6 Levers (Ep. 7)
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[00:00:00] Six Levers [Ep. 7 - Navigating Change]
Josh: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Six Levers podcast, where we talk about simple tools for healthy teams. I'm your host, Josh Aranda. Let's go.
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All right, well, we are excited to introduce Jo Pang, special guest for today's episode. Joe's the newest member of Mission Matters Group, head of community for Six Levers. Joe, you wanna say hi?
Jo Pang: Hi. It's really great to be here.
Josh: All right. We will go with a quick check-in question: What is a change that you are noticing?
Shaun: Well, I think the one that comes to mind for me, and this is probably top of mind for maybe other members of – on the call right here, other team – [00:00:45] the members on the call, is the school year's ending. So it, I just realized this is the final week of school. I think it – realized over the weekend, it came upon us really quickly and so we're changing into summer and there's a lot of change for my kiddos. The ones changing from preschool to kindergarten and other ones changing from elementary school to middle school and – well, the oldest’s last year in middle school – but yeah, lots of change with just the rhythms of the family and how that's gonna look for the summer.
Nice.
Joe Olwig: You know, a couple weeks ago I was out at my parents' house for Mother's Day and my dad couldn't stop talking about the weather and the pollen out of his house. He must have told me about it like three or four times, and [00:01:30] by the end of the day, I was giving him trouble about it because I wasn't really noticing anything.
Well, I went on a run the next day and I was like hacking up a lung because I couldn't stop coughing. So I had to text him back and say, You know what? You were right. You were, you were onto something, and I shared that today because I guess the weather's changing because I've got the allergy thing going, – and I'm excited about the weather change. I spent a lot of time out in the yard over the weekend, and that was a lot of fun, but I think I'm paying for it this morning.
Jo Pang: With the weather change, Joe, I used to think that the primary reasons [00:02:15] birds migrated was because of weather change, but I learned that primarily they're migrating so that they can access caterpillars. So like wherever the caterpillars are, the caterpillars are converting plants into bird food through their, you know, being.
And so I've been noticing where I live, there's, it's in the woods. There's a lot of different bird species, and I've gotten this app, where it can listen, like you turn it on and it can listen to the bird sounds and it identifies and like shows up which ones are shown up. Oh, it's true, and like every day it's like I hear – I'm starting to get to know different sounds, like what's normal and what's changing and pick out, Oh, this is a new instrument in the orchestra I haven't heard before.
And so I just noticed a couple different birds today and even yesterday and it's just been like a [00:03:00] really amazing way to learn like, all of the different, sounds and seeing all the different birds kind of coming through and how much change is happening that I wasn't attuned to before.
Joe Olwig: That's amazing.
Josh: One change that I've been noticing is really our family dynamics. My wife's getting ready to open up a gym, her brand new business endeavor, and yeah, our – we're trying to be more intentional with when and how we spend time together so she can do her work, I can do my work, and still have an awesome family life.
And so yeah,our family dynamics I think are the thing that I'm observing right now and it's fun and stressful at times, but also [00:03:45] very, very meaningful.
All right. Well, overall today's topic is about navigating change. So this is one of my favorite quotes, so I'm gonna share it and then we'll just go ahead and dive in.
“The only constant in life is change”, right? We can expect it, we can assume it, we can resist it, but it's always gonna come and we can figure out how to be intentional with that time and so really today's topic is about navigating change within organizations. I'm sure we'll have different tangents, but we're gonna break it up into two really, really important, sections.
So the first one is how do we anticipate and prepare for the challenges that come with change, right? We know it's gonna come and so how can we get ahead of it a little bit [00:04:30] and anticipate that? And then the second thing is we're just gonna focus on how does the Six Levers framework actually help and navigate change for teams, for organizations, and for leaders?
So the first question, just to kick it off, to you all is what is difficult for teams to step into significant change? If we can just touch on that a little bit and then we'll let it navigate from there.
Shaun: I think there's some like, just very basic things to think about, like why it's difficult to step into change and, so maybe I'll just start with the easy low-hanging-fruit stuff that we can probably all relate to, which is, that we've got a lot going on already. Most of us, we live in lives that feel like they're already overloaded regardless of what our work looks like.
And so when we start to [00:05:15] say we've got this new significant thing, this new way of working or new project, or a new level of complexity, whatever it might be, we immediately begin to stack against like the things that we already are responsible for, the priorities that we already have and so it becomes challenging for teams to imagine doing extra, doing different, right? Knowing that the ways that they can largely feel like pretty busy right now. So there's more to say here, but I'll pause there and let the other folks jump in.
Jo Pang: Yeah, I think that, just to add on onto that, like the overload that people are experiencing, is one I think that really increases the, they call like “learning anxiety” – that, Okay, I know to make [00:06:00] this change I'm gonna have to both learn a lot of new stuff and unlearn a lot of, which is probably the harder part, a lot of things and ways I've already been doing things.
And I think often organizations can just underestimate the amount of support, and capacity is gonna be needed to really navigate that. So almost kind of taking on more than the organization has capacity for, both to roll out the change in a way that people are adequately supported, and adding that on top of what they're probably, yeah, already a pretty overwhelming day.
Joe Olwig: Yeah, maybe just one more thing to add here is just our past experiences with change and [00:06:45] even as that quote, Josh, that you share to kickoff becomes more and more used and even made meaningful inside cultures, we oftentimes just don't have the best past experiences when it comes to change. whether it be because we didn't get to get a say in the change and we actually didn't want to be a part of it, or it just didn't go well and it was messy and we're just not looking forward to another version of that.
