If I could get a dollar, you know, for every time somebody
thought change management or change leadership, post
communications and training, Oh my gosh, I'll be retired by now.
Welcome to Business Analysis Live.
I'm your host, Susan Moore, community engagement manager
with the International Institute of Business Analysis.
I explore topics with industry guests about the work of
business analysis professionals and how their work helps
organizations achieve better outcomes.
And Yep, we take your questions too.
Thanks for listening. Let's get started.
We like to talk about business analysis, but we also like to
talk about some other kinds of capabilities that are around us
because as business analysis professionals, we aren't just a
1 trick pony. Like there's a lot of stuff that
ends up coming our way. One of the things that may end
up in your court sometimes might deal with change, not just the
change that you're making to a system, but big picture change.
And so I, I want to ask you to think about change in your role
in it. And maybe you think about your
role as change management, but have you heard of change
leadership? It's a little bit different and
today we have a guest from the Change Leadership, the chief
strategy person for that organization, who's going to
talk to us a little bit about what Change Leadership is.
So I want to introduce you all to the stage Yvonne Ruke aka
Vetta. Hello, Yvonne.
Hi. There.
Hello. Well, it's so nice to have you
join us today. We're talking about what is
change leadership, something that you know something about.
You're part of the organization. You guys also have a conference.
Before we get into that topic, why don't you introduce
yourself? Tell us a little bit about you.
Every time I'm asked introduce yourself, you're like, what do I
start with? Seems like a simple question but
yet so hard. Simple question.
OK, well I'll start with this. You know, it seems full circle.
It's always full circle to be speaking to a business analysis
audience because that is exactly how I started my career.
I started my career as a business analysis over 20 years
ago, let's call it 25, really aging myself here, but let's
call it, you know, over 25 years ago, I started my career as a
business analyst and I moved into being a project manager,
moved into change management, moved into management
consultancy. So for the last 25 years I have
been in the field of leading, driving and managing change.
So whether as a business analyst, whether as a project
manager, whether as a change manager, and now I find myself
where my focus is really about how do I help organizations and
professionals to lead and drive change?
How do I and power professionals as a whole to say, you know what
leading change is no longer for a select few.
Leading change is no longer about rule or title.
Leading change is the core skill that we find ourselves needing
to have. And I like the word you used
earlier, capability. It's about building that
capability for us to be able to drive in today's new world of
work. When we look at the top ten
skills that are required for the new world of work 20-30 it comes
down to leadership. It comes down to influence, and
that's where change leadership comes in.
But one of the things that I like to call myself, and I've
given myself that title is change Leadership advocate.
And I'm a big believer in change leadership advocacy.
My belief is that when all boats rise, we all rise together.
A rising tide lifts all boats. All you have to do is look into
communities and look into where change hasn't been done right in
an organization and that organization has failed and you
see the impact not only on employees mental well-being, but
the community at large. So when change is done right,
it's not only about benefiting that organization, it's about
the community as a whole. So that's the big driver that we
have behind the change leadership and why we do what it
is that we do because we believe strongly that the rising tide
light lifts all boats. And when we do change rights, we
all benefit as a community and a society as a whole.
So that's the big driver for me. Yeah, I like thinking about
change. Leadership is almost is kind of
an approach to Wellness for the community, right?
We are including everyone. We are making sure that that
people's needs are met because so much of what we do as change
very often kind of rocks us to the core, right?
I mean, we're not talking about life changing stuff, but when
you're at work and you are used to a way that you perform
processes or use tools, I mean change to that can be really
jarring if it is not done with care for the people.
Yeah. Yes, it is.
It is, you know, one of the mistakes that we easily make as
change leaders and anybody leading and driving change,
because whether you're a business analyst, whether you're
a project manager, whether you're a change manager, once
you're in that project, we usually have a lot of
information upfront. We have, that's almost, when you
say hindsight, you know, we get this change and we like, we, we
take the time to take it in, understand why this change is
happening, but we never often give other people that
opportunity to take it in and come slowly on board.
So we've had maybe a few months, maybe even a year to think,
well, this change is coming. We're going to implement it and
then we implement it and we almost think that people should
adapt. Oh, it's so simple.
You know, it took us like 6 months, three months, you know,
you know, to get our heads around that we need to do this
change, why we need to do this change and it's our role to
drive it. But we never have often the
times that empathy for other people.
And then we also always try to look at change from our
perspective or this should be fantastic.
This should be easy peasy. People should love it and they
should want it. So hey, let's just go and do it.
And then when people push back, you suddenly think why they're
pushing back because we're constantly looking at change
from our perspective. And that's where the role of
empathy comes in. When we talk about cognitive
empathy when it comes to leading change, very, very key.
You know, it helps us connect better with our audience and our
stakeholders. It's interesting you say that.
That change can feel very jarring.
I recently learned that when electricity was first
introduced, people pushed back. They didn't want electricity.
Can you imagine us not having that?
Right. Yeah.
But people push back. People did not want it,
organizations didn't want to adopt it.
So it may be very good and we can see how.
We can see how you know it's going to be good for everybody,
but no, not everybody sees it that way.
You know, okay, so this is just a fun fact.
I love really old movies. I love silent movies in
particular. And when they finally developed
the sound technology and started producing movies with talking,
the entire industry was like, oh, that's just a fad that won't
we're not going to invest any money in that again.
