Navigating Change: How L&D Can Help Steer the Course

6:00PM Oct 25, 2024

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Erica

Maureen

Susan

Victoria

Marie

Keywords:

change management

mindset shift

business understanding

emotional responses

training strategy

organizational development

communication plan

stakeholder engagement

data collection

drip campaign

guerrilla marketing

informal gatherings

cross-collaboration

leadership support

change journey tool

Okay, recording on. We'll get some cool get some finalized stuff here, happening go. All right. Well, Happy Friday, everybody. And welcome to another learning rebels, Coffee Chat. I am Shannon Tipton, the owner of learning rebels, and today we are talking about change management, although, you know, does Halloween have something to do with change management? I don't know. Maybe Quick Change artists. I don't know if it's about change management, but we can somehow make the link, right? That's, that's really what it's all about. We can make that link and, really in the email that I sent to you, just the one today, because there was a lot of emails going out this week, so if you received more than one from me this week, thanks for not unsubscribing. I appreciate that, but we had our Learn something new on Wednesday, which was all about accessibility, and today, obviously talking about change. And I think that there might be a connection there. You know, when we think about mindset shift and not necessarily change as it has to do with accessibility. But when we were talking about accessibility in the learn something new, a lot of it was about, how do we shift our paradigm around it? You know? So it used to be a number of years ago, or even still recently. It was like, Well, if the business requires me to do it, then I'll do it, you know. But otherwise, we don't have anyone who's disabled in our organization, in our in our 5000 person organization, not one person is disabled. So we're okay. And I think that there was a mind shift that needed to happen, and that, of course, does tie in with when you're talking about change management, it's about changing your paradigm or helping others change their paradigm, right? And so from there, it's where I would like to start the conversation, which is around, you know, what's our role? How do we help the business, etc. But before we get into the nitty gritty of our conversation in the chat, let me know if this is your first time being in one of our coffee chat groups. Please be sure to let us know in the chat itself, so that way we can give you the warm welcome that you deserve and show our appreciation for people showing up on a Friday, making a choice. Talk about change and choice, right? Making a choice that you're going to be here with us today. So let's see anybody new, or maybe hasn't been here in a while, I think I recognize most of the names. Caitlin, you are with us. Oh, Erica, welcome. Erica. Nancy, it's your second time. I thought I'd seen your name before, Victoria, definitely, I know you victorious. Thank you so much for coming back to us. You must have been busy. Where is everybody sitting today? Oh, Victoria, you changed your hair too. By the way, it seems like from the last time I saw you, looks great. Thanks.

It's a little bit lighter, but and I finished grad school, so it's nice to have some more free time to be coming coming back.

Oh, congratulations.

Thank you.

That's a huge accomplishment. Well done. And what did? What did you? Where'd you get it in?

I got a master's in business administration, perfect. Not, not, probably the typical course of study for someone in L and D, but it should be definitely, it's definitely helpful, especially working in corporate trading. It's like, Oh, I understand how the business works. I can be I can I have some value to contribute here. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

And you know, all of you who've been around the coffee chats for a while know that I'm always talking about the importance of the link to L and D and to business, and understanding the vocabulary, understanding how business operates, knowing how you make money as a business, all of this does help us when we think about change management practices in general, because if we don't understand the business, it's difficult to Help it wrap its mind around when those changes happen, because you don't really grasp what's going on around you or haven't. So I think that there's an absolute connection there between understanding business and then helping that business change when it has to be there, when it has to do it right and so welcome everybody. Okay, and welcome back all of you who haven't been with us for a while. I know life gets in the way. Work gets in the way. Okay, so now talking about change, let me ask you this. Okay, so think, put on your thinking caps real quick, and do not I want you to put something into the chat. We're going to do a little chat blast. Some of you are familiar with this. For me, Others, not so much. So I'll explain it. I'm going to ask you to put an answer to my question in the chat. Do not hit send. Do not do it. Resist. Resist the temptation. Don't hit send, until I tell you to All right, everybody understand. Awesome. All right now, here's my question for you, when you think about change management, what emotion comes into your mind? What thought? What emotion comes into your mind? Don't hit don't hit send. Just yet, hold on. I'm gonna let everybody put their responses in.

