The Hows and Whys of Human-Led Change Management with Alex and Cristina

EPISODE 125

[INTRODUCTION]

Alex Cullimore: We're always looking for some kind of efficiency productivity gain. And we are so easily and often sacrificing so much productivity and how we're trying to get to that.

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in.

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.”

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Hello, and welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. Today it's just Cristina and I. And we're going back to one of our favorite topics, change. We've recently gotten to see so much changes happening. Obviously, over the summer, there are so many companies going to RTO. There was a lot of different layoffs at the beginning of the summer. There were fears of economic – I don't know, recession that never really panned out. And then other just general worries. And, of course, that is all on top of any regular organizational change that happens all the time for everybody always. We kind of wanted to revisit this topic because there are a lot of things we've noticed that we think we can help illuminate and put some light on what might be some best practices.

Cristina Amigoni: Or at least the very least vent about what we see.

Alex Cullimore: Which is also an important part of change. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: Letting people vent. 

Cristina Amigoni: Venting about what we see that we know it's not going to work. It's a big part of change.

Alex Cullimore: Oh, man. Where to start on this? There's so much that goes into change. Let's just start with the top level. Change is happening all the time. Humans are used to the idea that change will be happening all the time, but that doesn't mean that it's actually comfortable. And our brains are always looking for reasons to kind of stay at the status quo and not move the needle and not go too far into discomfort. Because it takes a lot of extra mental processing power to go change everything up. Even though, as we all know, everything is a change all the time and everything changes all the time. And all of our plans change all the time. I'm going to go stop by Starbucks. No. Wait. This one's closed. Oh, no. There's a giant line on this one. Whatever it is. I mean, there's a dozen little things that can change on top of the large changes that are created within companies.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. I think that having our own awareness, as with everything, we start by picking up the mirror. Going into our mirror room. Little crazy Halloween-looking mirror room where all we see is ourselves and really needing to understand how do we go through change. How do we experience change? What helps us? What doesn't help us? 

And then how do we humanize change? I think we always talk about humanizing the workplace. I think humanizing change is probably on the top three lists of how you humanize a workplace. Yes, change happens all the time. We go through change all the time. And that doesn't give anybody the power to downplay it and say, "Well, it's just another change." 

Alex Cullimore: Yes.

Cristina Amigoni: You should be used to this. And I just used just and should in the same sentence. Talk about flags.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Those are two big flags that are easy to fall into if we say it's just this. We're just doing a – it could be something. And we've heard this stated anything from like, "Oh, we're just changing our CRM," to, "Oh, we're just going to restructure the entire organization." Okay. I get why you'd want to say that as like a contained thing." But those are both monumental shifts, which have all kinds of little ancillary ripple effects. It's never just anything. And so, anytime anybody's throwing out a just, there's usually a lot of detail missing in the offing. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And would say if I were trying to guess why we use the word just and change, it is to try and minimize it. Is to try and minimize disruption. Because we know the disruption is going to cause tons of ripple effect. It's going to cause a lowering of productivity, of engagement. It's going to cause conflict, resistance, confusion. 

And so, all those things that we try to avoid as much as possible. Because they're not pleasant. We think that by using the word just, we actually make them less than what they are. And I actually believe that the effect is the opposite. Because all it does, it shows that there's no apparent regard for the impact. All the impacts of the change. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. And when people see it as a just, first, there's all the questions that they have unanswered that are left out there, which becomes – it feels like it's minimized. Or they shouldn't have those questions. Or somehow that has already been thought about and it shouldn't be their concern. These are all big red flag words too every time you say, "It shouldn't be this. It shouldn't do that." These are the ways that people prevent people from asking questions. 

Even if as a leader you have decent intentions of trying to mitigate the idea this is going to be massive. And everybody should panic now. When you start with that just, you're ignoring a lot of things that people are caring about. And there are things that you won't know about. We all only have our point of view and it's inherently going to have its own limitations. That's fine. That's natural. That will happen for all of us. But then it becomes incumbent upon us especially in leadership positions to be more curious about what those impacts are and try and get other voices involved so we can fill out that point of view a little bit more. We'll still discover things on the way. But thinking that we have the full picture or enough of the picture is usually not true until we've done a lot of exploration.

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. It also provides – it shows a lack of empathy, honestly. Using the word just shows a huge lack of empathy, which it is the number one way to alienate buy-in and actually guarantee you don't get buy-in. I think it's used to be able to move on and get buy-in and then it's the opposite. It's a strict guarantee that you're not going to get buy-in because there's no showing of empathy. And I just thought about – I just thought about – 

Alex Cullimore: Different kind of just on that case. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Exactly. 

Alex Cullimore: That was time. 

