103: Panel: Managing Change

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 103 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we have another panel for you, and this time we're talking about managing change. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today Stacy Justino, Ryan Klausner, Greg Skirving, Simone Secchi, and Hilary Dudek. And welcome first time guest Lauren Fern. Lauren is a senior manager of Global Core Support at Zap here and joins us for the first time today. Let's dive straight in. So I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's panel. Thank you for joining me, everyone. This panel is about managing change in the workplace. And I know you have all worked through a lot of change in your support teams, one way or another, in your organizations of actually quite quite a different set of organizations looking at my panelists here today. So I'm really interested to see where some of these points take us.

Simone Secci: 1:36

I was reading um uh something about values last night, and uh and then I went completely different way, and I went straight to the source. And I I was reading uh this quote from uh from a philosopher that that I didn't know that um says, and you know, forgive me for my Italian accent and trying to read this English quote, but um the relations between the worthwhile and the practically demanded are obviously of that deep battling kind. And that made me think about like the practically demanded at the most difficult experience that I had, which was uh facing out an organization that was like in a company that was failing, and uh and slowly like uh you know um uh having to let's say offboard to use a soft term, like all the people in my team one by one through the course of like several months. And I think that was that's probably the most difficult type of change that you are going to encounter in uh and manage as a leader in an organization. So I think that will be my experience.

Charlotte Ward: 2:51

Yeah, off-boarding is definitely a type it it's a structural change to the company. We we've had um we've had a panel discussion quite a few weeks back, I think, talking about offboarding people, but we don't often touch on what's left behind and how you manage manage the people that are still there, right?

Simone Secci: 3:10

Exactly. Exactly. And especially I think that what makes them artist is when there is um you know an external cause and it and it's not uh due to a disciplinary act of some kind or uh a lack of commitment from the people that work in your team, but it's simply like you know, uh a traumatic business occurrence, let's call it like that, that causes you to have to make the best of it.

Greg Skirving: 3:38

Yeah, that's uh that's kind of interesting that you started with that because that's a big change and uh obviously fraught with a lot of uncertainty for the people that have to stay. So um I think uh um you know for me, um uh I've dealt with that one a few times. I've dealt with uh uh, well, how many times have we implemented a new system and that's a change or a new process, and you have to do that. Um uh making sure your communication is uh precise is uh is critical, I think. And um working with people, understanding your people in terms of of how they um how they handle change. Um some people get it. It's like, well, great, no problem. Um hopefully, hopefully uh um you folks have heard of the book Who Move My Cheese, which is a fantastic tool um that I like to use for people that that struggle with change. And uh but I think from a manager perspective, some people get it right away. No problem. Okay, we'll do it like this. Other people, it's gonna take a lot longer for them. And that's uh that's uh that's a bit of a challenge to you know be patient with them, uh, support them through that, and uh, you know, just uh just let them know that this is the direction we're going with whatever. And uh, you know, how can I help?

Stacy Justino: 4:55

I think part of that helping them understand can be setting expectations wherever possible. Sometimes the change is out of our control as support leaders, um, but wherever possible, putting that control back into the team's hands, I found can be really helpful, including them on decisions, even if you know maybe they've already been mostly made, getting their input and feedback and making sure they feel valued and they feel heard. And then setting expectations around whatever the changes, okay, here's what's going to happen in two weeks, here's four, three months, six months, whatever the case may be. It helps, I found it helps the people that higher have higher stress levels to sort of manage that anxiety better.

Ryan Klausner: 5:39

I think related to that, what Hillary was saying, especially when it's a uh change that the support leader or support team doesn't have full control over because a lot of that stuff comes top down, is also highlighting the things we do have control over in our team with this change. So, hey, this is a business decision. Um, these are the things that aren't like movable, but here are the things that we can make decisions on and how to do make this change best for our customers.

Lauren Fern: 6:04

To echo what everyone's saying, it's it's very interesting in preparation for this topic. I was reminded of about a uh workshop, two different workshops I was fortunate enough to take uh about eight years ago. Um, one was at the topic about thriving in times of change, just as an individual contributor. The other one is about leading change uh for uh leadership and management. And they, and I was going back to my notes here from that workshop. Yes, I still have my notes from the workshop eight years ago. Uh, it basically categorized uh team members when dealing with change into four different categories. And I thought that this was really insightful. The one is for those uh who are the people who actually are nostalgic for the past. They're not necessarily opposed to change and they're not even happy with the status quo. They're actually harking back to an earlier time. That could have been when they first started at the organization. Things were done a certain way. Um so any change that has come has been met with perhaps some resistance, um, but it was mostly about a simpler time. It was based on how things were usually when they started. The second group are usually less enthusiastic about the change themselves, um, but they're more sort of stuck. They'll only change uh when given no other choice, as if this is the clear direction that we have to go. So sort of when push comes to shove, they will change. The other group is the uh willing to change, but they want to be led. You have to really make a clear path to what the change is, explain the rationale and the purpose for that change. And then the fourth group um where those who were very much wanting to be active participants in leading that change, even if they're not necessarily leaders, very willing to engage. And knowing, and I think quite frequently, no one is just one of these. I know myself, I'm likely a combination of a couple of these ones, as I'm sure we all can identify where we fit. But knowing where your own team members um sit in terms of their position from your experience working and leading them, I think can have a lot of influence into your strategy uh when managing and implementing the change itself and how you communicate that and manage your various team members.