So in the same way that you're saying like there was a time
when people pushed back on on electricity, they pushed back on
movies with talking in it that you could hear yes.
So so I think both of those examples underscores right.
The change can be really positive.
It can have, it can really revolutionize things, but in the
moment it can feel huge and and not something that people want
to do. No, not at all.
Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, I think
you've described a little bit about change leadership.
I know that when I was coming up, even doing some project
management work, we would always talk about change management.
How do you see change management as as different or the same as
change leadership? Does it have qualities of do
they share qualities? Oh yes, they do impact change
management and change leadership are often used interchangeably,
and that's where there's a lot of confusion and that's where
you can really get it wrong when you don't understand the
difference between the two roles.
So first of all, every change manager, change management
person must have change leadership skills, but not every
professional needs to have change management skills.
So you can be a change leader without having change management
skills. Those are two different things.
So I want you to think about change leadership as a compass
and think about change management as a map.
So change management is often very role based, very
structured, it's very tactical. It's about providing processes
and time like this. Often within a project that has
a start and an end. We change management.
You're bringing all tools and frameworks and methodologies
into play. You're thinking about, oh, how
do I do my stakeholder impact assessment?
I'm doing my change management plan, I'm doing my execution.
Very, very tactical. You have a project you need to
implement, you need to drive adoption and see it through any
as a defined end date. Change leadership is more like a
compass. It's ongoing, it's directional.
You need to use that as part of you being a change manager and
in your daily skills as a business analyst, as a business
analysis professional, as a project manager, regardless of
what your role is, you often will, especially, you often will
need that change leadership skills, especially in today's
new world of work. So it's often associated more
with inspiring others to act and navigating uncertainty.
It can be project bound and it can also be out of the project,
you know, like in your day-to-day role.
Because right now, regardless of our role, regardless of our
title, regardless of what we're doing, we're constantly needing
to lead and drive change. There is nothing we do that is
not driving change these days when we think about it.
So as a change leader, you're constantly having to, whether
lead people, direct people, or direct the work that you do,
implement a certain type of change, drive a certain type of
change, and it's often very skills based.
This is where you're thinking about things like your empathy
skills, you're thinking about adaptive leadership, you're
thinking about agility, you're thinking about emotional
intelligence. All of those skills come into
play, very skills based and change management.
Yes, skills base was very tactical in terms of getting us
to that end of project and the adoption of that change that's
happening. OK.
That's I like, I like the way that you differentiate them
because there are overlaps, right?
The common denominator is we are helping people through change
one, we might take a more structured route, which make
sure that we get, you know, we do all of the things to bring
people along with us and that we cover our bases.
But leadership, I like that you called it a compass, right.
So it is a thing where we continue to kind of assess where
are we and and we just shift a little bit as we, you know, as
we are whatever encountering resistance or feeling like we,
you know, aren't aren't getting where we are.
So you talk about leadership as being more skills based and I'm,
I'm wondering for business analysis professionals that are
listening to us who are thinking am IA change leader, could I be
a change leader? You've identified some of the
skills. Are there other kinds of
qualities that make a good change leader?
So first of all, you know, to your first question, every
business analyst, every business analysis professional needs to
be an is a change leader. I think back to myself as a
business analyst, right? It was all about driving change.
We were constantly driving change.
We were constantly being asked to come into a project where
something didn't exist, a technology didn't exist, a
process didn't exist and introduce that change.
Whether it's capturing those requirements, you know, engaging
with stakeholders and the thing around change leadership or
change management, when you think about it is very people
focused. And often the times in that
business analysis role, it is often about being very people
focused, being engaging with people, engaging with your
stakeholders. So as a business analyst
professional, you need to be thinking, how am I engaging with
my stakeholders to bring them around, right, Right.
Yeah. You know, because you're, I
don't know about how it works these days, but you know, you
have to get them in the room. You have to negotiate the
requirements with them. You have to, you know, influence
them. And leadership is influenced.
That's right. You know so.
It's like, how are you influencing people?
How are you bringing them on board?
How are you helping them understand the changes that you
want to bring into place? So first and foremost, as a
business analyst, you're a change leader, you're leading
change, you're driving change, and having change leadership
skills is important. When we teach our Change
Leadership Accelerator course, we usually focus on 10 core
skills that every change leader needs to have.
They could be 20, but we focus on 10 core skills change leaders
need to have. And if I had to just even just
talk about a few of them right now, it will be.
Let's start with adaptive leadership, OK?
So that is being able to adapt your style when it comes to your
stakeholders and not be or you know, one-size-fits-all.
This is how I'm going to do it. It's about understanding your
different stakeholders and adapting your style in terms of
how you engage with your stakeholders to lead them to
where is they need to go. And usually we even talk about
when I talk, when we talk about adaptive leadership, we talk
about the head hat and hand model where it's really
understanding your stakeholders and seeing how best relates to
your stakeholders. Another one we spoke about and
I'll go in a little bit is empathy.
You need to have empathy. And when I say empathy, I don't,
let's not talk about compassionate empathy.
Let's talk about cognitive empathy because often the times
you'll say, oh, you have to feel what other people are feeling.
