Diana Asbury (00:32):
Yes we are. And I’m praying that my furniture delivery does not come in the middle of this. I just put a sign on the door, so if we hear a doorbell, sorry, I’m hoping that it doesn’t happen. Anyways, well, thanks everybody for sharing some of your feedback, and welcome to today’s presentation. I think hearing all that feedback, it’s really helpful for us to get a better understanding of what all of you might be going through.
Glynnis Purcell (00:58):
Yeah, it definitely is. But let me start with some background and share just a little bit about why we wanted to host this program today. Diana’s expertise lies in developing laser-targeted lead and demand generation systems with an eye on company-wide change management that supports cultural and collaborative growth. She’s consulted for multinational brands and has spoken at conferences discussing lead generation, building brand loyalty, and more. When Diana was asked to speak at the soundboard marketing conference, alongside experts from Buffer, Moz, HubSpot, Salesforce, and other industry leaders, she decided to speak to something that our customers have constantly struggled with, and that was inline with her expertise.
Glynnis Purcell (01:36):
For nearly seven years, Diana worked for a leadership training organization. When she came to Workzone, she quickly realized that there was a significant overlap in one consistent challenge our customers face. And that was a challenge she could help tackle with her management training background. So she decided to speak about gaining buy-in for change. And with a full room, she received positive feedback, and so today we’re bringing that content to you.
Glynnis Purcell (01:59):
I want to ask all of you joining us, do you agree? Tell us by typing, “Yes” or “I’m ready” if you’re joining us today because you want to increase the productivity of your team, help your team be more innovative, get buy-in from your team instead of pushback, learn ways to become a more positive leader or improve a difficult change management process. If any of these are areas you can relate to type “Yes” or “I’m ready” in the questions box. Let us know you’re here, you’re listening, and you’re excited to get started. Eris, Elliott and Wilson, you guys are on top of it, I love it. [crosstalk 00:02:29] I love that you are cracking me up.
Glynnis Purcell (02:41):
Thanks guys. Oh, I love this. You guys are a great crowd. I can tell we’re going to have a lot of fun today, so keep it coming guys. If you have any questions or anything comes up during this entire webinar, please use this comment box. You guys all know where it is. And we’re really excited you’re here. At Workzone, our goal is to help busy teams be more productive, and we all know that no one is quite as busy as a marketing department. I can attest to that for Diana gets my needs all the time, my questions, so I definitely know what you guys are dealing with on a daily basis.
Glynnis Purcell (03:18):
Today’s event will be split into two parts. In the first 25 minutes or so we’ll be sharing statistics about process change as well as two different approaches to leadership and what results you can expect from each, then if it’s okay with you, we’ll take just about 60 seconds to share a little bit more about Workzone. Guys, I am the sales director, it’s my shameless plug, I got to get something out of this, but like I said, it’ll take about a minute and then we’ll review a step-by-step process to overcome resistance and gain buy-in.
Glynnis Purcell (03:47):
Now, after the main presentation, we’ll get to your question. Like I said, at any point during the webinar, you can ask questions, use the comment box located on the right hand side of the GoTo webinar screen. And after the session, you’ll receive a message asking you to take a survey. We’ll send it in an email as well. It takes about a minute to complete. And we love it. We take your feedback really seriously. It helps us improve these programs. So if you take the time to share your feedback as a thank you, we’ll send you a free guide on 10 ways you can get more done with the same resources. Let’s go ahead and jump right in guys. Diana I’ll pass it over to you.
Diana Asbury (04:20):
All right, awesome. Thanks Glynnis. I’m excited for today. It seems like we have a really lively group. As marketing leaders, we have lots of ideas; ideas about how to improve marketing, how to improve our internal workflows and processes, all sorts of ideas. And we’ve been put into our positions, not only because we’re good at marketing, but because someone along the way thought we’d also be great at managing other people. So for many of us, this can sometimes be an odd juxtaposition. In the past you’ve been a key team player with specific talents that really add to your team’s productivity. But now as a manager, your job is no longer to just put your head down and be productive, instead, your role is to empower others to be more productive and help your team work well together.
Diana Asbury (05:07):
It’s really a challenge that can be difficult to navigate under the best of circumstances. And we all know lately, it hasn’t always been the best of circumstances, and today what we’re going to do is we’re actually going to talk about this in the context of implementing new processes. You might be having to do this, maybe working remotely or doing some other things differently.
Diana Asbury (05:29):
For now, for today, I want you to think of an idea that you’ve recently had that will influence your workflows. It could be a new marketing program, a new strategy, or just a general way to help your team be more productive. Think of something you really want to see put into action. You may have already started to plan this out, whether, maybe in your mind, sketch out on a sheet of paper and a spreadsheet, who knows where, but I want to make sure it’s something that you haven’t successfully implemented yet. Think for a second, get that idea in your mind. And I’m really hoping that also you thought about this idea, I really can’t wait to take action on that. And now that you have that idea in your mind, I’m hoping that as a collective group here, we can all feel like we’re pretty pumped up about some sort of change right now.
Diana Asbury (06:20):
Let’s say you’re going to continue to clarify your plan, you’re going to hit on everything. Technology and systems do you need to use? Processes you’ll put in place? People have the expertise to execute this? You’ll have every little bit figured out. Now, in a second, Glynnis is going to put up a poll, and I want you to tell me which of these three; technology, process, or people do you expect is going to really trip you up the most, that’s going to hold you back from bringing your idea to life.
