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Mel: You may have heard the saying that the one constant in life is change, and in the world of work in which we live, this has never been more true, but even change itself keeps changing, which is why for this episode of Less Chatter, More Matter.

I was delighted to interview the effervescent Janine Ellison. Janine is a change management leader, conference co-chair, and a firm believer that the best outcomes in work and in life come from surrounding yourself with great people. How good is that? And with a career built on partnering with business leaders through complex strategic and operational change, Janine is known for her ability to build cohesive delivery teams that bring together the right mix of project and business resources to drive transformation that actually sticks.

Her leadership style is collaborative. Her stakeholder instincts are sharp, and her commitment to sustainable change is unwavering. Off the back of her professional life, you will find Janine [00:01:00] equally energised by community adventure and the thrill of something new. She's a passionate experimenter who believes growth happens at the edges of your comfort zone.

Whether that's a new challenge at work, a new place to explore, or a new idea worth backing Janine's Drive is simple. Connect deeply, lead boldly, and never stop exploring. I love her so much and in her role as one of the co-founders of Rethink Change, Janine has her finger on the pulse of the key trends emerging in the change management and change communication fields.

So in this episode, she shares the changing trends she's seen over the past few years and what might be coming next. Janine also shares her rethink philosophy, arguing that the traditional way we approach change in the workplace is often broken because it treats people as an afterthought, and we dive into why so many change initiatives fail. It's not because the strategy was wrong, but hint, hint, because the people [00:02:00] side was neglected. Janine is an absolute superstar, change manager and human being, and I'm sure you'll enjoy learning from her as much as I did. So here's Janine.

Janine Ellison, welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter.

Janine: Thank you. Good to be here.

Mel: I'm very excited to have you here. Before we get into today's session, can you tell our audience a little bit about you? Who are you? What do you do? How did you come to develop your expertise in that space?

Janine: Alright, good place to start. So, I suppose more holistically, I, I like to think of many things. So I'm particularly interested in adventures. I love travel. I love the great unknown. But I think really at the core of everything that I do is people, so whether it be family, friends, and community.

So that kind of sits consistently across everything. In terms of change management, I say I've been doing it for an awfully long time.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: Um, but [00:03:00] wasn't always with the label of change manager. I think for most of us who've been in this space, and I think I've been doing this for about 25 years now.

We kind of started in different roles, so my background was organisational psychology and industrial relations, which is kind of org design organisational relations here. And yeah, so over a period of time just evolved into change management and worked in many different organisations, different types of initiatives and programs, and, um, still enjoying it.

Every day is an adventure.

Mel: Excellent. Well, change is definitely the right place to be when you love adventure, so I think we can all agree on that. Alright, now let's start with the basics. How do you define change management and what value does that bring to a workplace?

Janine: Yeah. Not a basic question, Mel.

Mel: No, that's true.

But it's, uh, fundamentals, I guess is more the word.

Janine: Yes, it's a good place [00:04:00] to start. So for me, there's a few lenses. So if we look at it. From an operational sense, it's really about process, emerging process, and then the human psychology and towards achieving a specific outcome for both people, but also business customers, et cetera.

So I suppose that's the process. Kind of answer to it, but probably more useful is I've always seen it as two key phases. So the first one is we are real enablers and. I, I almost see it as the puppet master in the background, really supporting and enabling the business, um, and our key stakeholders and audiences to adopt and feel safe and supported taking on a change.

So I've, I've always thought that one of the challenges we have in change management is really good. Change managers are invisible. [00:05:00] And then we land up in this loop and challenge of what is the value of change management? Well, when it's landing well, it means you've had a fabulous change manager and if you don't know their name, that's even better.

So I think it's one of those loops we find it's bit of a

Mel: a paradox, isn't it? Yeah.

Janine: So I think there's that first. Part about, um, enabling the business and our stakeholders and impacted audiences to take on change. But I think there's another really important second stages. I call it the reporter responder, and this is about adoption.

So it's, it's kind of like the short term, but also then the longer term as well around how do we make sure that this is, becomes the new norm. And this is often the piece we see in organisations that kind of drops off a little bit, and there's always the interesting debate as to [00:06:00] what is the role of change?