Hilary Dudek: 8:13

I think um something that I've experienced, which is very um kind of along the theme of kind of, I guess, personality types, is that when you're working in support and there's a change that's coming about that is related to your customers, you're for the most part going to be working with relatively empathetic humans. And so trying to navigate something that you know isn't always necessarily going to be seen as a positive with thing with people who are so invested in what's best for their customers can take a little bit of time. Um, but it's definitely worth getting those folks on board for sure.

Greg Skirving: 8:46

It's uh it's funny you uh you you categorize those groups, Ryan. I think that was really good. Um, and I know that uh uh for me years ago uh in managing, um, and as Charlotte knows I'm big on perspective, uh, I handle change very well. So for instance, an office move, right? They they put boxes on your on your desk. Friday you pack it up, right? You pack everything on your desk, and you go home over the weekend, and then Monday you get in your car and you just drive to a different office, you unpack your stuff, you do the same thing that you did before. It's just uh, you know, and uh um I struggled a little earlier on because uh uh I didn't understand people had different perspectives and and how how disruptive these things are, you know, and I I couldn't understand. Um so that was a learning, a learning curve for me to understand that people look at things differently and and for whatever reason. And I love uh I love uh you sharing the the breakdown of the four groups there, Ryan. That's that's really good. It really sort of puts things into into perspective so that you can identify um why people may be resistant to change so that you can apply the right uh the right remedy to help them out.

Charlotte Ward: 9:58

Yeah, I agree. I think it's really easy to assume everyone responds and and should respond even in the same way that we do to change. And maybe maybe um as our leadership journey progresses, because we're so used to managing change, because we have so much more visibility to it as well, right? That that's a big part of how agile you have to become as a leader when you're leading a team. You have that visibility that an IC doesn't necessarily have. So you're you're kind of more used to to going along with things and being able to manage them personally anyway. And you assume that because you you have that visibility and therefore you have managed to manage the change personally, that everyone else should just be able to kind of roll with it as you're rolling with it.

Simone Secci: 10:44

I think the the you know, you mentioned that having a process or a strategy for change uh and about the organization size. I think my uh you know biggest challenge was going uh outside my comfort zone in terms of like not being part of uh organic change. Because my first work experience, I started from very entry-level and I went until a certain point, and I got into a leading role and then I started growing that organization and grew organically, one person to however many people. Like at some point that uh, you know, as you progress with your career, it's not always gonna be organic growth. You're going to sort of uh come in, uh, you know, uh and like taking all the crystals in the room with like the grace of an elephant, you know, because you have to push the famous like practical change and uh and and you're hired to do drastically change things in an organization. And that organization already has methodologies, processes uh that you know probably wouldn't work in or they wouldn't ask you to make that change. And you have to first of all change trust of those people that were in that team and convince them that like you have the right recipe to change that in a way in a way that they're not used to and they didn't don't necessarily know. Um, and I think the the difference between this organic change and uh and more artifici, let's say artificial change is is very uh clear. You know, it was it became very apparent to me uh in at a certain point. And then obviously it grows organically from a certain point again, but there's a stark difference between these two aspects, and it's much easier to uh to build a strategy in an organic growth situation than it is with an artificial uh change situation.

Charlotte Ward: 12:50

Do you think that um we have more uh do you think we have a a higher proportion of people who are more resistant to change in bigger organizations? Do you think that's just a natural byproduct of having that kind of detachment from the decision-making process that drives the change?

Lauren Fern: 13:12

I think it can be dependent on the actual team and organizational struggles uh structure more at the macro level than the overall size of the company. Um I can tell you, as someone who was a um manager of unionized workers at one point in their career, managing change within that organization was much more resistant because of the um, not because of the unionized protections. Uh, I think those are all great things, um, but because of the um protections that have been put in place um to protect the worker also have given them a lot of protections to um potentially have more resistance. And a lot of the folks I worked with there would have been classified in that category where they're um more harking back to that simpler time, that time than they started uh with the this in this, it was actually government at that point. Um so when they started, and in many instances, that was pre-computers, pre-internet, when the computers weren't going down all the time, um, and they were resistant to that change. But I also think just in addition to the four categories of the type of people that you're managing or leading through change, it's important to break down the types of change that we actually deal with within a professional environment, because there really is only four categories. Uh, I was again reviewing my notes from the workshop, and it's it's been um it's actually good. It's like revisiting an old lesson, and you're like, yes, I remember that. That was good. I should look at these notes more often. Um but the the four types of changes that we deal with, certainly in a professional context, are technological changes. So that could be just change of tooling, help desk software, anything that is a change of technology. Hey, I'm gonna have to switch out your laptop, not my laptop. Uh, you know, you're you're getting a newer one, but it's just the change. Um, operational changes. So that could be reorganizations, layoffs, team changes, anything within the organization, strategic changes. So that could be um going um uh to focusing on a completely different vertical or direction in terms of the strategy of the company. Um, and then a mission change. So that could be moving from uh a B2C focused company from B to B or any of those. And some of the mission changes often would fall into strategy and vice versa. But it really just comes down to those main hierarchical uh categories of change, and then learning how to work with those personalities within those four other categories. And again, just like with the other ones, a lot of those overlap. But I think the breakdown can really um be helpful to understand how to best tackle um the strategy uh from within your own team.