Glynnis Purcell (06:52):
All right, let’s launch this poll. Guys, select the first option if you think your number one obstacle to getting your idea to take hold will be selecting the technology and systems you need. The second option you should select if you think your number one obstacle will be developing the right process. And the last option is if you think getting your team on board will be the most difficult. We’re going to give everybody a few more minutes. I think we’re almost there.
Diana Asbury (07:21):
I feel like this is going to be pretty aligned with everything we usually see.
Glynnis Purcell (07:25):
Yes.
Diana Asbury (07:28):
And most of you voted, so yes, people, people, you’re not alone for sure. In a research study called culture’s role in enabling organizational change, this was done by the oldest strategy company in the world. People who really know their stuff, they found that when they asked employees about change, 44% of employees said they don’t understand the change they’re being asked to make, and 38% said that they don’t agree with it. And honestly, this is a barrier that our team at Workzone has become far too familiar with.
Diana Asbury (08:01):
Workzone is an online project management tool, if you guys don’t know already. The initial version of our software was created over 18 years ago, so I always like to say that this is back when people still cared about Myspace and the razor cell phone, you remember those, that was still a year away from making its way into the market. And as you can imagine, since that time we’ve entered into a much more competitive market ourselves. For years, our development team has continued to add feature upon feature to stay competitive and to give teams what they really needed to do their jobs better, lots of things have been added.
Diana Asbury (08:38):
But here’s the thing that we found. In the end, we’ve come to a drastic realization that truly no feature could change the likelihood that a team would actually use the system. Adoption was the number one barrier our customers face. To clarify here, if their people weren’t onboard with the new systems and processes, they wouldn’t succeed no matter which tool they selected or what features they were given. And these teams who aren’t successful at process change, they’re not alone.
Diana Asbury (09:10):
Reported in the Journal of Change Management, get this guys, 70% of change programs fail. 70% of change programs fail, that’s huge. What does this mean? Guys, should we just give up? Well, what do you guys think? The reality is we cannot give up. We were put into our positions to make sure that our teams succeeds. Instead of giving up, we need to really take the steps that are necessary to go ahead and beat these odds, pretty hefty odds here.
Diana Asbury (09:42):
I listened to an audio book called Power Moves. It’s an audio book by Adam Grant, you’ve probably heard that name. It was produced for Audible, so if you’re an Audible subscriber definitely check it out, it was, I think, a freebie. And amongst the list of many leaders from all different organizations, Adam Grant interviews Kerry Kennedy, the President of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. And during the interview, she said something that I think really aligns with our talk today, and has influenced the way that we think about what we do here at Workzone.
Diana Asbury (10:13):
She said, “People who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution.” Again, “People who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution.” Her nonprofit is not the only organization that has adopted this point of view. One of the nonprofits that works on her support in the past is Charity Water. When Scott Harrison, the founder, started Charity Water, he knew it was important to get involvement from the people in the communities that really needed clean water. Not only did the locals understand the challenges of the area, the terrain and the people, they also needed to understand how the new water systems would work so that they could maintain them.
Diana Asbury (10:55):
And most importantly, he knew that change really needed to be driven by the people who really care about it and will be affected by the outcome. So this is a quote from one of the interviews with him. He said, “The most important thing is that we wouldn’t send people from the Western world to drill the wells. All the work had to be led by the locals. I just believed, for it to be culturally appropriate and sustainable, it’s Ethiopians in Ethiopia doing all that work.”
Diana Asbury (11:25):
What am I trying to tell you? What I’m here to tell you today is that people must come first, because really to enact change, to bring these ideas we have to life, we have to change the behavior of our employees. And behavior quickly translates to, buzzword, employee engagement. And employee engagement is rooted deep in how an organization operates and how people feel about the work that they’re doing.
Diana Asbury (11:52):
There’s really two schools of thought when it comes to employee engagement. To illustrate the first, I want to go ahead and just share a personal story. It’s been a little while back since this conversation happened, but I was talking to a friend and mentor, and I shared with them that I was meeting with my team on an individual basis to talk about their goals. I wanted my team to share with me what they see for both their future and the future of the company. I bet many of you are having some of these conversations right now with year-end reviews and just wrapping things up.
Diana Asbury (12:25):
And when I was having this conversation, I said that my goal was not only to get their input, but I wanted them to have their own sense of ownership and pride in the work that they were doing. Immediately, the reaction for the mentor was to inform me that employees are only motivated by a couple of things: fear of punishment, praise from their boss, or because they were seeking to get promoted. With punishment and praise, you really need to consistently be bugging employees because otherwise they wouldn’t be doing their job. And with the ambition, you need to have a path for them to get promoted. I’m sure you’ve heard these concepts many times before.
Diana Asbury (13:01):
Well, what was this reaction based on? I believe it was based on the need to have control. In fact, this is classic command and control leadership. The manager felt that the only way to motivate people is by demanding that work gets done and provided they’re taking away potential opportunities. And the fundamental issue here with this type of management is that behavior change isn’t permanent. I’d like to share a quote from a psychologist who, now at 80 years old, has spent his life analyzing what motivates presidents. His name is David Winter. I believe he was getting interviewed by Adam Grant as well, so definitely check that one out.
