Why You Need To Take A More Agile Approach To Change Management with Justin Balaski

Have you ever thought about how much you do that is actually just wasted effort when it comes to managing change?

What actually makes a difference to the success of your change initiative?  And what’s just a big waste of time? 

Ha - I bet you immediately thought of a few time wasting things straight away!

Today on The New Way podcast I’m excited to bring you a great episode with my guest Justin Balaski.

Justin is the founder and principal consultant of IdeaLeap.  He has a wealth of experience advising senior executives in multi-billion dollar organisations on the art and science of leading change.  And Justin is all about taking a creative, people-centric, approach to lean change management that’s focused on co-creation, experimentation and iteration. 

In this conversation, we explore the opportunities that come with taking a fresh, more modern approach to change management.

You’ll discover:

  • Exactly what ‘agile’ or ‘lean’ change management is all about

  • The strategies that really move the needle on change and transformation programs

  • The mindset, practices, tools and team rituals you need to bring a leaner approach to change management to life (<- we cover so much gold here!)

I could’ve talked with Justin all day!  He shares a flood of cool, practical tips I know you’ll want to add to your toolkit and start using straight away!

I got so much out of this episode - and I know you will too!

Take a listen now.


TOPICS DISCUSSED AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:

[3:52]: Justin explores what it means to take a more agile approach to change management. An agile approach is a deep approach to learning and experimentation. There is a smaller amount of planning, more often instead of doing a big heavy plan in the beginning. 

[5:04]: It starts with the practitioner having the mindset and being okay with not knowing everything and learning their way forward through the change. 

[6:17]: The task execution approach is a false sense of progress and security. You’re just measuring how many items you check off on your plan and not if the plan is actually working. 

[9:42]: Reshaping resistance as data and important stakeholder information. 

[11:44]: Some people have the natural tendency to want more control but Justin naturally gravitated to an agile approach. It takes practice and you have to step outside of your comfort zone to try it. 

[14:10]: It feels like 80% of the work in change management is wasted effort. Anything that doesn’t directly nudge the change forward is wasted effort. 

[16:42]: It’s OK if some people never get on board and like the change. Not everybody has to like it, as long as they’re not intentionally trying to derail it. 

[18:10]: A form of waste is using an approach that isn’t right for the job. Replace the heavier planning with a change canvas - a lightweight, one-page document that is mocked up using sticky notes. It’s a living document that is refreshed all of the time. 

[19:14]: Stakeholder analysis can become an enormous document that is unusable. We can use lightweight tools like a blast radius diagram or a mock-up with sticky notes. It’s not going to be perfect but the heavier tools won’t be perfect either. 

[20:20]: Justin has been promoting microburst videos (short cartoon videos that are not more than 60 seconds). Nobody will watch a 5-minute video that you spent $10,000 to produce. 

[21:33]: Justin believes the term change manager is incorrect. It implies we have some sort of control over change. He prefers the term ‘change agent’. A ‘change agent’ can be a lot of different people, including leaders and influential people within the organisation. 

[23:49]: As a change agent to create change, #1 Step out of your comfort zone and start small. #2 Don’t try to pitch it as ‘replacing’ anything in the organisation, it will ‘augment’ current methods. #3 Lead with the visual work with a lightweight canvas. 

[26:11]: Where to find and connect with Justin. 

RESOURCES MENTIONED: 

IdeaLeap: https://idealeap.com/downloads 

CONNECT WITH JUSTIN:

Website: https://idealeap.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/justinbalaski

CONNECT WITH ME:

Website: https://www.everchange.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ever-change-and-communication

Kate Byrne