Charlotte Ward: 15:48

So, so then with the different kinds of sizes and types, maybe as you said, it's not so so directly related to size, but with the different types of organization and those different types of changes that you were talking about, do you think it's important that whatever the combination there, that that we really have a process or strategy for managing the change itself?

Greg Skirving: 16:12

I'd say absolutely. I again you you need to understand what type of change it is, and then you need to understand why a person would uh object to that change, um, because that provides you, I mean, that's the root cause of the of the issue that you need to handle, and you need to identify that um and uh so that you can apply the right remedy. If you don't, you know, you might you might uh uh you know obviously uh uh make things a lot worse for that person because you're uh treating them uh as one of the different four types.

Ryan Klausner: 16:50

The process, having a process for it is super important. Um, I think that also through having a process, you can create a culture on your team that is more uh amenable to change. Um, if you go through a big change, everybody on your team sees, oh, that wasn't so painful. Um, leadership had really considered the impact to us, the impact of customers. Um, then I think you can shift that culture and shift people's thoughts about change. And I think one of the pieces of the process that is super important is a feedback loop is, you know, this change is happening, but we should give people on our team the opportunity and the channels to be able to give us feedback on how that change actually went. Um, what I like to say is we didn't throw all the old documentation in a fire. So if we make a change, we um change the process, we can see how it was better or worse or different than the old process. And even if the change didn't work out how we thought, we can probably learn something and improve the old process if we want to go back to the old process. Um, and but we've learned something and um it wasn't all for naught.

Greg Skirving: 17:59

I love what you said, Stacey. And I think for me, um, if we can anticipate, uh, I'll talk about communication. We can anticipate where where the potential obstacles will be, which is always uncertainty, right? I mean, typically people don't like not knowing or um feeling that they have have something taken away. And then your your example, Stacey, I love the fact that, you know, we're gonna do this and you know, we're we're we're committed to it, but we're we'll look at that and maybe we'll make some changes. Um that's great communication up front, I think, so that uh um it uh it dispels as much uncertainty as uh as possible for people.

Hilary Dudek: 18:38

One thing that um just to piggyback off your communication point there, Greg, one thing that we um have kind of instilled in everybody at SAP here is that when you roll out a change, you should talk about it three times before it's kind of publicly posted. So we have like an internal blog called Async, which um everybody posts their kind of like change logs, results logs, company strategy, things like that. And before it gets that point, it should have been talked about three times. So whether that's a discussion on Slack or whether it's in a small team meeting or um whatever it is, you know, having those conversations before it gets to like a very public place is is kind of key to rolling out specifically kind of strategic changes, um, so people can get to when they get to that point, they see all that information, it's like, yeah, I know all of these um things, I have questions, um, and I know where to go with them. So nothing is a surprise, like we don't want anything to be a surprise, um, and that's worked really, really well. And having that transparency and that visibility into all these uh strategic decisions and changes that we make, it really does foster this culture of being okay with change. Um and it's it's it's interesting for new folks to join the company when they see the level of transparency around change to strategy and things like that, it's kind of they're kind of like, oh, okay, I didn't know I would get to see all this stuff. Um So yeah, that's a it's a it's a shift in in what people would expect from a company, but it's something that has been really successful for us.

Charlotte Ward: 20:09

I'd love to hear a little bit more about that, Lauren, if I can, because I'm curious about the process that you go through getting that change in front of three people. Most particularly, first off, I I I'm interested, is it the same set of people that have that discussion three times, or is or is that three different groups that you're kind of test running the idea on?

Lauren Fern: 20:30

Yeah, so it's it's a bit of both really. So the way that we kind of operate um in terms of the way that the customer support team works at Zapia is that we have our regional teams, so we have AMIA, we have AMES, and we have Asia Pacific, and then within that we have um team leads who are all regional based as well. So there's like only four uh individual contributors to a team lead, and then um maybe two or three team leads to a manager, etc. So there's no uh it's very easy to communicate, and that's part of the reason why we have that structure. And the way that the process that we kind of take when those changes are are kind of coming about is there may be some sort of discussion that happens on Slack, and that can be anybody in the company kind of gets involved with that. It really depends where it takes place, but we don't really love to have conversations like that in any private channels. Um so that conversation could take place, and then the next phase would be that um it will get talked about in one of the small team meetings. So all the team leads have a meeting every week where they can, you know, there's not really any agenda that we say you have to talk about, you know, XYZ every week, it's kind of up to the team lead, but that will always come up if there's a change to discuss. Um, and then the next part part is we have like a monthly team meeting, we have two team meetings a month for time zones, um, and we talk about it there as well. So that's generally the process that we take. And then aside from that, there's also um if there's like a discussion happening, we uh we basically you have just gonna plug Zap here here. We use Zaps to um react you to a message in Slack and it gets um essentially a form gets filled out so that that gets sent into our monthly support newsletter so people can be aware of that discussion happening. Um, and then once all of that's kind of taken place and we know that everyone knows, then it will get posted in async. So um that process can be relatively long-winded, it will always take about a week. But the thing that we've learned in the past year, I would say specifically at Zapier is this the change management stuff shouldn't just never be rushed. Unless you absolutely have to rush it, just don't rush it. Um it's way more effective if you take your time and do it right.