You know, I think that that plays a huge role, right? Is just the, our past experiences with it, combined with some of the other things we've heard land us in a place where our posture around it is just a little bit [00:07:30] shy or, you know, not looking forward to it.
Josh: Yeah. Joe, one thing I wanted to touch on when you were talking, we talk about past experiences, right? All of us have been through change. Some of us have good experiences, some have bad, any experiences or stories that you can share with some of the organizations that we've helped navigate change?
What was that change that we were helping 'em navigate through and what was the end result that we can kind of touch on? Both a good example and a bad example would be awesome.
Joe Olwig: Yeah. I think in terms of the common threads, when the change doesn't go as planned it has to do with the team's motivation [00:08:15] around it and just recognizing what's the real “why” behind the change in the first place. You know, teams are constantly trying to get better and for good reasons, with good intentions, and at the same time, it's not always clear.
Why are we gonna shift this way of working to this way of working? Like, I'm not sure I fully understand it. I'm not sure I'm fully motivated to be a part of it. And because there's not a moment where the team really comes together to be intentional about aligning on what that is, what is that reason? It flounders, right? And so you just, you don't see the new system picking up as effectively, [00:09:00] as quickly. You feel this friction or this resistance, and yeah, and you just don't see the change that you're hoping for.
So that motivational piece, the emotional connection to the change and an understanding around the “why”, is so important and so I think the most common solution that we've found and been a part of with teams is making sure that we're bringing that dialogue up to the forefront of the conversation, in the process where we're really working to align on where are we right now, involve that stakeholder group who's ultimately gonna be expected to make the change, to be a part of the solutioning and a part of the design around where are we going, [00:09:45] and through that meaningful process, feel all the more motivated to make the switch and to see that change through.
Shaun: Joe, I just wanna double down on that a little bit. Cause I think, you know, this reminds me of that quote, “We're going slow so we can go fast later,” and there's a, I think this does an important application here where, like you're saying, aligning on our current state – I know, we'll get to this a little bit later in this pod, but kind of our current dissatisfaction and the things that we're unhappy with, and then also aligning, slowing down a little bit to like, Where do we want to be? And therefore, you know, just really aligning on that motivation for change.
And I would agree both as my experience in [00:10:30] organizations as someone who was sort of the affected object in a big change movement and not necessarily leading it, I often felt that, like, it often felt like, I get that we're going through this big thing, but I'm not entirely clear why we're doing it, right?
So there's like, there's an important leadership component to this to slow down and really do that and make sure the members of the team are – that we're adequately bought in to changing the state of where we are right now.
Jo Pang: Shaun, that reminds me of, you know, I think a lot of the larger strategic change that organizations are going through are probably, hopefully represented in some kind of like, strategic plan or like, as part of some kind of strategizing process.
And [00:11:15] there's research that's found that 95% of employees and organizations don't even know what the organization's like, strategy is. So to speak to that “why” that you've both spoken to – I mean that's really, really pathetic for how much is invested in the process and it just kind of illuminates, well, no wonder, like, any change, right?
As the organization is pivoting, why organizations have to focus so much resources on change management on the backend, because like on the earlier end, that wasn't something that was adequately understood how important that is and, yes, it takes more capacity in the beginning to really bring the whole organization into that and let the strategy be shaped by actually the organization.
Josh: [00:12:00] Yeah, that makes me think of a story. Back in 2017, we were brought into an organization to do a technology audit and basically design a new information management system and this was part of their strategic plan, and so we got brought in and the day of our discovery we're onsite, the executive director is introducing us, and someone raises their hand and they go, Who are these people and why are they even here?
And that's how we kicked it off, and this is a massive, massive change initiative and they were gonna spend $60-100,000 dollars on this initiative and again, not that the money's important, it's more about the change [00:12:45] and what it's supposed to enable for them. But there was no alignment, no communication, and everybody was blindsided. So it felt like they – it was being done to them. So, yeah.
Shaun: Josh, that reminds me of a little funny story related to that, I remember. One time, I was in a getting introduced by a – the point of contacting a client who'd been, who the process to sign the proposal was pretty rushed, right?
And so we didn't, it wasn't the normal getting to know and fully understanding their needs and the understanding us, and we got to that first meeting and she introduced me as a member of from “Mission Moments” and like, I was like, Well, that's not our name, but I'm not entirely surprised that you get it wrong given that you're rushing so quickly into this [00:13:30] engagement, right?
But there's little evidence points of like, how are we planning for this movement the right way? And only share, I think we're sharing our context of, you know, as consultants we're often almost always leading some type of change, facilitating some type of change, whether it's a little bit or a significant one.
Josh: Yeah, that's good. You know, we internally talk about, specifically with the Six Levers framework, we talk about organizations leaving up some of their most strategic activities to chance. Well, change is a part of every initiative and a lot of the time we don't think about it – we leave it up for chance. I just hope that it lands well with the rest of the organization.
What are some models that can help teams [00:14:15] navigate change that you've seen effective, useful, repurposed in some way, shape, or form?
Shaun: Jo Pang, I love you to jump in on this one first, if you don't mind.
Jo Pang: Yeah. The, one of the longest standing change models is, a change model by Lewin, is like in the 19 – I think 30s or 40s – and has been used in organizations and also society as to just describing, not so much telling people how to manage change, but how the change process actually works, and we've done a little work on the Six Levers team of integrating this with a model by Beckert to kind of bring home how we can apply it basically in a setting.
And the three general [00:15:00] phases of change are this idea of unfreezing, which I think we've spent some time on, but this is the part that's often dismissed and the unfreezing is just making sure the person's actually, if you can imagine sort of like ready and more fluid, more able to, navigate or make a change.
