Ep 50 Stop Telling, Start Learning: Five Steps to People-Powered Change

[00:11] Gerrit: Dear listeners, a warm welcome to episode number 50 of Second Crack, The Leadership Podcast. If you're new to the show, this is where we explore complex leadership dilemmas and paradoxes, and where we invite you as our listener to self reflect. I am Gerrit Pelzer. I work as an executive coach and I bring to my coaching a combination of applied neuroscience and ancient zen wisdom. Joining me as always is my dear friend and business partner, Martin Aldergard. Martin specializes in driving change and transformation within organizations, and what we both have in common is that we always put people at the center of our work. Hi Martin, and thank you for being a wonderful podcast Partner in now 50 episodes.

[01:02] Martin: Thank you, likewise Gerrit. 50 episodes, yeah I never thought we would achieve that. And also a big thank you to our listeners, and also all the guests that we have had on the show over these 50 episodes.

[01:18] Gerrit: Yes, I can only second that and when we started, I wasn't sure if we can go over 10 episodes and, and suddenly it's 50. And what I wanna add is it's also much more work than I initially thought it would be, but still enjoying it. And, here's to the next 50.

[01:37] Martin: Yeah,and today we will talk about a topic that actually we should have talked about a long time ago because it's something that I've done over, over so many years. And that's actually how can we incorporate learning into change?

[01:51] Gerrit: Yeah, and it's, it's, not just about the learning, right? It's also about what we always say in our intro: it's about putting people truly at the center of change.

[02:00] Martin: And imagine this scenario. There is a leadership team that over a period of time they have analyzed and they have discussed the business performance. They've concluded what works, they have concluded what needs to be changed, and they are really convinced about now we have a strategy or a plan. This is how we're going to improve the performance of the business. And then they go out and they tell everybody what needs to change, and they expect things to happen. Does anything change? Typically not that much, or at least very, very slow.

[02:40] Gerrit: Yeah, and, Martin, maybe for some people that sounds very abstract, but this is a very real word example. I remember working with a senior leader who, in one coaching session, he was very proud to report that the senior leadership team went to a retreat, and I came up with a great new strategy and he presented the strategy to me and said, and now we're going to roll it out. I said, oh, oh, have you involved people before, do you know what people from the shop floor really need and how does it all link? And, and then he also looked at me and realized, oh yeah, we, we might not have included everyone in this process yet. And, and how are we going to do it?

[03:25] Martin: And this is really what we mean when we're saying putting people at the center of change. And for a leader, this really means to incorporate learning into the change process. And, and when speaking about learning, we are not talking about corporate training. We're talking about designing and leading the change around people's needs to understand and their need to make sense of the change by themselves.

 And that is then what really leads to motivation and ownership of change among managers, among employees, from the top to the shop floor. 

 In my experience as leaders, we tend to operate from more from a telling approach rather than creating real understanding and creating opportunity for people getting involved. And of course, it's the inner motivation among employees that is so important. The sense of feeling involved, to getting a chance to being involved, to feel important. That is what we need to create.

[04:35] Gerrit: Absolutely. I mean in any change process there is the, the question, why should I want to change, right? Because right now my um my situation is rather comfortable. If I do anything else it might get worse. And I think what I often see overlooked when people at the top level of an organization look at the change, clearly they see the need and with best intentions, they want people to follow this change. But what they forget to ask is this question: "what's in it for me?" And this applies to all levels of the organization and what I've experienced myself, and I was in manufacturing, often the shop floor people they know best where the real problems are and you need to involve them. And then rather from this high level strategic point of view, this is why we need to change and this is the vision for the future. You need to relate to the people at all levels. So starting from not just the top management, but middle management, frontline people, shop floor, there's this big question, "how will this change help solve my problems, or at least reduce my problems and helps me to work better?"

[05:58] Martin: Mm-hmm.

[05:59] Gerrit: And I, I recall one project, Martin we did together where an organization changed on a global level, their values, but they were rather abstract and high level. And I think what we did very successfully there was where we essentially we didn't say, these are the new values and now let's look how they relate to your problems. But we asked them what their problems are and then we said, okay, I see how this relates to these values. And I think with this approach you get so much more involvement from the people and it answers this question, "why would I want to change?" Well, because it's good for me, it helps me.

[06:41] Martin: And, and I'm also just thinking about most of us, we, we just don't like to be told what to do, right? It's very demotivating to be told what to do, rather than being the one that is empowered to figure out what do I need to do in this new situation. So, so what are we bumping into here, what are the dilemmas or the challenges?