No, it's about understanding. I remember this SVP one saying
to me at all that if somebody is not naturally empathetic, can
they be a change leader? Can they be a change manager?
I said the best people are the people who are not naturally
empathetic. Interesting.
OK. Because when you apply cognitive
empathy, you're being intentional about it.
It's not like say or understand what this person is feeling.
So I understand what they're feeling because I'm a mum as
well. I understand what they're
feeling because I'm a grandparent.
I understand what they're feeling because I live in that
same area as well because we we have the same cultural
background. So that tends to be very biased
because you can relate to that person.
But when you apply cognitive empathy, you're like, I am
choosing to understand how this person may be feeling and
experiencing the situation. Two different things.
Yeah, and compassionate empathy on the job will always need to
burn out. You know, I was going to say
there is a cost to be paid for that compassionate empathy
because we can suddenly get wrapped up in all of the other
things that go into that person's feelings and that can
really be a drain for us. So I, I, I don't know that I've
thought about there being two kinds of empathy, but I, I like,
I, I like that description. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, communication is very everybody has communication.
But let's be clear, communication is not sending out
the e-mail. Correct.
Let's be clear, communications, who is not change leadership,
neither is it change management because the amount of times if I
get a dollar, you know, for every time somebody thought
change management or change leadership post communications
and training, Oh my gosh, I'll be retired by now.
But it is not, you know, so I'm communication.
You always have to remember it's a two way St. and it's really
about listening as well because many of times we want to push
our agenda forward. So it's about also listening as
well. But the secrets to successful
communication is the ability for you to take responsibility for
that communication as the change leader.
So when I say take responsibility for because often
the time, oh, I sent out this communication, they should know.
Oh, I did this. Oh, we had a town hall.
They should know, has the change leader who wants to be
successful. You need to take on that
responsibility to say, am I communicating that message in a
way that it is being understood and received as intended?
Yes, and so. That is where you have to think
about when you're communicating, how early you need to be
communicating, how you need to be communicating, thinking
about, you know, multiple channels, 7 to 10 channels of
communicating even the same message.
And you just need to not be fearful about communication
because oftentimes in projects you will see us work with
leaders that say, oh, let's not tell them about this now so that
we don't get pushed back. And guess what?
At the end, they still get pushed back.
That's right. And by the way, that's a red
flag when you hear leaders saying, oh, well, they don't
need to know this, OK, well, we're serving somebody's agenda.
If we are not right, here's the difference between confidential
information and we're not going to tell them two different.
Things, yeah, two different things, but at most times you
find it is fear of people pushing back.
So you think that by leaving it too much later, you know, you'll
be able to say, OK, now we need to do it.
And you know, people get on board because people don't want
that push back or what if they don't like it or they make a
game, that assumption that it's easy peasy, lemony, squeezy,
people should come on board with wanting to use it and we're not
going to get any push back. And then all of a sudden you
implement it and you get all this push back and then
surprise, surprise, you didn't see change is emotional.
You don't know how people are going to respond to the change.
And it's very important that you take people along with you on
that journey with empathy, understanding how they may be
responding. Another one is emotional
intelligence. There's a lot of talk about
that, about more intelligence and you know you, I'm sure that
you've heard we use that term a lot and I feel like people don't
really understand. So what does that look like in a
change leadership perspective? Let me.
Let me tell you this experience I had, you know, as change the
emotional intelligence in the project environment.
I'm brought into this project change manager.
Hey, come help us implement this.
We're having issues and you ought to bring you in a little
bit in the middle of it, you know, right when they think, OK,
now we have an issue. So we're going to now bring you
on board to help us with this. And I get on board with it.
They say the first thing that says, oh, this person is not
sending attendees, they're not sending representatives to the
team meetings. They're not sending their SMEs
to the team meetings for us to be able to capture requirements
or to understand their requirements.
They're not turning up at meetings, they're pushing back.
They don't want this project and all of that.
So I said, oh. OK, You know, you know you're
excited to do your work and your job.
They don't tell you that they're throwing you into the lion's
den. I go into this meeting and this
stakeholder immediately starts screaming at me.
You should have been here ages ago.
I don't know what you're doing here.
All kinds of things. That is when you have to now
think about practicing emotional intelligence and not responding
to that situation. Remember, somebody is screaming
at you in a meeting in what is supposed to be a professional
environment. So emotional intelligence looks
like controlling your own emotions to not respond to that
situation. It looks like applying empathy
to that situation to say, you know what, this person is
probably frustrated. They're probably upset about the
situation. So you control how you even
receive the information. One of the things I do very well
at not all the time, but I'll say 8 times out of 10, because
we're humans, is that I do not take the situation personally.
I don't, I don't intend to internalize that situation to
think it's about me. I just say, you know, a
situation is happening for this person right now.
At the moment. My role here is to be supportive
in that situation. So it's really about how
regulating our emotions in terms of how we respond to what's
going on. And it's more important now than
ever because there's so much uncertainty going on right now.
Yes. And there's a lot of big
emotions, yes. So we don't certainty comes a
lot of emotions. So remember you come and if
you're implementing anything right now, everybody is scared
when they see a project to change, especially if you're
implementing a project that is supposed to bring in
efficiencies. And then you're now coming to
talk to the stakeholder who thinks they might be losing
their job, right? And they're going to be like
thinking you want me to help you get rid of me, you know, type of
thing. So you don't know those emotions
that you're dealing with. So you the ability to regulate
your own emotions and also be able to receive those emotions,
you know, as you go along and to read the room and read the
situation is very important. So you're emotionally
understanding what is going on in the room as well.