Simone Secci: 22:41

Um one thing that I I mean, I think one thing that I did and that I um facilitated um in my last role uh it was to create a communication between departments within a company when change was happening, um, that was just as good as the communication that was going to come out to the customers, right? Because your communication to the customers is gonna be like just as good as your internal communication is. So if the internal communication between the departments and I was talking with somebody this week about the feedback loop between product and support. And so specifically that connection there, if that connection isn't effective, your external communication is not going to be effective. So involving and creating visibility for the support team to be at the forefront of um uh to remind the rest of the company that of their existence, of you know, how to have to be involved in the in the feedback group is not to be assumed at all when you're in a management position in support. You have to create that visibility, you have to bring those people on the forefront in your team. They have to be involved in the feedback group that can be beta phases in the launch of like a product, for example, like cross beta, open beta, and you have to to have, for example, the the folks that uh that take care of like the helps and to be involved in those phases, gathering that feedback um from customers in those phases, be involved in the in the decision making, even if it's just like in in terms of being there when decisions are made, be informed about those decisions, and then managing that language that needs to be proactively thought to be going off to the users. I think this uh facilitating the the creation of this loop between people and uh in the company, I think it's probably the biggest part of managing uh change.

Charlotte Ward: 24:43

So we've all um got some really good theories and really good strategies and really good approaches there from for managing change within our organizations or from workshops. Um but uh uh I'm kind of interested in making this a bit more personal now. Um and I would love for you to bring like just bring all of your dirty laundry to this next part of the discussion, which is what's been your biggest difficulty, what's been your worst experience with change, either in your current organization or in the dim and distant past, which may be slightly more broadcastable?

Simone Secci: 25:24

I have very broadcastable like uh bad experiences. So that's no problem. Um yeah, I would say I um for a period of time I managed some pretty difficult change, which is like setting up shop in a different country and in a different part of the world for organizations. And sometimes it went well, sometimes it went horribly wrong. And um I would say, you know, there are and I think Charlotte we talked about this specifically uh about like uh cultural uh differences and understanding uh cultural differences, but it's also not just the part where you explain it to customers, but for me, there was also the part when you uh explain it to to the people that hire you to manage that the change and to sort of like slowly lead them into a better understanding of the place where they're going to set up shop. And sometimes that's easy and they they get it, and sometimes they don't. And so how do you make the best of that situation? I would say I think you have to make sure to sort of like um uh you know, we have an expression that's like putting the ends forward, so being very thorough on the explanation of what's going to be like uh to face this change and what is going to be drastically different, and try to not assume anything that this you know that people will think uh about the a context that they don't know. So, you know, you're opening a branch of a company in a different country, uh all the regulations, the the bureaucracy, how is that different from the the one of the people that are uh of the country that they're from, uh like how you know you have to be very thorough in understanding uh what to explain, what they probably will not uh be okay with and how to sort of like uh ease them into it. Um and I think for me, yeah, that that's that was like the most difficult part when there was like a very stark cultural difference, a very stark difference in uh, you know, how I don't know, benefits are managed. How and then Ryan mentioned like a union organization. So for me, I work in the US, I work in Europe, I'm used to both, like I'm used to know this period for firing people, and I'm also used to like all the very strict regulations that are in a country like Germany, which is like a very bureaucratic country if you are not familiar with it, um, where even things like remote work are strictly regulated, and just calling something home office or remote makes a legal difference. You know, so like this type of thing is not immediate at all in the mind of uh a lot a lot of people. And I think that that was like the biggest difficulty there.

Hilary Dudek: 28:21

I worked at a company, I won't say which one, um, that for reasons decided that they needed to implement a salary reduction across the board. Um whether or not I agree with the decision, it still was not leaders were not informed ahead of time, people leaders in general. So it was dropped on everybody at the same time in a group meeting. So managing the chaos and the fallout from that was extremely difficult because, of course, my team came to me, well, had all these questions about it, and how long have you known about this? And uh, I I hope they believe me. And I was like, I just learned about this the same as you. Um, so this is less of a learning, I guess. Well, this is a learning for for the companies. Rely on your people leaders, they're there for a reason. Um, if you communicate these things to them, even if we disagree, we can help you mitigate some of the chaos that ensues from unpopular decisions. Um, if you arm us with some talking points or some facts, we can twist this for you, especially support leaders. We're good at that. We can turn this into a positive somehow. So um make sure that you you get us on our on your side, I think. And so in the in the fallout for me, um what I did was I instituted half days off rotating for the team. My thought was you're getting paid 15% less. I'm gonna let you work 15% less as long as the cues are covered and the customers are happy. You take care of you. That's what I can do. Company can't do it, but I can do it for you. So that's what I did. But I I certainly probably could have done more, or at least I'm better prepared had I been prepared.