Okay,

hit send. Woohoo. I love this exercise. All right, let's see what we've got. We've got fear, frustration, concern, more frustration, confusion, exhausting, right? Is it good or bad? Change, fear, optimism, excitement for myself, but dread for others. Challenging, discomfort, inevitable. So I see a lot of emotions that when you put it on a spectrum of from negative to positive, seem to fall in that negative realm, you know. And I think, I think that that has to do with what's happening in the world around us. You know, there's a lot of things happening right now where it's like so overwhelming, and maybe if it were, you know, rainbows and butterflies in mid summer, then maybe your perspective might change. But for the most part, right now, you guys are feeling a little anxious about it, and if you feel this way, then you know that the people around you feel that way too, right? And so the question then becomes employment, right? For some of us, right? The more you change, the more training you have to create around that change. So,

yes,

now it's a matter of helping people within your business wrap their arms around that change. And this is where I want to have that discussion. So this is a good level set where we see ourselves and understand our own feelings and and do those feelings project. You know. So if we feel unsure, maybe our team feels unsure, or maybe those that work around us most closely also feel unsure, you know. So how is that happening now? As we get into the conversation, for those of you who have not been with us before, a couple of rules. Well, one rule, there ain't no rules, that's that's the rule. And secondly is, if you don't want to have your camera on, that's fine. If you do, that's fine. If you don't have your camera on because of what might be happening in your background, or maybe you have a cat rolling around, or maybe you're eating your lunch, or maybe you're still in your pajamas. It doesn't really matter to us, so we encourage you to turn on your videos if you feel comfortable doing so. We don't worry if you're having a bad hair day, but if you want to leave them off, that's fine. But also, when it comes to conversation, please be sure to open up your mic and just speak up, or raise your hand and speak up. We want to hear your voices too. So now change. Who's going through a major change initiative right now? Anyone? Victoria, I see you nodding your head. You want to share?

It's actually been going on for multiple years, but my organization is doing a transformative shift where we're adopting the Atlassian ecosystem. And so it's a requirement that everyone in the organization use it for workload management and also just collaboration. And so there's a lot of anxiety around it amongst staff, because I think there's a fear of, Oh, I I can't hide. Everyone can see what I'm what I'm working on now, and what are they going to information. And so it's just, it's one, it's taking forever to implement this. And and two, it's definitely been an interesting roller coaster of a change journey. Yeah.

Yeah. And so what is Ellen D's role in that, if, if any? So

my direct report is, is kind of on it full time, and so she's been charged with actually developing the training, the training strategy and the plan for how people will learn to use the system, and is helping socialize all of that. And does you know open houses or lunch, and learns that people can come and ask ask questions. So we have a key role in the in the project team.

Okay, well, that's great. That's a good start. And I like the fact that you're communicating up front, because that's an important piece. Are you running parallel software programs, by any chance? So people are in the is it? Are you using the asana version or?

No, we don't have Asana but, but I guess they're there, yeah. Are you talking about, like, the different apps or the, yeah, I think some of those were utilizing, but, but, I guess to answer your question a different way, it's like we have our old way of doing things that we're still maintaining, and then we're overlapping this new this new world on top of it, and at some point There will be a total cut, cut over.

Okay, and so when you're having those communication meetings with people, what do those look like? How, you know, what's the conversation like? How are people feeling?

Um, well, I'm it's hard for me to answer, because I'm not in the day to day ones, but I would just say, from what she's reporting out and sharing. They've, there's definitely, there's, there's, certainly, I've seen a shift. There's been a lot of apprehension and fear to now they're what is it the bridges change curve where people are getting more to a place of acceptance, and then I think people that are using it more actively, they're actually becoming more of the champions or the ambassadors, and can help bring the rest of their teams along and socialize and say, Hey, actually this is a good thing, or this is creating efficiencies. So I think we do still have people that are running the spectrum of, I don't see how this is going to benefit me too. There are people like, I'm sold. I'm on board. This is great. Let me help you get there.

Does this sound familiar to anyone, anybody else going through something like this. So Erica, I see you nodding, what is, what's your experience like right now? What's happening with you? And

I don't know what to do it myself. There's two Erica's in here today.

I'm sorry, Erica, my opinion, I know

I don't I don't you want to assume Shannon,

we'll go to Erica. B and I, you know what? I don't think I've ever said your last name out loud. Erica. Is it beacon?

No. Oddly enough, it's bacon, so it sounds like they get pronounced, B, A, G, G, E, N, um, either that or someone down the line decided to start pronouncing it different. Who knows? That's what it was taught to me. So that's how I pronounce it.

All right. Talk to me about you.