Read it right. You know, that person who may be
nodding along is not really nothing along.
That, I think is the best way of describing emotional
intelligence I've probably ever heard, by the way, because I we,
I hear people use the term and I don't think they mean what you
just said. Yeah, like let's simplify it.
And that's one of the things that we're very big on at the
change leadership is practical change leadership.
We know about making complicated things.
We know about theories and models and methodologies and you
know you to go pull this methodology out.
No, let's be practical. And so when we're training our
clients, when we're training our students, because we have online
courses and we at organizations bring us in to do corporate
change leadership training, be like, it's practical.
If yeah, because they're all they've they've they've seen the
models and they met. At times we see people, they
say, oh, I got trained on XYZ and I still don't know what to
do. I'm like, OK, XYZ was great,
good, great. I'm not taking that away from
you, but what are the practical skills that you need to lead and
drive change? And so when we talk about
emotional intelligence or empathy or adaptive leadership,
which we've mentioned is how do you make it really practical?
Another one that is key, key for any business analysis
collaboration. Oh.
Yeah. You are working with your
stakeholders as partners. You are collaborating with them.
When you look at them as partners, when you do
collaboration with them, they want you to succeed because they
see such they own the success with you.
Right. You know, don't treat them like,
oh, I just want something, just give me my requirements, I'm
done. Or just contest this thing and
I'm done. Or just give me that decision,
I'm done. How are you collaborating with
them? Because that even leads into
another skill which you talk about empowering others.
The amount of times I've got people to do things for me,
which we call influence is because they've taken ownership
for it. So whether you're empowering
people, it's about empowering them to want to seek success in
this as well. How can we make this successful?
How can we lead and drive this? And they now become partners and
need to want to see it succeed as opposed to speaking it's
yours or it's your project, it's your requirement, it's your
this. No, it's ours.
When, when we show up as business analysis professionals
with with our hands out saying I just need for you to give me,
give me right we, we close the door to collaboration, to a
sense of shared understanding. Shared you know, commitment to
this project. We also, I think, close the door
to trust because collaboration is one of the ways that we begin
to build trust. And when you can do that
effectively, when you can build that trust and say I'm in this
with you. I'm not just here to get your
requirements, but I'm actually in this because I want you to be
successful. Then influence doesn't feel so
much like manipulation, which I think sometimes is what is what
is kind of the shoehorn that we use when change management goes
bad is if I can't influence them, well, I guess I'm going to
have to do something that looks more like manipulation because I
didn't do all of these other things correctly.
I like. That you bring that up.
The best thing you can get from folks in court is resistance,
but usually at times you want to influence them to take this
change on. No matter what we're
implementing this, we have to do this.
When you see resistance, love it and see it as feedback.
Yes, because. Often times you want to get to
the root of why it is they're pushing back on it because it
might just be going in the wrong direction that you shouldn't
have gone. I've been on a project whereby
they had already designed and implemented what they wanted.
We're sure we're going to do this.
They haven't engaged with the different stakeholder groups to
say this is what we're doing, this is how we're doing.
So I come on board as a change manager and let me backtrack.
This is a funny story, right? So I have this friend, we're now
good friends, but we met at work.
She was a business analysis. I was the change manager.
We get on. On this project and she, she
turned to me one time, she said, she said she literally turned to
somebody because she didn't know me then, right?
She said, who is this person here?
Why are they asking all the questions I would usually ask as
a business? So we go into the meeting and
she's usually used to being the queen bee at the meeting, asking
all the questions we need to do this.
And then here comes in, you know, Yvonne, and is asking
stakeholders all these questions.
So like, who is this? We're best friends now, right?
All right. Well, you know.
But the for me as a change leader, as a change manager and
for any business analyst is that you're asking a lot of questions
up front to understand the impact of the change to your
stakeholders. Because now you on this, that's
where you get their buying so that you don't get to places or
they're pushing back. They don't want this, they're
saying it doesn't work, but you haven't engaged them at the
beginning to understand why. So for this very project that I
was going to talk about, you know, everything had been
designed. They've grabbed the requirements
from in quote, internal stakeholders of the technology
team who wanted to build this lovely apple like hassle within
the, you know, let me call it OK, Apple like app and they
wanted to do it and hadn't really engaged with the
stakeholders. So I come in and I say, OK,
we're about to roll this out. First thing I do as a change
manager is I go to engage with my stakeholders and you do that
as a change leader as well. You want to understand your
stakeholders. And I start to say, oh, this is
something we're thinking about doing, you know, would like to
roll it out. How would you implement it?
And we got some areas saying you want to roll that out.
It's not going to work in that area because it's against
regulations. Oh, OK, so this.
Wasn't just even push back, it was really a push.
You could frame it as resistance, but that was them
pushing back because regulations say XYZ and if you implement
this situation or solution, it goes against what it is that
we're doing. So that's the value of
understanding your stakeholders, engaging with your stakeholders
as a whole, collaborating with the people who are going to use
that solution to build out that solution as opposed to build it
and they will come. So resistance is a gift and I,
and I think you know what what you've described there is
listening to the resistance and then helping to classify it a
little bit. So, you know, I know many in our
audience today will know the resistance.