Cristina Amigoni: I don't want to take the word just out of the dictionary. It's just – we just don't want to use it in the right way. And apparently, I can't stop using it. One example that I thought about on my own mirror. Talking about the mirror. Like, "Okay. How about I put the mirror up?" And going to the room, going to the fun room and explore with my son." Actually, he's in middle school and he's in that age where, for some reason, clothing manufacturers decided that there's no size. There's a gap. So you can get pants for a 10 to 12-year-old, which is a huge span for one size, by the way. Because a 10-year-old is a foot shorter than a 12-year-old in most cases when they're boys. 

And so, you're already struggling with that. Because there's no way those pants are actually going to fit for two years. But then there is no 12 to 14 size. It goes to 14 to 16. So now your choices are you're either wearing clown pants that come up to your calves and are super tight. Or you're swimming in the next size up. And there's nothing in between. 

And so, my poor son has been struggling with that because of the sizing issues. And as the weather gets colder, he now has to wear pants. Now shorts are easier to navigate in that. Shorts, you can roll up. They're shorts. They can be a little bit longer, a little bit shorter. It's okay. You're not going to get enrolled in the circus. 

But pants becomes a problem. And it's been an emotional couple of days of having to wear pants. Because none of his pants fit well. Some are too short and the other ones are too big or whatever is going on. And as a parent, we're going to be traveling. And so, my why is, "I just need pants. I just need you to be wearing pants. I just need you to be wearing pants. I don't care how you feel in them. I don't care what they look like. As long as you don't look like a total clown, you just need to wear pants." 

And because that was my expectation, I lost all empathy for what he was going through. And the fact that we all like to wear clothing that we fit well in. It's a big part of what influences our performance is the clothing we wear. It has to be comfortable. We need to be comfortable in them. We need to at least feel that we're looking good and we can do what we want in them and move. And I totally disregarded that about him. Because I had my goal, which my goal is like I just need pants for the suitcase. Don't care what they look like on you. 

Until I thought about it this morning. I was like, "Wait. What if I actually showed empathy? What if I actually understood where he's coming from?" And it's not just pants. Because it wouldn't be just pants for me. What if I – and I put myself in there? What if I were just forced to wear pants that I find completely uncomfortable? It's like I would close myself in the house and honestly stay in bed. Or, well, I'm a woman. So, I can wear skirts. But even, then it's like it would be a huge deal for me. How pants feel, it's a huge deal for me. Why can't it be a huge deal for him? And that's when I shifted. 

And we talked about what kind of pants he likes to wear the most. And what do they look like? And what he doesn't like about the pants that he has? Besides the length. It's also the style. And now that I understand what he's looking for, as soon as I'm done working today, I'm going to drive around all the shops that I can find in three hours to find options for him that will make him feel comfortable. 

Alex Cullimore: First of all, I just want to comment that that's a great chain of focusing on change and a very easy trap to fall into of like, "No. I need this goal done. You wearing pants is my goal. So, just get the pants done." That's easy to do as leaders. Like, I just need you please just do this. This is the goal. But then you found like that, that empathy space of like, "Okay. If that was my shoes, this is probably what I'd be feeling. I can see why that would be a big deal. I can see why that would be uncomfortable." 

And that leads to curiosity of like, "Okay. What would be the right thing?" Now you're co-creating what the actual change is going to be. And it's a great tale just of a common cycle that we see that really only gets broken the second you enter that empathy cycle and you can finally get into the new groove of, "Okay. Now I feel what they're feeling. Let's get into what can we do about this?" 

Okay. You feel like there's a – in the workplace, you feel like your department's work is being cut in half, or changed, or put to somebody else's department. Okay. What would be a good solution? Like, here's our vision for your department that actually has other responsibilities in these areas. And here's why that's important. Whatever it is. Or getting just empathetic for like, "Yeah, I can see why that would be difficult. And so, what would be helpful to kind of make this transition knowing we need to make – we need to get to the pants on legs outcome that we're going for." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Pants on legs. Comfortable pants on legs. And that's not – now my outcome has changed. And this is where the shift. This is where when you recognize your just and you switch it with an empathy response, then my goal has shifted. My goal is no longer he needs to be wearing pants. It's just about pants. My goal is now I want him to be comfortable and happy with what he's wearing for the next four months at this point. Because it's going to be cold weather for the next four months. And at the very least, for the next week while we're traveling. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. 

Cristina Amigoni: How can I accomplish that goal? 

Alex Cullimore: As a side note, it's a little extra salt in the wounds that they don't happen to have pants sizes for the one time of life where you just like plunge into self-consciousness immediately. It's a great time to not have just the basics of fitting clothes. 

Cristina Amigoni: The timing is impeccable. It's like puberty and middle school, that's when you make the pants problem? Seriously? 

Alex Cullimore: We know this is a really rough time of life. We'd like to have a little slice to that problem. 