Diana Asbury (13:41):
What he did is he actually used a coding system to analyze president’s speeches, to understand what kind of leader they were. It’s pretty cool stuff back before we had the computing power we have now. Anyways, he said this. He said, “The act of power or the expression of power is fleeting, it fades quickly, and it leaves you with an almost empty kind of lonely feeling. Because if you control the whole world, if everything moves only by your will, then you’re really talking about an inanimate or dead world. That may be why power needs to keep renewing, keep establishing, keep demonstrating itself, because like a drug, you need a bigger and bigger effects because you develop a tolerance to it.”
What he’s describing is what’s called extrinsic motivation. You’re only able to move the needle by pushing and pulling, and if you don’t, no one is taking action. And you can imagine that if you’re a manager, this kind of leadership style is truly exhausting.
Diana Asbury (14:42):
What does this look like in practice? Go ahead, and that idea that I asked you to bring up at the beginning of this, bring that back up in your mind, and imagine that you have every single thing planned out and you’ve decided it’s finally time to share it with your team and motivate them to go ahead and take action. You sit your team down, and you clearly state what needs to be done, there’s no question. No if, ands, or buts about it, this is the way it’s going to happen. They know if they’re going to be on your team, they better go ahead and get in line.
Diana Asbury (15:15):
What do you expect will happen next? Will your team keep up the motivation to see change through? Unfortunately, it’s not likely. They may act as though they’re on board because the reality is they have no other option, but they certainly aren’t going to be excited to stay late, and take ownership, go all in, and have your back. I think we can all agree an alternative solution makes way more sense, so what’s the flip side?
Diana Asbury (15:42):
Well, let’s talk about a management style that’s becoming more and more attractive. It’s called positive leadership. Earlier, I mentioned a massive employee survey done by the oldest strategy company in the world, let’s turn and look back at some more results from that survey. The employees were asked why they’re resistant to change. And there was two most common answers. I’m going to go ahead and work backwards and start with the second most common answer. I promise to reveal the first one later on. And this is that employee said that they don’t feel included in the change process.
Diana Asbury (16:16):
How does positive leadership address this? Well, this style of leadership is rooted in bringing out intrinsic motivation and giving people an attachment to the outcome. To do this, you need to uncover what motivates your people and attach those motivations to the achievement of this new initiative. What you’re doing here is you’re actually transferring the power. You’re empowering your team by granting them the autonomy to plan, make choices, and own the success. There’s no longer really a need for you to push and pull because their innate ambition, curiosity and abilities are free to take the reins.
Diana Asbury (16:51):
Now, what does this look like in practice? Let’s say you decide it’s time to set up a new online project management system, like our customers did when they joined us here at Workzone. They could start off by planning everything out, customizing the system, how it works, make sure it fits what they think is best. This is honestly often the default for those who come on board. Leaders, those we’re bringing onboard, the software, they think they need to have everything buttoned up and perfect before they share it with their team. But this is actually the opposite of what successful leaders do.
Diana Asbury (17:30):
The most successful teams bring in two groups before they start building new processes. The first group is their fellow leaders and the second is their team. Since their team is doing the day-to-day work, they really need to be part of the solution. And it’s important to note that if you’re a project leader and you’re not the team’s direct manager, it really doesn’t matter. Authority is not a prerequisite for motivating people in the world of positive leadership.
Diana Asbury (17:57):
Many of our most successful clients have designated a team member to manage the project and system on a day-to-day basis. And this really allows someone to handle the little details and leaders to focus on the bigger picture. Now go ahead and imagine. You decide you’re going to lead with positivity, with an eye towards collaboration and intrinsic motivation, so are we done? Can we all go? Have a snack now or lunch? Well, we’ll all work. Unfortunately, as we all know, it’s really not quite this easy, it sounds great, but it’s not quite this easy. You see, when you introduce your idea, your team will most likely fall into three categories. Let’s go over these three categories. Let’s start with the top category.
Diana Asbury (18:47):
Early adopters and influencers, this is about 20%. These are people who will be just as excited as you. They probably wanted this change to happen for a while. They’re going to drive it. Then you’ve got the largest group, about 60% are passive adopters. People who are interested in the idea, they’re going to help, but they’re probably just going to follow the leader. They won’t actively push the idea forward. Okay, so we all know what this next group is, 20% are the resistors, people who are resistant to moving the plan forward. And for you to move ahead, it’s imperative that you’re able to address resistance.
Diana Asbury (19:27):
And next we’re going to walk through a three-step research back process to help you overcome resistance. And before we do so I’m going to pass this conversation back over to Glynnis, that shameless plug that she said she had to get in, but it’ll be just a minute.
Glynnis Purcell (19:44):
Thanks Diana. And guys, thanks for sticking with us through the scheduled break. Diana mentioned previously that many of our customers have struggled with process change. They’ve expressed that they found it really difficult to put a project management system in place until they started working with our team here at Workzone. And that’s really because we realized that adoption is the number one challenge. And so we’ve put together a high touch success and support model.
Glynnis Purcell (20:09):
Every one of our customers is given unlimited training and active support. This includes a clear onboarding plan and schedule, as well as continued support with quarterly scheduled business reviews. This is to make sure you’re getting the most out of the system and able to head off issues before they arise.