That sounds like we can't do this.
We've been doing it this way for 25 years, right?
That's a different form of resistance.
Also, it's a gift. It doesn't feel like it, but
instead of just saying, well, you need to get over it and do
it, I think it's important to dig in.
So in just the same way, and I think that's a form of emotional
intelligence, right? I know that that people feel a
certain way about having done this thing for so long and that
it is scary to think about a future where they might not do
it. So rather than say get over it,
I might say, well, tell me about that.
Tell me about what it is that you're doing today.
It doesn't cost you anything. It does, and it can build a
little bit of trust, yes. It does because remember the
stakeholder? I told you that I went into the
room and they were screaming at me.
We ended up being like this. Right.
Every meeting they would go into, they would be like,
where's Yvonne? Because we.
Had built that trust and rapport because I first of all, I didn't
go start screaming back. I just listened patiently to
what it is that they had to say. Why they were saying that, OK,
this is what you mean, you know, take that as feedback, right?
And help address those issues. So now they saw me as a
collaborator. They saw me as a on their team.
I had gained their trust and building trust starts with
little wings. You don't build trust in a day.
So I'm very big on short winged, short term wings, low hanging
fruit. Build and gradually build their
trust. And guess what?
You now stop being invited to the table.
You know, there's this saying that since say, if you're not
invited to the table, go build your own table.
No, no, no, no, no. Then you are leading and driving
a project within an organization.
You want to be at the table within that organization.
You want them to invite you. That's how you drive with
influence, right? If you're not in the room when
they're talking about certain situations that impact that
project, it leaves you in a vacuum and there's a gap.
But once you build that relationship, you build that
collaboration, you build that trust and you empower other
people. So the value of being a change
lead, and I touched on this as a skill whereby you empower
others, is that you are not going to be in the room all the
time. But when you empower other
people to act on your behalf and you're collaborating together
and they trust you, they will come back to you with
information or they will invite you into the room, or they will
say, hey, Susan, you need to be in this meeting.
Well, they would say, hey, Paul, we need to invite Susan into
this meeting. We need Diana in here.
You know, we need Manshuk in here.
You know, we need all of these people in the room with us.
Yeah, that's the value. That, yeah, that's, and I, I,
you know, I sometimes on this podcast, we, we talk about, you
know, when you are really good at this kind of work, you know,
your value when people ask for you to be there.
And here's the good news and the bad news.
The bad news, you know, the good news is the problems get harder.
And the bad news is the problems get harder.
So as you, as you build that kind of trust and, and are known
for being someone who can do change leadership really well,
the problems get harder. And if you love that kind of
thing, then you're in your element.
But you know what? Let's let's talk about this
because change leadership may not be for everybody.
So two things. One, I'll go back to the things
when you do change leadership, it gets easier.
Yeah, I'll tell. You because like I said, if you
are empowering others to act, you're no longer carrying the
weight all by yourself. You know what?
So one of the things I see off the off the top is that you
aren't as a change leader, you are not the hero in the story.
So many times as a change leader, you want to go with that
Superman T-shirt, you know, and help Superwoman or Super Bassy
that T-shirt and say I'm here to solve all the world's problems.
No, your role as a change leader is the ability to empower other
people to act as well. So now leading that change
becomes a shared responsibility. It's not.
It's a shared responsibility because now people are acting on
your behalf. Other people.
Remember we talked about collaboration.
People take ownership of the result.
They want to see it become a success.
So now it it makes your life easier.
Yeah. So that's one.
And then change. Leadership is not an option in
today's new world of work. Also true, it is no longer.
An option and change. Leadership is not a role, it is
a skill. Yeah, it's a.
Capability, so nobody goes and I mean even though it says change
leader as a role we put it in, but change leadership is a skill
and capability within your existing role.
It's no longer reserved for a select few, is no longer
reserved for any title, is no longer reserved for the people
at the top in your everyday. As a business analysis
professional, as a project manager, as a change manager, as
a HR person, as a senior manager, as a director, you're
constantly being asked to lead change.
And any business analyst that thinks they're not a change
leader or should be a change leader or have a change
leadership skill, I'm here to tell you, you need to go rethink
that. I was going to use another word,
as you say, just take a step back and rethink that because
you are leading and driving change as a business analyst.
So you need to have change leadership skills to be able to
influence and drive the change in the right direction.
I'm not saying you need to have change management skills, right?
I'm saying you. Need to have change leadership
skills. Two different things, and.
It is very often that one that you will not be asked to perform
that role or to perform that. I.
Call it a role, but you're saying it's not a role.
And I appreciate that, but you may not be asked to do that.
You may not be a change. Manager, right?
But as far as being using change leadership, hands down, you
should do that and don't give it another thought because to me
that is the difference between so so business analysis and
really good business analysis. It's it's.
The difference between being invited into the room, it's the
difference between somebody saying we want Susan in the room
because she's driving this forward.
She's helping make it happen. You know, it's not about saying
or I'm just here to be do my, you know, it's not, it's not
about being a task based responsibility.