Lauren Fern: 30:01

Uh, I worked for a company several years ago that went through a process of changing their pricing structure. So this was like a build-your own website platform, and we had loads of different plans that were all kind of incrementally different, and they ranged from being about three quid to uh 99 pounds a month, I think it was. And there was way too many, and there was all these customers on these very, very specific plans, and it was really complicated to support. I'm sure we've all experienced that with SAS specifically. Um, and so they made the decision to say, right, we're gonna we're gonna switch out to like four plans and we're gonna put all of our customers into these plans. And so the initial plan was for us to say we're gonna move everyone to the next plan that's kind of suits them the most. And the the the thing that was kind of problematic about it is because we we sort of didn't we knew that our customers weren't gonna be happy about it because some of them were gonna lose features, but we just didn't have very good data to understand what that actually was gonna look like, and it was a very manual process, even down to looking at a spreadsheet and looking at what features some people had. And we had 10,000 customers, so it was a horrible spreadsheet. Um, so that was really hard. And the biggest thing really for for me during that process was trying to help the team to understand what might happen without knowing what was going to happen. So just really managing through quite a lot of ambiguity, um, not having data was a massive problem. That's something that I've taken away from that situation to always have the data to back up the thing that you're changing if you can. Um, and also to it's really important, I think, to train you the leaders around you to be okay with ambiguity as well. That's a skill that I've really tried to push at Zapia as well, because um, sometimes we just don't know. I think this year has probably shown that for most people that you just don't know what's going to happen. Um, and so getting good at being okay with ambiguity is a is a really important skill, I think.

Charlotte Ward: 31:57

I think that's a really good point. I love a data-backed change, I really do. But sometimes you have to accept that data data data is better than no data, and it's okay if it's imperfect or if it doesn't give you clear conclusions. Ultimately, sometimes you just have to pick pick a path, and it might not be based on the best data, but that's still better than making no decisions and taking no action when something very clearly has to change.

Lauren Fern: 32:27

Definitely, yeah. It's um yeah, it's even if I just say, even if it's not perfect, it's just important to have something for sure. Um, it just it feels like sometimes if you're trying to roll something out and you you're not you don't have anything to back it up, it that the thing doesn't have very much credibility. So, how is how are you gonna get people to invest in it? That's the thing that's always on my mind about change.

Charlotte Ward: 32:48

Has anyone here had an idea for a change and has not managed to convince the relevant stakeholders to buy into that change?

Simone Secci: 32:58

No comment.

Lauren Fern: 33:01

Oh well, you know, I'll go. I'll go. I think we're all going, okay. We you know, we maybe dealt with something recently. So I dealt with something very recently. No, I'm not gonna name names, but it's recent, so it's is in my current role. And uh we uh my department, my team ended up managing um some of the um custom uh uh configurations for some voice bots. And I think what had happened is we were a larger team, um, and then our team changed in size for a variety of reasons. So our initial interest and willingness to learn a tool, to be familiar with it, to benefit customers so we could understand it and explain it on a very tangible level, um, ultimately evolved in us owning this tool, uh, which was definitely not a tool that uh a customer-facing team should own. It's definitely much more of a technical services-based tool. And I have been working for some time to transition uh the responsibilities for this tool outside of our team's reach. It was the one thing that um the entire team was working on. I didn't particularly enjoy doing. It wasn't really in their primary skill set, although we learned it well. Doing anything in it took us far longer than it would uh someone who would be an engineer or on a working in a services capacity. Um, but for whatever reason, my request kept uh falling on on, I wouldn't say deaf ears, but uh wasn't getting any action to resolve this in some form. And I think it for a variety of reasons, um, it hadn't maybe I'd been too diplomatic in my communication previously, not fully emphasizing in in my communication the extent of um the extent that it was deprioritizing us from our our primary customer-facing responsibilities, of which we were actually being measured against. This did not come into any of the um KPIs or co responsibilities of our team. And we were ultimately, I think, totaling probably about 20% of our time in this tool. Uh, so it was significant. So I had to ultimately really quantify this uh for it to be inherently understood, and then also make some very um specific recommendation as to who could potentially assume this responsibility as we make this transition away. Um, as usually with these sort of situations as it evolved into us by being a de facto owner of this, even though it wasn't really an owner, but it was sort of an owner-like relationship with this product. Uh, we needed to also figure out the evolution to give it back. Uh, I think just this week we may have gotten there. So I'll follow up with you later. But I'm I'm I'm feeling optimistic today. Uh, and I think uh it it took a lot of direct communication to get there.

Charlotte Ward: 35:43

We do expect you to follow up. Yeah, good luck. We'll we'll be we'll be waiting on on the uh on the website or on your next appearance on the podcast, maybe for a uh for an update on that one.

Hilary Dudek: 35:56

My manager is in Sweden. Um, so she it's quite a cultural difference between Sweden and the US. So uh the email that you mentioned, that direct communication, that's what she calls hard emails. She'll talk to me, she'll be like, oh, that was so hard. That was so hard, Hillary. And I'm like, but it got results.

Lauren Fern: 36:16

It's interesting. I had that as well, uh, because I'm originally born in Canada. So we tend to lead with a bit more of a softer uh British style, uh, more of a European style. And then uh I did have to learn to adapt uh to be uh more on that harder communication style since I moved uh to the United States.

