Blog

As the year draws to a close, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that progress in your change program is futile.

You might believe that everyone's focused on holiday festivities and not paying attention to your initiatives but today I’m telling you why that’s simply not true.

Stakeholders, customers, and potential talent are still watching, and your team still wants to know how change will impact them.

In this episode, I'm sharing insights and practical tactics on how you can keep the momentum going and avoid the common mistakes I see change leaders make at this time of year.

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My guest today is Gillian Fox, an expert in all areas of women's career advancement and the founder of Your Brilliant Career and the Gillian Fox group. Gillian is not only an accomplished author but also a renowned moderator, keynote speaker, and senior executive coach, with a focus on leading gender diversity programs in some of Australia's largest businesses.

Gillian’s work primarily revolves around helping executive leaders in major organisations elevate women into leadership positions. With over a decade of experience in designing and delivering leadership programs, Gillian is recognized as a leading business educator in this space.

If you are looking to advance your career or if you are serious about increasing diversity and inclusion within your organisation to make way for more women to step into senior leadership roles, this is the episode for you.

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We've all heard those stories of resistance to change within organisations but how do you handle them when they come your way? Today, I’m chatting with change management consultant and founder of Casa de Cambio, Natasha Redmond, who has a wealth of experience in navigating the turbulent seas of change within some of Australia's largest companies.

In this episode, we explore strategies to better understand stakeholders, enhance change communication, build change capability, and address resistance at the root cause. Whether you're in the midst of a change initiative or want to prepare for future challenges, this episode is a goldmine of insights and practical tips.

Change management can be a rollercoaster ride, and sometimes the reactions to it can be downright baffling. Natasha shares some of her craziest experiences, including a particularly intense encounter with a resistant team. Natasha emphasises that people rarely resist change for no reason, so it's crucial to delve deeper and understand what's truly driving their resistance.

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In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, change leaders often find themselves in uncharted waters, facing unique challenges that demand a deep understanding of both the human and organisational aspects of transformation. In this episode, I have the privilege of speaking with Dr Jess Tayel, a distinguished expert with 25 years of experience in the field of transformation and change management. Dr Tayel's extensive background includes mentoring leaders, delivering transformation programs, and establishing change and transformation practices across 15 countries on five continents.

Jess is passionate about creating enterprise level change that propels people and organisations forward without getting it wrong the first time and doing it over again. She is also the founder of the People of Transformation Community, helping change managers master the art of change and transformation. 

During her involvement in a transformation program for the Men's World Cup last year, Jess recognised a pivotal truth – the success of any transformation effort is intricately tied to how individuals within the organisation perceive and embrace change. Observing the disparity in how individuals engaged with the transformation program, Jess realised that fostering an environment where people felt heard, supported, and empowered was crucial to achieving successful change. 

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If you’ve been in the change management space for some time, you’ll know that this field has evolved, particularly over the last few years. My guest today is Sharon Connolly, a seasoned change manager in the financial services industry and we’re talking today about some of the misconceptions about change management, the role of change managers, and the essential skills needed to succeed in this ever-evolving landscape.

Sharon Connolly is the founder of Change Superhero, providing training, templates, and coaching for change managers at all levels. In this episode, Sharon shares her perspective on how the industry has shifted in the last 15 years and why many organisations will struggle to understand what change managers do. 

The role of the change manager has undergone significant transformations, especially since COVID-19. Sharon notes that change managers are now finding a seat at the decision-making table in some organisations, no longer operating solely under the project manager's umbrella. This elevation in status allows change managers to contribute to strategic discussions and ensures that change is considered holistically alongside project management. Sharon encourages change managers to actively advocate for this role and assert their expertise in shaping the change journey.

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If you’re interested in learning how to drive positive change in a really meaningful way within your organisation, you are going to get so much out of this episode today.

I’m thrilled to be speaking with Dixie Crawford today, a Barkindji woman and the founder and managing director of Naganya, a consultancy specialising in cross-cultural leadership and Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) development and implementation for Australian corporate and government agencies. 

Dixie is deeply committed to making a difference in how Aboriginal people are heard and understood. Her passion is helping others to understand the cause of barriers that impact thinking and doing when it comes to engaging with and creating opportunities for First Nations people and communities to thrive.

In this conversation, Dixie shares powerful insights and practical tips on how you can engage with First Nations people in a meaningful way and how a Reconciliation Action Plan in your organisation can be a vehicle to genuinely support reconciliation.