Cristina Amigoni: When you all go through puberty and middle school? Whoever makes these decisions. Also, how do you go from like basically a month-by-month size between the age of zero and four and then you just lump sizes in ages into one size? Yeah, 14-year-old and 16-year-old, same thing. And I'm like, "Really? Have you seen a 14-year-old next to a 16-year-old?"

Alex Cullimore: Oh, God.

Cristina Amigoni: Unbelievable. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great example of a change though and getting through that. Because it's also a good example of like there's not a going back to this. It's not like you can even remain in the previous pants size. That's no longer viable. There has to be something new. So now the end goal might be pants on legs. But what do we then do to get to that? And what does it really mean? What kind of pants would be most encouraging to get the pants-on-legs outcome you're looking for? 

And that actually brings us to something else we discuss a lot, which is thinking about the human why behind what you're saying. Your goal may be getting pants on legs. And the human why is how much you should be comfortable on pants so that you have pants for the winter? And now it becomes more of an, "Okay, so what will get to that change?" That pants-on-legs might be considered like the business reason. And the human why is more like here's what this is going to do for you. You're going to be warm. You could be comfortable. You could be like ready for winter. There's no longer a viability of wearing shorts for the next seven months while you're at school. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Indeed. And it's huge. Because if I actually think about the non-human why that I had, it wasn't even pants on legs. I couldn't care if you had pants-on-legs. My why for all of this was I need to pack a suitcase so that it's ready in 48 hours. And I need to know which pants go in the suitcase. It had nothing to do with him. It had nothing to do with the human. Which, yes, I'm pretty sure I'm getting called for the mom of the year award this afternoon. 

Alex Cullimore: I think you're going to have a lot of sympathetic people that they've had exactly this kind of argument, whether it's coats, jackets, whatever. It doesn't even have to be about garments. But I'm sure this is a very relatable struggle of like, "No. Can we just – okay. There are a thousand things I need to plan on this trip. Can you just get some pants that will go in a suitcase?" 

And that brings up the other part of empathy, right? We have our reaction to it. We know what we need to get done. And we know the other 50,000 things that need to get done, which can lead us to be pretty impatient with the things that are just feel minor or we haven't had the time to sit down and have the empathy for that portion. 

And you see how the conversation entirely changed in a second. You got to that empathy portion of the pants one. But that, of course, comes with the natural seesaw of balancing time that you have to get all the other things done that go into getting a trip together. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. Definitely. And one of my favorite recent quotes is leaders make time for change or change will take time from you. That's also what I'm experiencing. If I had actually stopped resisting not getting to my objective as fast as possible in the way that I expected it to be, I could have actually gone shopping with my son this week or last weekend to figure out pants that he would feel comfortable with and would fit. Because this pants thing has been going on for a couple of weeks. This is not yesterday we found out that his pants don't actually fit well. I've just been minimizing it as a thing. Because it's like, "Well, it's not a thing. They're just pants." They look great. Just be fine.

Alex Cullimore: Another phrase that goes along great with middle schoolers.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes.

Alex Cullimore: Just be fine with it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And so, now, as I said, now the change – because I didn't make time for the change when it was actually happening a few weeks ago. Now the change is taking time from me. And instead of packing and doing other things, I will be driving around malls for endless hours. 

Alex Cullimore: And so, time has been made or taken. Depending on how you look at it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Time has been taken. Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: Clarity on that really helps. And it is a two-way street, right? Because in an organization, and in life, and with your family, and with your friends with whoever else you're talking to, there's going to be – there's always some resistance to change just on the face of like, "I didn't –" especially if you like suggest a change to somebody else like, "Well, I mean, I was doing fine. I don't really want to put this extra effort in." Or, "Oh, man. That's going to really disrupt something that's going on for me." 

And so, there ends up being like – I think that's one of the reasons that's such a true phrase, if you don't make time for change, time will be taken from you. Because if you try and minimize it, if you try and just push something through, you're just going to find all of the extra other ways that resistance shows up. And you can try and force a change, but the resistance is going to happen one way or another. Either you can be open with it, at which point people will – you have the added benefit of now people feel like they're listened to. There's greater respect. There's a chance to like actually have your viewpoints heard and feel like it's not just going to get like forced on you whenever the next change happens. You have that benefit even if it takes a little bit less time or more time to get through the change, which is an ironic way of looking at it. Because, either way, you're going to go through that amount of time. It's just whether you want there to be emotional turmoil in it or not.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. That's the falsehood of the time it takes to change. There's somehow some miracle idea out there in most organizations. That as people that have worked in change for way too many years at this point, we've seen over and over, is that if you have a plan, and in the plan the change says, "The change is going to end on this date. That that's when the change is going to end. 

And the ironic part is that, first of all, I can guarantee you that date is wrong to begin with even if everything went to plan. Because that date typically is the go-live date, or the date where all the restructuring is on paper, or from an organizational point of view. Or, even worse, when the change is communicated. When the new tool is ready. And that is far from the end of the change. In most cases, that's really much closer to the beginning of the change. 