I'm here. I'm just here to grab the
requirement. I'm just here to implement the
solution. I'm just here to this.
It's it's been more in a solution driven mindset to be
able to say, I'm coming to support you.
That's what leadership is about to say.
I want to take us forward into implementing and they're driving
this change and seeing it become successful.
That's who people want in the room, right?
They want to be able to say Susan is a leader.
If I'm absent from this, Susan has got this.
They want to be able to say, if I send Susan to go interact with
that SVP who is a stakeholder, I don't have to be in the room
with Susan because Susan has leadership skills and influence
and she's going to be able to interact with that SVP or senior
leader. I don't have to be in the room.
I can send. And you're not waiting
constantly, you know, because people see you as this or she
just wants to grab her requirement.
He just wants to grab his requirement.
They just want to do the job. They see you as saying you're
leading and driving this change. You have the vision, you're
inspiring others to act. You're that, you're that
compass. You're driving the sheep.
You're staring the sheep forward.
You're staring the chain. As opposed to, oh, I'm just that
person on the side waiting for to do my own tasks, to do my own
role, to be told what it is that I need to do.
That's the difference between who they want in the room and
they want to trust to drive that change.
Yeah. Complete differentiator.
Well, I tell you what, how about we take a couple of questions
this has been and listen, we we have been getting some really
nice comments by folks that are listening in.
So Mathura says very insightful. There's another one, Mari says.
Again, insightful and practical. Good, good, good.
We're happy to hear that you guys are.
Are getting some some value and maybe seeing yourself, seeing
what you think change leadership is all right.
Yeah, I see. I see a few questions, yeah.
Let's see, here's one Leaders either over or under,
communicate What's the right balance?
Yes, that is a good balance in terms of how do you, that's
where understanding your stakeholders is very important.
So that's where stakeholder assessments or knowing who
you're dealing with or, and that's why.
So let me give you a very simple model that you can use anywhere.
We, we have this in our change leadership accelerator course.
It's called the head, hands and hats model.
So first of all, it's understanding yourself as a
person. You know, sometimes you're very
analytical, so you think about a lot of information.
You know, I, I need to provide this.
They need to know all this detail.
But somebody may be a hats person.
They're all thinking about why is this going to impact
somebody? What does this mean for people?
They're very, and then some of the person might be a very heads
driven person. When I say heads, they're very
like very logical 1 + 1 is equal to 2.
This is what we need to do. They're thinking about the
vision, let's implement this so they're different.
So first of all, understanding your stakeholders.
If you're talking to your accountants or you're talking to
people in the finance team, they need a certain level of
information to understand. Very analytical.
What does this mean? How is it, you know, what does
it mean for the bottom line, right?
You go and talk to the HR people and they want to figure out how
is this going to be impact people?
You go and talk to the senior leadership and they're like, OK,
what does this mean for return on investment?
You know, so that's it. So first of all, understanding
your stakeholders, then listening to the kind of
questions it is that they're asking.
It's very important. One of the things that you do,
it's even like your stakeholder, your, your journey map, where
are they in each of the phases and what do they what, what kind
of questions are they asking at the right time?
So you're not going to tell them at the beginning.
You're thinking about they're, they're trying to figure this
out to understand what it means for them.
All of that good thing, you know this, how does it impact my job?
So understanding your stakeholder journey, you know,
or doing a stakeholder journey map, you know, it's often a good
way, a very good tactical way to understand where are they in
that journey and what's the right information to share with
them at a certain time. At the beginning, they just have
so many questions. What does this mean for me?
How does it mean, you know, you're implementing some
regulation? They don't want to read the
regulations yet They're just like, what does this mean for
me? They don't need the detail of,
you know, the XYZ of when you need to file that you documents
or not. That's not what they need to
know off from what they need to know off front is what is in it
for me. So classic communication WIIITM,
what is in it for me? Yes.
And it, and if I'm using your definition of emotional
intelligence here, communication is likely.
I am targeting different kinds of communication based on the
audience, based on where they are.
If I've done a journey map, which is I, I think a great
technique that you can use. So if you like your techniques,
you can still use techniques here.
And so it could be that some audiences need more
communication, some need less, some need details, some don't.
So there is a balance and it is heavily dependent upon who
you're talking to, Yes. And leveraging different
channels because we see it every day.
How many times our inbox is bombarded to you just think
we've sent an e-mail so they should see it, right?
Just even think. About So I'm planning this
party. Let's just bring it basic.
I'm planning this party and in the party I've sent out the IV
notification card, I've sent text messages, I've set the
dates, the timing, I've created a website.
You can go and get this information.
It has all the information card, everything.
Then somebody still access me. Oh, So what time is this event?
And there are three different places I've shared that
information. And I'm like, so I just send
them the link. I send them the invite.
There are people each, but you are.
So you see, in that situation, you are assuming people are
reading all of what it is that you're sending.
You're assuming people are reading all of those details.
So I remember a friend, you know, where she said, oh, you
sent all of this out. You don't need to say it again.
I said to the person, you know what?
I just really want to be very sure.
And then she comes back to me and says, I can't believe that
person asked that question. Haven't they seen this?
Haven't.
They seen that, that is. What communication is at work as
well as well? Yes, you're.