Glynnis Purcell (20:24):
Now, look, we know there are endless amounts of project management systems available in the marketplace. I think the last time we checked, it was like over 400, which is ridiculous. But here at Workzone, people are central to the solution. Of course, you’re going to get the features you need, things to include, custom project requests forms, project templates, project and task management, time tracking reporting, I could go on, but the most important thing is that you get a partner who will guide you every step of the way.
Glynnis Purcell (20:55):
Here it comes, guys. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to set up a demo with one of my team members so that you can learn a little bit more about how we help busy teams do more. You’ll see the poll. I’m pulling it up today, guys. It’s going to be up for about 15 to 20 seconds. Now during the call, my team will be able to assess your team’s specific needs, analyzing which features can help you achieve your goals. And then they’ll also walk you through our support and success plan.
Glynnis Purcell (21:22):
We are going to take this down in a couple of seconds. We’ll make it available again towards the end of the session, so if you haven’t really thought about it, have a couple, you got a few more minutes and then we’ll put it up to the end. Why don’t we close it and we’ll jump back in. Diana, I’ll pass it back over to you.
Diana Asbury (21:37):
Thanks so much, Glynnis. As I mentioned before, we’re going to walk through a research back process to overcome resistance to change. Let me align this before we get real deep into those solutions in the research. The first step here is that you must recognize that even good employees can be resistant to change. It won’t always be the same person for each initiative and it could always change. Second, you’ll need to identify why those team players are resisting and address each point of resistance. We’ll go over a couple of different ways to do that. And lastly, you’re going to want to turn those points of resistance into an action plan. And this is probably the most important part.
Diana Asbury (22:18):
Let’s go ahead and dig into this together. The first one here, pretty much have an open mind, even good employees can resist change. It’s really essential for you to begin with this mindset that employees want to do the best job that they can for their employers. The truth is that there are many reasons why employees resist change, and I’m going to show you three of those ways and how you can affect the way they see change even if at first, they are resistant.
Diana Asbury (22:44):
For you to be able to really utilize these concepts, you’ll need to have what’s called a growth mindset. And this comes from Google. A few years back, Google created an internal study called Project Oxygen. They analyzed what traits helped managers be more successful. In conclusion, they found eight common habits, development areas every manager should work on mastering.
Diana Asbury (23:05):
The first of which comes out of research at Stanford, from Dr. Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology. In the research they define two mindsets, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. What they found was that managers who lead with a mindset that people can and want to develop new skills are more successful. This affects both the way they see themselves and their teams. A fixed mindset conversely is when you believe that people will never change, they are who they are. For us to address resistance, we [inaudible 00:23:37] mind, and part of this open mind is believing that if someone is resistant to change, there is probably a reason why. That really brings us to step number two, which is to identify why team members are resisting.
Diana Asbury (23:52):
There’s three reasons that we’re going to cover today as to why employees may be resistant to change. The first, mistrust, the second, pessimism, and the third is comfort. Let’s tackle these one at a time starting with mistrust. [inaudible 00:24:09] productive and accepting of change, they need to trust their leader. This is based on a well-known psychological discovery called attachment theory. An attachment theory states that a strong emotional attachment to at least one primary caregiver, in this case, it’s their manager, is critical to personal development.
Diana Asbury (24:28):
We’ve all been in a situation before where we’re talking to someone who we don’t trust. What’s happening then? Our anxiety is high, we’re definitely not focused, and we want to flee the conversation as fast as possible. And where’s this coming from? Well, maybe the employees had multiple leaders, or leadership hasn’t always been forthcoming with them, or they’re concerned that their job is on the line. To garner their trust, you need to show them a couple of things. Let’s go through each of these.
Diana Asbury (24:58):
The first is that you’re a consistent leader. You have predictable behaviors and you’re not going to be making knee-jerk decisions. The second, be fair. You want to treat everyone as similarly as possible, and make sure that you’re willing to walk the walk yourself. The third is that you’re honest, transparent, and upfront. And they need to know that even if the news isn’t good news, they can expect that you will tell them the truth. And the fourth one here is that you’ll protect them and won’t throw them under the bus.
Diana Asbury (25:30):
Okay, so let’s move on to the next one, pessimism. Let’s go ahead and head back to that survey of employees one more time. Remember I said that I had two reasons that I’d reveal the first one. The number one reasons employees said that they’re resistant to change is that they’re skeptical due to past failed change efforts. Dr. Martin Seligman, the director of Penn Positive Psychology Center wrote a bestselling book about his research, and it’s called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. By the way, it takes maybe an hour and a half to listen to. I’m an Audible listener, but that means it’s pretty short and it’s pretty good, if you ever want to check it out.
Diana Asbury (26:15):
A quote from Dr. Seligman reads, “Learned helplessness is the giving up reaction to quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do it doesn’t matter.” To illustrate this concept, imagine you have a team member who consistently reacts negatively to feedback, they make excuses, and they’re reluctant when asked to share anything. You may think that they’re just being really difficult and they don’t want to improve. But if you dig deeper, you might start to learn that every time they’ve shared an idea, they felt like it’s been turned down, every time they have attempted something new, they feel like they’ve gotten negative feedback. Over time this team member has learned that nothing they do will be good enough. They’ve learned to think that the worst will happen.