What is the role of the business owner catching that change? But the real success of an effective change manager is someone who's both delivered to go live, but really the results and the impact is when it's embedded in. And we save business as usual, but it's when it's the norm, it's no longer the initiative.

Mel: Mm.

Janine: So it's a very roundabout way to define change management.

Mel: Mm. Yeah. I think the key parts that you pulled out there, like there is that process, like, yes, we need a process that helps everybody stay on track. But you know, the process only goes so far. If you don't think about the people. Who are involved and like you said, that that long tail as well.

I was talking to somebody about this just the other day actually. It's good timing. We sort of go just a three phased approach, you know, awareness launch in bed. And one of the things we say is the embed phase is really where, as you say, people drop off because they're onto the next thing. They're onto the next [00:07:00] change.

They're onto the next fire that's burning somewhere. Gotta put that out and that embed phase, if that's not carefully... Orchestrated either or that change could just, you know, disappear. I think if you think about an example like technology. I launched a new system, yay. Okay. But is anybody using it and are they using it the way you want them to use it and or are they having workarounds?

Are they going back and using old things instead, like, and just negating all the positive impact you built up until that point.

Janine: Yeah, and it's the irony of how much time, effort, and resource and focus. On all levels of the organisation that goes into a business case and the funding model. And then when you're actually going to realise those benefits and deliver on that promise, which is effectively what a business case is, then everything drops off and we kind of move on to the next thing.

So, yeah, and you know, we [00:08:00] all understand why it happens, but when you can step back and look at it probably doesn't make too much sense.

Mel: Yeah, exactly. So you and your business partner Doug, who unfortunately couldn't join us today, uh, are at the helm of Rethink Change, which we will put some links in the show notes to, uh, the resources you've got online and the conference you've got coming up.

But obviously, being in that position, you are in a really cool position because you get to hear from change professionals from all over Australia, New Zealand, further afield. What are you hearing about some of the trends that are emerging in the industry?

Janine: Yeah. And it's such a well timed question because actually, if I can give you a bit of context on this, we've brought in a fabulous data analyst who's crunched a whole lot of data points.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: So with every conference, what we get is we get about over 80 submissions from presenters, or leaders in this space. But we also, for everyone who [00:09:00] registers with the conference. We ask questions like, what are you most interested about? What do you want to learn more about? And then on the tail end with the feedback, what surprised you?

What are you still curious about? So we've actually, when we take a look, this is our fifth conference. We've probably got close to a thousand data points.

Mel: Wow.

Janine: And we've had some fabulous help from somebody who has done the analysis on those and helped us really trended over the five years. What people were most interested in.

So I, I've taken a few notes, if you can just bear with me, because it's, um, it's fascinating to see how it's moved and it really has, so 2022 was the first one. We were just coming out of COVID. So most of the interest was around, um, what's new, what's good practice. But actually by far the majority was community connection.

Yeah. So for anyone who knows Rethink Change, it's about rethinking change management. [00:10:00] But it is very largely driven by community.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: And that first one, I think we've also starved of, of connection. That was the big call out 2023. Um, it was much more around where's the profession heading? So I think we started getting a sense of hybrid and the significant impact.

And we've also, it was the first time we saw AI and data. Starting to feed into some of the narrative of what people were interested in. 2024 was really the year around innovation. So we saw a lot of content and questions around agile design thinking, the um, and AI move from, I'm interested in it, to how is this really gonna support my change work?

So there was a real shift to what does it look like? As a change practitioner in doing my everyday work.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: We, we also [00:11:00] saw, um, hybrid and communication really hitting some friction points about, this is really, um, prominent for me and I'm not sure that we've quite worked out how we are gonna manage our way through this.

So 2024 was quite a pivotal year, I think generally in the profession. 2025. So only last year, but it was a lot about, um, the demand had shifted to tools and ideas around capability and influence mm-hmm. In complex environments. So we are going, the world's getting messier. organisations are becoming more complex.

We've all got big audacious agendas. Um, we are doing a lot more than we ever had before. So actually, how do I as a change practitioner navigate through this and what are the tools and ideas that I can use to help me move forward? We [00:12:00] also got a lot of feedback last year on case studies, so we've all, we know everyone loves this story.

