What You’re Getting Wrong About Change Management: and How to Fix It with a Project Mindset with Dr. Liz Lance, Suzanne Rudnitzki, and Karen Weeks

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Galen Low: Welcome to our session on managing high stakes change management initiatives like a project. Uh, we do events like this once a month, sometimes more than once a month actually, as a way for our members and our VIP guests to engage directly with some of the experts and contributors who help, uh, who help us like build great content and collaborate with us here at the Digital Project manager and at people managing people.

Um, for those who don't know me, my name is Galen. I'm the co-founder of the Digital Project Manager. I'll be your host for today. And I've also got with me an amazing mix of change management experts. I've got xo, pay president, Suzanne Rudnitzki, Dr. And Change Management, Liz Lance and Self-proclaimed HR nerd Karen Weeks.

Um, and also you will see, uh, the lovely face of people managing people's executive editor David Rice. Uh, I was gonna give him a day off today and like hang out in chat, but I'm like, you know what? Ah, how could I miss this opportunity to have David co-host with me? Uh, [00:01:00] so I'm gonna treat him like he's on the panel.

Uh, we're gonna dig into it in just a little bit. I'm gonna do formal introductions shortly, but I thought maybe first we could just like lean into tradition. So, um, just maybe let us know in the chat where you're joining from and maybe just like what your biggest work challenge has been lately. It doesn't have to be a long description.

Even just gimme like two words that sum it up. It could be like executive misalignment or conflicting messaging or so many valleys of despair that it may well be a mountain range full of despair with demons, ogers dragons around every turn. Okay, that was more than two words. Um, and while you're doing that, I'm just gonna go through a little bit of housekeeping for today's session.

Uh, so I should let you know that this session is being recorded and it will be available for members of our project management and people management community shortly thereafter. Uh, we may use clips of this, uh, on our website and our social channels. Um, but as attendees, your cameras and microphones are off by default, so you will not appear in the recording.

Um, but do feel free to use the chat. Uh, we love the chat, the. The chat will not be captured in the recording. Um, and honestly, we don't think it's rude for you guys to just keep a side conversation going, even if it has nothing to do with what the panelists are discussing. Uh, I want that expertise shared.

You know, we are not the only experts in the room. Um, share the knowledge, um, and support one another, and let's have a bit of fun. Um, speaking of fun, the last thing I wanted to mention is that we are actually running a sweepstakes contest, uh, for folks attending live today. Um, so to enter, just click that link that Michael will be posting in the chat.

There it is. Um, and just pop your name in. You've got a chance to win one of three prizes, which might be either a free download of the Change Cheat Code, which is a book written by Suzanne and Liz, uh, or an invite to an exclusive digital project manager or people managing people event. Uh, we are gonna run the draw around the 45 minute mark.

It, um, it won't be like all the bells and whistles, like, you know, whatever the, the, the, the keynote pull or, you know, like the, the balls from the lottery. But we're gonna announce, um, the winners around the 45 minute mark. Uh, just before we head into q and a. Um, and yeah, uh, be sure to pop over there, uh, and, um.

Enter for a chance to win. Um, we do have some VIP guests in the audience today, so if that's you, welcome. Um, this is just one of a series of monthly sessions we hold for our members who get access to a number of other benefits, including our entire back catalog of session recordings, our library of templates, resources and mini courses, as well as our flagship certification course, mastering Digital Project Management.

You can join in the fund by going to the digital project manager.com/membership. And if you've arrived here via people managing people, I'd encourage you to stay plugged into David's podcast, David's newsletter, uh, and David's very excellent LinkedIn post, uh, for some incredible conversations, actionable insights, um, and just great ideas for wrangling this discomfort of being a strong people leader.

Also, gardening tips. Yes, Michael has mentioned in the chat. All right, let's dive in. Um, today's session is all about making change management go right, and the role that a project management mindset can play in shaping champions, creating clarity, and driving adoption. Uh, so first, let's, uh, let's meet our panelists.

Uh, I'm gonna pick on Suzanne first. Uh, Suzanne Rudnitzki president and Chief Operating Officer at IXOPay. Uh, Suzanne, you have an impressive amount of experience leading impactful strategic change in organizations, organizations of all sizes. Uh, you've been A-C-H-R-O, you've been a chief people officer, you've been a Chief Operating Officer, you've been a business owner and an executive in residence.

