Transcript
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Speaker: There is a link with a built-in discount in the description. Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I am Michael Millward. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am meeting Helena Hoare-Nibbrandt, and we are going to be discussing the difference between change and transformation.
Speaker: Helena is based in Sweden, in Stockholm, a city that I have enjoyed visiting, although I didn't take a warm enough coat. If I get the opportunity to go again, i will take a warm coat, but I will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club and travel at trade prices.
Speaker: That is because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I get access to trade prices on flights, hotels, fairies, trains, all sorts of travel related purchases.
Speaker: I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and just like me, travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to, and probably good enough to share with your friends, family and work colleagues as well.
Speaker: As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Now, hello Helena. Hi, Michael. Thank you for inviting me. It's a great pleasure. I'm looking forward to learning more about the difference between transformation and change. But what got you interested in this sort of subject in the first place? What's been your sort of career highlights that have led to you to decide to focus on on this type of activity?
Speaker: and I spent most of my career in the intersection of business and IT and different roles. I mean i started as a project leader. i went up to become ah even an MD and then back into CDO, CIO, so Chief Information Officer for companies. so but But the focus has been tech heavy and a lot of change. yeah And I've noticed that the the hardest challenge don't sit neatly on either side. It's right in the middle where you get technology, organization, and people and business together.
Speaker: So I think I've had the opportunity to work with companies at different stages of maturity from environments all over the world. And in that context and complexity and pace, it can be very different, but people are all the same.
Speaker: And that's the difference that I learned very early. And and that started to intrigue me and make me more interesting interested in the topic. Great.
Speaker: So change and transformation. yeah It could be, I think, interpreted as being the same thing, or they could be completely different.
Speaker: How do you describe the difference between change and transformation? I think ah for me, the word... change and transformation, i agree with you, first of all. it is It is used interchangeably the whole time. But for me, we can change a lot of things. We can change an IT system, we can change processes, we can do different types of organization on the paper, we can introduce roles. But for me, transformation is when we change the actual behavior. It happens more when the people start making different decisions and behaving differently. And even more so when they do that without being told so or orchestrated by somebody that they naturally start to behave in that way.
Speaker: And I think that that's the distinction for me. How we change behaviors and way of thinking and maybe also the way we consume products. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Very interesting. One of the great things about having guests like yourself talking about things like change management, it's a big been a big part of my career.
Speaker: And just listening to your answer there made me think back longer than I really should be able to think back to instances where could say, yes, we were trying to change the organization and change the people in the organization by changing changing processes systems ah and what we should have been thinking about given your description there is about transforming the way in which people interacted with the organization as the starting point rather than hoping it would be the outcome from providing them with a different computer or a different way of doing something
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's ah that that's a fair point. At least ah that's how I see it. And I think often people have, ah it's good people, maybe up to no good or at least incomplete. And I think we set things up to really be supportive around change.
Speaker: but we're not very supportive around the transformation. Uh, sounds a little bit as if in so many ways, even if you think about basic management, management is yeah the system, the process, get them to do what you want them to do.
Speaker: And as someone said to me, you know, I started work, Years ago, i put it on LinkedIn, I you said the date there, it was 1981, the 17th of August.
Speaker: On my first day as I was being shown around this office building by my new manager, he said to me, I'm introducing you to lots of people. i said, yes, yeah, there's lots of people at work. He said, you'll never remember everyone, will you?
Speaker: said, I'll try, I'll try. Don't worry, he said. All you've got to remember is that you're the lowest of the low. we sort of set the tone for our relationship for then onwards right this is what this bloke thinks about me on day one yeah right and yet what he was interested in was that i did this process followed by this process followed by this process as a person yeah couldn't have cared less i was the lowest of that's so sad to hear yeah And I know that different countries countries have different viewpoints on hierarchy as well. and and And Scandinavia and Sweden in particular has very flat organizations.
Speaker: But I still think that shows more that person's view on being a human and the value of different humans. Yeah. So he was he was managing a change from education into for me.