I mean, you're the queen of storytelling, so we know that's always been hugely insightful of what it actually looks like. But last year we had a lot of conversation. Around, um, please show me a case study where you've actually applied, applied the stuff.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: People don't want frameworks, they don't want models.

They want to know how you kind of navigate through this really messy waters. So that, that was big last year. Um, this year, just on a high level, what we are getting a lot of questions about is volume of change.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: And. We've got some amazing presenters, which are all about, there's one title that I love, which is the Strategic Stillness.

It's like, guys, just give us a chance, like we reset strategies. That's great. We know the importance [00:13:00] of the strategy, but actually what doesn't work for progressing and landing is this constant tacking. At some point, we need to consolidate to move forward. And there, there were a lot of submissions and requests for how do we navigate just this overwhelming volume?

And with ai, of course the fear is that's gonna scale up even more. So yeah, that's a big one. And then the only other thing to throw in, which is no surprise, is um, when we've seen changes more environmental, so we had the Work Health and Safety Act that came through in 2023. We had a lot of activity around psychosocial hazard.

Mel: Mm.

Janine: Um, but that, those are the environmental trends, but interests of the community, I think, yeah, it, it's quite interesting. We get some really good insights from the questions and submissions

Mel: and it sounds like it, what you're pulling out of this [00:14:00] year's question is so reflective of all the research we're seeing too, right around just the scale of change.

Not just the scale, but the frequency. Um. And the fact that it's faster than ever before as well. In many respects, it's um, you know, it's from one, as you say, the constant tacking from one to the next, to the next to the next.

Janine: Mm-hmm.

Mel: Um, and it's really no wonder that people are, certainly the research I've been seeing beyond change fatigued, they're change apathetic.

They've just stopped caring in many cases and that's really hard to reignite meaning and purpose and excitement in people about change when they just are over it. They're just done. Um, and I love that idea of strategic stillness because that might be the breathing room that people need to reengage with, why they're there, why they're in the workplace, why they're doing what they're doing every day.

So, um, but you did mention something there about AI and we would be remiss not to talk about it. And I know that you guys have, uh, [00:15:00] facilitated a couple of boot camps as well because the demand is obviously there. Um, it's playing a much bigger role in the work that we do. Whether you're a change manager, change comms person, project manager, you're involved in change in some way.

AI is there. What do change professionals need to be doing to stay on top of ai to stay relevant?

Janine: Hmm. So, I mean, I think the obvious things are just, just do it. Just play. Jump in, have a go. Um, treat it like your, your business partner, your role partner. But I think there's, for me a bit of a more important part, which is actually change Practitioners take control.

Mel: Mm.

Janine: Don't, don't be a recipient of what AI's doing to you. Get ahead of it and actually think about the work you do and the elements of your role and where AI can help you do better. Do more, [00:16:00] add more value. 'cause I think we. Uh, you know, the language is mixed, but I do feel like we are waiting for organisations to cascade, give us guidance, give us this, give us that we are waiting for signs coming from, you know, different platforms, et cetera.

But I do think we need to, as a profession, look at our role, the work we do, and how we can almost take control about how we using ai. 'cause no one wants to be that victim of change, and this is. And will be the most significant change impact that we are gonna have on our profession ever. And we are gonna, we are really gonna feel it on every level.

So both on the enterprise level, the challenges we are facing into, um, you, you use the language of change fatigue. And I think it's a word we need new language, Mel. Yeah. So I, I think it's not serving us very well at the moment.

Mel: That's true.

Janine: Because we, while we can quantify volume of change. [00:17:00] What we actually can't quantify is capacity to absorb and it, it's more than one plus one, plus one.

It's actually the emotional how taxing it is on me, on my sense of security. And so I just think that's bit off track. But I do think it's a space we need to play with. Mm. But AI is going to add a layer to where we work, the people we work with, the. The executives we engage and the expectations of everyone in that hiring.

Okay?

Mel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. And, uh, I was talking to, uh, his name's Dan Sodergren a few weeks ago. He out of the UK and, uh, for the, for another podcast episode. And he was sort of, we are looking at the internal comms perspective.

Janine: Mm,

Mel: in particular. But he said, you know, if you're not keeping up with ai, he's very blunt about it.

He's like, he thinks that in two years you won't have a job. Internal comms is gonna be sucked into other roles. It's gonna be, um, and so that was quite, [00:18:00] I guess, confronting in, in many ways. But it does beg the question about, okay, there are lots of roles that are in that position, really. How do we show the value that we bring?