Diana Asbury (27:01):
But what Dr. Seligman found is that if pessimism can actually be learned, it can also be unlearned. And it starts with what he calls our explanatory style, which translates to how we speak to ourselves about failure. If you’re seeing a general lack of interest in change, because someone thinks that everything they try or your routine tries fails, you’ll need to help them change the way they’re talking to themselves about that failure.
Diana Asbury (27:31):
Let’s pretend you’re trying to get a new website project up and running. Your team members thinks it’s just a waste of time because you’ve just launched one last year, so what’s going to change now? Let’s talk to them about it through using a different explanatory style. We’re going to change this to temporary specific and external. So temporary, we have had decrease success with the website, but we’re seeing success with our new email campaigns, we can turn this around. It’s temporary.
Diana Asbury (28:02):
Two, specific. This is only one isolated part of our plan. Now we’ve learned from our mistakes and we can grow and external. And you know what? Let’s realize that our website partner last time really didn’t fully understand our customers, and now we’ve done a lot of digging into their needs, and we’re ready to go. Do you see how this type of discussion can really help your employees realize that there is hope out there?
Diana Asbury (28:29):
Okay, let’s move on to the next one, comfort. Your team is good, they know that they’re good, they know what they’re good at, they know how to get the job done, so why are they so opposed to change? They could just transfer their skills into a new area, right? Well, unfortunately, not so fast.
A study out of Stanford found that there’s a reason why even great performing teams have a difficult time changing. It’s called the competence trap. You see teams that have gotten really good at what they do have a difficult time transferring that to a new project. It’s not because they don’t have the capacity, instead, it’s because first, they’re rewarded for the behaviors that they already do well, and second, that they set expectations at the level that they’re doing work right now, which for a new program is highly exaggerated.
Diana Asbury (29:24):
So for a team to accept change, they need to remember how long it took them to see the success that they have today. They need to set realistic expectations, not based on their current success, and they need room to be able to fail. A moment ago I also shared, when I was talking about how to gain your team’s trust, I mentioned that you don’t want to make knee-jerk reactions.
Diana Asbury (29:47):
So as excited as everyone is today about that idea that we talked about at the beginning, as much as you want to just hit that ground running, a study out of Harvard showed that people are less resistant to change if it’s scheduled for the future. And it’s not because you want to put up a decision or a plan to change your mind, it’s because people really need time to adjust to their new future, and if you give them that time, they’re more likely to settle into that change. So two takeaways here are one, reset expectations and show your team that it’s okay if you don’t see results immediately, and two, schedule the change for the future to relieve immediate tension and allow time for planning.
Diana Asbury (30:28):
Let’s move on to the last step of this whole process, turning resistance into an action plan. What we’re going to do here is we’re going to turn objections into objectives. Let’s pretend you have an employee who’s worried that they won’t have enough time to get extra work done. It’s a legitimate concern, they already have a full-time job, and you’re asking them to do more work. To do this, you can follow a three-step framework.
Diana Asbury (30:53):
The first part of this is you need to get to the root of the problem. Imagine this as a contract with your employee. The first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to listen to their concerns. You want to make sure you’re repeating them back, confirm that you understand their issue, if you don’t, repeat it back again, make sure that you’re really understanding it. Afterwards, you might say something to them like this. Let’s say I’m talking to an employee and her name’s Olivia, “Olivia, what I hear you saying is that you already have a lot on your plate, and while you’d like to see us accomplish this new task, you’re worried your other work will suffer, is this correct?” And you want to make sure, like I said, like a contract, every time you need confirmation, so you need to make sure that they say yes. If they have anything to add, make sure you’re listening, and you’re adding that onto the conversation.
Diana Asbury (31:41):
Next, we’re going to go to step two. We’re going to turn that objection into an objective. Something like this. “For us to make this new project come to life, we would either need to get past your current project or find another resource to help you. Is that right?” And again, you want the employee, Olivia in this situation says, “Yes, that’s correct. Absolutely.” Or if they have anything to add, make sure you’re listening.
Diana Asbury (32:05):
Then next is to get their final commitment, wrap this all up. You’re going to ask them to commit to the project by saying something like, “So then if we’re able to make sure your other projects don’t suffer by either holding off on this project or getting additional resources, are you on board with the project?” And you want this final confirmation? “Yes, I’m on board with this if we can do this, this and this.”
Diana Asbury (32:31):
Let’s go ahead and wrap this up today. Let’s time travel, pull that idea you had at the beginning up in your mind, envision your team is sitting with you. First you’re going to discuss your process change solution with an open mind. Ask the team how this could help the organization better reach its collective goals? Listen carefully as you hear feedback and how this change will affect your team and organization. You want to make sure you’re really understanding all of the feedback, negative and positive.
Diana Asbury (33:03):
Then the second thing is you want to identify why team members might be resisting to that change, and then you want to address each point. So you’re going to disarm their concerns, and you’re going to make sure that you’re continuing to increase trust and try to keep their fears at bay, help your team move on from any past failures where they’re coming up and resistant in that way. And then you want to reset expectations and schedule deadlines for the future. Then you’re going to turn the resistance into an action plan. So any legitimate points of resistance and concern, you really want to gather those up and figure out the actionable steps that you can take to overcome those challenges.
