#55: How to Operate as a Leader In Change

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 Nate Kasky, a change expert and a colleague of mine at Proteus. Nate focuses primarily on our change practice, helping make major change smoother, faster, and more effective for clients all over the world. Nate has spent the past 20 years leading large-scale transformations across marketing, technology, finance, and sales organizations, Both as an executive and as a consultant. He focuses especially on balancing the human and practical aspects of change. Welcome to the show, Nate. Thank you.

I'm very, very excited to be here.

And, you know, as we're getting to know each other and work together, I've been most impressed by your combination of curiosity and skill. You know, you think so deeply about change, and you know how to make it work. So I thought our listeners could really benefit from what you do and from what you've learned and from what you know.

Well, thank you. I mean, curiosity is the key to lifelong learning, which is a passion of mine. So I never think— I never claim to have all the answers, that's for sure.

So let's roll into this. So you've been helping organizations change for 2 decades. So how has change changed over that period of time?

Yeah, that's a great question, Erika. The idea and application of change management as a standalone offering is still nascent. Change before used to be mostly tied to large IT rollouts or system implementations. And it's truly only been in the last 5 to 10 years that organizations are understanding and realizing the full value of change as a standalone offering and concept. So with that as the backdrop, the biggest differences I've seen is the lack of having to fight to get change involved or be included as part of a transformation or change program.

Yeah.

It's now expected. And honestly, it's usually the number one topic the senior leaders talk about. They're realizing they're making a big investment and they want to make sure that their teams and organizations are going to be brought along the change journey so the change actually sticks and they get the ROI of their investment.

Wow, that's a really great insight. And until you said it, I hadn't realized that we've— I mean, we've experienced that a lot. Like, um, I'd say 12 or 15 years ago, we started realizing that most of the change that was happening wasn't really change. It was just people, big consultants coming in and doing what you and I would think of as due diligence. It's like, let's make sure that we have our little ducks in a row, but none of the human side, none of the how can we really help this whole organization accept and embrace and move into this new reality. And that, that is a big, big difference, the fact that people recognize that and know that it's not generally happening well.

Yeah, and it's, it's, you know, it's, it's in combination with a lot of other things. It used to be IT projects were standalone, and it was always the IT org driving it. Now there's not a, there's not a transformation that doesn't include an IT component. But just as important now, besides the IT component, is the people component, to your point, making sure that the people are brought along because the changes are broader than just rolling out a new system or new processes or all of it holistically.

Yeah, yeah, this kind of mechanistic idea that people are like the cogs in a big clock and they'll just kind of change, you know, and they'll get with the program, sort of.

I've noticed a few other differences as well, and the other big one is how change gets executed. It used to be 20 years ago that you followed a detailed process. Which was good but limited the ability to truly address some of the issues that was keeping people from changing. Now the change— and I use methodologies in air quotes— are much more agile, and it allows for creativity and allows you to meet the people impacted by the change where they are at.

So more iterative, and more iterative in response to the environment and the people on how they react and what they need.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And probably, you know, the biggest change I've seen over the last 20+ years is within myself and what it truly takes to drive transformational change. The old adage was for any change, no matter the size, you needed a team of 5 to 10 change professionals running around to help make it successful. Now I have truly, and I truly believe all you need now is a strong, internal leader within the organization, senior leader, who is willing to play that change lead role.

Yeah.

And they need a senior change guide to help support them and hold their hand and coach them through the change.

Yeah.

With an internal senior leader actually playing the change lead role instead of farming that out to someone else and truly getting involved in the change and leading it from the front, you are able to execute change, drive change so much more quickly across the organizations because the change is being done with them and not to them by, you know, some external group.

So it really needs to be somebody's day job.

Bingo. It can't be 10% of their job. They need to be dedicated to the change.

So what are some of the— you know, we've all just gone through and are still going through this COVID pandemic over the last year and a half. What are some of the new change challenges that you feel we face as we come out of the pandemic?

Yeah, I see 3 main areas that we will need to address based on the pandemic. The first is culture, the second is employee retention, and the third is hybrid working. So with culture, you know, the culture is the heart and soul of every organization. And if you don't get culture right, nothing else matters. We've all heard the old saying, culture eats strategy for breakfast. I like to say it eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And in my change journey myself is I focus on culture because that is where change actually happens and needs to happen.

Mm-hmm.

So the companies that look at all they learned during COVID and adopt the best parts of their learnings are the companies that are going to win going forward. So what do I mean by that? I really mean the cultural challenge COVID has exposed to every single company is do they have the mechanisms in place to truly leverage all the good things that the pandemic has forced upon them? Whether that's agility, flexibility, resiliency, etc. How do they identify these key learnings? And more importantly, and this is where change comes in, how do they apply these learnings across the entire— their entire organization going forward? These are areas true senior leader— true senior-level change consultants can help, because if companies fail to apply the learnings from COVID they'll lose their top talent, which is my number 2 thing we need to address with the COVID pandemic. So with employee retention, they're calling what is going on right now the Great Resignation. And the war for talent is only gonna continue to intensify. The challenge for leaders, which for the best leaders is always a concern, is how can they retain their top talent given the massive external pressures that COVID has exposed? So this is where leadership truly needs to shine. Top talent wants to work where they feel valued and places that enable them to do challenging work that helps them learn and grow. I mean, this statistic always amazes me, but compensation of the top 10 things top talent's looking for is always either 6, 7, or 8 out of the top 10.

Yeah.