Uh, you've seen change done right and wrong at scale. Um, and from those experiences, you've developed the model within your new book to change cheat code co-authored with Dr. Liz over there. Um, I'm just wondering, what, what made you decide to crack the code on something as complex as change management?

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Oh, I just watched people do it wrong so many [00:02:00] times and I thought I could just, if I could just help you.

This isn't hard. And you could go so much faster and you could start, stop torturing people through change if you just did a few of these techniques. And so I started teaching them. Uh, Liz was in a company I also participated in. We were colleagues and we started facilitating teaching it throughout the company and just saw what a change it made just a few simple techniques and we had more survivors after that in change processes.

Galen Low: I love those words. I love the word, uh, torturing themselves, which is accurate in my experience when it comes to change management done wrong, uh, and survivors. This is like, yes, this is what we want. We want people to, yeah, not only just get through the pain, but also get to the other side as well. Um, thanks for joining today.

Uh, next up, uh, who should I pick on next? I'm gonna pick on, uh, Karen. Uh, Karen. You're the CPO at obviously. [00:03:00] Um, I noticed that you recently did a workshop for the team at WeWork on how to give better feedback, and I was curious what was like one insight from that experience that was maybe a bit surprising for you?

Karen Weeks: I think the reminder, and it actually ties in really nicely with what we're talking about here, is no matter how long you've been managing your role, the size of your company, this stuff is hard. And it's why Suzanne, Dr. Liz wrote a book about it. It's why I do workshops on feedback and managing skills because it is hard and you constantly need to be building that muscle or refreshing that muscle.

Thinking about how things in the world have changed things. You know, giving feedback or managing change in office is different than doing it remotely. And so just remember remembering those things and having those refreshers. And so we had people in the room that had four people on a brand new startup team and some people that were leading and VPs at major financial [00:04:00] institutions and all of them were sitting there going, Ooh, yeah, I don't do that very well.

Or, Ooh, right, yep. I need to be doing that. So this is for everybody. Uh, everybody always needs a good refresher.

Galen Low: I love that it's such a good skill and I love that tie back in as a, it's part of the core muscle group for change management. Done well, uh, re receiving feedback, soliciting feedback, also giving feedback and creating that environment where people can give feedback to your change initiative, uh, that actually gets listened to and not just been.

That's awesome. Uh, and last but not least, uh, I'll go to Dr. Liz Lance, um, executive director at Q Life Network. Um, Liz, you literally have a doctorate in the impact of change management within the m and a process and also why people leave their jobs. Uh, what is the biggest myth people buy into around employee churn and staff turnover?

Dr. Liz Lance: Oh my gosh. This was a very hard lesson learned, turned into research, and then turned into insights. And it's that money doesn't solve [00:05:00] the problem. Throwing money at the problem does not solve the problem. And that an individual's decision to stay with an organization has everything to do with if they feel that their work matters, that they know that it's gonna matter a year from now, and that they have clarity, it's actually okay if through an acquisition integration, you're going to sunset some products or change some things, that's okay.

What is not okay is avoiding giving that news and just having people work on things continuously that you know aren't gonna matter because they find out and it, it's this feeling. And so it's not about money. It's about does my work matter? Do I know where this company's going and do I have a spot in this organization?

I.

Galen Low: Boom. Oof. They find out like truer words have never been spoken. Um, and yeah, talk about big change m and a is one of those big changes that people are always coming at me with. It's, you know, it creates that instability and yes, when that value isn't sort of recognized or understood. Yeah, [00:06:00] it's good reason for someone to leave.

Uh, and I'd be remiss not to drag David into this, uh, David, gosh, man, how do you, how do you grow cilantro?

David Rice: Uh, you gotta live in the right environment. It's gotta be cold enough and wet enough. That's what I've realized. I tried growing it in Florida for years and I never got anywhere. So when I moved to, uh, Atlanta, it's cold enough and wet enough here in the spring that you can get it to do something. So, boom.

Galen Low: There you go. There you go, folks. Move to Atlanta Cilantro abound. Um, alright, let me, let me tee this up. Um, I'll try and do it quickly and we'll get, we'll dig into it. Um, but here's the way I see it. Uh. You would be probably hard pressed to find an organization that does not have a big change initiative at the forefront of their strategy these days.