Assuming that you've sent this out, you've sent that out, you,
you know, you've put that information there, so people
should see it. No, that's where you're
understanding your stakeholders. You're leveraging different
channels of communication, you're engaging with them and
you're listening. And once you hear that one
person ask that question, don't see it as one off to say, oh,
this person is that oddball. They just listen.
Everybody else says listen, no, take it as feedback again and
say if this person is asking for this information, chances that
there's another person too who is still asking for that
information. So this is an opportunity for us
to communicate this out, yes. It's a gift.
It really is a gift. It is a gift.
It's. Absolutely a gift because.
Sometimes it won't feel that way, but you just, you got to
check yourself. It's not about you.
It's not. Going to feel that way.
All right. So we've got, I think we've just
got this one last question. Let's see.
So this question if resistance during change is often a signal
rather than an obstacle, how do we train ourselves to listen
deeply enough to understand what sits beneath the resistance
instead of just listening to formulate a response?
Yes. And I think you know Qin Weim
way. Sorry, I didn't get that right.
I feel I should get that right, but I didn't get that
pronunciation right. You've answered the question
already, right? Because it's listening.
So it's, you say it's in your question already.
It's not listening to respond, it's listening to receive,
right? That's the difference.
And it's also been open minded that your way might not be the
right way. So that's another skill we talk
about open mindedness. Are you open minded to receive,
to say that you know what, what you're actually trying to
implement may be wrong, but we usually go in when we get
resistance. So we get feedback to saying
they're wrong, they don't understand it, they're pushing
back. I am the right, I'm with the
right answer. So it's taking a step back to
say I might be in the wrong. So not saying you might be in
the wrong, but just be open minded to receive once you're
able to receive and then you're processing it because once you
go in to say, oh, how do I formulate a comeback on this
one? You're not hearing it, You're
not really listening anymore. You're just like, come in here,
go out that year. So remember that project I told
you about how they were building this apple like app tower?
The projects had to they put a stop to it because when we
started to get all this feedback that were $1,000,000 fines.
Oh, OK, so this was this. Regulation.
It could have been $1,000,000 fines taking away licenses,
yeah. Yeah.
The project had to come to a stop, yes.
So I remember the leader saying to me, well, I'm so sorry we
didn't get to implement this. I said no, I did my job.
Right. I did my job.
My job was listening to stakeholders, getting that
feedback, processing that feedback, and then we make a
decision on that feedback and not just capturing it.
Yes, there's actually capture that information.
I mean, I've done this as a business analyst.
Like let's gather the requirements just so that we've
seen that we're listening. We're going to put this in phase
three. That never happened.
Right. Right but here.
You, you, you heard the feedback and then we're, we're aware
enough to say, oh, this actually, this could be actually
put us in legal jeopardy. Like there is, there is an
implication to this that is beyond just, we don't want to do
it. There are boundaries that
organizations play within. And one of those is we need to
be able to do our our work within the law.
Yeah. And you know, one of the things
that I used as a as a strategy, and I'll share that as a tip and
I don't know if he matters to anybody, was when I used to
gather requirements as a business analyst, I would
capture everything that we're saying.
I would document what is we're doing and I would still document
what we weren't going to do. So even if we put that in the
appendices or we put that in a risk issues and log register.
But there was something that it captured it so that when we went
back to the client to review those requirements, they could
still see what they had shared with us as a requirement.
And it showed we're list, you're listening to us.
Yes, so. It's easy for you to say, oh,
that's not part of the scope. We're so good on saying this is
not part of the scope and it's out of scope.
We don't document it. Just having that out of scope
document or section in your document that says we listen to
you, we capture this information.
Here is you have that is a short.
Term. Easy win, a quick win.
That's a very quick win. No hanging fruit, Yes.
Because you heard them right and you are documenting.
We heard what you said. And also that is a very good way
because inevitably somebody will come back and say, well, I told
them they should do this and they didn't listen to me.
But if you've captured we it, we saw it, we heard you say it.
And then whatever the decision was, the rationale behind why it
wasn't possible, you've you've saved yourself, but you have
also done that quick win, which is to let people know that we
heard you and we sought an answer for you.
So yeah, that's, that's really important.
So that that deep listening, I think also requires some
self-awareness. I've got to know, oh, I'm
defaulting to that behavior where I'm just trying to come up
with an answer. I'm not listening.
So that's, that's I think another really important part of
that of that question that Chim Chim Wimwe maybe well, he says.
Thanks for answering his question.
Yeah. There's a question before that
one, right? There's Yeah, here's.
Yeah. Here's one more.
This is from Manchu. What, what, what would a change
manager do if there's not a business analyst on the project?
So we're using that term change manager here, yes.
We're using that very different roles.
Yep. It's not for the change manager
to make a decision on this one. It's really for the project to
make a decision on what needs to be done.
So there might not be a bit. Why would first of all, why
isn't there a business analyst on the project?
I find it it's interesting before there's even a change
manager on the project, it's usually a business analyst.
It usually is. That's right.
It's nobody is right I've. Had a situation where we lost
our project manager and I was asked to come in as the change.
I was giving management responsibility as well as change
management responsibility. So for me, I believe it's a
skill set. So for, for instance, me,
because I have a business analysis background, because I
have a project management background.
Let's call the spade a spade. I'm a blessing on a project.