Diana Asbury (33:46):
Now they are the owners of the outcome. They have a vested interest in making new ideas and processes come to life. It feels relatively good, I would help. Pretty good, right? I talked earlier about Scott Harrison, he’s the founder of Charity Water, and he believed it was important to create excitement around the Charity Water brand and to rely on people’s own intrinsic motivations to want to give back.
Diana Asbury (34:10):
And in a recent interview, he said, “We’re throwing parties where people get clean water. We’ve made it aspirational and fun, invite you to be part of something amazing. Not because you have to, but because you want to. You’re missing the party if you don’t, and you don’t want to. This is a party where the whole world is getting drinking water.”
Diana Asbury (34:31):
Now, before we move on to the Q and A, I’ll leave you with one last thought. Your employees don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “I want to do a bad job today.” They come to work with the intention to do great work, all you need to do is tap into what’s already there. I think if you leave with this mindset, you’re going to be surprised at how your ideas will start to spark interest throughout your team and really come to life.
Glynnis Purcell (34:55):
Great. We’re about to move into the live Q and A. There’s a couple of questions in here, but if you have yet to ask a question, please share it now using the questions box located on the right hand side of your screen. Now, before we do, I want to share a little bit of the exciting news. Workzone has been notified that for the second year in a row, we’re rated number one in project management by Software Advice, Capterra, and GetApp. And all of this is based on user reviews. Now, what we’re most proud of is when rated by our customers, we received a score of a 100 out of a 100 for our customer service. Like we said earlier, we believe that software alone is not enough, which is why we help you through our adoption process and give you unlimited support so you can sustain process change.
Glynnis Purcell (35:40):
Again, I’m going to share the poll we put up on the screen earlier. This offer will stay up until the end of the presentation. So you can either request a free demo. Don’t worry, guys, there’s no commitment there, or you can just get some more information on what we offer. We’ll go ahead and launch that poll. Select the first option, if you’re ready to request a demo with our project management experts, or the second options for you, if you’re not quite ready for a demo, but you would like to learn more and get some more information about us.
Glynnis Purcell (36:09):
This poll is going to stay up during the Q and A for the remaining part of our presentation. If you need a few minutes to think about it, it’s completely fine, take your time. Just to let you know, though, you want to make sure not to click the X to close the screen as it will exit you from the event completely, and we don’t want you to miss the Q and A portion of the event.
Glynnis Purcell (36:26):
Let’s move into your questions. I do want to circle back to Wilson’s comment at the beginning of our presentation. And Wilson, you talked about there being a lack of humility to accept that other ways might be better. And I just wanted to take a few minutes to dive into that, so I’m going to throw that one over to Diana for a few minutes.
Diana Asbury (36:44):
Okay. Thank you. And thank you all for continuing to stay on and joining us. Wilson, I think a lot of people feel this way, especially when others don’t seem real receptive to their ideas. And I think this really comes down to having more open-mind minds as a whole. So I guess I would question whether you guys are having one-on-one meetings, more activities where people get to know each other, things like that. To me, it sounds like when there’s a lack of humility, that sometimes comes from a lack of empathy and feeling connected to each other. And so that’s really what part of this program is about when you talk about positive leadership, and I mentioned that it doesn’t have to be a leader who is demonstrating positive leadership, it could be anyone.
Diana Asbury (37:44):
Wilson added something. Part of the reason I brought this up is because I’m actually lowering the totem pole and it’s been a struggle in my organization line to lead up. I love that. Okay. All right, so we’re all on the same page here, yeah. What does it mean for someone who wants to lead with positivity, but is maybe not the leader, and you want to lead from the bottom up? And I think it first comes from really getting to know people and having specific time to talk to them.
So if you’re finding that somebody isn’t really receptive to maybe your ideas or somebody else’s ideas, finding ways, and I know it’s hard when working from home, if we were all in the office, you might say, “Hey, you want to go grab a quick bite today,” or you might have one of those water cooler conversations where you’re getting to know and asking about them. It’s so much harder working from home, don’t you think, Glynnis?
Glynnis Purcell (38:36):
Yeah, it definitely is, especially if you’re newer in organization or maybe you’ve moved into a new position. I know tons of people who’ve gotten promoted while during the pandemic, and then they’re working with a completely new group of people that they’ve never had time to interact on a personal basis with before. And that can be really difficult.
Diana Asbury (38:56):
Yeah, absolutely. What are some other things we’ve done here, Glynnis? I know that you’ve even brought on board some people who never have met most of the team in person. And I just truly think some of the things that we’ve done from the top down have helped, because we’ve done some trivia nights and some smaller team get-togethers, but I think it really comes to a one-on-one connection. And I think you’ve seen a few of your employees reach out one-to-one. What are some of the ways that, that was inspired?
Glynnis Purcell (39:28):
Yeah, so the first thing I want to say is obviously Wilson, I’m coming at this from the position of a manager, and it is really difficult when your manager or the person you report to doesn’t have a similar mindset, or maybe they want the same things, but they go about them in completely different ways. I’ve definitely come up against that before, when I’ve been, as you’ve mentioned, leading up or trying to manage my relationship with my manager or my boss.