You'd probably also be hard pressed to find an organization that isn't struggling with change management at almost every level of their operations. But some of the most successful change initiatives don't just do a good job of communicating and managing expectations. They [00:07:00] are planned to the last detail, and they are executed with finesse.

They have contingency plans, and they've got advocates, and they paved the path for adoption long before any changes begin to roll out. And while some of us in the room today might be like, yeah, duh, because change management is a project. There's actually quite a lot of project management magic missing from the way that organizations approach even their most high profile transformations.

On the flip side, you'd also be hard to, uh, you'd be hard pressed. You would be hard pressed to find a project that isn't creating some kind of change. And yet many projects don't actually have a change owner. Sometimes it needs a project manager to advocate for change considerations, and sometimes the project manager needs to play the role of the change owner.

So really today what we wanted to do is like cross the streams a bit and find the most impactful ways that change management can benefit from the project management discipline and also how project management can benefit from the change management discipline. Um, and so [00:08:00] I'd start with the most difficult question of all, and that might be its own session, um, but I thought I'd just like.

Crack this open as why do folks in the professional world like to think that change is easy and what makes it so much harder than anyone ever expects? I thought maybe, maybe I'll pick on Suzanne first for this one,

Suzanne Rudnitzki: it change is hard enough as an individual. We have our own struggles to make changes and then when you roll it out with other people, you just multiply that by an infinite amount.

And so people try to cheat the code all the time. Like they try to shorten it. They think they can save people from the pain. They might not tell them the why and change to, to not waste their time. And if they don't follow all the steps, they think they're helping people. It's really making it much harder.

And every excellent project manager I've ever run across has really good change management skills. And many times in organizations I've [00:09:00] seen them brought into a project where change management has not been considered. And the really strong project managers that I've seen raise their hand and say, back up the bus, let's plan the change, as well as let's plan the project because these things are in parallel.

So it takes some bravery to do that, especially if it's a, a executive change order coming from on high. Do this at this time by with these dollars, and someone has to say, wait a minute, we should think about the people and we should think about how this affects them, and we actually have to bring them with us for this change, which can't just.

Say we have to do it and everybody like sheep follow us. It's not what happens, but we can make this easier. We can follow good process. And again, those great change managers are brave people sometimes to stand up against whoever initiated the project and said, Hey, we need to think about this, but they're the successful [00:10:00] ones.

Galen Low: I love that opener of just like we think we're sparing people by not telling them or by shortening the process like this like sort of allergic reaction to change, to be like, okay, we'll do the dirty work and we don't have to like draw anyone into this. Um, and it should be fine. That'll be, that'll go well

Suzanne Rudnitzki: and we make, we do one more thing that's worse.

We tell people their emotions. If you want one leadership skill, I can pass along right now. Stop telling people their emotions. 'cause every time you say You're gonna love this, this is gonna be great. All people think is, it's not, I'm not, no way. And they back five feet up. And you actually make change harder by telling people their emotions.

If you feel free to tell 'em your emotions, but you cannot, if I told you Galen something, you are gonna love it. Your human mind starts saying, wait a minute, I need to be suspicious about this. So that's one of these tips. And change management. Don't ever do that. And if you have someone around you that gives people their emotion, just like [00:11:00] give them a pill or something, say, do not do this.

You are making your life hard all over the organization.

Galen Low: That is solid advice. Super solid advice. Karen, I, I thought I, I'd ask you like, does that track with your experience and change like our, um, yeah. Some of these, uh, sort of strategies and pitfalls, things that, you know, you've navigated in the past.

Karen Weeks: Well, it's really interesting because I think, especially 'cause so many companies I've worked for and with are in the startup world. They're built for change. We're meant to change, we're agile, we're this da da da da. And that's actually what holds them back from understanding the impact of change. So all of that can be true.

And there's still change fatigue, there's still fear, there's still uncertainty, there's still excitement. But what's gonna happen next? So I think sometimes we lean too much on a value of, you know, one company I worked for is, we're comfortable being uncomfortable. Yes. A thousand percent. Yes. And [00:12:00] over the last five years, we were uncomfortable too often.