And often that does require what Shaun was saying about some amount of dissatisfaction with the current state or with how things might end up if we keep going the way we are, but that dissatisfaction also has to be housed within a sense of support and psychological safety and so basically that psychological safety and support has to be greater than.
The dissatisfaction and learning anxiety that comes with it. Otherwise, if you've imagined times where you've been invited to [00:15:45] change something but you're not ready, we can get defensive, we can shut it out, we can be in denial. All these things are really natural reactions to when our dissatisfaction is greater than the support or safety that we feel to be able to even see a new future.
So that's the unfreezing phase. The change is really that visioning phase of, oh, what is possible? And we're starting to take some first steps into it. Often consultants and just people and organizations start there versus spending adequate time making sure that the first part is underway, right? That they're, that that's the ripe conditions for, for change.
It's just like some fruits, when you pick it off the tree, it will never get ripe. It doesn't matter if it's sitting on your counter. It just, it's done right and that's kind of what we're seeing here, is we wanna get [00:16:30] to the point where there's a ripeness or readiness, and then the refreezing is that change when it's first done is fragile. So we can't just think that, Oh, well we did the, you know, the quarterly sync for the first time and now we've got it, and now it'll just go on like that. There's such momentum to go back to those habits that we've built. So also there's often less attention here on how to reinforce as leaders, as consultants, as whoever is, you know, trying to make sure the change stays.
We have to do things to help make it really integrated into the organization's new way of doing things, both at the individual level that the behaviors individual people need to exhibit, are encouraged, and they need to not exhibit are [00:17:15] discouraged and at an organizational level, which is where the Six Levers framework, you know, comes in really strongly is how do we reinforce it with our system such that it's kind of natural and as we say, you don't need to be a superhero to live into this new, you know, way of doing things.
So, we found that model is like, yeah, really helpful to just make sure the emphasis isn't just placed on the first steps that we're taking, but that there's all of this pre- and post-emphasis that needs to be in place.
Shaun: To this piece about psychological safety, I'd love to like just go a little bit deeper into and see if any of us wanna like kick this one around, but it reminds me kind of, you know, I think early in my career as a [00:18:00] consultant, I probably was ineffective in making sure that there was – Joe, you even talk about like, that the house is sturdy enough to be able to take, you know, whatever's coming to hit the organization from just an understanding of like what, you know, how things currently are and so I think my – I had this tendency many years ago to like really align teams on how bad things were, right, in order to get to the change point and part of that was right, but I think, you know, whether we're the – if we're not taking the time as leaders, and I think this is both from a consultant and leadership in the organization leading the change to like make sure that we can actually process that in a way that is – feels safe, right? That actually is safe. [00:18:45] We're unlikely to like wanna move beyond to the visioning and actually some change and early momentum, so, I just wanna say I've seen that as so important even with our clients like or prospective clients when we're delivering something as simple as, like, the org-health assessment results and they may get some scores that are not where they thought they were gonna be.
Like they get like a score on where they are and their rhythms or their team cohesion, and it feels like a disconnect with what they thought. We as consultants have to work to make sure that, Hey, it's okay. Like we see a lot of these results. There are many teams that are in a similar boat to you. It's okay, but we do need to understand where we are. So there's something about the balance of satisfaction and the dissatisfaction and an environment of safety that feels really important [00:19:30] to tend to as leaders.
Joe Olwig: Yeah. Shaun, I mean, that makes me think about trying to drive change inside of an organization as well. I mean, if you're external, you've gotta come into that change with some direct dialogue around, Why are we here? Who are we letting our guard down, letting them know what we're – who we're all about and what we're doing?
And to try to just work directly to build that trust and just, in a real relational way, so that we can create some psychological safety. If we can't establish that, it's gonna be really difficult to do anything, much [00:20:15] less drive some big change, but the same's true internally, right?
Like even when you have relationships with people, who you work with on a regular basis, starting off that process by getting in that, you know, dialogue space and aligning on, Why are we here? Why are we in the room? Right? What's this all about? Let's be transparent, let's be open, let's create this space. To have that initial just dialogue around the why just goes such a long way in building that psychological safety.
Josh: Yeah. Something, Joe Olwig, when you were talking earlier on about past experiences, one thing that I think as leaders we often overlook is [00:21:00] our teammates’ experiences with a similar type of change that we're driving. For example, I was talking to a colleague, a few weeks ago, I was getting some insight into a professional development plan that we were rolling out and just getting their feedback and they shared their experience with professional development plans before.
They're like, Oh, I despise these things, and he's like, I'll tell you why. He's like, Because last time at my last company, they had me create this plan. They said, Hey, you know you're gonna get a pay bump if you nail all these things. Well, this person went above and beyond, nailed everything in there.
There was a change in who they reported to. That person didn't honor it. They got angry [00:21:45] because they didn't get a pay bump. They did all this work and it was basically overlooked. They're like, I will never do these in my own organization, and so like, every single person within our team has some experience with change.
And to create that psychological safety, we have to have some type of baseline understanding of what everybody's experience with. Now, that doesn't seem super scalable but if we're going into this change, we're gonna be met with resistance – and we've touched on that word a little bit, but –
Based on your all's consulting experience, how would you help a client, an organization, a colleague, go about getting a baseline understanding of the different experiences their teammates have had with a similar type of change that they're basically driving, right? If it's a [00:22:30] strategic planning operation, professional development, any stories that you have in terms of how you've helped them navigate or what you've seen them do effectively?
Shaun: Well, I think for one thing is, you know, as it relates to something like a, you know, a new way of thinking about employee development, for example, it could be on the front-end just like, making it as inclusive as a process as possible, right?