I think one big challenge is this speed versus level of engagement. Of course, we want to engage everybody. Of course we want people to learn and, and have a chance to discuss. But there is the urgency to get things done quickly. Many leaders think it takes too long time to engage people, and leaders feel this pressure to move fast and see fast results. But what do we often get is this quick superficial change where we might be able to drive some relatively easy changes, the low hanging fruit, but we don't create this long-term sustainable change. And of course, in, especially in larger change projects, nothing really goes to plan. So how do we get adaptability, the improvement of the change when the initial plans didn't work? If people are not motivated, if they don't feel the ownership, if they cannot connect the dots, how can they help to improve the change plan when it doesn't really work out as originally intended?

And the other thing I think is this compliance versus commitment. There's still this running the organizations like a machine. I still encounter leaders in organizations that believe just telling people, they have to do it or they will do it because they, they are expected to do what they have to do at the job, right. And what do we get then? We get people to say I do this because my boss told me to do this, or do I really do it because I choose to do it because it makes sense to me. Just like what you told about what's in it for me, how is this relevant to me, how does this make my life easier?

[08:56] Gerrit: And if I can add another perspective to it as like when you said, "I just do this because my boss told me so", um, imagine something goes wrong. Whose fault is it? Yeah, the boss's fault, right? I was just following instructions, but the moment I feel more involved and I see this makes sense, then I feel also more inclined to do something about it. So it's not working right away, so how can I make it work rather than ending up with: yeah, I just executed the plan, it's not working, it's your fault.

[09:29] Martin: Yeah, and then waiting for somebody to tell me to do something differently, right. I'm also thinking about leaders that really with best intentions, thinking that providing answers, providing perfect explanations, that is the way of leading. But we also need to give opportunity for people to think by themselves and create the same level of understanding. That is when we as equals can drive the change forward. Everybody has an important part to play. The leader is not the one that needs to have all the perfect answers and all the perfect explanations of everything, it needs to be co-created. Of course, telling might feel safer for a leader. Dialogue, discussions, might always raise questions that you might not have the answer for initially, it feels like you're letting go of control, like you are not in charge.

[10:30] Gerrit: Yeah, and, I think there are so many different facets to this, Martin. I think on the one hand, like you said before, I think leaders who tell, it's not just that they have bad intentions and they don't want to involve people, they're really convinced this is the fastest way. We, the leadership team, we have looked at it. We have explored all options, this is the best way forward. And now if everybody just follows and executes, this will be the fastest way, but usually it isn't.

And then there is this other aspect that it may feel also safer. I think that's a very different facet from it where there is maybe an element of fear or discomfort involved. And there's another one that, say, somebody is truly interested in what other people have to say. They may come up with questions or suggestions that the organization can't follow. And this brings up an entirely different dilemma. So the leader shows up and says, "yeah, I really want to hear about your problems, I want to hear your opinion." And then people share their opinion, and then the leader may be in a situation to say, okay, I hear you, but we are still going to do it differently. And this is really an art, this, this way of saying a 'positive no', so that people don't end up with a situation I said: "Okay, yeah, the leadership team came now and asked me for my opinion, but now nobody really listens." So how can I make clear I have listened, I get your point. And still please, here's the explanation why we can't do it that way, at least for now.

[12:18] Martin: I am, I'm super happy you brought this angle up, Gerrit because I have the solution. It's not, it's not an art. It's a step by step small process that every leader can apply.

[12:32] Gerrit: Hmm.

[12:33] Martin: To not get in the dilemma where people feel like they spoke up, but you didn't listen to them because you said no.

[12:41] Gerrit: Okay, surprise me Martin, because this has not been scripted, so I'm very curious to hear your solution.

[12:48] Martin: And this is what I help helped companies with for more than 20 years, and I worked in small departments of perhaps less than a hundred people, all the way up to multinational companies where we involved 40,000 people in big changes across continents. And the design principles are the same five steps. I must say I must give lots of credit to a very nice gentleman, Mr. Klas Mellander, and he's the founder of a Swedish company named Celemi that I worked with very closely over the years and I use tools of Celemi in many of my projects. And Klas Mellander, he's saying: "We cannot absorb other peoples' knowledge. We must create our own."

[13:40] Gerrit: Hmm.