And so, when you look at the change is actually done, you can call the change done. If we want to do that, if we want to say that when the new status quo – let's take pants. When the new pants are not all the right size, the right fit, have been used, washed and proven to be comfortable, but we're moving on to the next size of pants. And so, we have now fully lived in the new behavior of the pants. That's when the change is done. And so, when the status quo is fully adopted and we no longer remember the old status quo, that's when the change is done.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Yeah. That's a great way of looking at it. When that status – when the feeling of status quo. Not the status quo. But when the feeling that things are default now, that's when the change has occurred. When you initiate a change, you're starting the process of thinking about, "Hey, here's what's going to need to happen. Here's what needs to change. Here's why we want to do it." 

You have to go flush all these things out deeply. Then you start to actually get into that implementation of it. And, of course, it's pushing people in uncomfortable ways and nobody's ready for it. And there are some people who will feel like there's a loss, or feel like there's something that they're particularly resisting, or they just didn't want to do another change. They're tired from the last change. Whatever it is. All of that is going to go into the process of going through that change and you're not really done with the change until things feel settled and more – again, like a status quo. Not the previous status quo. But a new status quo has been established. And it's feeling comfortable in default. This is now how we operate. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And, unfortunately – and here's another post that I saw recently that was pretty hysterical. It was a cartoon with one of those signs that usually are used in manufacturing companies that say like it's been – whatever, 100 days of no incidents. But this one said like it's been 17 days since our last reorganization. 

And the reason why it's funny is because it's true. We don't – there are so many times where we don't wait for the change to have been completed. We don't wait for the new status quo to be the default. And we don't get the results that we expected at the beginning of the change or at the speed that we expected most of the times because the results were not clearly stated. Everybody's marching towards a different goal because the measures of success was not clear.

And by clear, it was not clearly validated that everybody was on the same page. And so, then, you're like, "Well, that didn't work. Let's try it all over again." I'm like, "But you don't know if it works. Because you didn't give it enough time, or support, or buy-in, or all the pieces that fell through the traps." 

Alex Cullimore: The first thing that came to my mind, and this is a weird example, but I just got my sprinklers blown out. I guess that's why it's somewhat near the top of my mind. But when you turn your sprinklers on for the season, right? It sounds like an on/off switch basically. You just like flip the switch. Turn the water back on. Turn your cycles back on. You can, I guess, reprogram and change your timers if you need to. But, ultimately, you open that valve. There's now water you can go spray it with the sprinklers. There's that time though between flipping the switch and all of the air that you carefully blast it out so you don't freeze your pipes last winter, all that air has to go escape, sputter, start. 

I think what happens a lot in change is we like, "Okay, we turned on the water. You go rushing outside and you see a sprinkler head going "pop-pop-pop-pop-pop." Like dying and sputtering. And then you're like, "Oh, God. Well, turn it off. This isn't working. Change the change. Let's just put in new sprinklers." 

But if you waited, you would eventually just have flowing water regularly through your sprinklers. You have to give it that time for that adjustment period. And, obviously, on sprinklers, that's a much less frequent one. And then people are like, "Well, what if the change isn't working?" 

Let's go back to the sprinkler analogy. Okay. Sometimes you turn that on and then there's a geyser of water because one of your sprinkler heads was run over by a lawnmower or something that, yeah, you then have to stop, go fix that one and keep going. But those are the different kinds of issues. And conflating the two isn't helpful. Where we haven't given it enough time. Versus, no, that actually is a problem we need to slow down for.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Or we need to change again. Get a whole new sprinkler system. Or call a new guy to turn them back on. Because the old guy clearly didn't know what he was doing. 

Alex Cullimore: And in this metaphor, this is a rotating cast of consultants, I assume. Call the next – 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yes. In that metaphor in the workplace, that's usually different consultancies that get to do that. But that's the piece. First of all, do we understand the measure of success? Do we have a clear vision of what the future will be like? What is the experience that we want to have in the future? 

Well, the experience in the sprinklers is we want all the sprinklers to come up, spray around for the determined amount of time that we decided, on the days that we decided and then shut down. And we want the water to actually go to all the spots in the yard and not puddle up. Are we all on the same page? 

The measure of success is not we turn the sprinklers on. We call the guy. That's not the measure of success. The measure of success is the experience of grass being green. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Because you could turn your sprinklers on and then have them blasting into the street.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. And your grass is still dying. And so, what are you going to do? Blame the grass. Actually, probably. You're going to blame the grass and replace the grass.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Like, "Well, I guess we resolve this year," which in metaphor is layoffs, I guess? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Exactly. That metaphor is layoffs. And I'm a big fan of another quote. Today is quote day. It's Friday. I will say very little. It's original and a lot that I've read. Another quote is like, "When the flower doesn't grow –" and we do this with plants all the time. And it's like we don't blame the flower and replace the flower. We actually figure out what the environment's problem is. Why don't we do that with humans in workplaces? Why is there a constant replacing and moving of humans and not a mirror on the environment, and what we're creating and why we're not growing? The humans are not growing where they need to be. 