So I sit on a team that's called learning and organizational development. The team was actually created because there was a huge reorganization inside of central HR in the university that I work at. And although I was hired after the reorganization and the development of this team, I'm still on a team that is dealing with the ripple effects. Why was it determined that this team was created in the first place and the project that the team is going to be managing, and the team has what we're calling for practice areas, and oddly enough, one of them is change management and organizational development, so that's one of the practice areas. And one of the things that the leadership has been doing is they've been trying to fine tune the intake form and the intake process. And I've just been brought aboard to help a coordinator so that we could try to make sure that these documents are acceptable as they get, you know, utilized, and then as they're going to be passed on to those participants, excuse me, our clients. And then also, I'm starting to have discussions with the change management and OD practice area manager about how I can further step and stick my toe into that realm, because I've had long standing interest within this area. So I'm starting to have, you know, even a broader perspective awareness of what's happening. But because I get to see a lot of the intakes that are coming in, it's just fascinating to see what people inside of central HR like, what they express and what they say is supposedly a need, and a lot of it is centered around so it's sort of a confirmation. And. Unintentional confirmation. But there's a lot of people, like our frontline managers, don't know how to do blank. We need training to to make them do blank, because we think that's going to make them stop doing blank. So it's, um, you know, it's just a, it's, it's a nice sort of way of being able to kind of see what are those pain points that people are coming in at us about, and that they have no clue what they think that they need. But clearly, what all of this, I think, is is anchored to Shannon, is the idea of that there's a change right something's currently happening right now, and they either want to stop it, or they want to change, and they want to change it, but they don't understand what is maybe the thing that they need to be able to create change. And I think that they have blinders on when it comes to what are all those aspects that we have to consider when we think we're going to try to enact change in our environments? Yeah,

yeah. And there is two types of change here that we're talking about. It's, or could be talking about, it's the training type of change, right? So it's like, are we looking to change behavior, you know, Level Up skill. What is the change that is supposed to be the outcome of the training program? Okay? And as I've said before 100 times, if there's no change expected from the training program, then why are we writing training programs right now? Then there's the other part of change. It's like the organizational change, and the organization has made a determination that something's going to change, and so now our role is to support that change in in whatever way that we can, right? And it's the latter that I'd like to focus on. You know, how can we be good business partners in helping the business make a change, like what Erica and Victoria are talking about, you know, because sometimes they make a change. And the word we're left in our offices going, what, the what, you know, where it makes no sense, and clearly no one talked to anyone, and we know intuitively that this is going to fall flat on its face, but we've got to do our role right. We've got to help the change effort happen. And for all we know, there might be really good reasons for that change initiative to occur. We just don't know what it is. And so when we're in that position, what do we do? I you know? So the the businesses come to us and said, Well, we're changing, you know, we're changing our software platform. We're changing our software platform. And you're, in your mind, you might be going, Okay, why and not? We know that people aren't going to be on board with this. But help me understand XYZ so I can put out the appropriate messaging, right? And so when you think about that sort of change management, okay, I see Maureen, yeah, begin with the why. And so, Maureen, are you? Help me understand where your view of is, where's the beginning. So it says, begin with the why? Completely agree with that? Who's beginning? Your beginning? Their the audience is beginning, the stakeholders beginning.

Well, why, whoever made the decision on the one you just said, we're getting a new software platform. So why? What was the case for change? What are the benefits? Or what is it? Why are we making that change? Because I don't know. Sometimes I feel like there's for me personally, sometimes there's just change fatigue, where it's well, for sure, for the sake of changing, my God, like, have you given it enough time to even realize the benefits of whoever made that last decision to change something? Don't

feel like the pain from the last change.

This is when it's not like, I mean, I just remember years ago we changed over from having telephones on our desks when we each had desks,

right? I remember those days

there communication everywhere, banners, posters everywhere. The change is coming. Your phone's going to be replaced with a jabber headset. You know, get ready. It's coming. It's coming. Okay? It's three weeks. It's two weeks, it's one week. And we came in on one Monday, and everybody's phones were gone off their desks, and there was a jabber headset and instructions for how to set it up. And so there was a lot of grumbling, and it was like, Ah, why this happened? But the reality is, in the past, there have been like, Okay, well, we do it a little bit. It's a soft launch, or a couple people have it. And so then the longer the people have their phones. Have their phones. It didn't have to change the more embedded they become in having their phones. So when it was a widespread change, and everybody was basically feeling that discomfort at once, even though it had been communicated, and guess what, we all adapted, you know, I mean, and now it's like, oh, okay, you can use this headset, and you can, like, take a call from anywhere you don't need to be tethered to your desk, you know, kind of thing. So I don't know, sometimes it's like, sometimes you just have to rip the band aid off and, you know, you do the communication and awareness, but just do it. But when it's or do it in baby steps. So it's a, you know, it's a little bit at a time. We're turning the we're the frog in the water. We don't feel the right, right, right, because we're used to it. Or, yeah, do it incrementally, but be consistent in like, what is you're doing, or why, or, just like, help inform the people who are the recipients of the change, why that changes. It, like, how, either, if, what's in it for them, or from an organizational perspective, is this so, you know, you're, you're investing money into this so that you don't have to lay people off, kind of thing,