[13:40] Martin: And this is exactly what we've been talking now in our whole introduction. And Klas describes these five steps that enables learning and change. And the very good thing is these five steps, they're universal. They mirror how we as human create new insights, how we learn and how we take action as human beings. And the other good thing is every leader can apply these five steps. They're easy to apply because they are common sense.

[14:14] Gerrit: All right, Martin, you're, you're building up nicely to the climax. So what are the five steps?

[14:19] Martin: So as a leader, when we want to start to involve people in change, the first step is obvious. We need to trigger and spark initial curiosity, initial interest in wanting to know more. If I want to listen to what you have to say, you need to make me curious first. The dilemma here for leaders is that often we as leaders, because this question is so important to us, and we have made this conclusion, we had this aha moment already, for instance together with the rest of the leadership team, this and this, and this needs to change because of that and that. To us, we are super motivated, we want to see this happen immediately. So we assume very easily that everybody else is equally motivated to want to explore.

[15:09] Gerrit: Yeah.

[15:10] Martin: But they are not at the same stage as we are. We are much ahead of the rest of the organization. So we really need, as leaders we need to stop, we need to understand where people are. What can we use to spark their initial curiosity and interest to want to be part, to want to know more about this. It's easy to say, but it demands understanding of the organization, different audiences, different target groups, they're all different. So this is then where we need to work on the details. And what I work with communication teams, with leadership teams, with the HR teams, with the change management team is really then to understand where's the organization, what can we use for different target groups to start to get them involved? Where are they?

[16:03] Gerrit: So, so Martin, let me interrupt you here. Are you saying that before we go into the organization, communicating let's say ideas and strategy, we just put this on the back burner and instead we make a in my words, an analysis of the status quo and, and what the issues at the different levels of the organization are?

[16:26] Martin: Yes, we need to understand them because we need to be in their shoes, when we design the learning and the communication. Then we can provide information, because people need to have information. Like in your example, you said, okay, as a leader, I invite my team and I ask people, okay, what do you think, I'm open to listen. And then people start to talk. Then you need to say, no, sorry, we cannot do that, and then people feel cheated. What we need to do is we need to help people to understand your point of view as a leader. So many times here is to help people understand the situation of the company. What's the context of the change, what do our customers say, what happening with competition, what about our performance? This depends on what we are changing, but we need to introduce the chance for employees and managers to understand the same context as we understand as leaders. Else what they're going to talk about from their point of view, employee point of view, is not relevant to me as a leader because I'm, I'm in a different context. First of all, we need to equal the playing field so that managers and employees can share out of a position where we speak the same language and see the same basic challenges. Does that make sense?

[17:56] Gerrit: It does. And I also feel reminded when you said providing information. When I first heard it, I felt it can be, again, a little bit of a top down approach. But I also feel reminded of, workshops I conducted myself and the preparation work was within the organization to ask relatively simple questions. For instance, what is the team good at? What is the team struggling with and what is one, one thing we should change over the next, let's say six months? And then reflecting these back to the participants. And this can also be very interesting, because let's say when I'm working in an organization, I see my own day-to-day work. I may be exposed to certain teams, but I never see the full picture. And then just reflecting back, something as simple as the results of a survey makes me- and when I say me, it can be either, it can be any participant in the organization, but it can also be the leader who sees a more complete picture of the situation. 

[19:06] Martin: And I think you're totally right. Providing information, providing context, it's two ways. It's both, so to say, the top way, moving the top perspective downwards in the organization, but also of course, moving the perspective further down from the organization upwards towards the top of the organization. 

So also here, I think many leaders we understand, okay, we've got to provide information to the organization. And what do we do? We do newsletters, we do town hall meetings, we send out endless PowerPoints. We overload the organization with information, because again, perhaps we didn't understand what do they need to know? But nothing more.

[19:53] Gerrit: Hmm.

[19:54] Martin: And we don't need to drown people in the information that they don't have any chance to making sense of.

 So this leads us to the third step, which I believe is the critical step. And that's providing the opportunity to process the information. And what does that mean? That means the opportunity to discover, to play around, to experiment, to explore, to discuss together. It could be, for instance, about competition, about customers, about process, about performance, about technology, anything that sets the context, the environment of the change. When we learn as human beings, we need to play around with what we're learning. We cannot just read it or listen to it and then suddenly say, oh, now I understand. So we need to build in opportunity to process. And of course this can take many shapes. It can be workshops, it can be online, it can be a video, it can be a dialogue, it can be a part of the meeting that we help to design, where leaders actually getting materials and scripts and questions. And small exercises that employees can work in small groups. Or it can be done individually. If you want to engage 10,000 people, we use digital tools. 

