#47 Successful Change is Human-Centered

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Neil Bedwell, founding partner and CEO of Local Industries, a company that prides itself on marketing new initiatives to employees in a way that brings in their voices and builds on their commitment. Neil is not only a speaker and writer but also a passionate advocate for people-first leadership and a future that brings greater humanity and meaning to how people work. So welcome to the show, Neil.

Hey, Erika, it's great to be with you today.

Yes, I'm so thrilled to have you. And I asked you to join me because so much of what everyone is going through these days centers around change and our ability to deal with it. And I thought your insights and experiences in this realm would be hugely helpful to our listeners. So let's jump right in.

Please, yeah.

So you've said that you believe change is a marketing problem, which is such a great sentence. Can you give us some insight into why you think that's so?

Yeah, absolutely. And I must begin by admitting that I am a marketer myself, although having spent 20 years in advertising agencies and then on the client side as a digital marketing leader, We actually talk about ourselves as reformed marketers. We've been doing it on the outside, but we've now found a calling to apply what we do on the inside. So, Erika, I know you and I agree that change is— to be successful inside organizations needs to be human-centered. So let's start there.

Yeah.

Traditionally, I think organizations have gotten hung up on the concept of technology or digital transformation, that it's about the technology, it's about the new the new code that you're bringing inside the company. If you believe that's true, then it's a process problem. How do we plug this in? How do we integrate this into our tech stack? How do we migrate our data? You could do all of that perfectly, and then you end up with a new piece of technology, but without any users, it's worthless.

Yeah.

It's an empty vessel. But if you actually believe that change is about people, it's about those users more than it's about the technology, Well, then you need a different set of techniques. In order to get people to care about something, to believe in something, you have to reach them emotionally, not just rationally. You need to get them to care about something before you train them to use it.

Yeah.

That emotional engagement is essential in every change. And we have a tool that already exists in business for emotional engagement. It is the only tool that exists in business for emotional engagement of human beings. It's marketing. We do it brilliantly on the outside. I used to work for Coca-Cola. Pretty damn good at building emotional engagement with people on the outside. We, in order to get people on the inside, employees, to care about whatever change you're bringing through, you need the same emotional engagement tools because they're the same human beings.

Yeah.

And I want to say this, most people get the definition of marketing wrong, including a lot of marketers, honestly. When people say— I say marketing, people think advertising.

Right.

That is an output of marketing. Marketing with a capital M is actually the orientation of everything you do around your audience. So think about change marketing, which is what we do, is the orientation of everything you do around your employees in order that they are at the center of change. So if you think about marketing that way, and I think you and I would agree on that definition of marketing if you believe in a human-centered approach, really it's just, if we put the people at the center, what do those people need? And how do we engage them emotionally so that they care, not just rationally so that they know what to do? Because if I tell you what to do, but you don't care about the new thing we're trying to do together, you're not going to do it. I have an 11-year-old. I know this very well that if she doesn't care about the math lesson or the science project that they're working on, it's going to be a struggle to get her to do it. We don't change that much as we grow up and take jobs.

Totally. And my kids who are in their 30s and I, who am in my 60s, it's all this— it's— we all, you know, it doesn't matter how old you are, it's all the same. I will do something when it— when I— it would be hard for me to agree with you more. One way that we talk about this, we talk about this arc that people are— we call the change arc. And it's about mindset, which is a combination of emotion and thoughts and beliefs, right? And that when people are first confronted with a change, especially one that's imposed on them that they didn't think of themselves, almost without exception, how we immediately think of it in this kind of reactive way is that it's going to be difficult, costly, and weird. And it creates all kinds of emotions, right?

I love that, yeah.

And then the, the only way people are really ready to embrace and behave differently and do a change is when that difficult, costly, and weird moves to easy, or at least doable, rewarding, and normal.

And normal. Yes.

Right?

And known. Yes.

Yes.