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The word ‘agile’ is popping up everywhere these days and agile ways of working are becoming increasingly sought after across all industries, including change leadership.

I’m thrilled to be delving into the exciting world of Agile Change and leadership with renowned expert, Dr. Jen Frahm. Jen is a global authority on organisational change, communication, and transformation, with a diverse background that spans across a wide variety of industries and 28 different countries.

As a sought after speaker and author of two impactful books, Change Leader: The Changes You Need to Make First and Conversations of Change: A Guide to Workplace Change, Jen is known for being at the frontier of business agility and change. If Agile change has been a topic you’ve been interested in exploring in your change initiatives, you definitely don’t want to miss this conversation.

Agile change is a methodology that emphasises delivering change quickly with limited resources while ensuring the well-being of those affected. It requires change leaders to adapt their tools and processes to work efficiently within short timelines, making it a challenging yet rewarding approach. In this conversation, Jen and I discuss some of the reasons behind the growing interest in agile ways of working and the unrealistic expectations organisations may have regarding cost savings and the level of commitment required.

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Emotions play a crucial but often overlooked role in the workplace, especially during times of change. When teams and stakeholders are emotionally aligned with a strategic vision, change programs can thrive. Yet, emotional culture is rarely discussed until emotions become a problem. 

Today, I have the privilege of speaking with Jeremy Dean, the founder and mastermind behind riders&elephants, a company that designs simple, human-focused games that reimagine the way people can connect and grow. Jeremy's mission is to rehumanise workplaces, and his games are used by some of the world's most prominent organisations, including IBM, Netflix, Airbnb, and the United Nations.

In this conversation, Jeremy and I delve deep into the concept of emotional culture, exploring its significance, how it differs from cognitive culture, some of the common challenges leaders face, and practical strategies for incorporating it into change management plans. Jeremy's insights and tips for leaders and people managers navigating the sometimes uncomfortable realm of emotional culture are absolutely invaluable.

We talk in particular about The Emotional Culture Deck, a powerful tool designed to help leaders and teams understand, express, and navigate their emotions during times of change. Jeremy emphasises the importance of articulating desired and undesired emotions, enabling leaders to create a roadmap for guiding their teams through emotional challenges during change.

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Lean change and agile change management are becoming more popular terms these days, but do we know what they really mean? My guest today is prolific author and international speaker, Jason Little, and we’re talking about what lean and agile change management actually looks like in practice and how to integrate it into your change management program.

Jason Little is the founder of Lean Change and the author of three books, including Change Agility, Lean Change Management and Agile Transformation: A Guide to Organizational Change. In addition to revolutionising the world of change, he’s also CTO of Spero Careers Canada, a company dedicated to solving the autism employment crisis. He is a true pioneer in the change management space.

In this episode, Jason and I cover the core principles of lean change and how to start integrating lean and agile change practices into your project, particularly when your organisation is used to more traditional change management approaches. Jason shares some insightful recommendations such as using a change canvas, running lean coffee sessions and creating feedback loops. We talk about these in more detail and how you can start implementing them, starting today.

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Today, we're delving deep into the world of change management and leadership, and I couldn't be more excited to introduce our guest, the brilliant Friska Wirya.

Friska is a change consultant, speaker, and the soon-to-be-published author behind "Fresh by Friska." With over a decade of experience in change and transformation, Friska has collaborated with big players in mining, engineering, and technology. Together, we unravel the secrets of developing influence in the workplace, so get ready for some incredible insights.

Friska and I discuss how she has harnessed the power of influence to drive change in even the most conservative organisations. We highlight the crucial relationship between visibility and influence, exploring how your personal brand impacts your ability to create influence within an organisation.

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Let's face it – change can be both exhilarating and challenging. It brings up a whole array of emotions and issues, and that's where Shelley Johnson’s expertise truly shines. She's not your typical HR expert; Shelley is a dynamic force who's been leading human resources teams for over a decade. She's coached executives and business owners to level up their leadership game, build dream teams, and cultivate thriving cultures. 

Shelley is the founder of boldside, a consultancy practice focusing on HR and leadership development. Plus, she's also a familiar voice behind the microphone on the My Millennial podcast, where she's helped countless individuals find their career paths through the airwaves. Trust me, this episode is packed with practical insights you won't want to miss.

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Supporting a digital transformation program right now? Yeah, me too.
No matter the specifics of your unique program, I guarantee that there’s one big thing you can do to make it way more likely you’ll deliver the technical change adoption:

Stop sounding so bloody technical!