Speaker: And so I set a particular term for that because he was interested in the process, that the tasks I was going to complete that hadn't been done because the last person left. What yeah you're saying is that we shouldn't be changing between education, employment, or changing in anything. If we think about transformation,
Speaker: then we focus on the individuals or the team and move it forward. So we've got the we're we're dealing with the issues, the challenges, the wrong way around, aren't we? Yeah, and I think that's, it's I absolutely think that's the case.
Speaker: And I think we've become very inside out focused instead of focus on the people that are going to do the change or even the customers that's going to get the change out of it or the value of it. And and I think if we stop being so internalizing and seeing people out there for being the most valuable resources that we have,
Speaker: we must see different yes does that make sense it does make sense it's this idea that the people are the are the only part of the organization that can really change and actually take a message about change or transformation and then add to it and actually tell you the things that actually, yeah, you want to change in this way, but yes, I will try that, but you have you considered this part of how I do my job as well? Could we think about that as something that might also need to change?
Speaker: And you can get teams working much more and in a much more integrated way if you allow them to have the opportunity to help each other to change, I think.
Speaker: right I think so too. And I think if we come with all the solutions as well, it's impossible for change programs sitting on the outside to know what's best. And maybe you get 80% right, but 20% you could improve. and But that could be the disturbing 20% for the people working together as a team.
Speaker: So having the feedback loop and having people really work with it from a line organization perspective, or at least team, even if it's cross-functional teams,
Speaker: I think it produces so much better results, both from ah motivation and actual, the goals you want to reach with efficiency or, or a different type of value yeah perspective. Yeah. You talked about the goal owner there and it's like, who does own the transformation process?
Speaker: Who's responsible for um I don't want to use the word making people transform because I don't think that's what you're talking about. I think you're talking about motivating people to transform themselves.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. And... and we are if we If we back it up a bit, in today's world, even when I started many, many years ago, it change was always on the agenda, but maybe it was 7 to 15% of the total agenda.
Speaker: I think that's what research had shown before. And the most healthy change companies maybe had 11 to 12%. And today we are ever-changing. It's not even a new normal, it's ever-new normal.
Speaker: And how do how do we adjust to that as leaders? And how do we train people to train people? Or how do we train people to wanting to change and grow and learn new ways and be part of that optimization of a company or the growth of a company becoming something new the whole time?
Speaker: And then you cannot be in a program or a project or even on in a group management position and tell people, then you need to engage your people to set structure for them to stay curious, to change and optimize and wanting to do things differently. Yeah. and And that's a completely different viewpoint of it, because I think the four leaders only needed to have information overhand and they needed to know their silo really well and report on that. But nowadays, also with AI, that takes that pressure away and we get more time to connect with people.
Speaker: But we also have the pressure of more change coming in all the time. it's It's the constant, isn't it? Change is constant. Is transformation constant as well then?
Speaker: I think so. And I think it puts equally much pressure on the employees it does on us us leaders. We are also transforming and has to reinvent ourselves, if you will.
Speaker: Re-imagine the way you lead. how The way I led 20 years ago is completely different to how I lead today or even five years ago or even three years ago. and And be open to that. um Then I think you have more sympathy or even better empathy for the people around you as well, that you lead with compassion and not numbness activity-based management.
Speaker: What you're talking about is a difference within organizations where with AI, and more people being involved in the way in which businesses operate and more people taking ownership of their jobs and how their jobs develop and the work that they do develops, being more actively involved in the the constant change process or transformation process.
Speaker: But you're an external change transformation agent. ah How does the role of the external person work with this change in the way in which people are working within organizations?
Speaker: I think they need to be part of the organizational change and the changes in the change program. I think the change program supports managers and the organization to redraw new things or come up with suggestions or facilitation.
Speaker: But the transformation remains in the organization. And the leaders of the organization needs to be very much collaborating and setting the way to go about it.
Speaker: um And that cannot be in in a change program. That needs to be in the transformation program. And that happens in the line organization, for me. v Yeah, i I get what you mean.
Speaker: It's almost as if change programs are something that you do to people. Yeah. And transformation is what they do for themselves. Yeah, that's a good way of... there They don't do for themselves, they do it they do it for themselves. And there's a difference, I think, between doing something for yourself and doing something for yourself.