Ryan Klausner: 36:37

In terms of uh decision uh change where you don't get uh these stakeholders on board uh working in a gaming company, um especially part of a public company owned by another company that is in a different industry. Uh so Big Fish Games was owned by Churchill Downs uh for some time. Now it's owned by Aristocrat Technologies. But at the time, you know, we were acquired, and the gaming industry, you acquire customers, they cost a certain number of dollars to acquire. You don't recoup that cost immediately. Um, so you put in marketing spend and you get the return on that spend in six months, a year, 18 months. Um but you know, when you're trying to hit revenue targets, um, we were focused on daily numbers, weekly numbers in terms of revenue. And so our crediting philosophies from like the games development and production side of things was focused on hitting their goals, which makes sense, but uh that didn't actually work with what people want or what a lot of other games do. So we'd have an outage and then we'd go back and forth with the internal teams. Well, we should just credit everyone. Um, but then that would have an impact on the sales for the next week or two weeks. Um, so it was an internal struggle, and there was never sort of a, you know, coming more to uh the support side of things, even though um it's kind of been shown that people will spend more money if you give them free stuff in a game. They just won't spend it all next week. But in a month, that player might have gone from making a 99 cent purchase to now making $5 purchases a week. Um, but that was always a really big struggle, um, especially as someone I'm a casual game player, so I am the market, and I'm like, no, this is me. I'm telling you what from my personal experience as a gamer of casual games, um, my behavior is, and that's the behavior for a lot of players. So that was a bit frustrating.

Simone Secci: 38:33

A lot of uh uh I'm not gonna say unsuccessful, but like a um continuous research that I've been making into the years that I've been in a leadership position and to managing the specific part of change, which is like um being effective with tagging, which has been a challenge for me throughout my entire career in leadership, at different degrees. And I think it's it's just like continuous research into perfecting the effectiveness of uh of this and and be able to, because we mentioned data before and a lot of data in uh in support setting, it's collected through tagging, through categorization. So I think explaining the importance of uh of categorization and tagging to agents um at the different level has different levels of challenge because you have your more, I don't know, it it depends on the size of your support organization, but you have the people that work closely, more closely do you uh with you and are maybe at the second or third or third level um third tier support, then uh are more familiar with that you do that small part of their day to day, and then you have agents which are trying to do their job the best way possible, try to move fast, and they're trying to think fast. And um, you know, they they sort of have to uh develop like a more like a muscular memory of uh understanding. How to think it has to go end in hand with uh you know how fast and effective they want to be in their work, but it also has to serve the purpose of uh categorizing, collecting, and collecting data for you because otherwise your entire data infrastructure falls apart. So, how do you manage the change of like going from an ineffective categorization to an effective one? It's a very painful process where you have to make 10 steps backwards and you know, re-analyze the way the methodology that you adopt into categorizing and try to find your way through uh the resistance that there is on the other side, because you know, there are business priorities at a management level, at a product level that are kind of lost in maybe tier one agents, right? So, how do you make it so that like if we don't do this right, your job is gonna be harder and harder because we don't have enough feasibility, and if we don't have enough visibility, we don't have a chance to um influence those decisions that are made at the top. I think that's the way that I that I manage to uh do my make my best effort into you know creating this understanding and managing this this change in a successful way.

Charlotte Ward: 41:20

Yeah, really creating a solid data set. Um, not for this podcast, Simone, but I need to get you back to talk about your 10-year journey with tagging, because I think that is something we can all relate to. Um, and I think what just really briefly, one thing that's really interesting about that A, that I'm kind of go just starting on that journey in my current organization now. So I definitely need to get hold of you quite soon. Um, but tagging seems such a small thing. Like as soon as you start that conversation of we need to tidy up our tags, it sounds like you're just gonna potter around in there for a little while, like you're weeding in a garden or something, right? But actually, you have to, it's a lot of work, but it it's it's quite cyclical, so you have to go through some change to give you data to enable you to create more change. So let's get let's get you back to talk about that at some point. Um, I think you did mention to me as well at one point that you had the ultimate dashboard. So I think we need to get a fireside with Simone quite soon because it sounds like you've got stuff all sorted. Okay, let's move on. So, although we all found it difficult to get going with our biggest uh difficulties and failures with change, we've kind of uh we've kind of made it. Um, but now just uh just before we come to our one piece of advice, which is what I always like to wrap up with, have you got any stories of big successes with managing change?

Greg Skirving: 42:50

Yeah, I've got uh I've got one. I think I've always uh um uh tried to do a good job of uh communicating three times, like uh like uh Lauren says, and uh um communicate with facts and and do that. But inevitably um you'll run into people that are resistant to change just because it's change. Sometimes it's good change, but they're just resistant because it's change. And um there I again I'm gonna talk about this great book that I found out about 20 years ago called Who Move My Cheese? And if you haven't read it, it's a must. Uh it's a really quick read. Uh it's about mice and cheese, and there's four different types carrying on the theory of uh uh of four. And um this one gentleman that I had to work for me just, you know, he was a holdout, just wouldn't, wasn't, you know, everybody else was on board. And uh uh I tried everything. And uh I went out at lunch, went to the bookstore, bought a copy of the book, and I said, you know, you should have a read of this, right? So it's like 105 type of thing. And uh about uh quarter to two, he came back and he put the book on my desk and he says, Okay, I I get it. So if you haven't read Who Who Moved My Cheese, it's an absolute must, uh, provides uh uh scope and perspective for different people. And uh and and I use it when people struggle.