Mm-hmm. And so it's also okay to say, oh, we need to think more about this. So I think sometimes we accept the, oh no, we're built for this. We wanna do this. People love this here. That's why they're at a startup. And it can be all the things that are tough too. And that's why frameworks and processes and project management is so important.

'cause it doesn't matter if that's in our DNA, it still has to go through the same process.

Galen Low: Mm-hmm. I like the theme that's coming out, which is like no shortcuts, don't like shortcut the process because you think you're being merciful. Don't like tell people how they're feeling. So you can shortcut that like emotional journey.

Don't shortcut these communications. Don't shortcut like into like even values. 'cause yeah, that resonates with me a lot like this, this notion of like, yes, like we change all the time, but like, you know, to your point, change fatigue. And I think I saw someone in the chat post as well, like change exhaustion is a real thing.

Like we need to like recognize this and not try and shortcut our way through because we're just not built for that, [00:13:00] for these shortcuts to just like skip over the bits that we think are gonna be traumatic. Instead, maybe we can have a process that like takes that into account. Maybe we can have communication that really takes that into account.

I really love that. Uh. Uh, you know, speaking of like some of this communication and this transparency, um, one of those like change management best practices that I hear all the time is to involve the right people early, but it's not always answered. Uh, like, who are these right people? So I thought I'd ask, well, I've got these experts here.

Like, who are the right people? Who are these right people to involve early and like when is early enough to involve them? And then maybe most importantly, like how do you invite them in and position change in a way that doesn't, like freak them out or tell them how to feel or like make them like an instant resistor of the idea?

Uh, Liz, maybe I'll throw to you change management doctor.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yes. So who are the right people? I think it's so important to start there because we often think that the right people are just other leaders like, Hey, this is happening. Tell your [00:14:00] folks that's not good enough. The right people are those who are going to experience, execute or amplify the change.

This has very little to do with titles. This has much more to do with those that hold influence in an organization, those that others look to for kind of that sense making of what's going on. And is this good for us? Ooh, so not about titles. Um, there is a practice called Using a Change Champion Network also, which is to find people in an organization that are influential, that help share information and share information with those folks and say, tell me what's wrong with this idea.

Here's what we're thinking about doing. Tell me what's wrong, what have I missed? And to get that feedback and to do that as early as possible before decisions are finalized so that when, uh. Highly knowledgeable, highly influential person, and that organization says you missed a spot that you can fix that before it goes live and avoid looking like you didn't know what you were doing.

Um, this is especially important when you enter a new, [00:15:00] when you enter an organization as new because how do you know about this thing that was done five years ago? You gotta ask somebody. Hmm. So gathering the people that are going to help share, influence, uh, the other people and say, here's what we're thinking about doing.

And then always including that why portion. Because if you are just saying, yeah, here's what I think we're gonna do, what do you think? People are not gonna understand why you're trying to do that thing unless you tell them. So what I like to do, and we'll talk about how to kind of bring folks along, is to frame it as an exploration or an experiment.

Hey, I'm thinking about trying. How might we. Have we considered those types of questions? And be really honest in that stage as well about what you don't know, don't think you have it all put together. We are very, very tempted always to wanna show up and look very polished, put together, fully baked. But actually if [00:16:00] we take that back and say, here's what we're thinking about doing, what do you think about this?

What have we missed? And being honest about that uncertainty, you get so much more information and collaboration such that people think they're part of that solution or part of that change, and they'll come along with you. And this is so important because people resist what they don't help shape. Hmm.

When people, they love for it to be their idea. So bring them along with you and make them part of that change. They're much less likely to block it. And if they do raise concerns, that's not resistance. Actually, that's. Acknowledgement. And that's a good signal that you're making your way through that change process.

Uh, and that's what you need. So it's everybody that can be influential as early as possible, framing as an exploration or an experiment, and be really honest and transparent about what you don't know, and bring those folks along with you.

Galen Low: I love that sort of like feedback tie in. Karen, I'm thinking to you as well, right?

Like that's this notion. Well, it's so funny because like change management, I find that like, you know, this might be like the [00:17:00] old school side of change management, but a lot of change management that I've experienced is kind of like the strategy to cram something down somebody's throat. Um, and like, and then even this notion of change champions, you know, to getting like advocates on board early, who can kind of amplify that change.