right? Right, right? And I think that's, yeah, I think that's the big thing here, is really, and there's a couple of things that you mentioned that I liked, which is, you know, I I appreciate why company would do a soft launch, you know, we'll do it incrementally, a little bit at a time here, here and here. But I see the downside of that is that Group A has made the change, and group A doesn't like it, and so now Group A has talked to Group B, and group B talks to Group c, and then with each time that that flows the negativity or concern or frustration around that change amplifies, yep, right? And so for me, a lot of times I'm just all for just do it. Just do it, you know, but do it in such a way that's thoughtful, like what you said. Here's your you know, maybe it pops up on your desktop whenever you log in three weeks, or a countdown clock or something, you know. So people are all on board. And I like that idea, you know. So that way, it gives people fair warning and time to adjust. And then also, like you said, was understanding the why behind that change, whether or not you like the why behind the change, at least they understand it. So let's talk about that. Yeah, it's how can we be better?

Like, just Yeah, adults. I may not like what you have to say, but I respect that you told me, as opposed to, if you don't get ahead of that messaging, then it can take on a life of its own. And that's even harder than to make any change, because now you you have the people don't have trust in, right? Like, why? How are these decisions being made? Who they, who they even talk to, you know, kind of thing, it's like, I

think, I think that's a great comment. So let me ask you guys, this is, how do, how do we as an L, D department, if we see a when we have a change management program happening in front of us, I say change management. I put that in quotes because you can insert your own change initiative in that. When we see this change initiative coming down our Pike, regardless of whether or not we've been formally asked to assist. How can we better help the business with some of their change initiatives? And I think, Susan, you have a good point here where organizations have a tendency to focus on the how and totally skip the why. So, how can we help with that? Why? What are your ideas for that? How can we help with that? Why?

I think the big thing to me is, particularly when we're not invited to the table, that we offer ourselves up, you know, to say, Hey, this is happening. Is there something we can do to help facilitate this? And some of our platforms are just natural places for this type of information. So it's going well, you know? Because a lot of times what I get is no thanks. We've got it, you know, we need you. We'll let you know. Like, Well, okay, but when you get there, think about XYZ, because we're having a lot of success with whatever that might be. Typically, it's a platform like, if we're going to put information out there, here's a here's a consideration for delivery, or a place where that stuff can live and be updated. But I think that's part of the frustration from an L and D perspective, is that we don't usually get an. Invited to the table, and it's trying to find a way to, you know, insert yourself and be seen as a potential collaborator, and not as just a busy body getting in everybody's way, right,

right, right? And it's so hard because we mean well, and I'd say that I'm, I'm not even pointing a finger at you guys. I'm pointing a finger directly at me, you know, because it's like, Oh, I saw this happen. Oh, I saw this happen. And I'll tell you, it's difficult to pull yourself out of that. I have a client right now that I'm working with, and I see little pops of things that are happening in the background. It's like, oh, that did you did you know that's, did you know? And it's like, okay, Shannon, not my circus, not my clowns, okay? It's like, this is, this is what you need to talk about. And maybe what you can do is, you know, in a converse, in a future conversation, maybe this is, it's an appropriate time to bring that up, or an appropriate time to bring that up, you know. So it's, I'm with you, Susan, it is really hard not to lay all the things on the table, you know. And then they, then they get, they think of you as that person that's always bringing bad news, or the no person, or what have you, and you don't want to be that. Now, let me ask you. So when it comes to talking with the stakeholders and they give you that, well, we'll call you when we need you. How do you insert yourself? And so, you know, Susan talked a little bit about that just now, how can we better insert ourselves to help with that change management initiative without seeing like we're being, you know, nosy or putting ourselves in a place where we don't belong. How can we be helpful?

So one thing that's helpful is to ask, Well, I mean, they say we'll call you when we need you, to step back and just say, well, Howard, what will you? What will make you, I don't want to say it's like. What does success look like? So when this, when this has been communicated, implemented, etc, what's your vision for what that's going to look like? Okay, so within that, like, what would, what does needing me look I don't know, like, something like, how will you know when you need me?

Like, exactly, right? Yeah. Like,

okay, What? What? What's behind the decision to to bring me in, like, you know, or, but if you can see what success looks like, you can say, well, here's how we can help enable that success. Here's where we can partner with you to help make that happen. Or have you considered this, you know, so that you bring in maybe some of your nightmare stories, but like, you know, get them to realize, like, Oh, I didn't really hadn't considered all that. Like, maybe I do need you here, because you're looking at it from this different perspective.