Charlotte Ward: 44:18

What other big successes have we got managing change?

Ryan Klausner: 44:21

Um, I was able to, with other various stakeholders, move from one support uh ticketing system to another. And from the day we decided to the day we switched 100% over, this would be like four different products or areas we were moving over for probably 20 different games. Um we uh did it in six months and we did it successfully, and there was very little drop in productivity because we had done all the um pre-work to make sure that we addressed all the flows and work workflows and processes that were going to change. So the impact to our agents was pretty minimal. And we had multiple trainings, multiple workshops, and um I can't believe we did it, but we did. And I think that's a testament to having those processes for managing change.

Lauren Fern: 45:09

I think just to add on to what you were saying, uh, Stacey, a lot of my success with managing change on a large scale, whether that was with a hundred agents on a team uh where we were working with very complicated business units, and the length of each customer interaction was taking far longer than it should, not due to any incompetence on the agent's part, no fault of the uh customer who was calling, it ultimately, uh, or reaching out, it had to do with the fact that these were very complicated uh business units that were involving financials. Um, and to that extent, we knew that if we could cut 30 seconds from all of these calls by improving the workflows that the agents were using, we'd actually save a million dollars a year. So I was proposing this, and then they'll said, Great, you could rewrite it. Didn't think I was going to be getting that, but that was actually a great opportunity to embrace that change. But what I found was really helpful in putting these changes out is doing the old, you know, who, what, where, when, why, and how to the entire team. Here's what we're doing, you know, this is why we're doing it. This is the impact uh to all of you. This is what we'll be doing to mitigate that impact as much as possible. And this is how we'll be keeping you updated as we move through this process every step of the way. And then working with smaller cohorts to help manage that change and do the training. And generally we had shorter, briefer sessions with those who are eager to lead the change to be our champions, and then we had some longer breakout sessions with some of those folks that are uh naturally a bit more resistant or hesitant to change.

Charlotte Ward: 46:41

Lauren, what about you? Have you got any uh any personal stories of uh success with change?

Lauren Fern: 46:47

Yeah, so um one of the biggest changes that we implemented um at Zapio and within the support team, this was a change that kind of came about when I first joined the team. So it was a real collaboration between the whole group of managers that were working in support. Zapio's always been a very, very flexible workplace. So we're fully remote and we have completely flexible hours as well. Um, and that can be very difficult within a support team because you need to have enough coverage, you need to know when people are working to a certain extent to make sure that you can make sure your customers are getting a good response time. Um, and so we it was a challenge, we it was becoming difficult. We would see folks would all go for lunch at the same time, or they would take extended lunch breaks at the same time, um, or they would start late, and it was just very difficult to understand when everyone was around. Uh, and we toyed with the idea of like implementing a tool that's kind of called Who's in the Cube and it would help people understand who is around. But ultimately, what we settled on was to come up with a flexible schedule. So, what that kind of means is instead of everyone just work whenever they want, no matter what region you're in, you're in your region but you work your day between 7am and 7 p.m. So some people will work 9 till 5, some people work 8 till 4, 7 till 3, or some people will start much later and end their day at 7 pm. Um, so it still gives a great amount of flexibility, but it does allow people to, you know, know when everyone else is around. Um, and that was really hard because it it wasn't a change that was happening across the business. So it was just our team that we were implementing this change for. Um, and to go from being a company who's incredibly flexible to one that's still offering flexibility but in a slightly different way, it was it was a tough uh it was a tough change to roll out. But um the the major thing really was that we just really communicated and listened to what everybody had to say um and and it was a success. And now it's a good thing really because people are able to help each other within their regions, they know who is working at at certain times, um, and it wasn't that different anyway, because people tend to work the same schedule, so it was just a matter of that structure being implemented rather than them making any changes to to what they were doing anyway.

Charlotte Ward: 49:02

Yeah, that's that that's often the way, isn't it? That um once you get on the other side of change, it's actually either not as big a change as everyone was fearing. Um or genuinely kind of people set into settle into it much quicker than they they think, even if it was a massive change, right? So I mean in your case, it wasn't an enormous change necessarily, but but that it's the problem of the change.

Lauren Fern: 49:30

Yeah, yeah, rather than the change. It's that front-loaded fear somehow. Yeah, yeah. And and I mean, looking looking back, um I think we sometimes I I think there's a tendency to over-correct as well for change, like, oh, everybody's gonna be really upset about this. We have to make sure we do XYZ. And sometimes that's not necessary. So we've learnt a lot in that regard as well, to make sure that we are um not not overcorrecting too much for for the potential of people being upset.

Charlotte Ward: 50:01

Yeah, that's a fair point. Um, and and some good advice, which um which I'm not gonna allow you to bring back in a minute when I ask for your one piece of advice. So let's get to the final point of this discussion, which I I always like to round out a panel with asking what everyone's one piece of advice is in this particular area. So, Stacy, maybe we can come to you first. What's your one piece of like solid gold advice when it comes to managing change?

Stacy Justino: 50:28

It's actually the advice I would give, uh, generally speaking, but it definitely applies to managing change. Lead with transparency and empathy. Um, oftentimes support reps can feel in the dark. And so being as transparent as you can be greatly helps them, especially when you're introducing change. And as for empathy, um, we can forget what we're asking our reps to do every day, especially when we're trying to change something for the better, and they can have some unintended consequences. So leading with empathy, not just for customers, but empathy for stakeholders and especially for your agents, I think is super helpful and would be the advice I would give.