Alex Cullimore: I saw some TikTok, or Instagram, or something that was like along the same lines as this guy with a half-dead house plant that he put in the shade. And he's like, "I'm putting this in a very tough environment. Because it needs to grow up to be stronger. Just like I was taught." Like, no, it's not going to work. You're just in the wrong place. This plant's not going to make it. It's not going to be able to make chlorophyll outside of the sunlight." 

Cristina Amigoni: But somehow, we forget that about humans.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. 

Cristina Amigoni: Because they're just numbers. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. The environment is more complicated. The needs are more complicated. But yes and no. We just don't get curious about it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: We don't pause to have enough time to have the curiosity about what environment would be better.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. I would venture to say, and this is just a guess, that humans are more complicated. 

Alex Cullimore: A bit.

Cristina Amigoni: And they're unwilling to just die when they're in the wrong environment. And plant is like, "Well, I can't do anything about this. There goes my life." 

Alex Cullimore: That's really your measure of complexity on that. Because I have a really hard time keeping plants alive. Whereas I have yet to on a human – 

Cristina Amigoni: I'm horrible with plants. And apparently, I'm not great with kids either. I've got a long way to go. 

Alex Cullimore: I think one pants story is probably not indicative of an entire parenting. 

Cristina Amigoni: Hopefully. If we go back to our pants, pants-on-legs, which is how we established and talk about change, the part that was missing in my empathy gap of the whole situation was getting my son's input, which happens I would say – I would venture to say 100% of the time. Nothing is absolute. Can we give 99.99 to infinity? 

And of the times in workplaces, it is very, very frequent, way too frequent, that decisions are made about the change at the top. And I hate using the word top. But at a different level. At the decision-maker level. And for them it's just a like a little tweak. I mean, that's your job really. I mean, what else do you do as a senior leader? You look at things and you're like, "Oh, that's not working. Let's make an adjustment." "Oh, that's not working. Let's make an adjustment." And they're tiny little adjustments. 

Because at the end of the day, that's all you're doing all day long, is looking for what works and what doesn't work and adjusting what doesn't work. At the bottom, that's just – you're just nauseous in a tsunami in a constant place. And so, for some reason, there's this fear. And I had it too with the pants-on-legs to actually ask for the person that has to go through the change. Because it's not my pants. It's his pants. I don't have to worry about that. I've got comfortable pants. I don't wear uncomfortable pants. I donate them or don't buy them. 

And so, it's not my pants. It's his pants. And so, his experience. And I kept failing to ask to actually co-create the change with him to say like, "Hey, what would you like to have here? Let me get your opinion of what you feel comfortable with and what you think looks good on you as opposed to what I think you should be wearing. Because it's what we have." 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great way of stating it. And it is a good point of empathy for like what leaders go through. And that like it's common and natural to kind of lose maybe the ability to immediately have that curiosity. It's a good reminder to kind of continue to go back to it and a reminder that it's – until it really, really, really, is too late, it's not too late. That it's not too late to go back and say these things. And it's also fine that if it wasn't something you initially addressed with your change, but you realize that this is now causing massive chaos and you'd like to address it, it's not too late to go re-extend that and work to go rebuild those relationships and that trust of like, "Oh, no. I am looking out for you. I want to have empathy for what you're going through." Rather than having some of that avoidance. 

And it's fair also to know that you're going to have just natural avoidance to that and like, "Oh, man. We're going to have to make a change that I can see for these reasons are already going to be unpopular." And so, you kind of like resist. And then you get yourself into a different just trap. You're like, "Just – we just have to do this. It's just important. I know this is going to be frustrating, but we just have to go through it." And you lose that chance to get that empathy. And it's fine that it's very common and natural to fall into that mindset. And it doesn't necessarily serve us well at all in the actual delivery of a change. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It definitely doesn't. And so, the big thing that we always say in organizational change is asking for input, first of all. Should start on, well, day zero. Day negative three. Whatever your change start date, move it back to you had an idea. First thing you do is ask for input. First thing. Before the idea goes anywhere, is you share the idea with the people who are going to be impacted by the change. Because if they don't do what you are expecting them to do, the change is just an idea. It's just going to float away like a balloon up to the sky. 

And so, you involve. And input doesn't mean that you're changing your mind on your idea. Well, you're changing probably some. But input doesn't mean giving everybody what they want. That giving everybody any request that they have even including we're not making the change what they want. Input means input. It means that now you have greater knowledge, greater curiosity over what's actually going to be happening. How we get to the change? 