The problem here is of course, the lack of time and the urgency to get things done. And we really need to fight to create and get time for processing. If we don't take time to give people a chance to process, we pay the price, slower change, later.

And the processing leads to step number four. And I think this one you recognize. As a human being, I have an "aha" moment. This is like the light bulb is switching on- this is what this means to me, or this is why I think this is interesting, and now I understand what my boss is talking about. We need the "aha" moments and these aha moments they're coming from experience, they're coming from the processing. Again, they don't come from explanations. But many leaders, we believe we can save time by telling people the conclusions, but we can't. People need to have the aha moment, the conclusion by themselves.

[22:23] Gerrit: And this aha moment, or this moment of insight is also what we look for in coaching. So you can have lengthy coaching sessions, but what I'm always looking for is where are moments where the other person, for instance, just gets quiet. Or where we see maybe also in, again, coming back to the workshop scenario, right, or you give a presentation and you look at the audience and suddenly you see their, their faces brightening up. So they, they don't necessarily say, "I get it", but you can see when they're getting it, when something changes in insides their brains. And, these are wonderful moments to, to witness.

[23:06] Martin: Mm-hmm.

[23:07] Gerrit: And maybe just to add, this is also where I like, again, the idea that you mentioned before. Instead of one-way information, having these real dialogues where you can then can also observe how people are responding to certain messages. Because otherwise you don't get any feedback as a leader when or if people are having these aha moments or not.

[23:33] Martin: Yeah. And when people have this insight, this is also when we really need to think about how can we help people to take action. Because when you have this aha moment, you want to do something with it. That's the moment of opportunity that we need to capture. And as leaders, many times we underestimate the support people need. So, for instance, we might provide examples of what can be done. But also we need to provide information about, let's say timelines, about resources, about priorities. So this is the important opportunity where we need to set contexts so people understand, aha, okay, these are the tools that we have, these are the constraints that we have to work within. And if we provide this and people understand it, they also more accepting, and then we avoid the dilemma that you mentioned at the very start: involving, listening to people and then having to say no, and then people getting demotivated.

[24:40] Gerrit: If I may just recap these five steps, "spark initial curiosity and motivation", "provide information", "opportunity to process", "the AHA movement" and finally, "action". I would also assume that they are intertwined, right? It's not like, the sequence. So you, you complete step one and then two, I think many of these will run in parallel, right? So you can also take some action before you have done all, all four steps before consecutively,

[25:13] Martin: On all, all five steps. And actually this is a good point. When we use this to help organizations to lead the change, we design journeys. So this means that we go through this circle, step one to five multiple times. 

And this is also then many times how we need to work with leaders, to move from a "communication plan" type of approach to a "learning plan" type of a approach. That means how can we design a learning journeys in several steps for each audience. 

This is very much a designed experience. 

The key point here is to have it shared. It doesn't matter so much what you learn and think individually Gerrit. What matters is, that I know what you are thinking and you learn and know what I'm thinking, that we learn together. Because in an organization, we need to work together, right? So we need to have relatively aligned insights about what's important, what needs to be changed, why do we do this? And I want to know that you are equally motivated as I am. If I start to doubt how committed and motivated you are, I'm going to slow down as well.

[26:36] Gerrit: Yeah, and at least I think the, this alignment is not always possible. But if you can at least reach this stage of mutual understanding, and then even if one person, how should I say, does not get all they want in this transformational change process. At least there is a chance for mutual respect and still moving forward together into one direction because we have at least heard and understood the others.

[27:07] Martin: Mm-hmm. And I wanted to connect what you're saying now, back with what you said at the very beginning. This dilemma as leaders, we know we, we need to listen. We know we need to ask powerful questions. Questions that invoke dialogue, that invoke reflection. That makes people feel they are important and that they are heard. But we also need to provide context so that we speak the same language, that we are on the common playing field. Else we so easily end up in this situation where leaders invite people, share your ideas. Either people don't talk or they share something. Quietly the leader thinks that's totally irrelevant. Of course they need to say, oh, thank you, that's a good idea, thank you for contributing. Uh, and then nothing happens. Then both sides are frustrated, right. Leaders saying, it is a waste of time to listen, and employees say it's a waste of time to talk. If we use these five steps, we have a much higher chance to actually, arrive at joint agreed action at the end.