You know, one of my favorite quotes, and we still can't find out who said this, so if anybody's listening to this and they actually know, please tell us. The 2 things that human beings complain about the most are the way things are and change. Which, if you unpack that, what you get is the— we're getting into some psychology here. What you get is a true understanding of human nature. Humans are not rational creatures. We are illogical, emotional, unpredictable, unique. Companies try to take those diverse creative individuals and through the traditional HR process, line them all up. You know, it's a compliance thing. You people are all the same. It's not true. So we don't—

Yes.

We don't respond to that compliance. What we actually want is recognition of our emotional madness. I always say, you know, if you start on the basis that people are bonkers, then you can build from there. You start on the basis that people do not care, even if you employ— if you pay them. The only thing that a paycheck does for a human being is is mandate attendance. It cannot mandate their belief.

It cannot make them care.

And the best tool we have for making people care is good human-centered communication and engagement, which is—

Oh, that's great. In support of what you're saying, my favorite wrong thing that I ever heard an executive say about change is, oh, my people are all good. They'll just get with the program. Dude, you're so wrong. You're so deeply wrong.

How's that working out for you?

Exactly. Well, so you've already kind of started talking about this, but what happens when organizations try to implement change without recognizing that it is a human marketing problem?

Well, we should ask your buddy, shouldn't we? Who said that? I'll give you a couple of things on this one. So Firstly, you have to recognize that culture, which is, culture is created by your people, not by you as a leader. All you can do is fuel it, foster it, or ignore it and let it fester. If that culture is more powerful than any new idea or new technology or anything you want to bring inside the company, exponentially more powerful. And I've experienced this inside some of the world's biggest companies.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter how good your idea is. So If we, if you don't recognize the tsunami that you can either surf or get destroyed by, well, that's the biggest problem. Or we can look at it, you know, much more sort of factually, which is somewhere between 50% and 75% of transformation projects fail. And the 3 or 4 different research groups, Gartner is one, will tell you that the main reason for failure is people and talent issues. So—

Yes.

If you don't want to be one of those statistics, well, you know, then maybe consider being more sort of human-centered. But if you look at it practically, you spend all this time in a boardroom developing the perfect plan for the perfect piece of technology that will solve your problem. And then you try to implement that without involving your people. You try to— what was the line? Don't worry, I'm not worried about my people. They're good. They'll get with the program.

Yeah.

You use that, right? That's your people strategy.

All right.

So you push it out there and they will say, what the hell is this? Why should I care about this? Oh, this is just another thing the company wants me to do. And I'm already busy. Doesn't look like a priority. I have case studies on case studies of this kind of thing where you have something that looks like a benefit from the boardroom, but it's seen as a bind. on the shop floor.

Yeah.

So you're met with, you know, kind of resistance emotionally, like, I don't give a shit. You're met with low adoption, which means the thing that you need to work— the value in that technology is only when people use it. So if no one's using it, then it doesn't have that value. You're met with, you know, sort of ambivalence or a pushback, you know, so that the thing actually gets rejected. And then you've got to go back and and try and dig it out of a hole. Think about when you launch a— I've done a lot of this launching consumer products. If your launch fails, it's really hard to pick it up, dust it off, and go again, you know?

Yes.

It's why movie marketing is all based on the first weekend. If we can't get the first weekend to fly, we're screwed. So without doing this, you are leaving a huge question mark as to whether anyone will accept or use the thing you need them to use. And again, it doesn't matter about how good the product is. Throughout history, it's not the best product that wins. It's the one that we care about the most.

Yes. And I think that everything you're saying occurs to me as being true. And I think it's even broader than you're saying it. I mean, you're talking about technological change. I think what you're saying is true of any kind of change. If somebody's changing their business model, if somebody's changing the way they report sales, if somebody is changing their pricing model, if it— it almost doesn't matter what the change is. People overfocus on, okay, we'll get this pricing model just right, and we'll do all the due diligence about how much money it's going to save us. Oh, we completely forgot about the people.