It's never what they need. So if, you know, we're going through a great resignation, as they're calling it, and if the top— everyone knows this, the first people to leave are your top performers. So, you know, you need to build as a senior leader trust and faith that what you're doing is actually, you know, set a vision for the future and you're actually gonna be able to achieve it. And a big believer of mine from leadership perspective is authenticity. And the third area that, I mean, this is the most obvious one, which is why I went with it last, is hybrid working. Most companies, through the COVID pandemic, forced them to realize that they can be successful with most of their workforce working remotely. The challenge now is how to incorporate and continue to leverage the benefits of working remotely with the need, want, and/or desire to be in The office. The return to office work needs to follow— I truly believe this— needs to follow a test and learn approach. Nobody has the answers right now, and every company is trying to figure this out. And the ones that succeed are the ones that say, you know, let's go back in January, but what it looks like in February could be totally different than what it looks like in January. And the companies that embrace an agile mindset to this are the ones that are going to ultimately win the war for talent.

Man, I completely agree with those 3 things. And I see them as being so connected and kind of looped together that— so all that we've learned during the pandemic, including about hybrid work and about what people want, it's all connected. And absolutely, I think the great resignation, as people are calling it, is linked to people Seeing their companies being insufficiently agile and not being realistic about, about what is now true of work, that it's not going to be like it was before. We're not just going to go back to our offices 5 days a week and sit in our cubicles. It's never going to be like that. And companies that are trying to pretend that it is are losing their best people.

You hit the nail on the head. It should never be like that again. And the companies that embrace that mindset are the ones that are going to succeed. I truly believe that. I totally agree. And it's fascinating too, to me, how different industries are looking at this differently. So banking and financial services are by far the industries leading, we must be back 5 days a week, we have to be in or we're not providing value. And then from there, it's everywhere else. Everyone's taking it much more, well, let's try 1 day a week, maybe 2 days. But it's truly going to— Yeah. I'm interested in seeing if the financial industry, banking, et cetera, loses a lot of top talent that goes to other industries because of their strict 5 days a week. You must be back, policies are implementing.

Yes, completely agree. And it's so ironic because if you think about it, except for literally customer-facing people in banking, of whom there are not that many, they're like, why would they— why do they need to be in their offices? Right.

I mean, do you go to a bank branch anymore or do you do it on your phone?

Well, so I always promise listeners that they're going to get some practical takeaways. So given all that you've said, what's your best practical advice? For leaders supporting people through change in this unique time that we find ourselves in?

Yeah, I mean, that's another great question, and I truly believe authenticity, as I said earlier, is everything. As a leader, you can't get your organization to buy into any changes if you're not 100% bought in yourself. And now, this doesn't mean you need all the answers, because no one's gonna have all the answers, but it does mean you need to be the number one cheerleader for the changes and leading from the front. If not, your teams and organizations will see right through you. And if, if you're not totally convinced of the changes, there's no way your team's getting on board. So I strongly recommend all leaders truly dive into the changes they are leading and understand what it means to them personally and their teams. And then all leaders need to go through their own change journey first before they should be able to be expected to lead their teams through their change journeys. So the good news is, and this is, you know, this is fantastic, that everybody has the ability to increase their change capacity. I like to think of it as a pipe, and a pipe coming to your, your bathroom faucet is way smaller than the pipe coming into your home. Well, if you think about the pipe as the amount of change you can handle at any one time, you have the ability to make that pipe bigger so more water can flow through it.

Yeah.

And it's— and that starts with individuals. But if the leaders start increasing their change capacities and truly driving change, their teams will therefore increase their capacity for change. And before you know it, we're not dealing with the pipe coming in your home, we're dealing with a whole sewer that we can handle change. And those are truly the organizations that are going to win going forward, because I by no means coined this, but the change today is the slowest it's ever going to be. So if your organization can't keep up with the amount of change happening today, you're never going to succeed in the future.

I completely agree with you that the biggest driver of normal is leaders. You know, they— people look to their leaders to see, are you doing this? Do you think this is the right way to go? Is this what the new norm is? And if they can't say yes, then they're going to resist, you know. So leaders have— I'm just agreeing with you, basically. Leaders have such a power to normalize change by going through— and I love the phrase you use— going through their own change journey first. I think that's absolutely essential.

No, and you know, you're Neuroscience has taught us one thing from a change management perspective that is important for all leaders to know. No matter what the change is, no matter what, you could just hand somebody a $10 million lottery winning ticket, the mind of every individual on earth, every human initially perceives every change as a threat. So the job as a leader is exactly like you said, to change it from a threat to make it easy, rewarding, and normal. And the leaders that understand— if you take nothing else from what I'm saying, please understand that every change you do, as simple as you may think it is as a leader, is going to be perceived initially as a threat. And your job is to get them from that mindset of, oh gosh, this is a negative, to, oh no, this is easy, rewarding, and normal.

Yeah.

And that's going to be at a different pace for everybody, but just understanding that is, is key to understanding how to drive change.

Wow. Thank you so much. So listeners, if you'd like to find out more about how Proteus supports clients to change, you can just go to proteusleader.com and choose the leading change topic and look for my latest book, Change from the Inside Out. A lot of the ideas that we're sharing here and practical approaches for creating change in yourself and in your organization coming in October on Amazon and booksellers everywhere. So thank you, Nate. This has been great.

Thank you for having me. This is my first podcast, and I have to say, I'm, uh, I definitely have a face for radio because I actually took the time to shave this morning and then realized, wait, it's a podcast.

Oh, that's great. And thank you everyone for listening, as always. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

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