Speaker: Yes, exactly. Good, good one. Very much so. So it sounds as if what you're saying is that more people need to take ownership of the development or be involved in the development of organizations and development of their roles within organizations. And that the role of someone like yourself as an external person is to make sure that those people are equipped with the skills and the knowledge in and the confidence in order to do that. So you're providing information.
Speaker: You're not leading the change as such. You are supporting people to create the transformation. Yeah. The transformation, to the way to make that real is in the conversation between a manager and its an employee.
Speaker: I know that that means you have to do it one by one, but most people change one by one And once they know what to do and have been part of that collaborative collaborative space, they can start to work together much better.
Speaker: Yes. You're reminding me of those times where people have said, Michael, you're you've become one of the first adopters of this change process. I said, thank you very much.
Speaker: And then someone once said to me that like your enthusiasm for this process has the potential to be interpreted as being arrogant about the change process by people who are not yet as bought into it as you are.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And that had not occurred to me before that person said that to me. And I've always been very grateful to them for saying it to me. But it's one of those sorts of things where if a change process is something that happens to people, it's almost you can plot or predict even who your early adopters will be and who your less enthusiastic people will be. Yeah.
Speaker: But with a transformation, when you say people are doing it for themselves, How much control can you as the the leader of the organization have over the transformation process if you're allowing people to take the transformation at their own pace?
Speaker: How does it all manage? How does it all come together? Yeah. First of all, I don't think you you can have people do it at their own pace because people have different paces, just like you said. and it needs to be coordinated. it will be like an orchestra. You will have somebody orchestrating, facilitating and being the one supporting the process forward.
Speaker: And i that's definitely a manager's role or even a leader's role. But the manager needs to support it in a way that everybody gets space to think it through and to try and experiment and be part of the whole and a doings of it and the creation of it.
Speaker: There is an emphasis on the doing, i think, as well in the transformation yeah process where part of the planning of the transformation is almost identifying what it is that each individual person needs to do and what it is that each individual team needs to do to create the holistic process, the holistic transformation so that you can achieve the objectives at the end of it.
Speaker: Yeah. its i I think that's spot on. and But I also think that we need to work a lot with egos, both our own ego and other people's egos. And that part of the ego shows itself sometimes when you're not aware of it, like the story you had, where you are so enthusiastic and you are just running in as a forefront and how that becomes very sometimes... ah scary for other people, maybe even more scary when they see that you just swallow it. yeah And a lot of people actually like the resistance more than others. And they like it because that's the way they learn. They twist and turn and ah they need to understand the profound question of what am I today and what will I have to do tomorrow? And do I even like Yes.
Speaker: and yes Yes. i like I like what you're saying there. I love the analogy of the orchestra and thinking, know, an orchestra is 20, 30 people at least.
Speaker: How do you get them to create the symphony ah without a conductor? Yeah. Yeah. Even if you don't have a conductor, you're going to have someone who's going to take on that role. Yeah. It has to happen. Yeah. Right. And then the sort of thing where you're talking about, you you get very enthusiastic people and you get people who are less enthusiastic.
Speaker: And my analogy would be like, perhaps it's easier to rein in the energetic stallion than it is to kickstart the old nag type of thing, which probably the RSPCA will have a go at me now about kicking the old nags.
Speaker: the it's i suppose the leader has to understand the motivations of the people within their team and present them with the information that they need in order to be an active, proactive participant in this transformation process.
Speaker: Yeah, and and and every I mean, you can solve something in so many different ways. There's no right and wrong in in most of the cases, but if it's going to work all together, the actual, ah as an entity of a number of people and processes and the value chain is going to give results in a way that we want, then you need then you need somebody to orchestrate that.
Speaker: Yeah. The leader of the transformation process doesn't need to be the person who has the manager title, does it? No. It can be someone who's separate from the day-to-day activities of the organization, who's given most importantly, I suspect, time to actually coordinate all the different activities.
Speaker: Yeah. And in my management team, my last management team, we rotated who was responsible for different topics and transformations.