So how does it, like – being developed, like, including everyone's views in that and I think this is one to - this is an important one to consider because I think we all, most of us have mostly negative experiences with something like this, right? So just knowing that that's true and that we can probably all recall like, these not [00:23:15] great, not fun, you know, whatever.
Just like, that's not a great thing we think about when we think about development plans saying, How do we just – it'll include as many people as possible, on the team and throughout the different teams so that they can feel they were represented in it and we're, they're probably going to be a lot less likely to have resistance to that change knowing that they had a contribution towards it being developed.
Jo Pang: I think to that end, I would want to understand more deeply and help them be part of even the pre-designed, pre-we-need-a-performance-plan and say, What are we needing? Like, where are our attentions in the organization where we don't have a systemic solution for? So, for example, people aren't [00:24:00] getting feedback regularly from each other and we like feedback to help us grow.
So whatever our system design is, we need some mechanisms for people to be all getting feedback. We believe in delineating performance as an organization. We decide that's something we wanna have in place. So we need some way of, some way of people as fair as possible, having some sense of how they stack up against each other.
If that's what the organizations decide they need to do, how do we do that? Oh, we also need a way of deciding do people get a raise or not. So how would we do that? And sort of break it down into the needs where now we're realizing the – we're having tensions because we have certain needs as an organizational system for which we don't have a design and then from there, if [00:24:45] it – that sort of eliminates some of the kind of ways of doing things.
Other organizations are like, having a performance plan, forgetting starting there actually, but backing up further into the need where people have common ground and where we're talking about the real thing rather than the construct above the need that has previously been used as the strategy to meet that need that may or may not be actually the right strategy for us at all to meet those needs.
So I think connecting at the need level brings everyone to common ground, which then allows us to co-design strategies to meet that.
Shaun: Yeah, that's great. And I think – I love that Joe and I think another thing, you know, for whatever [00:25:30] gets designed out of a better understanding of those needs, even, also communicating that we're gonna be committed to some learning loops in this, right? And pausing and looking back and continuing to gather feedback into whatever the thing is or the process is that we roll out. It communicates to teams that like, Hey, we are trying some things here, but we don't assume that we're gonna get it all right and we want your continued feedback and we're gonna continue to make it better and better.
Jo Pang: I think what you're speaking to is sort of this, what I was speaking to was, and you were previously, is like bringing a lot of people in, right? But then the trap of that can be, when I've worked with organizations, very strong consensus cultures, a lot of participatory – it can be very slow [00:26:15] if that's not also coupled with a learning environment and a sense of we're constantly trying and learning that those things both kind of have to be in place to not fall too far into one trap or the other.
And so I think what we're speaking to is, you know, the top-down. Tell people below, here's what you need to change. Do it. It really doesn't work very well. We know that. Consensus-building all exclusively with a very low-risk culture also doesn't work and so I think what we're speaking to is how do we find in collaboration consensus, culture, and a learning environment?
And I think one of the really micro ways that we teach that with Six Levers is having dates associated with agreements, right? So if we make an agreement, Okay, this quarter we're gonna try this thing, it has an end date, and having the end date for evaluation [00:27:00] allows us as like, employees, as people part of the team, to be more willing to try something without blocking it or resisting it or whatever.
We can all find mutual willingness a lot easier if we know here's the date where we're gonna see, Did this work? We're all willing to change it completely if we need to and I think that kind of gets us out of the trap of both the top-down, just telling people what to do, the total consensus, but we have to get it perfect.
And we're trying to find freedom here with both and I think that's where a lot of organizations, especially in the nonprofit world, in collaboration-focused organizations that want to do things in more participatory way, I think that's where we have a lot of [00:27:45] room to all grow.
Josh: That's great.
Joe Olwig: Yeah, Joe, that makes me think about the idea that big change starts small and just like leveraging the power of small wins when it comes to change as well. You know, one of the areas that we have the most reps in when it comes to change is just unpacking a meeting that's not working well and sort of helping a team redesign and re-roll out a meeting if there's anything that people are resistant about inside orgs.
It's like a new meeting format because so oftentimes we're just fatigued by the ineffectiveness of meeting formats, but if we can channel a lot of the strategies that we've called out so [00:28:30] far, drive toward a – the small win of, Hey, this meeting actually is really working well, we start to build belief around the broader change that we're trying to build inside the org, whether that be related to any one of the levers, inside the framework.
Shaun: What this reminds me of is, I've shared this before, so I know I kind of recycle jokes like a good dad, but there's an episode of Portlandia where they're trying this consensus process to name a new street and they can't ultimately figure out how to do it. So they just decide to include absolutely everybody's voice, and it ends up with a street name that's like 47 characters long, right?
And so it's like, that's the peril of like your, like you were saying, Joe, that one [00:29:15] way of doing it. If you don't have the other side of saying, Hey, it's, we are not assuming we're gonna get this completely right the first time, but we are willing to roll it out and make some progress and continue to get better.
Jo Pang: Yeah.
Josh: That's great.
Joe Olwig: Right.
Jo Pang: I think, with Joe's example about the meeting being the learning grounds, right, of like, that's a small thing that the team can build momentum – I really like that as an example of, that's probably easier to start with in building this learning culture and building capacity for change and adaptation over, let's say, for example, the biggest hottest tension in the organization and how do we, Man, you know, like there's some hotter things that are harder to have the psychological safety that will be needed and so kind of starting where, you know, it's, it [00:30:00] pushes us a little bit but it's possible for people to still navigate it, is a really great thing.
And I think that's where people get hung up too, is when we get – I see a lot of people, especially visionary people, just have a lot of tension around their vision for the world being so far from what the – or the, maybe not the world, but let's just say the organization being so far from the way things are right now, that these small steps can feel so too small or too unsatisfactory and that's where I was speaking to, but that's where the capacity is.