As you said, Liz, like, um, I've seen it done as like you're recruiting someone, like you're trying to like draft them into the army. Well not draft, I guess. Like you're trying to recruit them into your club, you know, you're like, I'm going to be Wiley and convince them, uh, and they're gonna love it, right?

You're gonna love this. Um, take these pills. Um, and that's actually not what it's about. It's actually a genuinely asking for input to collaborate with. Folks whose opinions you respect or think that you might need to respect, but like bringing people along. I really do like that. Um, I, I have this, uh, so David was kind enough to queue up a poll.

David and Michael, um, uh, we, you know, talking about this sort of like early stage stuff like, you know, when do we, um, add people into this mix, you know, when are, who are the right people? Um, but [00:18:00] honestly sometimes like change management is like not even brought in at the beginning. So like this notion of early, um, can differ, uh, depending on when you're actually able to be in there and have agency and have any influence over what's happening.

Uh, so we've thrown it up there, uh, as a poll. Um, apparently hosts and panelists can't vote, but I was really eager to. Um, but yeah, basically it's just asking, you know, at what stage are change managers typically brought into your projects? Um, at the beginning, midway. Only when there's resistance, uh, or they're not brought in at all.

Uh, so I'll leave that up for a bit and, uh, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll share the results as we go, but feel free to get in there. Um, I wondered, Suzanne, if you could, uh, if there's anything that you wanna add to, um, just this notion of like who the right people are, identifying them, um, and maybe even the when as well.

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Yeah, I think there's, Liz said it, and there are different people you need to bring in for different things. Also, I saw your [00:19:00] poll, like when do we bring things in? I would advocate that we bring different people in throughout. We might bring some experts when we're planning change that help us with the strategy.

We bring executors in the company in when we are thinking about how we execute so they can change. And I see there's some interest in the change champion network. So let me give you an example. In the COVID era, which I'd like to forget, but in the COVID era we had a change champion network at the company that I was COO of.

And we used them to check changes. Here's what we're thinking. What, what do you think? What's wrong with my idea? And we would just be very open. And so one of the changes is we had a relocation policy of how we were gonna allow people to ask to relocate because we were not coming in the office. It was during COVID.

People needed extra support in their family systems. And so we wanted to come out with some rules because we didn't have any. And we were making it up. There was like, no, you couldn't go to SH RM or Project Management Institute and figure out what had people had done before. 'cause no [00:20:00] one had ever done it.

Mm-hmm. So I wrote what I thought was a really pithy email, like explaining our new rules. Right. And I brought it to the Change Champion network and they told me how awful it was. They said, this is cold, draconian. People think you're mandating things in their lives. And I'm like. Wow. Like in my mind that was just the best thing we could have ever done.

Like make it clear to people and their advice to me was record a video, Suzanne, because it's you talking like a human to other people who are having human experiences. And I've never even thought to do that. And because the Change Champion network were so honest with us, we had a much better outcome. So I recorded the video, sent it to them, they had more changes.

So I changed the video, but it ended up not blowing up the company because I had checked with people who truly cared about their colleagues and the messages. And that's an example of bringing people in. At that time I had to bring executives in to get [00:21:00] the rules approved and I had to bring executors and values champions in from our change champion network to to give some advice on rolling in out and executing that.

Galen Low: I love that. Change Champion Network, David. Go for it.

David Rice: Well, I just wanted to ask though, you know, 'cause something I've seen go wrong with the Change Champion network was that essentially leadership was trying to use them to sort of fix structural issues. Almost like, are you on behalf of a broken structure?

And then that almost created like a lack of trust around of everybody around these champions is almost like they're the uh, they're the new company man. You know, like, I guess kind of talk about like, uh, I'm curious some of the things that you can kind of do wrong with a change champion network and, and what are some of the common mistakes that you see?

I think.

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Um, I can answer it and Liz has some experience. I don't know if Karen does too, but boy, don't get all the people who love you in that network. Like really get the people who are gonna tell you [00:22:00] what everyone's really gonna say. Like, so I don't want the company people, I want people with all the diversity, the new people.