Glynnis Purcell (39:57):
One of the big things I always come back to is you’ve got to meet people where they are. And I’m going to say that again, meet people where they are. A lot of times we have ideas and we’re excited about things, and we don’t consider when you’re going to this person, where are they? Do you really understand the way their mind works? And sometimes we think our managers should be doing this, which I know Diana and I try really hard to do, but also I encourage my team members to think that way. When they come to me with something and they bring something to me with an idea, I really want them to own the process, but I want them to think, “If I was the manager, how would I react to this?”
Glynnis Purcell (40:38):
And it’s the same way that I interact with my CEO. I think, “If I was the CEO of this company, how would I react to this? What would my questions be? What would my thoughts be?” And I try and get my team to prepare for all of our meetings in that way, so that we’re meeting each other in a similar place. We can have an idea of how people are going to react to things, and so if you’re really coming from a place of understanding and figuring out where this person is, if your organization is struggling, if people have a lot of work to do, sometimes it’s not the right time to try and implement a new process. And it’s frustrating, but you’ve got to think, “Okay, what is a small step I can take to get there?”
Diana Asbury (41:24):
The other thing, coming into that, is that if you’re meeting with anyone, I have found that it’s really hard for people to process sometimes what you’re saying to them, especially if it’s new. So getting it out in written forms, a lot of times putting together a more specific agenda if you’re meeting, or writing out, we use Slack, so we’re always writing to each other. There are certain things that can’t come across in the written word, usually your emotions, but that can help when you’re presenting new ideas, especially if it’s really thoughtful, and you’re making sure that it’s a very clear what that idea is, and you’re addressing it that way. So hopefully that helps a little bit, Wilson.
Diana Asbury (42:07):
But I think the real core of this whole thing here is that you can also be allies with people. You can really help to, in the positive leadership world, as Glynnis said, meet them where they are and talk to them about what they’re going through, because that’s really where this all starts. Everyone is dealing with something such as mistrust, maybe the comfort factor or pessimism. And this year, I think a lot of people are dealing with pessimism. That explanatory style is huge. You do not need to be a manager to help somebody talk about the things that they’ve failed in the past differently. And you can look it up online. You can find explanatory style anywhere and just follow that process. So I don’t want to spend too much longer on this, but I really do hope that that helps Wilson, and if you have any further questions though, please feel free to ask.
Glynnis Purcell (43:00):
Yeah, and one last thing to tack on to the end there Wilson, is pick your battles. I know it sounds silly. You can meet people where they are, but if you know that person and you know where they’re coming from, figure out how important it is. And if it’s really important, then I’d say a 100% fight for it. Find different ways to submit the information and talk about it. But sometimes, as we’ve all learned, unfortunately, it’s just not worth it. And we got to relieve our anxiety beyond it by understanding what’s important and what’s not. I really hope that helps.
Glynnis Purcell (43:37):
Let’s jump into another one. We’ve got one here from Karen. “How do you get the team on board with a necessary increase in workload?” That’s a really good question, Karen. I’ll throw that one back over to Diana.
Diana Asbury (43:50):
Okay. Yeah, so I would guess that, unfortunately with layoffs going on, this is something that a lot of teams are dealing with, and getting a team on board when they’re already overwhelmed, they’re likely right now having to deal with childcare, working from home, things like that. I know even I’ve found that frontline workforces are struggling as well because they have team members who are out because they are sick, or people don’t really feel comfortable with working right now, so they’re dealing with a smaller staff, so this is a huge issue, Karen.
Diana Asbury (44:30):
I think this really comes down to, again, a sense of really understanding what people’s needs are. For instance, we don’t want to overwork our employees. We have a whole program on burnout, and that is always the scary thing, but I think first coming to them and saying, “I understand that this is an ideal,” and really having a heart-to-heart them in that way. And then understanding what’s really important to each of them.
Diana Asbury (45:00):
For instance, someone might say, “Listen, I understand you need me to work extra hours, but I really, really need to be with my kids for the first two hours of the day while they’re getting set up for school,” or as soon as the kids are off school. Understand their timeline in a day or in a week, and what really matters to them, and then try to shift things a little bit. And I think a lot of teams are doing this.
Diana Asbury (45:27):
And then with the workload, let’s talk about really narrowing down workload. And this is something that our system can really help with, but you could do it in a spreadsheet as well, so I’ll walk through this a little bit. But what I always look for is a couple of things. First, you want to make sure that every single project is laid out pretty specifically so that you know what time really needs to get invested into each project. Without really estimating that time, you don’t know how much time you have to really assign to your workforce.
Diana Asbury (46:00):
After you lay out the time, it’s important to then really look at priority. You want to look at what’s truly a priority? Where are the deadlines? What are the hard and fast deadlines? Where are things that can be shifted around a little bit? And then from there you want to look at, “Okay, who can do that work?” Like I said, our system really does help with this, it helps track time, move work around and things like that. And we certainly could help you with that, but let’s say you’re using a spreadsheet, you’re going to get really specific, you’re going to have an area where you’re going to estimate the time, you’re going to then have a priority area, and then you’re going to have to make some difficult decisions.