So if we can be realistic with that and move toward the vision, but still align with where there's actually capacity, where there's even feasibility of having, you know, of the organization moving, that [00:30:45] at least moves the organization forward and I recently was told this idea that even if we change 3%, if you think about a line and a 3% angle, as time goes on, you can see that the end point ends up somewhere very different than what seemed at first like a micro change and I think that's kind of where often leaders are trying to bridge too far and push people and themselves too, way beyond the 3%, thinking that's what's needed to end up in a different place and that is not generally helpful.
Shaun: I – that's great. That just reminds me too of something I found myself saying a number of times to a number of different clients, which is, and I'm also saying this to myself as someone who, like, when I get convicted about an idea, like want something [00:31:30] to be different tomorrow, is that, you know, we can – we work with teams on various aspects of the framework and sometimes leaders reflect and they'll be like, Ah, I just don't know if it's going the way I hoped it would or if it's meeting my expectations like our last quarterly sync, you know? We, yeah, we got new priorities, but it feels like maybe they're not as sharp as they could be, you know?
And I think our whole team does this role. It's like, yeah, but did you have quarterly priorities last quarter? …No. Also, you have some now that's pretty good, right? And, you know – or if it could have been like, this is our second loop and it's like, Are they better than last time? Do they feel more focusing? And it's like, Yeah, I guess they do feel more focusing. Well, awesome, like, we're making progress here, right?
And this is [00:32:15] part of I just think the way we have to recalibrate our expectations on change and how things change and how organizations change and maybe even transform, right? That's a pretty big way to think about it. But, you know, it is this – like the 3%, like you're saying where like, Hey, the meeting rhythm’s 10% better. Our quarterly priorities are 15% better – keep at it, and it starts to feel quite different over time.
Josh: Yeah. I am gonna use this as a segue to get more onto the Six Levers.
But one thing I was thinking about, Shaun, that one thing I've been doing for the past, I guess 10 months, me and my buddy two-and-a-half years ago said, You know what? Let's do a quarterly retreat for the next 25 years, a hundred in a row. We just set up some like, you know, [00:33:00] ambitious goal. So we've done 10 consecutive ones and it's funny, every time I come into the quarterly retreat I'm like, Man, this wasn't as good of a quarter. I feel like I wanted to do so many more things.
But part of our ritual is doing a retrospective. So we document everything that went well, everything that could have gone better, and I – a couple months ago, I was looking at the last 10 consecutive quarters and the things that I was tackling 10 quarters ago are very different than the things that I'm tackling this coming quarter and it was a great reflection to say in two-and-a-half years, I am a different leader.
I make different – not necessarily different decisions, but more informed decisions and I have a greater sense of peace about the current state of the [00:33:45] organization. But if I didn't take a pause, I'm thinking that everything's kind of tumultuous and not as good as I want it to be, but then all of a sudden you take a reflection, and my segue is the power of rhythm.
But you know, if we don't take a pause to take a look back and say, What can we know about this change that we've been driving over the last two-and-a-half years and how's it going? That pause is really, really important. Otherwise we'll just miss all the things that are happening in front of us.
Shaun: Yeah. That – Josh, that's a powerful, I mean, I'm just thinking of so many things flying through my head and the power of like, those retrospective team conversations and a rhythm, like whether it's a quarterly or an annual, or even in a longer term horizon, like you're describing, like two-and-a-half years.
And it's really just, you know, [00:34:30] making me reflect on the importance of both of them, right? Both like – the kind of look back just in the near term and in the look back longer term and how things are changing, right? And so I think it can be just as powerful for teams to go through those periods of reflection and to realize and talk about it and in some ways, like memorialize, because you're bringing them to light.
They're getting out of our heads, they're moving into conversations. Something that maybe I just thought, I realized – all four of you realized too – and we're like, Wow, this is more significant than I realized and this is powerful.
Like, and if we commit to these rhythms of both like, what we're prioritizing, but also these rhythms of looking back and bringing things into just the light of day and how we recognize them and the [00:35:15] change that happened, I think that becomes very galvanizing for teams, right? They're – when they're actually talking about them and realizing that like, whatever my crazy expectations for how we change or, you know, how they aligned with the rest of the team and what does that mean, how we continue to find the right momentum towards, just becoming a healthier, more connected team.
Josh: Yeah, that's great, man. Shaun, this was about a year ago, I'm assuming you probably remembered this, but Shaun flagged for our organization. He's like, You know what? He's like, We need to do a better job of celebrating as an organization. We don't take a pause to celebrate, and I'm thinking about that now, like a year afterwards and although we could be better, it is an important thing in that change needs to be [00:36:00] celebrated, especially if the change that we expected to make is occurring in no matter what dose or no matter what size it is.
It's an important element of navigating change, I would assume, is being aware when the change is happening and celebrate it and talk about it and learn from it, but anyways, I feel like you do that really, really well and just bringing attention to celebrating change and knowing that you can get better.
Shaun: Yeah, I don't, by the way, I don't – I'd love others to jump in here – but I don't personally feel like I do that well. I feel like it's the thing I need the most. If it's noticed, I'm grateful but, yeah, I do think it's an important part of driving change or facilitating change. [00:36:45] Driving might make it feel exhausting, but just like, leading and facilitating change to note like, when things have actually changed so that people can feel some hopefulness in the effort that's put in or I can, hopefully, be some wind in their sails to continue.
Jo Pang: I think your example, Shaun, you are acknowledging that that's not something you're good at but need, it's probably a bigger reflection than just you as a person. I happen to think that a lot of our culture has a lot of people with a general sense of, This is not enough. I'm not enough, I – this life is not enough. This job, we are not doing enough.
