gosh, that makes it hard to get buy in. Um. But also the sinking ship. Yeah. There's a lot of organisations out there that are in that position right now, because they haven't changed.

They don't, they're not adapting. And I think that's another thing too. You know, we, we ask people, or we say to leaders, you know, and the teams, you gotta be more resilient. You gotta be more resilient. Resilience is just putting up with something. Right. And it just, it puts all the onus back on people to deal with it.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: Adaptability is the skill we need to learn. We need to learn to adapt to the world around us and the environment. And so that means, okay, well this is happening. How do I respond to that? Not just, well, I'm just gonna have to put up with it 'cause I'm resilient now.

Um, but I think the other thing to take away from this, that as a leader, part of your role is to make the change meaningful to your team.

Prina: Yeah.

Mel: So go find out as much as you can about it. [00:43:00] Find out about the impacts, personalize the messages. Don't just read them off a sheet. Put them in your voice, your language, in ways that, and deliver in ways that meet the needs of your people. And you will also have a really good idea of how people are going to respond and.

You know, tailor your communication to that. Um, so that's probably my key takeaways if anybody's listening.

Prina: Brilliant. Well, I love chatting with you. Always.

Mel: You too. So we have one more episode in this series, and it's a good one. It's a doozy. Uh, grand finale, pet peeves. Pet peeves with leadership and what to do about them.

And look, we've written notes already.

Prina: My list is long.

Mel: There's a long list. But never fear. We're not just focusing on the bad. We are looking at, well, what can you do about it as well? And I'm sure we'll have many of you nodding along and just going, oh my God. Yes, yes. So stay tuned for that one, everybody.

Talk to you soon. Bye for now.

Prina: Bye [00:44:00] bye.