I think another strategy that I've used in the past, it can seem kind of sneaky if you don't do it right, but who else, who else is involved in that change that you might be able to kind of influence. So our communications manager for our department. He and I collaborated on several projects together, and so sometimes it's like just a Hey, Scott, you know, when you guys get to the point when you're ready to start deploying, here are the things that we can do to kind of help with that. The sooner we get engaged, the better, you know. So that way we've got sort of an informal champion in the room that can go, hey, you know, I was talking to Susan, and they can do the thing when we get there, you know. So instead of coming across this, like every time you guys do a change, you just totally blow it. So we're going to come in and save the day, you know, I try to be more circumspect and just say, you know, when you get to this point, here's some things we've done in the past that we've had some success with that you might find helpful. And then just leave it alone.

Yeah, yeah. I like that a lot, you know. So you might have that secret champion out there, maybe who's not so secret, but somebody who could be your voice in the room? Yeah, exactly, you know. And I think when when it comes to that, we have to put our ego to the side and maybe let somebody else take some credit for the work, right? So maybe you've got this change management questionnaire or. Maybe you've got some sort of something you know, like how to host a communication meeting, or something like that, that you give to somebody else that you know is going to who has the ear of someone who's on this committee, and say, Here, take this, use this, because it's going to help you. And and then let it go at that, right? Yeah. And so, Maureen So, Maureen Boland, you had, we got two Erica's and two maureens in the group. Thank you for being helpful, everyone. So, Maureen Boland, you said you you ask leading questions. So let me ask you, who are you asking the leading questions of, what's the grammar on that one? Who are you? Who are you asking the leading questions to? Maybe that's it. I caught you, right? Oh, see, that's the waitress in me. Many, many moons ago I was a waitress, and I say that the first thing they teach you is to ask a question of somebody as soon as they put food in their mouth,

good, and I caught you as you learned that. Well, I did. I try to kind of talk is just the person not as high up as I can are, oftentimes I only can talk to my direct superiors and they can talk to whoever's making this change. It really just depends on your situation.

Yeah, yes, it does, right? And I like the idea of asking the leading questions to them, because it's, it's more long lines of it's, how can I help? Or, you know, let me help. It's more like, what are you doing in regards to XYZ? I hear you're holding a meeting. How can I help you with that? How can I help you gain support? Right? So those sorts of questions,

I don't, don't even go that far, I guess. Let them sit with the question for a while, and then then when they paired it back to me, I said, Oh, that's a great idea. How can I help you? I can do this X, Y and Z, and a bit of psychological game, but it works nicely, and they feel good, but helping you help that right? And that's and once they feel good about you, they might ask you to help on other projects as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. And the point is so good, although you're breaking up a little bit, oh, so it's like you're playing a little bit of psychological warfare here. And and I can appreciate that, you know, it's, it's not unlike, I've used this example before. It's not unlike having kids, right? So in order for teenagers to get them to do what you want them to do, they have to think it's their idea, right? And yes, exactly, it's like more, haha. And then so you sort of, you know, plant that seed with the stakeholders, or leadership, or whomever, and then eventually, maybe they'll have their own epiphany, you know, and that's great, too, and especially if you're included in that epiphany, you know. And then they see the value, and then they're able to move forward. And yeah, my partner calls it being an evil genius. That's it. We're all evil geniuses out here, playing with playing with people's brains and getting them to do the things we want them to do, you know, so once we get stakeholders on board, or sort of on board or closer to us, you know, by having us Help them, then what? Okay, so what sort of what sort of advice, what sort of tools do we use to help the change management initiative move forward? We talked about communication. What does that look like? So what sort of suggestions would we give to leadership to help them with their communication? Efforts. What sort of advice would we give them? What ideas do you have around that? Our drip campaign? Susan, for the win, yes, a drip campaign. Yeah, it's go ahead, Susan,

I think so often you know that these things come out and they're like, ta da jazz hands, and then no one ever mentions it again. We're painful. It's painful right now. We're going through this with a huge, major organizational restructuring from several years ago, and people still talk about it and go, no one knows what that is or what it was, or it didn't change anything for them, you know, like they didn't see any positive or even negative impacts from it. It was just like, Okay, well, they said they did something, but there's no evidence that it happened. So you know, at least do your big reveal, and then in two weeks, remind them that the thing happened and why it matters to them. You know why it's important, or what that change is about, or

or the results they saw,

yeah, and maybe you have to adjust the message depending on the specific audience. You know, maybe there's something for managers of others and maybe there's something different for individual contributors, but I do think you have to kind of, particularly if it's organizational restructuring and things like that, you have to keep it in front of them with evidence of what has happened and why it's a good thing?