And yes, some change ideas in organizations, and at home and in life, they're going to be ideas that we don't like. I wanted to go to my Starbucks. I didn't want a long line. Okay? I can resist that all along and I'm better off just either giving up my Starbucks or going to a different one. 

And so, I'm not changing the Starbucks. And by making it so that everybody "poof" disappears. Just because that's what I want. But I can now co-create my experience to get to my goal.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. And I think that's a great way of looking at that. And it's just difficult sometimes I think to – and to your point, there's a fear and resistance to going and asking for some of that input sometimes. Because you're worried. You're like, "If people have an idea, now you're going to have to accommodate that one too." And now it's adding the complexity of the change in your head. 

And the mental trap there is that the complexity is going to be there either way. It's understandable to not want to add complexity to an already difficult process. Totally makes sense not to want to do that. And it's going to be there whether you like it or not. Like the pants. You don't want to ask about it. For understandable reasons, we already have pants. I don't want to – I think it's going to add extra time in an already busy schedule trying to get up to what is actually a pretty hard deadline of we have a flight ticket. We're going to have to be on that one. There's going to be an end date on this. And it's understandable not to want to add that complexity. The problem is it's not you adding complexity. That complexity is already there. It's whether you're addressing it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I love how you put that. I'm not adding the complexity by asking for input and co-creating the new experience with my son or co-creating the new experience with the employees and the teams. I'm actually addressing the complexity that was there. That's going to be there all along. That doesn't go away. And actually, I'm saving time by addressing it sooner. How much time did I waste resisting the fact that I needed to go shopping for new pants for my son? I could have done it three weeks ago via Amazon. Now I have to drive somewhere and be in public. 

Alex Cullimore: Now I'm going to go see daylight for this. 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. And guaranteed, buy pants that are not going to fit and then drive back to return them. I've added complexity and time to my own resistance to what I wanted to happen.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Now multiply this in an organization by thousands of employees. You're talking about crippling productivity, and performance, and engagement, and satisfaction and all those things that actually do impact the bottom line for years when things are done badly. 

I mean, you can look at changes. And some of our fortune teller pieces, it's like, "We can look at a change and how badly it's being done and dealt with. And we can predict basically how many years of lost productivity you're going to go through." I'm like, "Yeah, it's going to be at least three years." Three years later I'm like, "Oh, look at that. That company doesn't exist anymore." 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, which is also like – 

Cristina Amigoni: The whole project is been scrapped. 

Alex Cullimore: Or we have the new project that we just started, which is some variation of that one because we didn't give it time.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: But it's funny you say that too. Because so often, one of the stated goals of a change is greater efficiency, productivity, cost savings, whatever it is. All of those different versions of efficiency of if you're more productive, you're more efficient with your time. If you're more cost savings, you're more efficient with your money. Whatever it is. 

We're always looking for some kind of efficiency productivity gain and we are so easily and often sacrificing so much productivity in how we're trying to get to that. And not sacrificing just in like the – because the change might be the right change. But in how we're delivering it, we're losing people's morale. We're losing their buy-in. We're losing their ability to feel like they can be part of the future where their opinion might matter. Whatever other thing is going to come up and have them resist this, that's going to go kill productivity in a totally different way, which might mitigate the overall benefits of the change. If not make it worse if you're not careful to go try and do this with good intention and have the patience to let it play out. 

And knowing that like there are just times where like the initial reaction is going to be resistance. And that's okay. You can expect it. And given enough time, people will start to come around and see which way is right. And as long as you're really clear that this has to happen, and here's how it's going to happen and here's what we need to do, then it's a lot easier to face those moments of, "Okay. We didn't get quite there yet. Here's what we need to do. I get why everybody's frustrated. We still need to make this change. I want to reiterate the importance of the why here and get that own personal patience and try and rework that empathy in." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yep. Indeed. Yeah. Now if I think about our own journey with this podcast, we get to talk about our biggest – well, pet peeve seems like a small word. But our biggest triggers of change and how we go through it. And so, if we want to get to – we talked about the so what. That's another recent thing I read. The so what is like here's all the consequences of ignoring these things or not doing them right. Now what? Now what do you do with this hopefully illuminating knowledge that we just provided? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. And I want to call out one other thing too. You mentioned that like the complexity in an organization then becomes trying to do this at a scale of like potentially hundreds to thousands of people that are being affected by this. And, yes, every individual will have a little bit different journey on that. 