[28:19] Gerrit: Hmm. And I wonder, Martin, when we talk about change, I think there's, on one hand there are these big change initiatives, major transformation in an organization. At the same time, there are these daily changes. So apart from any major, let's call it transformation initiative, I need to monitor the market all the time, I need to look for continuous opportunity or, continuous improvement opportunities. How would you differentiate? So is this approach with the five steps, is that something that you would primarily apply in the major transformation, or do you see this also applicable for actually our everyday life?

[29:04] Martin: I think this can be part of every leader's toolbox to think about these five steps in everything I do when I want to involve and motivate and engage my team. It can be built on helping them to have aha moments.

[29:20] Gerrit: Yep.

[29:21] Martin: Shared aha moments and taking share if, if this is a continuous improvement cycle. Create initial curiosity about what can we do more. Help people to share, to have the same level of information, create opportunities, and that could be meetings, brainstorming, meetings that can take many shapes, the processing step. But making it shared experience is important.

[29:44] Gerrit: Yeah.

[29:45] Martin: So I definitely think every leader can incorporate this into their toolbox. So the power of learning is really a tool then to involve people, to motivate, right. And really put people at the center

[30:01] Gerrit: Yeah.

[30:02] Martin: of everything we do as leaders, right.

[30:05] Gerrit: I, I definitely see how this can play out wonderfully. And I wonder if there's anything else you want to add or if we should wrap things up with our invitation for reflection questions.

[30:20] Martin: I have a lot of reflection questions, so do you like to start, because I have talked a lot.

[30:26] Gerrit: Well, I also have many, and I maybe, how, how many questions may I ask? So, because so many still came up for me. So I have maybe three questions. The first one is coming back to this perceived dilemma between speed and involving everyone. So if you are now as a leader in such a change process, how do you handle this dilemma between wanting to move fast but eventually needing the time to involving as many people as possible, if not everyone in the organization?

The second is then what I often see is that leaders see themselves supporting others in the change process. But as a leader, how do you get support and who supports you in this change process? And the last one, I think I need to add a little bit of context because we talked about asking powerful questions, listening to others, and there is this point of are you truly interested in what the other people have to say? And I want to add here, it's not coming from a point of arrogance, but simply when people have been a long time in a job, in an industry, they are very senior in their leadership role. There's just this natural feeling almost of "I know better." But if I really want to listen to other people that requires that I'm truly interested in what they have to say. But this then also needs the openness to eventually Yeah, open up to different points of views. And I think this can also be a wonderful opportunity because no matter how clear my strategy and vision for the future was in the beginning, when I start listening to others, maybe something new can emerge, which is even better than my initial view.

[32:42] Martin: Many leaders they are afraid when we start to involve people in understanding the needs for change, when we give them an opportunity to process. " What if people get the wrong ideas, I want them to go this direction. But what if they do the wrong conclusions?" And in my experience, people are clever. If we give them a chance to understand, they will pretty much make the same conclusions as you as a senior leader. But sometime they do it from their perspective, and as you mentioned, sometime it becomes even better because they are adding their perspective, their insights from their point of view that makes the overall picture much better. So as a leader, I don't think we need to fear that people do the wrong conclusions. But suddenly we are creating partners of change. Because they understand where we are coming from and together we drive this forward.

I had many questions. Um, 

[33:49] Gerrit: Yeah, just shoot. 

[33:51] Martin: I have one single reflection question now. I think the starting point in most of the projects that I've been involved in is: what would make this change relevant and meaningful for the people that we need to get on board?

[34:10] Gerrit: Wow.

[34:11] Martin: Because without that, we have nothing to work with. So in the change that you're leading, the change that you're involved in, what is it that makes this relevant to the people we need to get involved?

[34:27] Gerrit: Wow, that's really powerful and, and we can see how actually from many questions, possible questions. It can sometimes boil down to the one critical question.

[34:41] Martin: I really love this conversation Gerrit, where I talk so much about something that is really at my heart. And I got a lot of inspiration and these key principles from Klas Mellander about the five steps. Create curiosity, provide information, provide opportunity for people to process, coach them to this aha moment, and then help them to take action. That really drives amazing results, Gerrit.

[35:10] Gerrit: Yeah. So wonderful and I can hear your passion in that and thank you so much for, for sharing this. And this concludes today's episode. If you as our listener would like our support in developing your leaders, helping you in a change process, whether that's in a company-wide initiative or through individual executive coaching, please do not hesitate to contact us via hello@secondcrackleadership.com. That's all in one word.

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Bye for now.