Speaker: Yeah. And we did that. So everybody had to be accountable and engaged and could never hide between I don't have time to do it or i don't really like this one but that one or to really have everybody to be in the orchestrating seat and that really changed a lot.
Speaker: and And before they would just look up and ask for answers and please tell me this or and how should I exactly this. But when we started to rotate it everybody had to start acting like they're architecting something together.
Speaker: So there are, of course, different ways of doing it. And I certainly don't believe in the traditional way of managing people, but rather being a supporting um orchestrator.
Speaker: Yeah. ah The traditional management would be give someone an instruction, you make sure they've got the skills to knowledge to fulfill the instruction and you give them a time when you want it fulfilled by.
Speaker: And yeah you shout at them if they haven't done it. Yeah. But what you're talking about is much more groups of people being accountable for their role to every everyone else in the group.
Speaker: Yeah. And so the role of management diminishes, the role of leadership increases, but leadership stops being a job title.
Speaker: And if, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're talking about leadership being a role rather than a job title. Everyone can lead. Yeah, everyone can lead no matter where you are in the organization.
Speaker: And even more so today, when you work so much cross-functional, and then your self-leadership skills becomes even more important.
Speaker: And what does that mean and how do we fill that in? um It's also a conversation that you need to have in the organization. Yes. But one of the things that I wonder about is, it's all great to talk about the leadership, but how often do you go into an organization and find people who are already there, who already have these leadership skills?
Speaker: Yeah, that that's a very good question. I think also and this is a maturity question. If you're in the beginning of something, you need one set of leadership skills. And if you're in the midst of scaling up, you need another. When you're a mature organization and need constant change, that's a different story.
Speaker: So I'm more worried about that, that... You might be fit for leadership or management roles for specific maturity or size of an organization.
Speaker: And even interest by the way, Yes. I have never had anyone on the independent minds before who has described leadership in that sort of way. Leadership changes as organizations develop. Leadership changes as a project develops.
Speaker: The expectation, i think, when people are recruiting managers is that they can manage any type of situation regardless of what it is. And we have people who multi-skilled.
Speaker: But then i know that having worked in startups, that you have your startup team, but when you decide to go for the IPO,
Speaker: If you want the big investors, you've got to find a way of managing your startup team into different parts of the organization, even if those people are the founders.
Speaker: yeah Because they will not be the people who are IPO investable. You need a different type of character, a different set of skills as that organization makes that transition.
Speaker: And yet, it sorry, carry on. No, I think that's spot on. And we need to start talking about these, especially since we are in a never normal situation and and organizations need to change more and more. And if you're in a startup atmosphere or setup, you need to because you can have the atmosphere of a startup when you're doing entrepreneurship and that type of changes as well. But...
Speaker: it You need to be able and like to work from a blank paper and not really knowing every single detail. That type is definitely a skill you can learn, but it's very much a personality trait as well. Yes.
Speaker: Yes, I agree with you. And I think that it all fits together with this idea that, yeah, the world, well, there was a time when every organization was focused on change management and people would recruit be recruited to be change managers.
Speaker: What happened to them after they'd completed the change is a different question because you've got think about how they're remunerated and have you given them a remuneration package which is geared on longevity rather than achieving the actual change and then thanks very much, goodbye.
Speaker: As we move much towards towards transformation being a constant activity and something that people do for themselves, the whole process of developing the organization, evolving the organization changes and it becomes less something that is done by organizations.
Speaker: Yes. ma Maybe done by managers to people that stops happening and it's more managers helping people to create the transformation for themselves. It is a fascinating subject, Helena.
Speaker: Absolutely yeah fascinating. And something that I think we'll have to come back and look at these things in in breaking it down into more detail, perhaps in the future. But But today, yeah I have really enjoyed this. Thank you so much. I've learned so much. It's been great. Thank you very much.
Speaker: Thank you. Great questions made me reflect a lot as well. You have put words to things and made it easier a way to express it as well. So thank you for that. I've learned a lot as well.
Speaker: Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Helena Hanibro.
Speaker: You can find out more information about both of us by using the links in the description.
Speaker: I am sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Helena and i have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
Speaker: To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
Speaker: Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