As a leader, that seems like, "Okay. Well, I'm definitely adding complexity if I'm going to try and listen to a thousand voices." This is where – actually we just read a McKenzie article that does a good job of describing like archetyping. And coming up with like what are kind of groups of people and groups of ways they might be going through change? We're not going to be able to address every single thing that goes along the way. But as long as we continue to show up with some support and empathy and try our best to categorize into as many as needed without having too many categories that it's like unwieldy, getting to those categories and archetypes of people that will be going through the change helps you organize the messages for those those ones. Decide what they might be going through and address those in a more piecemeal fashion. Rather than like, "Okay, that's way too much complexity. Let's go back to the all-for-one idea." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Definitely. And I think that's where the – slowly getting to the so what or the now what. Whatever what we're in. The piece about not being able to listen to thousands of voices. Definitely. Got it. Archetyping. But if we look at the middle management layer, that's where leveraging your middle manager probably comes in as one of the most important things in change with an organization. Because they are close to what their teams are doing, hopefully. 

And so, they understand what the impact of the change is going to be on them. And they're going to be the ones that actually have the huge weight to get buy-in and to make the change possible on the receiving end. And so, making sure that that group of people is on board. Understands where we're going. Has validated that they understand that we're going to the same place that everybody else is expecting them to be. And has the tools and the support to them being able to figure out how do we move our teams to that goal and has that buy-in. 

The buy-in, I would say it's probably for the middle management is the most crucial buy-in that's needed. It's not at the senior level. Again, the senior level – and I've been in that position. All you do is walk around and figure out what to change to fix things. That's your job. I have buy-in on just change in general because I get to do that all day long. 

And the buy-in is the people that are doing the job. But even more importantly, at the middle managers who have to make that happen. It's up to them to make it happen. It's up to them to deal with the resistance, and the lack of buy-in, and the productivity gaps and the engagement lowering. It's up to them. And so, make sure that you hear their voices. 

When I think about very successful changes – well, very is probably high board. But successful changes. One of the most successful changes I've seen in a company, the middle management layer was present at the sales meetings. They were present from day zero on the decisions made about the change. Because their opinions not only mattered. And some of them were not happy. But they still bought into trying and figuring it out. But because it was their opinion. It was their way of looking at the world that was the most important way to understand which software do we move to. Which processes do we need to change? I don't know. As a VP of whatever, you know. And so, let's make life easy for you. Not me. 

Alex Cullimore: Which will make life easy for you.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It makes life easy for me.

Alex Cullimore: You still will get that.

Cristina Amigoni: Unless I'm a firefighter and I'm gonna create fires just for the hell of it. But it's a whole different podcast.

Alex Cullimore: Firefighter arsonist.

Cristina Amigoni: Firefighter arsonist. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great way of looking at it. I think there's just – we can make things easier on ourselves by getting some of that buy-in. And honestly, we're going to make for more successful changes. Because as great an idea as we can think of it, and since we are humans, we're going to have the immediate confirmation bias, "If I thought of this, it seems like it addresses this." Great. Let's absolutely go do this idea. Like we feel like – and then we can start to get defensive of like, "No. That was the idea." 

We shouldn't like straying from this when people have ideas, or input, or suggest potential issues with that implementation or that idea. Or try and discern a better way to do this. There can be some frustration of like, "No. No. This is the idea. The idea was originally doing this." It takes a lot more diligence in ourselves to be curious and open to the change and be ready for like that to be a little bit different. And it takes that input as well as not feeling like we have the answer. Ultimately, we don't. We never will. We never will have the full answer. And we're going to get a lot better team cohesion and people taking ownership and all the other things that we love to throw out as buzzwords that we would like to see our teams do if we do involve them more. When we give them the chance to be empowered, it's one of the few ways we're going to have them actually be an empowered team.

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. Now we're in the now what? 

Alex Cullimore: Now what? That's a great exercise when you're talking about like, "Okay. We're doing this. So, then what? So, now what?" 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: What do we want to accomplish? We wanted to be able to talk about some of the change traps. And so, what do we do with this knowledge? What's the now that? I have a couple of ideas. But do you have anywhere you want to start on that? 

Cristina Amigoni: No. Go ahead.

Alex Cullimore: Thinking now that we go back to, as comes up so often in this podcast, the importance of empathy. The importance of just getting into an empathetic space. As well as getting more aware of the times where we are not going to access that empathy. And getting more aware of the times where it will be easy to fall out of that. To not be curious. To not get the input. And to find reasons and excuses. 

And there are legitimate thoughts, and reactions and feelings that we will have that will tell us not to do this in an empathetic, or slower, or digestible way. We really have a chance now. Now we have a chance to get that awareness and use that awareness and make a different choice. And try and be more aware when that's happening as it will naturally kind of slip into our subconsciouses anyway. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's definitely a great one. Pick up that mirror. Walk into the mirror room. Look around and look at yourselves and figure out like, "What am I attached to?" Figure out like what is it that I'm expecting this to happen? What's that experience? Do I want to move on to the next change? Is that why I'm rushing this? What am I attached to here? 