Yeah, I love that. I I think you're right. I know you're right, because a lot of times we we do that lead up, and then it all falls. So what happened to that change? Where did it go from here? What were the results? And a drip campaign, that's a excellent idea. You know, I, you guys, know, I talk about it a lot for learning purposes, but it works for marketing. It works for communication, yeah, you know. And so I forget the statistic out there, but we have to tell people many, many times before something actually sticks or something actually goes through. And if we can share those results in that way, I love that idea. So it's like, t plus one week, t plus two weeks. Here's what we've seen. Here's what we've we've worked with. Yeah, I think that's excellent. What? What else can we do? I love this Victoria consistency. Consistency is the key there, right? And so if you plan that ahead of time, it's like, these are the messages that we're going to send out once a month, once every couple of weeks, that show data, right? And you can plan those out, drip, drip is not an acronym. Drip is we're dripping information. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, a little bit a little bit a little bit a little bit a little bit. So what else? What else have we got here, thinking about communication in our communication, prior and post. So let's say these drip campaigns go out telling people where we're at and what we've done. We give them the data. Maybe this is an opportunity to also share additional resources about it, about whatever it is to make it more palatable, to make people feel like the change isn't too overwhelming. You know, is there something? Is there something there? How can, how can we do that? What are your thoughts around? You know, sending just additional help. Erica B,

you just said, I think a really powerful word, Shannon, and that's data. And one of the things that our team is now doing is we're trying to get dashboards in place, because our executive director wants to be able to, I think, have these meaningful conversations with the potential clients when or leadership. And so when leadership is like, you know, we want you to do this. And then the executive director wants to be able to say, well, the data supports that. That has not been a successful campaign, or that hasn't been a successful strategy. You know, might my team be able to work with you to suggest something else? But I think the the problem with that, Shannon, is that when we're not collecting data, and I know that. This is a constant pain point for many of us within this realm is like, how do we desperately try to get at least a breath of time to be able to get that data? That's what helps us do that storytelling. Because without that data, I think that's when then people can come back and say, well, because I'm telling you to do it, or because I'm telling you it needs to be this way, and then we're not able to have a meaningful conversation where it's not just that we're sounding like a naysayer, but we're trying to give them that contextualized story around here's what might be another way to perhaps consider this. And so I think data is most certainly an important component of the conversation around change,

completely agree. I mean, people, it's it's like when you give people a survey, they want to know the results. What were the results of the survey, you know? And the same thing happens here. So if we're going to do a change initiative, people want to know what the results of that change initiative are, you know. And so this all ties in together. And while you were talking, it made me think about in marketing, I don't know how many of you are familiar, but in marketing, they have a term called gorilla marketing. So gorilla marketing is those boots on the ground type of marketing, you know, like door hangers and you know, things that people you know, leave on your screen door, etc, you know, or might leave it in your driveway, so that sort of Gorilla boots on the ground, type of marketing. And so while you were thinking about, while I you're talking about data, I'm like, okay, sharing those results or sharing the communication pre and post. Can techniques like guerrilla marketing help us? So let's say it's not necessarily, you know, an email trip, but there might be other avenues where we can reach people. And that's just me, that is a new idea that just popped into my head. I didn't plan to ask that question, you know, so I'm just throwing it out there without my I don't have any answers, so I am truly popping it out to you to say, is, is there something there? Is there a boots on the ground? Kind of effort that L D can take to help with change initiatives,

I would just say, for guerrilla mark like, in this election season, enough already. Like, I don't want this marketing Stop sending me things in the mail every day that I just tossed into the recycle bin. Like, so, I mean, there's some techniques that maybe in the past were worthwhile, but it's like, Oh, my God, that and text messages like that are sent to me to take a survey or something like so we have to balance it with like, when, when all these different firms are applying guerrilla marketing techniques at The same time, it just becomes, then, like, like, you're numb to it or resent anything like nothing's going to come in because it's just like that. Everything is seen as, like, no like, as John, yeah, do you know me? So,

oh yeah, I completely agree. Go ahead.