Because AI is just a tool, it's a powerful tool and it's driving change, but it's just a tool. So where's. The value for us in that organisation. And one of the things I think for change managers, for comms people, one, it's the risk lens. You know, because we are people focused, we can sort of go, this is a risk to people and a risk to the business.

But I also think it's relationships. You know, people don't wanna have a conversation or relationship with a robot at work. They want to talk to a human and have a human hear what they're worried about. And a human hear. Where they're struggling with the change, not an AI agent.

Janine: I think that's so true, and I think while, if I can call it the mechanics of how we do change management is going to change.

I think the core principles of we [00:19:00] care for people, we care for the experience they go through during those periods of change, and we have the principle of enabling leaders. To lead and support their teams. And I think if we kind of stay true to those principles, it's just the how we do it, which is going to shift.

Mel: Yeah.

Janine: But actually that's the humanistic, the relational aspect you're talking to. So we have a space, but we need to define what this partnership with AI looks like.

Mel: Mm-hmm. And like you said, we can't sit around and wait for somebody to hand it to us. It's not gonna work that way. And by the time we do, it's uh, it's probably too late.

Although that's really interesting insights. Um, beyond ai, what are some of the other skills that you think we need to develop in the profession to keep it continually evolving?

Janine: Yeah. I think for me it's just be a life observer.

Mel: Mm-hmm. [00:20:00]

Janine: And. Change management. Truthfully, I've, I've always joked, and I know my kids have said to me on a few occasions, don't change manage me.

You know, but, but actually it applies everywhere and there's so many adjacent and parallel learnings in every industry, every experience. And I think just be that life observer. There's gold out there everywhere. I, I think one, there's a few other things because it's unpredictable and if your question was more specific of what's happening in Next Gen change management, Mel, I have no idea.

But what I do know is if you talk to the right people and you surround yourself with the right conversations, which is things why your podcast and you know, similar ones, other others are covering are so important is all these little pieces of information trigger thoughts and ideas. And that's how we will navigate into uncertainty is by being able [00:21:00] to bring all these insights together.

'cause it, it's always gonna be adaptive and situational.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: And the bigger the, your awareness, the bigger your toolkit, the more chance you'll see the signs, recognize the triggers, and be able to respond. So I think, yeah, just surround yourself with great people. I'm a big believer, as you know, networks community.

I'm a big believer in mentorships. I know mentors have made all the difference for me at those key periods in my career, and just be that observant, like, yeah,

Mel: I think that's very solid advice. Well, Janine, we have three questions we ask every guest on the podcast. Are you ready for those?

Janine: Okay.

Mel: Let's get amongst it.

So the first one is, what is an unexpected or left of field way that you learned a valuable lesson about change or communication or both?

Janine: Um, so the, the first time I applied [00:22:00] for a real change management role, I completely oversold myself. So I went to book. In fact, I found it, if you can believe it, in my book.

Oh. Yeah, so I went to Bali on holiday with the family and I sat down, look, there's even post-it notes, so it's called Beyond Change Management. So I very diligently read the book and I highlighted some things that sounded really impressive. Anyway, I went into the interview and I'm sure my interviewer will listen to your podcast at some point, and I thought I was well equipped.

I had all the lingo. Not realising, Mel, that actually this book's about change leadership, not change management.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: And I'm still not quite sure why she gave me the role, but I think what I learned, which I'm, I'm not sure is a useful skill for anyone is, um, fake it till you make it. But it's, yeah, it's a, it, it was a bit of a sink or swim situation, but what I worked out very quickly was a good mentor was going to [00:23:00] be incredibly helpful.

And actually if you ask the right questions and you be open and receptive and, and trust your guts, you know, the good old intuition. Mm-hmm. Um, if you are a people person, there's a good chance you'll navigate your way through this. So I'm not sure if that's a good selling point for having done a valuable lesson, but, and anyway, she's now a fabulous and appreciated friend.

Mel: Excellent. Well, clearly it worked out, so that's good. Yes. Uh, second question, what is a book or podcast you love and would recommend to our listeners?

Janine: Um, so this one's a little bit left of centre, so there's a podcast called Acquired. Do you know it?