Look, language is powerful. Language helps us all perceive the world around us - and that includes how your stakeholders perceive your transformation program.

Specifically, the words, phrases and sentence structure you and your team use to describe your digital transformation program plays a HUGE role in shaping and influencing the way folks think about, feel about, and engage with your change program.

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Not all stakeholders are created equal.

If you’ve ever been part of a stakeholder mapping workshop, you’ll know that it doesn’t take much to identify a wide array of stakeholders, no matter what your change or transformation program is about. In any well-run brainstorming session, people will submit their ideas and you’ll end up with a huge number of stakeholders.

In fact, in the last stakeholder mapping session I hosted, in a fairly short group brainstorming activity, we came up with a total of more than 100 stakeholders combined in the first pass. Obviously, that can be a pretty overwhelming number to deal with.

Most change teams are running pretty lean these days. And to actually deliver effective and sustainable change, they have a lot to do.

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Does your change program include running workshops, webinars, listening tours, panel discussions, steering committees, training sessions, or meetings?

If it does, you’ve got to make sure you’re thinking about how to make these experiences as engaging as possible for your stakeholders. I mean, we all know how important employee engagement is to the success of our organisational change or transformation programs.

Learning how to take experiences to the next level for our change program stakeholders is exactly what I’m diving into with my guest today on The New Way Podcast.

Leanne Hughes is an entrepreneur and high-performance business consultant. She combines her experience in Marketing, with her education (and obsession) with Group Dynamics and Psychology, to help leaders create engaging everyday experiences - that are so contagious they scale across teams, functions and regions.

In fact, in 2021 Leanne was the winner of the Asia Pacific Learning Impact awards for Learning Professional of the Year, so this is a great opportunity to learn from the best!

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How much real thought did you put into the training plan for your last change initiative?

So many change managers and trainers I know just seem to wheel out the same old approach to training over and over again.

And look, it’s not their fault - they’re change managers, not learning specialists and they’re under the pump.

It’s easier to stick to stale old school learning options…. But, so much has changed in this space over the past few years.

Are traditional approaches to training and learning relevant these days? And if they’re not, when it comes to learning at work, what’s working now?

This is exactly what I cover with my wonderful guest Steph Clarke on The New Way Podcast this week. We dive into how to develop a smart learning and development strategy for your change program.

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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.

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What does biz architecture have to do with change management? I’ve recently learnt the answer to that question is: a whole damn lot (and definitely more than most of the change managers I know realise).

For example, aligning your transformation program’s change management and business architecture efforts means your initiative is more likely to help bring org strategy to life AND less likely to piss off important stakeholders.

But how EXACTLY can business architecture help change leaders deliver more successful transformation programs?

In this week’s ep of The New Way podcast, we’ll discover just that.

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While change management is a critical aspect of organisational success, there was much less recognition of its importance in years gone by. In this episode, I chat to Doug Wolfson about how change management has evolved over the last 20 years, and how community and connection play a vital role in driving better outcomes for organisations.

Doug Wolfson is the director of Pivot Consulting with 25 years experience in change management. He works with organisations going through major transformation initiatives at both the strategic and the operational levels, and is passionate about supporting change management professionals to connect with one another and continue to grow in their practice. 

In our conversation, Doug shares the driving force behind establishing The Change Management Institute, a community of like-minded professionals who come together to share their experiences, insights and knowledge. 

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Creating a great culture at work is a challenge that requires great strategy, creative relationship building and often, new ways of thinking. While it’s tempting to go through the motions and do what has always been done, taking an innovative approach can be the best way to create a winning team culture that really drives results.

Today I’m joined by Colin D Ellis, a world-renowned culture change expert, international speaker, and bestselling author of four incredible books which include Culture Fix and Culture Hacks. Colin works with organisations around the world to help them change the way they get things done, and his insights around creating a great workplace culture are thoughtful, clarifying and so very practical.

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In an industry like change management where large organisations require great support to successfully adopt change within their systems, effective communication is crucial. As change managers, we need to know what the important tools are that will enable us to guide our clients towards successful change adoption.

Today, I am joined by the incredible Sharon Connolly, change management expert and force behind Change Superhero. Sharing a huge range of practical templates and online programs, Change Superhero is aimed at supporting change managers looking for a helping hand.

Sharon shares how, in her previous role at CBA, she had to quickly transition a large team to adapt to the changes that came with COVID-19. The infographics she created for this role quickly became in demand, and Sharon talks us through how she turned these practical tools into a business that successfully meets the needs of many change managers and their clients.

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