Marie makes a very, I think, compelling point. And so if we tie that to Susan, and what Susan was talking about, as far as you know, if we think about drip campaigns, I think Maureen is showing us what could be the negative outcome, right? So I think, like, unfortunately, it's a Goldilocks situation. Is kind of what I'm hearing from Maureen. Like we drip too much, or for too long, does that become numbing, right? But if we don't, maybe try to pepper the sort of front end, as far as, like, I liked the idea of maybe countdown clocks, or, like these gentle reminders, like with Victoria having, you know, her team having to move all the way over to Asana, so that it doesn't fall out, like a little out of sight, out of mind. So I think that there Maureen is bringing up, I think something that is very compelling here, because too much that seems small stakes may make people then tuned out. So then I think what we're also now talking about, as far as in any type of guerrilla campaign that we do, I think there has to be a an appropriate level of stake that is communicated or dealt with, or I think that that might become irritating and frustrating to whomever our our target audience for that change, yeah,

I can say at our Order that we've done a much better job of sending out like sending out like looking at what are all the communications or training that would be hitting somebody at a certain in a certain time frame to make sure that we are not kind of competing for that limited bandwidth, so that. It is marketed or the campaign occurs at a time when people can take it in, versus go too much. No more.

I'm out. Deal me out. Yeah, I am done, yeah. I am so done, right? Yeah, absolutely, and I love and you're so right, Maureen, you're absolutely correct. And so this all needs to be done, you know, with a grain of wisdom, and knowing your audience and knowing your organization and what you know, what are they capable of, and what are they tired of, you know, and what can they support? I like this idea from Victoria and Victoria. You mentioned it earlier when you were describing your change management initiative. Was that doing lunch and learns and informal gatherings. Do you want to expand a little bit more on that?

Yeah, so sometimes we've had a couple even, or even at all staff meetings where we might say we're going to take 10 minutes and we're going to highlight this department, and they will nominate a representative to come forward and do like a demo, a live demo for everybody. Of this is how we're using JIRA for coordinating our our work tickets. And this is what we're doing, and then, and then we hand it over to this team. And so that's like they're already showing the benefit of of how the system adoption and how it's streamlined things for them. So it's not, it's helpful, because staff are able to see, okay, they can put themselves in their shoes of this. Okay, here's another, you know, peer, who's using this, as opposed to, oh, here's L and D again coming forward, and they've got their polished presentation or their deck or their whatever, but it's like, no, here's somebody who's actually going to be, I'm going to be working with them, or this is somebody that I interact with on a regular basis, and okay, they're showing me what the benefits are, as opposed to it feeling more like an orchestrated event, or hearing from the same voices over and over. I think to the extent where you can get some of those diversity of perspectives and the different roles that people are playing that out can also help.

I agree. I think that's a great idea, and to get it from, again, if you go boots on the ground, right, so you're not like you said, Victoria, you're not hearing it from the same old leaders. The same old VP isn't saying the same old message, you know. So Is there somebody else that could give a quasi testimonial, you know, or share outputs or what have you

a good idea too, to try to take advantage of standing meetings. Like most organizations have some sort of standing meeting, and instead of you doing some formal hour long roll out, you know, you could take specific use cases to the audience that's most relevant to as part of one of their normal meetings. You know, you don't need to do the full core press. Just give them five or six slides about hey, we did the thing, and this is what we saw. If you want more information, let us know. I you know, I think the less you try to shove it down their throats, the more receptive they are. So it's another way.

I think what you're saying here as well is, it's sharing the story. I think that's what between Victoria and Susan. It's about, you know, what? What is the story behind this change management initiative? Where are we at in that storytelling process? You know. And here are the interesting bits. And every every change initiative and every good story has its conflict, right? What's a story without a conflict? Right? So, here's, so there's, I think it's good to be able to share some of the mistakes. This is what, this is what we tried and this didn't work. And that's why we went this way. You know, I, I don't see anything wrong with that, although, you know, wisdom, again, prevails, depending on what you're talking about, how big the initiative is, etc, etc. There might be some things that are best left covered up in a corner, but other things, you know where you it's it's okay to show that element of this is where we had to flex and adapt, right and and then Eric had a lot of this does require cross collaboration with others within different organizational departments, although maybe not, right, it's who's who's gonna tell me that I can't write a little blurb in my. Newsletter,