Yeah, honestly, you're so right. It's like designing a new product in a sealed room for a year without ever talking to your audience or looking at your potential customers, and then coming out and going, Ta-da! And then wondering why no one's applauding.

Yes, yes, that's great.

Yeah, and so new vision or values, new process, new market, new product, anything that you want to bring out through the company needs to involve the company. And I'll give you one other thing which we love, which is the definition of the word company has gotten lost through history. It is actually a— and I'm going to murder this, but it's actually a combination of 2 French words, the— and which is com' and pain, the communion around bread, which is people coming together for a shared value, shared endeavor, to break bread, to make and break bread together to feed each other. We've lost the fact that actually companies are people. That's the definition.

Yes.

Instead of companies employ people. Yeah. So we, when we, whenever we meet with a new a new potential client, we always start with that story. Is it that, you know, do you believe that you have employees or do you believe that you have a group of people that make you what you are? If that second is true, then there's a lot we can do.

Well, so I always promise our listeners that, well, everything you're saying, again, I can— oh, it would be hard for me to agree with you more. And I really want a takeaway. So Most of our listeners are leaders. So what can they do to incorporate this understanding about how change really is a people and a marketing-centered issue into their own change efforts?

Well, and I'm a marketing guy, right? So I'm not a business leader in the same way that some of you are, or even an HR leader or a tech leader that some of your listeners might be. But so I want you to think like a marketer. just for a minute. And you are all highly, highly cultured consumers. You're wearing Nikes, you're probably working on an Apple device or whatever your favorite brand, right? You have built an emotional attachment to that thing.

Yeah.

And so there's 3 simple things that I want everybody to take away. The first one is don't do anything without listening to your audience. So listen, gather that insight. And we We found over the years that pretty much everything you need to know already exists in the heads of your employees. You just need to get it out. Most companies ask the wrong questions. Engagement surveys are normally about how attuned employees are to what the company wants rather than what— how do the employees actually feel? Go find out.

Yeah.

They'll tell you. They're desperate to tell you. The second one is then the journey. You mentioned it already, like the journey of change, which is actually a story. So stories are how we remember things. It's how we attach emotions to experiences so that we can remember things. So what is the story we want our people to take? To understand? What's that journey we want them to take? Don't make them learn everything on day 1. Get them excited about it. Show them that— and by the way, they're always the hero, not you.

Yeah.

The employee is always the hero of the story. So how do they find out what journey they need to go on and why it matters? And What's the pot of gold at the end of that journey that they should struggle for?

Yes.

And the final thing then is, and I already said this about the leaders, but also remember that all of your employees are also highly cultured consumers. They see the best communications in the world daily. And so don't belittle them by putting out, once you've, you know, if you have listened and built a story, by putting out crap.

Yeah.

Like, actually take time to think about the words you use, the design you use, the way that you put your messaging in and bring it to those people. A, you know, black and white printed piece of paper stuck on the back of the bathroom door does not cut it when it comes to communication. They need to— they need an experience. They need to feel this in and around their daily lives and see, and it needs to mean something to them. We all see this every day on the outside. It's not that hard to do similar types of work at similar levels of craft on the inside. So if I sum it all up, start with insight, listen, build a story that starts with emotion and leads through, you know, through a journey to action, and then just apply some creative craft.

Yeah.

In the work that you put out there, in the communications that you put out there.

I see now why on your website a lot you talk about consumer-grade change marketing. That's a great phrase.

Yeah.

Oh, this is wonderful. So, so, so clear and so helpful. I feel like there's so much good nourishing food for thought and action in what you're saying. I hope it's helpful to people. And so thank you. This is great. I wish we had another hour or two to talk, and I always promise our listeners that it'll be short and sweet. So listeners, if you're interested in knowing more about Neil's company, Local Industries, just go to their website at localindustries.com. And to find out more about how Proteus helps leaders through change, go to proteusleader.com and click on Topics and choose Leading Change. Thank you for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at ProteusLeader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.