I mean, I think this is a larger kind of sentiment and so I think that the idea as a leader of designing [00:37:30] systems that help to counteract as antidotes, some of these tendencies that we can have as a culture that then leads to burnout when it may have been not be truly necessary if we just looked at the job right, or some of the other kind of – and build sort of more brain-friendly organizations that we know people will be more likely to wanna change or feel able to be resourced to do so.
If they're also being fueled by a sense of, This has been enough, we have made progress,that's something like, our brain needs to see. So I think what you're speaking to is just like, how we have to systematically design knowing our human, or, – I don't know if it's human tendencies, but anyways – the tendencies we see in humans in the working world [00:38:15] in the West right now. How do we design systems that kind of, that reinforce the change we're wanting to see in those kinds of habits that aren't very conducive to the organization's mission?
Joe Olwig: Yeah, that makes me think about how we talk about the Six Levers framework as one that is people human-centered, right? So, and we're always asked like, What does that mean? Well, it means a lot of different things but when it comes to change, it means we recognize the role that change plays in any growth that happens inside of your operating system and inside of your team nd by systematically recognizing it, we're also recognizing that people are, how the change happens, [00:39:00] right?
People are the change agents so they need to be, we just – just by recognizing and being aware that this change is gonna have an impact on people. Shifts their posture around it, right?
You're showing empathy in that moment, but if you've systematized it, you're systematizing empathy, you're recognizing this, just, essential role that people play and then when you can create the protocols and the practices around being able to do that in an authentic way, right?
Systematizing empathy sounds a little bit like, Is that authentic? It obviously needs to be that as well, but, yeah. You start to really see this as this [00:39:45] people-centered approach to how we work because at any given moment, when we think about change that we wanna make, we're calling it out that change plays a role and can be hard.
We're then working to be as intentional and thoughtful as we can about designing the change and thinking about executing it and then we're celebrating and we're evaluating based on progress rather than perfection.
So we're helping people to see this growth that they're a part of and you really begin to create this dynamic where you're, you have more of a positive relationship with change because you see and feel the growth as valuable and, and something to be proud of.
Shaun: Yeah. [00:40:30] Just one more thing on this, on the rhythm piece. I think we're kind of in rhythm and cohesion right now, right? We're talking about creating the – the making sure we don't leave this to chance, right? The measurement of progress and even just talking about it and acknowledging it, but also, like, how teams create some ritual around that is another thing that we've been talking about here and, you know, it just occurs to me that, in most of my organizational experiences, these moments of acknowledgement and celebration can tend to happen like, in the hallways or randomly, and those are good, like those – that's great, right?
But it often means that like, the rest of the people in the system and organization like, aren't hearing it, right? And so we run the risk of like, if we don't think about this in a system way, [00:41:15] that they just sort of happen in pockets and corners and the – right? – that the whole isn't nourished, right? So how do we think about it that way, that we, when we create our systems and the way our organizations operate in a way that don't leave these to chance, create the space to celebrate, to honor, to reflect on the change that's happening?
Jo Pang: Mm. Reminds me of some work I've done with the client where they actually wanted to become a lot more – they came from very like, organic way of operating, but they scaled to a size. They really did need more systems in place and so one of the ways that they wanted to shift their culture was to be – have a little bit more predictability, a little bit more processes documented, even just basic, you know, organizational processes.
So it wasn't [00:42:00] like, Ask so-and-so to ask so-and-so to ask so-and-so what the new thing is, and so one of the ways that they ritualized that was to ask the question in their leadership meeting or their sort of like, yeah, large meeting, Are there any process-related confusions in the organization like, that are trending, that you're noticing people asking you something and starting to log those?
So it's just a real five-minute kind of addition to their leadership team meeting to reinforce that as a culture, you know, to kind of reinforce that that was something they were emphasizing. So I think that something that they wanna change – this really big thing, but to bring it down to a micro-thing – was, well, let's just simply ask the question and start creating a backlog over time in [00:42:45] five-minute, you know, weekly increments about those gaps and it becomes sort of front-and-center just through this tiny little intervention.
Shaun: That's great. I love that example.
Josh: Yeah. So inside a Six Levers framework, right, we have the six different levers – identity, focus, rhythm, cohesion, leadership, and momentum. I'd love to just kinda walk through each lever. I know we've touched on rhythm and cohesion, but I'd love to understand from your perspective how each lever could support and help navigate change.
So the one that's coming top-of-mind right now that I'd love to start with is, how does identity help the identity lever support for navigating change?
Shaun: [00:43:30] I, you know, I'll start here. I think the thing that's top-of-mind on this is, especially if it's a significant change, but being able to anchor back to how the effort – the work effort that people are being called into – connects to identity, right? Whatever piece it might be like, because this is our mission, because this is the unique way we accomplish it, because these are our vitals.
We're in pursuit of over here – the measurable way that we know we're having an impact on how we build a healthy and sustainable organization. We think that the – it's important for us to invest in this particular thing over here, right? Or for us to change this course that we're on right now and move this direction and we're entering into this.
And so just being able to [00:44:15] narrate, as a leader, I can connect to the most foundational deep “why” for the organization and articulate that. So again, you're kind of, you're deepening in – this is part of the vision, right? – for moving from the like, We're frustrated here, but it's connected to our identity and vision for where we want to go, so that everyone you're bringing along in the process understands this isn't just some, you know, shiny object or some latest thing or whatever it might be. Like, there's deep rationale for why the change needs to happen.