You know what? That's true, yeah.
You know. Like I'm, I'm a great resource
to have because I can just wear many hats, right.
But if there's no if, if you have a change manager who
doesn't have a business analyst analysis background, you can't
expect the change manager to do the work of that because they're
two different roles. Yes, the project manager role is
different from the change management role is different
from the business and analyst role.
And you need to understand the differences.
And that's where also there's often issues in projects because
there's so much overlap. And I've had it where the
project manager is thinking, why is this change manager doing
that? That's my responsibility.
The business analyst is saying, why is the change manager doing
that responsibility that you know?
So there isn't that clearly defined role.
So it's usually very important that once you get into your
project environment, you're doing that roles and
responsibility documents. Understand who is playing in
this sandbox and what's your own responsibility if not.
So it can end up causing issues I've had where a project manager
not understanding what a change manager does has said to me why
you're engaging with stakeholders.
You shouldn't be talking to any stakeholders.
How can you as a change manager not talk to stakeholders?
Your responsibility is to help talk to stakeholders to help
drive this change. But that was a lack of
understanding of what the change manager does.
So I know we're talking about change leadership, but as a
change manager, when I go into a project, I usually help people
understand my role and my responsibility and what I'm
coming to do there. I'm going to work with you as a
business analyst. I'm going to work with you as a
project manager and my 2 best friends on projects.
You know, project now, project rules really are the business
analysis business analysts as well as the project manager,
because the business analyst has captured all of this great
information in talking to the stakeholder that sometimes I
don't need to even revisit some of those things.
And I can leverage that information and understand it
before I even go and start talking to the stakeholders
because I need to understand the solutions.
I need to understand the changes that are coming in because
they're capturing the changes, right?
So once I understand the changes, I capture all of those
changes. I go to my stakeholders to
understand this change is happening.
How does that impact you that change is happening?
How does that impact you? Two different roles.
They can both play in the same box if people have that skill
set for different roles, yeah. And I think, you know, talking
about applying change leadership, we can also apply
that change leadership lens to getting ourselves organized as a
team to perform this change or whatever this issue is.
I mean, that's really kind of what I hear you say.
And the other thing that I like because we do often get a little
territorial about our rule or about our responsibilities.
But if, if we have done a really good job with change leadership
about how we want to work together, we can leverage the
work that's already been done because that's probably what
people are are responding to is wait a minute, you don't talk to
stakeholders, I talk to stakeholders.
Well, no, we, we both do that and we may already have some
work that we've done. Let's share it, let's leverage
it. I don't have to redo it.
Yes, we can share it and work together.
Exactly. And so first of all, project
terminology everybody's familiar with or should be familiar with
if you're in project based environment is racy.
So race is always a good document.
When I also do my change management strategy or plan,
depending on the type of project, not for all project,
because again, not all one-size-fits-all is that I do a
stakeholder relationship management section in it, right?
Who owns the relationship with the stakeholder?
Because remember, sometimes your stakeholders don't want multiple
touch points. So they don't want Yvonne coming
to ask him the same question Susan just asked me and the same
question Marie just asked me. No.
So it's good to sometimes have stakeholder owners.
OK. So, you know, before I go and
touch base with this person, I'm interacting with this person to
say, you know, I want to connect with this person.
This is what's happening. And you have that torch point
with them. But roles and responsibility is
very key. And it's one of the issues that
it it can be a very big issue on a project where it goes array
because let's call a spade a spade.
People are trying to, people are human, they're trying to build
their castles, they're trying to build visibility, they're trying
to build importance. And when you're thinking about
all of those things in the project environment where they
want to be seen as in I'm this person, I'm the one doing this.
So I'm and then it can seem as if somebody comes to do their
role and they are, you hear you're overstepping the
boundaries, right? Or you're stepping on someone's,
you know, foot here. So roles and responsibilities
very critical to be shared, yes. So an important part of also
change leadership, helping people to understand what it is
you should be doing. All right.
Well, my goodness, we have had a, a, a lengthy conversation.
We went a little bit longer than we usually do, but boy, we've
had some people that have just really appreciated this
conversation today. So that is fantastic.
I knew we'd have a good conversation.
We always, you and I, we get really, I know about this.
The time rises and we geek out all the time, yes?
And before we got started today, we already picked our topic for
the next time we're going to get together.
So they're they're really gonna. Yeah.
So if you liked this duo today, wait till the next topic that's
going to come soon. Yeah.
Listen, Yvonne, this has been so great.
I mean, as usual, like I got a page full of I'm a note taker.
Yeah, I'm a note taker. So I have got real this.
We've got some good stuff to think about here And and I'm
really happy that you were able to join us today.
So thanks. My pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. All right, well, we are wrapping
up today. Woo.
That was a lot about change leadership.
So if you have been thinking am IA change leader, the answer is
yes. And how can you be doing more in
that area as a business analysis professional?
I think Yvonne has left you with a lot of thoughts.
Now when I see you again in two weeks, we're going to be talking
about AI governance, but we're not going to talk about like the
data and the machine learning. We're going to go a little
deeper into the psychology of AI.
Yes, that's the thing. So you won't want to miss it
because this is going to be another fantastic conversation.
I want to thank you guys for joining us today.
If you're hearing this, you made it to the end of the episode.
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