Diana Asbury (46:41):
You’re going to have to decide, “Okay, where do I really need them to work extra? And where can I shift some of this workload?”. I think getting more specific about what the work is and how long it’s going to take and who can do that work is really where you need to start. That sounds like a lot of work, and it definitely can be, but getting all of that organized will make things much clearer for you as a manager. I hope that helped!
Glynnis Purcell (47:12):
Great. Well, I think that we probably have enough time for at least one more, so I see Veronica has written in, “What if I do all of this and my team is still reacting negatively?”
Diana Asbury (47:24):
Oh man. Coming at me hard, Glynnis.
Glynnis Purcell (47:28):
I didn’t say that, Veronica did, dang.
Diana Asbury (47:35):
Veronica, yeah. It’s certainly a possibility. The reality is what we’ve talked about today, is a lot of things that deal with what’s happening only within the workplace. But if we can expand things for a minute going back to what we were talking about with Karen even, it is not just about what is in the workplace. Sure, that definitely is probably a factor, but in today’s world, our personal lives dive in. There’s a lot of things that could be going on in people’s lives, so I don’t think that reacting negatively is always solely because of what you’re doing as a manager.
Diana Asbury (48:16):
I would also say that it could be a lot of past stuff coming in. I talked about that when we were talking about trust. Depending on how long you’ve been managing the team and how long the employee has been there, sometimes there’s things that are culture in your workforce, and it feels like you can’t change those things, but I believe that you can. I would say if somebody is still reacting negatively, to probably go to them and really have a heart-to-heart and say, “Hey, I would love for you to be a part of this team. I find you really valuable, but I see that you’re really not jumping on board with this. Can you really tell me why?”
Diana Asbury (48:56):
I think one-on-one conversations at this point are really, really important, because you really have to get to the heart of it. And there’s a concept called the five whys. If anyone has been in management training, they’ve probably heard this before, but you can think of it like peeling an onion. You want to get to the core, but to do that, you have to keep asking questions. We oftentimes, and Glynnis says this from sales, we oftentimes ask one question and expect that somebody just know the answer. They should know why there’s a problem here.
Diana Asbury (49:28):
Oftentimes, we don’t. If you think about, going to therapy, how many meetings do you need to go to? So when you’re having this kind of discussion, you don’t want to react after they answer the first question. You want to ask the next question, and the next question, so that’s why they call it the five why’s technique, is to just keep asking why, and like an onion you’re peeling away the outside. So I would say have a heart-to-heart, peel away that onion, and I will say that if at some point something’s not working out, then you have to have a more specific discussion, maybe a PIP or something like that needs to be put in place. But I think starting first from having a true, honest discussion with them is really, really important.
Glynnis Purcell (50:11):
Yeah, and I think to echo what Diana said, just a couple of things. I always try and approach a situation with seeking to understand, right? Where is this coming from? And it’s interesting that you’ve said, if your team is still reacting negatively, because if it’s your entire team, where is that stemming from? Is there one person who’s driving this and having some negative talk? Or is this really something that maybe wasn’t thought through as well as it should have been? Just so you know, Veronica, I actually just implemented a new program here at work, and I had a negative reaction from one of my team members. I was quite surprised. To be honest, the person it came from it shocked me when he showed his skepticism. And I really just wanted to understand, why of all people was he reacting this way?
Glynnis Purcell (51:02):
And it was so interesting when we had a conversation. I’m not going to go through the whole thing, because it was a lengthy conversation. But as Diana mentioned, it partly had to do with things that had nothing to do with work, and partly it had to do with not feeling like he truly understood why this new initiative was being put in place and how it was going to support him personally. And we can really forget sometimes that, again, not just asking why, but telling the why of doing things and how it’s going to benefit you, because we talk about this all the time in sales, the why you do something is more important than the what or the how. Why are you doing something? If people understand why something is being done, they’re more likely to accept it or understand.
Glynnis Purcell (51:50):
And so that would be my suggestion is, if they’re reacting negatively one, try and figure out where that’s stemming from, if it is just one person or if it’s multiple people, and then really seek to understand, do they know why? Do you know why? We’re saying why so much right now, but it is the basis of all understanding.
Glynnis Purcell (52:16):
So I think we can go for one more. I’m sure we can give everybody a little bit of their day back. But I know we’ve got one last question here. Raymond coming back again, just asking if the training and support programs are included with a subscription? I can quickly answer that. Raymond, yes, they are. Again, since the poll is still up, maybe click that you would like some more information. I can get one of my team to contact you and we can walk you through how we help support you and your team, or if you really want to click and see a demo of the software. Like I said, no strings attached.
Glynnis Purcell (52:48):
With that guys, I think we can bring today’s program to a close, give everybody a few minutes of their day back. A few last reminders, as I said before, you will soon receive an email from us with a link to a survey. Please just take a minute out of your day to share your feedback. And if you do, we will send you our team productivity checklist as a thank you. And we will be sending you a recording that you can review and share with your colleagues. You should expect that later this week.
Glynnis Purcell (53:12):
We do have another webinar on Thursday, so if you have anyone you think would benefit from that, please let them know, have them sign up with us. And along with the recording, you’ll receive our guide to overcoming resistance to process change, and that will have the citations from today’s presentation.
Glynnis Purcell (53:27):
Once again, thank you so much for interacting with us today and thanks for your time.
Diana Asbury (53:33):
Thanks everybody. Have a good one.