Joe Olwig: Yeah, I think, one thing to also point out is that, you know, every time we make growth in one of the levers, we're oftentimes having to call on change management strategies. So to just [00:45:00] grow and change, make change inside of your identity even, you're gonna need to call on some of these change principles to help make that change and make it stick.
But I think that a couple that we reference regularly inside the momentum lever, we've talked already a lot about progress and celebrating progress and letting that be more of the evaluation of how the change is going. It's not about it being perfect and all of a sudden you seeing this brilliant new state, but rather making progress, celebrating it, and operating with this regular posture of continuous improvement and sort of reflection so that you're continuing to grow this idea [00:45:45] of, you know, incremental improvement and progress as being just a real guiding principle inside the framework.
But you know, also the rhythm lever – you know that what the rhythm lever really helps teams do is design rhythms and meetings that help their work operate with more flow and purpose and clarity and oftentimes when it comes to creating change, we are going to need a structure like that to help us to really drive clarity and progress within the change. So, wouldn't be uncommon to say We might need to stand up a new rhythm and let's design it with intention and really [00:46:30] think about what do we need from a rhythm perspective to help make this change easier, more comfortable, more disciplined, and so on and so forth.
Shaun: One point on the momentum piece that you brought up that I found myself thinking about more lately is, momentum for momentum’s sake or movement’s sake is not going to be enough to continue to sustain the appropriate buy-in and energy behind the change effort and so it's just, I just wanted to call this out cause I think it's been almost a check in my own thinking and cuz sometimes I'm – y’all – Jo Pang, you're still getting to know me, but the other guys know me.
I [00:47:15] can just say, let's just go, let's just get going right? And I feel like I'm often that force just pushing moving forward and so that can work for a little bit but I think when you hit resistance, right, if it's just the momentum part and we haven’t really been clear on like what it is that is not really working or like what our vision is that momentum alone is, it’s probably not going to sustain the effort over time.
So just wanted – that's been on my mind lately as we've been working with teams and, yeah, wanted to highlight that part.
Joe Olwig: Well, Shaun, I think that's so great because it connects to the motivation, right? I think we've had this conversation where if the focus is not clear where we want to go and why we're going there, then [00:48:00] you start to lose your motivation to make the change and to really embrace some of those momentum practices.
Even though you still believe in the practices, you're not convinced or feeling motivated to go where we're trying to go, cuz you don't really know where it is that we’re taking so bringing that focus component in helps to really clarify that and you may wind up saying, I still don't – I'm still not motivated here, but at least now at that point you can have a conversation about, Okay, well, you know, what do we want our focus to be and why?
Josh: Shaun, your quick callout there made me think about, you know, one of the overarching mindsets for Six Levers is how do we help [00:48:45] organizations build enduring organizational health, right? And so we can drive change for the sake of change, but to your point, momentum isn't gonna sustain and carry us on for the long haul and so being mindful too, of what type of duration we're also thinking about as it relates to change, right?
Making one change and having it kind of fall off doesn't serve the purpose for enduring organizational health, but continually making small iterations of change and having it stick – to what Jo Pang said – having that frozen until it needs to be unfrozen again as it relates to change models.
How do we make sure we have the right mindset about change and how long it should last and how long it should be iterated over? So again, that orientation of time horizon I think is really impactful as well.
Shaun: [00:49:30] Yeah, I mean, I think that Josh takes us back into the focus lever in many ways. I think and one of the things I've realized as we've led clients through these change processes is that, you know, we're stepping in at the, you know, at the point, it's almost like the very first thing we need to do is help them understand what this work effort is going to be and it's difficult because part of our framework is prioritizing, right?
Focusing is all about – or the focus lever in many ways, not the only thing – but it's largely about setting priorities and this, you know, whatever a project is, strategic planning, a technology implementation, intentional team-building, whatever it is – that is a decision that was made and some type of prioritization was made, [00:50:15] but it also means you're probably, you shouldn't, something has to come off the plate and oftentimes that's not what happens, right? What happens is it's additive, it's added on, right? And it's just another thing and people are like, Oh my gosh, this is cool and, yeah, we need it, but I'm overloaded, right?
So the focus lever says when you're anticipating and you're leading through change, it's, it's making some decisions on if we're going to do this new thing or make this change, we have to stop doing something and what are those things we're going to stop doing, right? That also, I think, goes a long way in communicating some hopefulness and that it's possible and some discernment, right?
It wasn't just, there's an understanding of capacity when you can say, We're doing this, we're not gonna do this, we're making some [00:51:00] prioritizing decisions. So the focus lever can be extremely helpful when you're picking what to do at one of those different time horizons – like you said, Josh – and sometimes it does, it has to be a commitment for a longer period of time.
If you think it's an initiative, it's gonna last, you know, many quarters or maybe even many years.
Jo Pang: Reminds me of a client I had once where I worked with them on a strategic planning process and embedded in that, I could sense in my meeting with them beforehand as we were crafting the agenda, that they struggled with the saying “no” part.
And they also – and part of that was because part of their objective was really in increasing healthcare in the United States. They – and so they had this deep mission that they care [00:51:45] deeply about – like, people's lives felt like they were, you know, on the line and so to let go of something is not just letting go of something superfluous, it's letting go what it felt like of saving the world, right? And I think because we work with mission-driven organizations, we have to account for, there's like a big emotional impact of what you're saying, Shaun, of actually, letting go.
I met with a member of our community too last week and it was like, I can't take – I can't say no, I can't – I have to do all the things I'm doing because their life’s on the line and so I think, one of the things I ended up doing, which is probably the most powerful part of the retreat, was actually after visioning, doing – so, it was a little ceremony of like actually mourning the things that we were gonna have to [00:52:30] and really just describing to each other and acknowledging actually the emotion that came with the having to say no to certain things and how our vision for the world is so different than what we actually can really accomplish.