Mel: No, but now I'm gonna go look for it.

Janine: It's pretty amazing.

So it's, um. Um, to, I think they were fund managers or investment bankers or something. And what they do is they [00:24:00] really do deep dive into some of the world's greatest companies and they kind of build out this playbook and they go all the way back to the founders and the stories over time. And I think besides being amazing, so they look at the luxury brands, they do, um.

Mars, like the Coca-Cola, et cetera. Incredible, incredible stories. But I think the reason why it really, um, has caught me is that what is common across all these organisations and everything we see day to day is actually they all are a journey of change. They're also all about great leadership and good and bad decisions, and I think.

The part that always catches me is how powerful culture is. Mm-hmm. That, you know, they, they bring in new executives, new CEOs, and actually the culture can [00:25:00] almost work the person in, work the person out. It's, and I think for anyone who's interested in these incredible brands, yeah, it's a great story.

Mel: Love it.

Janine: And they're two really smart, articulate.

Mel: Well, I'll be going to look that up straight after we finish here, so thank you for sharing that. Thank you. Now, last question, if you could wave your magic wand and change one thing about change communication at work, what would it be?

Janine: This is a really tough one, and it's a, it's probably a bit of an extension on that question.

I, I think for me, if the magic wand could really, um, drive clarity and ownership by business leaders. About being accountable for landing and adopting change. I feel that would be the biggest unlock for successful change management. 'cause I think a lot of the time we work in environments to get [00:26:00] things through where in actual fact, um, if we had that level of clarity with our business leaders, we would be invited in those spaces.

So I think. A lot of time is spent trying to nudge our way in, whereas that could probably change that whole dynamic.

Mel: Yeah, that's a really good point. Thank you. Now let's talk about rethink change. The fifth conference is coming up, so I feel like we need cake. That's very important actually.

Janine: There's gonna be a lot of cake and bubbles and I discovered the fifth anniversary is wood.

It's a much

Mel: Okay.

Janine: Poor old Doug. So I was saying to Doug the other day, no post-its no pens. We need something that's wood.

Mel: Poor Doug. Indeed. So tell us a bit about this year's conference. What can people expect?

Janine: Amazing. So, um, the theme of it, so it's, um, 14, 15, 16th of May. So as you all know, it's kind of pick your adventure.

The Thursday is two masterclass [00:27:00] amazing content. Friday's the full day conference where we've got an online audience and face-to-face, and we are going into some fancy new premises this year. So we're excited about that. I know getting, stepping it up. And then on the Saturday we have two more mass classes.

The theme for the conference is curiosity.

Mel: Mm-hmm.

Janine: And I think if only for the keynote, it's going to be so worthwhile. So he's somebody completely less the left of field and, um, doesn't talk change management, doesn't talk comms, but he really talks mindset. So

Mel: love it.

Janine: That's the invitation to go into the day, to really challenge yourself. Be curious, be open-minded. So outstanding presenters, as we always do, from a very generous community who's just so happy to share their ip. And I know, Mel, you've got a special spot with us as well.

Mel: I do, yes. So I'll be talking about, uh, the [00:28:00] complexity of change and how we actually make that less complex for the people we need to work with in the business.

So your key stakeholders, but as well as your audiences as well. So, uh, expect lots of visuals from me. You know, I'm a visual person

Janine: and look in an environment of layers and layers of change, I think all of us will get good value out that. Yep. So it's going to be amazing as it always is. It's kind of the highlight of my year, which is, I don't know if that's tragic or not.

Mel: Yeah.

Janine: It's my favourite event of the year.

Mel: And look, I, I am not saying this just because I'm biased about it. I have so enjoyed every conference I've been to it. Just such a wonderful community. I think that's the thing I found about the Rethink Change community. Uh, when I first went, my first one, I went a few years ago, I think maybe 23, 20 23 maybe.

Um, I'd never been outside of a comms. Conference before, so this was all new people and everybody was just so welcoming and so [00:29:00] lovely, so smart, and I've just, I thoroughly enjoy myself every time I'm there, so I'm excited by it. We'll put the links in the show notes to that as well. Janine, thank you so much for joining us today on Less Chatter, More Matter.

Janine: Thanks, Mel. Lovely to see you.