you know? Well, I,

I was gonna say it depends perhaps on your organization, because, yeah, we're trying to launch this thing called learner home for our LMS, because we have cornerstone and we, we just wanted to do it like all it really is, is like literally having our LMS admin manager, like he can just literally toggle a switch and all of a sudden learner home would be activated, and we would move our LS from the 1990s into like, the 21st century. Be all jazz handy about it, right? We have now had leadership say that that is not appropriate. We can't do that now we have comms, and so comms has to now manage the entire process as far as like, look and feel of the LMS, even though they're not web designers and have no control over how learner home is designed, because Cornerstone did that. So here, here's an example of, like, we have to try to figure out if we can be cutting. We tried to be cutting, and you may end up getting somebody in leadership that that says, Wow, you're out of your lane now, like, you can't just communicate this little simple like, Hey, look at this new feature in your LMS, even if we own the LMS. Now we have to get communications, communications as a bureaucratic process, and they're like, Well, you can't communicate with staff unless you do XYZ. So I think you were the very compelling point. And I my, my story that I'm sharing is for a lesson for all of you, have right like, just be aware that your environment may or may not allow you to be able to be cunning and do change calms at your level. So right then, if you're told not, now we're trying to figure out how to be evil geniuses, because now we have these other members in this process so that we can try and minimize their bureaucratic impact as much as possible. Because we just want learner home activated. It's like just want this done over 10 years in the process of not being able to activate this feature for the same reasons that, apparently keep coming up and then kill the initiative. So

just so yeah, there are bigger issues there. But for sure, again, your results may vary. It's about understanding, you know, again, understanding your audience, understanding your organization, etc, you know, and, and understand, yeah, who do you? Who do you need to get involved? I'm I don't mind talking to marketing or communications or what have you, you know, because they could be a hand in a lot of this stuff, you know, hopefully not a barrier like that that seems very siloed off, you know, but, but a lot of organizations are, and hopefully then, as part of change management, I realize we're at the top of the hour. Here is, I'll just leave you with this. Last thing is, as we've all experienced with different change management initiatives, things just don't all of a sudden, hop there's, there was something happening in the background that made this change occur. You know? It's like the, it's like, the instruction on the blow dryer, right? Says, don't use in the shower. They put that tag on there because somebody did it, you know. So there's something happened in the background to make this change initiative happen. So now our job is also to have those boots on the ground to take that metaphor and do we have communications with the departments that we're most connected to? Do we keep open communications with comms? Do we keep open communications with marketing, with finance, with it, you know? So that way some of these change initiatives don't take us by surprise, and then we can be more instrumental when it comes to helping roll these things out. So that communication process works both ways, you know. And then when you're thinking about, well, I want to update the look of the LMS. Yeah, I could do it, but, you know, maybe I should ask marketing, if nothing else, to get their thoughts on how it looks. So that way, when it does get rolled out, everybody's not getting all excited on us, you know, So little things like that. So that sort of communication goes back and forth. Now, to close this out in the chat, I placed a change journey tool that when I was doing the work with Michelle ockers and. Laura Overton, as part of the emerging stronger initiative, we created a variety of different tools to help L and D out, and one of those tools is this change management or change journey tool. And hopefully you find this useful. We didn't have time to talk about it, and nor did I have it on my agenda to talk about it. Was just here's another resource for you guys to have and take a look and maybe help you plan things out for the future, not those change initiatives where you are a part of by accident, but ones that you actually do have a hand in. And so perhaps this can help you out a little bit more. Now on that note, um, thank you everyone for joining me this Friday and our next Coffee Chat. For those of you who are new, these chats happen every other week. The next one, October the eighth, and we're doing a round table. So I'm inviting some guests. I've got I've got JD Dylan coming in. I got Alania, who did our learning impact. She was she had an AMA and asked me anything for learning impact here a couple of months ago. So she's going to come back. I'm going to invite somebody else. I'm not going to give out a name, because they haven't accepted yet. So I'm not going to put them under the bus, but we'll have three. And what we're going to do is we're going to do a round robin discussion of different topics. And I think that's going to be fun. And that's going to be on November. Va, so that's in two weeks. So I look forward to seeing you all there. Oh, yes, November the eighth, not October the eighth. I don't have my way back machine here, so I hope everybody has a great weekend. Any special plans? Are you doing? Halloween decorating, pump, pumpkin carving, apple picking, Apple, cider drinking. What are you doing this weekend? Anyone got some plans? Football, well, your grandson's birthday. Oh, how cute. How old. Oh, I love that. Oh, so cute. At that age when they just don't care, right? They just want to run around.

It's all monster trucks all the time. Monster

Trucks all the time, cleaning out the garage. That does not sound like fun. I need to do that myself. I'm going to save it for spring and we have a giant garage sale. Oh, Phil, yeah, I gotta do that too. I'm going to be gone during on voting day. We see in Susan, as a matter of fact, um, put my ballot in the box yesterday. Yeah, I gotta, I've gotta go right down to the library and do it, but FEMA research, oh, that sounds really interesting. That sounds fascinating. No, it's not. She's saying, No, it's not that fascinating. But it does sound fascinating to me.

All right.

Well, hopefully everybody has a great weekend. Enjoy your time. We got some glorious fall weather happening where I'm at. Hopefully you have the same and I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks from now. So everybody have a great weekend. Bye, for now. Bye.