And they had to express and talk about – I won't go into like, details of the process – but it ended up being – really rich, deep tears were there, like really meaningful, powerful moment before we started prioritizing to acknowledge that this is actually an emotional process for a lot of people. Especially when the implications aren't something like, Shoot, we can't sell. Like – or, you know, more, I don't know, shoelaces or – I mean, I guess that's needed, but – [00:53:15] even less needed stuff, right? – that we can be focused on. So I think as mission-driven leaders-slash-consultants, I think we have a different – there's a different process here and a different way of orienting to what we're talking about.
Josh: Really good. I like to see the parallels in our work where from, you know, from a software development standpoint. When we're doing that for Mission Matters Group, we have this thought process of celebrating the work undone, right? So if we made hard decisions to not do something so that we can do something else, we should celebrate it.
Cuz that's hard. That's scary. Someone's gonna be upset. But we made the decision, in pursuit of hopefully something better. So, Joe, I love that story.
Jo Pang: [00:54:00] Yeah. Maybe to use a little metaphor, part of what I do is this land restoration project and it requires cutting down trees and people think that must be – they equate that with logging or something bad for the environment, but it's actually known to be a lot better for the overall system.
And better for the trees that remain because they end up wide and you can see their branches going wide. They become much more resilient over time and they produce more acorns if you look at oak trees than if you kept the whole woodlands. Like it was – there's fewer acorns total, even though there's more trees.
So I think that just visually came up for me, Josh, when you're describing that, of like celebrating that even though it [00:54:45] looks like a death, like it looks like something wrong happened, but it really allows all of those resources to pour in and the overall whole system is improved because of – as well as the individuals in the system.
So I think there is a process with that, but we can see, you know, that they're just as a visual. I think we can see that in nature. We can see that in our work too.
Josh: Hmm. That’s great. All right. Well, I'm gonna wrap us up and move us on to, kind of what we talk about as “momentum moments”, right? We wanna make progress, we wanna help you leave this podcast and have some tactical things to do. So turn it to the group.
What is one piece of advice [00:55:30] to start navigating change, right? We kicked this episode off with “what's a change that we are observing, we're noticing?” –
What's some advice for helping someone navigate change, whether it's on a personal level or an organizational level that, that you might, leave someone with today.
Shaun: Maybe – I have a few things coming to mind, but I don't want to say too many and steal ideas from y'all. I think the one that's top-of-mind for me, I guess, is the next time you are trying to lead through change, maybe spend some time with your team, the primary team or many teams as you're leading many teams through it and facilitate a conversation on what the cost of doing nothing or not changing would [00:56:15] be and see, try just – is a way to create a moment that you can remember and reflect upon as you hit some resistance. that will come, whether it's big or small, there will be some resistance. So to be able to have that aligning moment to recall back to and say, We hit the, we're facing this resistance, but we did agree that if we were just to abandon this effort, here's what the cost of that would be or here's what would end up happening.
Jo Pang: I think mine would be as a group, align on your vision and then back up and think about your current reality and your current capacity and identify what [00:57:00] is the first small step that could be taken that's aligned to our current reality and current capacity, but moves us a little bit closer to vision.
And in that process, acknowledge the hard emotions that often arise when we pick something that isn't the thing, isn't the end. Verbally acknowledge them, find a way of acknowledging they exist, but not feeling, not letting those drive the team to burnout in ineffectiveness. Let those emotions just be as just a natural part of not getting to be all the things that we all wanna be in our life.
Joe Olwig: [00:57:45] Josh, to go back to your original quote, with change being constant, I think complimenting that reality that we hear from leaders often with your, your actions and I think that there's a muscle that you can build as a leader around. Recognizing the change and being aware of it, recognizing it publicly with the people who are gonna be involved in it.
Then being as intentional and thoughtful in how you think about manufacturing that change, being inclusive, stealing on some of the, you know, borrowing some of the concepts we've shared throughout the pod, but just summarize it as being [00:58:30] thoughtful and intentional about how you're going to think about driving that change.
And then evaluating your success based on progress and, you know, recognize that this is about progress and celebrating that progress and building that muscle is gonna be so powerful and be so much more than, you know, sharing those things with our teams around. Change is constant. Change is constant, you know?
It's true, and how do we respond to that and build habits that really help us to harness change as a strength of ours?
Josh: That's good. I'm actually gonna, [00:59:15] expand on something, Jo Pang, that you said. in terms of a backlog, where I find that on a personal level, and I'm speaking more organizationally, but that's how it helps me navigate change.
So asking people what could be better just within an organization, within a team, within the systems that you use, and just slowly and methodically building a backlog of things that could change and, again, the quote that's sticking out in my mind is “If you can name it, you can tame it”.
And so sometimes, we think all this change needs to happen and things are a mess, but as soon as we start to name it and build a backlog, and then get some feedback in terms of the impact or how complicated that change is. [01:00:00] It starts to seem a little bit more manageable, right? It gives you a little bit of, I think, to use a word earlier on, it decreases the overwhelm because we are aware of the things that we are facing and then we can come up with strategies. So build a simple backlog, get Excel out and just start going to town on it.
But get feedback, listen to people, and then, it might give you some idea of what you want to tackle first.
All right, well, thanks for tuning in today. Navigating change is a difficult topic, but it is constant. We need to have tools and techniques to navigate that change more effectively, all in pursuit of building healthy, enduring organizations. So thanks so much, Jo Pang. Thanks for hopping on and talking [01:00:45] with us today.
Jo Pang: Thank you. I had a lot of fun.
Shaun: See ya, everybody.