Hilary Dudek: 51:07

So my one piece of advice for managing change and support would be communicate frequently and regularly and focus on listening and supporting the individuals, all the individuals on your team, but then allow those natural leaders that do embrace change to sort of take lead and drive positivity towards that change. Let them sort of help you herd everyone into a better morale and a better outlook regarding the change.

Greg Skirving: 51:36

So, my one piece of advice is wherever possible, involve the people that are impacted by the change uh in the actual change. So uh moving to a new system, there's a project for that, make sure you have uh um input from the people that actually use it, make sure they're involved. Um it uh uh uh strategically adjusts handles the change. It uh but it but it also shows faith in your people and the value that they bring and that their opinions are valued. And um you get one or two people on the on the project, you know they're gonna talk about it with their peers, and it's like everyone's involved. So um we've talked a lot about communication. So it's really the uncertainty that's uh that's that's the biggest issue, uh, which is why we want to communicate. But having people involved uh who are impacted by the change wherever possible is uh is a critical step.

Simone Secci: 52:35

Um well, I think my one piece of advice, it's very synthetic, and I think it applies to uh some of the very difficult relationships that sometimes you have with different environments, maybe with sales in particular, I would say sometimes. And and it's a very uh, I would say for me, it's kind of like a hard law of support, which is don't promise anything that you can deliver. I think that also applies to you know uh managing a group of people for change and and direct communication to be like uh straight up and honest with the team that you lead, and uh you know, um always manage their communication uh thoroughly um understanding uh what their point of view is, what their context uh you know to receive that information is and uh try to give them all the the tools that they need in order to understand the change and and don't try to uh sugarcoat it you all as as uh I know that it's easier said than done in certain situations to you know maybe um make uh a change be like Ily was saying in the beginning, more appealing than it than it really is, right? Uh but then there are consequences later on that you have to deal with.

Lauren Fern: 53:59

You've all given such great advice. I'm left with no original ideas, but I think the transparency and empathy certainly is really key here. But going just a little bit further into transparency and what I was touching on earlier, the the who, what, where, when, uh, why and how, I think as much as we can in terms of communicating that to our team, the who is really who is being impacted by this change. And then obviously, what are we changing? And let's really talk about why that initiative is happening, whether it's um a choice of our elective choice or is it something that's being imposed upon us? Uh sort of the where, where is this you know happening and how is this impacting? And then the why, really getting into more of the core understanding is what's motivating this. Is are we changing software because our current licensing is expiring and the cost doesn't make sense and the features aren't aligned with what we need? Uh and this is also gonna improve our frustration. Remember how the old one that we like, but it keeps crashing all the time, and we have to restart our computers constantly, you know, it will improve on that stuff. Uh, and then the how, how are we gonna actually implement this and then talk about it uh with some open dialogue to address the team's concerns?

Lauren Fern: 55:10

For me, um, the one piece of advice that I would give is to um is to really invest in the professional development of the people that are going to be communicating this change. So that is might not be the same for every organization, especially smaller organizations. You may be the person um who's going to be communicating the change. But if you're in a bigger organization where maybe you have senior ICs or you have team leads or other managers, um the thing that I have found very successful is is teaching those people the skills needed to manage change. So how to deal with ambiguity, how to be, how to think strategically, how to be transparent, how to disagree and commit is a huge one as well. Um that's a super important one that I think everybody should know. So um take the time to help people hone those skills throughout the the entire year, the whole time um that they're at work, so that when these things come about, they feel equipped to deal with it in the same way that us as leaders do as well.

Charlotte Ward: 56:10

I think that's a super piece of advice, Lauren. I really do, because I think the the thing that you said there about investing in it through the year is a really important part because I I've I've been in so many situations where the first red flag I see is that change management training is being rolled out across the company.

Lauren Fern: 56:36

Oh it might be a bit too late.

Charlotte Ward: 56:38

Yeah. All that means is that six months from now I'm gonna have a bunch of new people with with all of the credentials for change management managing some really big stuff.

Lauren Fern: 56:49

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's it's a constant um just sort of, and it's not even I don't think you even have to package it. It's like these are change management skills. It's just like these are things you should learn. Um, and then when the change comes about, it doesn't feel as shocking to have to disagree and commit, be okay with the ambiguity, and then go and talk about it. Um, and then one thing that uh I have only recently started to do, but found this has been really successful. So when I'm speaking to the team lead about a big change, I always put together like a cheat sheet of FAQs, like this is what I think the team will ask you, and here is what you can say about those things. Um, and that just sets them up to go into their team meetings and be ready for those questions, um, just in case they do come up.

Charlotte Ward: 57:34

Yeah, that's great. Uh and just what you said about you know, that a lot of those skills are transferable from everyday leadership. You you can all of the things you talked about around being okay with ambiguity and everything else. That's just being a good leader, anyway, isn't it? And that applies to any day of the week, any any time of the year, big change or small change, because we're managing change every day, actually.

Lauren Fern: 57:57

Definitely.

Charlotte Ward: 57:59

Awesome, thank you so much. That's it for today. Go to