And, typically, that will then illuminate where the empathy was lacking. Do I actually understand what people's experience of this is? Do I actually understand what they're going to have to go through to get to the end? The end that I've established. And then having the humility of realizing maybe that end is not where we need to go. Maybe my idea of that end, getting the input, maybe will illuminate the fact that, "Oh, yeah. That's not going to get me to where I thought was going to get me." Hence, pants on legs. Minimizing my son's experience with his pants was not going to get me to be able to pack pants and be happy on vacation. And so, maybe I need to change what my why is. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I really like that. That's a great example of like how to get back into these mindsets. Because the – but as we've talked about, the cost is going to be exacted on you either way. The cost of time, or the cost of resistance, or the cost of seemingly added complexity. The complexity is already there. The cost is already there. If you want to make this change, that has that price tag. And we can try and mark it down. We can try and act like we only have to pay this much right now. But the cost is going to change – the change is going to cost the same in the end. 

And so, knowing that and knowing that that helps us get more focused on when is it the right time to make a change in a push. Because we will have to go through the full cost of all the resistance of all the time, of all the extra effort that we know we need to get through is going to happen. Whether we try and force it or whether we try and do it slowly. But one way gives our team more influence. And one way ends up breaking down the trust and making it even harder than the next time we want to go make a change. 

And so, knowing that that cost is going to happen either way, it helps us stay focused on the eventual why and find more creative ways to get to that instead of saying, "This is the why." And I just want to say I have empathized entirely with not wanting to go do this or feeling like, "Oh, my God. I'm exhausted. I don't have enough time to do this." I get it. That's also what some of your people are feeling. That's life. It's just what happens. It's okay to feel that way. And it doesn't change the fact that the reality of change will still be chaos. And there will still be some changes we have to make. And we still have to get that buy-in. We still have to address people more individually. All of those are going to be there either way.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I would say, yeah, if there's a secret formula of, "Now what do I do with all this information?" is, well, stretch your empathy, curiosity and humility muscles. Because that's really what's going to get the change to be successful. And you will get there faster. Because, again, if you actually establish a good end-of-the-change deadline, you will realize that you're going to get there faster by involving humility, empathy and curiosity as the way to look at the change and deal with the whole change. 

The fake end of change, the go live, that's not the end. Not if you then have two years of reimplementing, reconfiguring and customer support and people not using the platform. That's not the end of the change. The end of the change is when that status quo is fully adopted. That's it.

Alex Cullimore: And even if that feels like that's going to take a long time, you make an important point that it will be faster for one. And then not only is it faster on this change, you're buying time in the future. You create that kind of trust. You create that kind of process. You create the kind of awareness that everybody should be looking at what else belongs in this change. Who else do I need to talk to? It's okay to talk about that. It's okay for this to be slow. It's okay to have resistance. And here's what we still want to do. And we still want to be focused on our purpose. 

The more you've really got that to ingrain more and more in the culture of leading by example and pushing that more and more out, the more you buy yourself time and future changes. There will still be resistance, but you're buying yourself – a team that is trusting you, able to give you the right input way faster and trusting that you have a good reason for your changes and they're ready to follow you on the next one. Because you will have to make a next one. It's fine. It's fine to always have to be changing. We do have to adjust things constantly. And we can buy ourselves a lot less resistance in doing it if we build that trust over time even though it can come in short and painful steps occasionally.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Human-led change will pay dividends in a shorter time in the long run. It's a long game. It's not a short game.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. The way to remember that and to feel like, "Well, I don't have the time to make the time for that right now," is that the time's going to be made for you either way. It's going to cost you one way or another. You can choose to not do this the right way. You're kind of incurring an extra tax. It's like tech debt. You start with, "Here's a few things we missed." Okay. But now that's an extra 3% on the next sprint. That's an extra 4% on the next sprint." Here's where this starts to add up over time. 

And so, even though it is painful, really addressing that upfront will pay you dividends in the long term. And you get more comfortable with doing that at which point it doesn't even feel like it's as much of a tax in the first place to go pay the piper upfront so to speak. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And now I have to hire a whole dedicated team to go finish the project that was never finished. Because we declared the finish when it wasn't supposed to be finished. There's a lot of cost. The cost is enormous. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Have some empathy, but not just for everyone else. Also, have some empathy for yourself. This is not going to be an easy thing to do all the time. This is going to feel like it can get slowed down. There are a thousand reasons that feel very natural and correct to have resistance in yourself to doing and taking some of this more seemingly more time-expensive approach upfront. But there are dividends to be paid in the long run both for you and for other people. And have some empathy for yourself going through this. Because change is also hard for you. It's hard for everybody.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Empathy, curiosity and humility all around. Enjoy your change. 

Alex Cullimore: Enjoy some change.

[OUTRO]

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood. 

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review, and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas, or questions. You can reach us at podcast at wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O.

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others, and always uncover the human.

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