I want diversity in ages. I want diversity in departments. I want everyone from all, and I rotate them out. One other thing that I do in a change champion network is we train them on how to be change champions. So there's two things that I've seen gone wrong. Either the company doesn't trust them because they feel like spokes models.

That's the wrong way to use a change champion network. And the the other thing is that it turns into a complaint session when you go into a session with them and you need to arrange it. So it's productively giving advice and people aren't wasting their time. They see that you're doing something with the advice that they're giving you.

And then they can really champion it because they were part of it. And Liz, you've been part of a lot of those, so you probably have seen a lot in addition to me.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yeah, I think the train, the training part is so important because you're, you're [00:23:00] helping these, you're teaching these people exactly why you've brought them into that space, right?

And really being on part of that network is a change. So help them understand why, why were you invited? What are we hopeful that you'll do? It's both giving feedback and helping others understand, um, and. Clarity. That clarity is kind and switching them out is also kind for that organization. And the reason for that is that you want multiple perspectives and an organization's culture will change over time as well.

Suzanne and I were in an organization that was doing a lot of merger acquisition integration, and so we grew in my tenure from 200 people to almost 1500 people. You would expect that change champion network to change in size and shape and who's part of it because you wanna bring differing perspectives and experiences in to make sure that when you're driving that now larger organization forward, that you're doing it with a lot more well-rounded champion network.

Boom. [00:24:00]

Dr. Liz Lance: I love that. In just a.

Karen Weeks: Just to add one quick thing to that, especially for folks that are in maybe some smaller organizations, I've also used this group as like culture champions. Mm-hmm. And so it's, change is a part of that, but really it's a group and to uh, everybody's point, you know, they, they come in and out.

I usually do it for like six months. Mm-hmm. And then you sort of rotate in and out. But they were based on people who won or who were acknowledged for living our values. And so in several of my previous companies, we had peer nominated value awards every, uh, month or every quarter depending on the situation.

And those were the people that were then invited to the, uh, culture champion team for six months. And we talked about a lot of different things and change was one of them. So that's another way that if you have something like that, that could be some of your change folks, you could have that group be a mix of a bunch of different people.

But that's personally where I've sort of found those people.

Galen Low: That's sort of rotation aspect of things. I think it's super cool.

Dr. Liz Lance: I [00:25:00] also wanna be really clear that this is not a party planning group. Yes. This is like, this is completely different than that. I know it can be tempting to get a group of folks that are influential in an organization together and start planning those types of things.

But this is a completely different focus of this group. Um, you should also have a party planning group because that's also fun. But this is completely different. This is about how can we make sure that we are creating an environment which we can all do our best work and we can all thrive, and that it's reflective of the community.

Galen Low: That's super cool. Well, and the other thing I really like about it is that, like, Suzanne, you had said it right, it's like sometimes different people at different times and you know, we were talking about when is early enough, but actually this is like a phone, a friend, always, always available sort of thing.

Like this response team. Um, I thought maybe, uh, Michael's got the results of the poll already. I thought maybe we can kind of like put it up on screen and just react to it a bit like in chat here on the floor as well. Um, pretty decent mix actually. You know, I mean, I think, uh, overall, [00:26:00] uh, I, I, I'm seeing it sort of, um, uh, a very optimistic index or like, um, in.

Gosh, heartwarming is not the word that I wanna use. But anyways, I was happy to see that 31% of the respondents, uh, you know, said yeah, change managers are, you know, involved at the beginning, uh, 27% midway, uh, 17%. Only when there's resistance and 25% they're not brought in at all. And I think, you know, uh, I'm seeing in the chat as well, you know, like, they're like, oh, you know, like, uh, what does this role do, right?

Like, who, is it a separate role that gets brought in as a change manager? Could it be a project manager if there's no change manager? Um, and I thought maybe we could actually like, dive into that because part of what I wanted to do today is like, you know, we, we open to talking about. How you can't shortcut the process, how like this needs to be planned.

Um, and then Liz, as you're talking about like mergers and acquisitions, almost every m and a that I've been involved in basically didn't really have a plan usually because they're like, well, we don't know what's gonna happen. Like we, we did our due [00:27:00] diligence, but like, who knows how this is all gonna integrate or who the right people are or like, what's gonna happen.

So we actually didn't have a plan, but one of the things that we talked about as we were prepping for this session was this notion of like, okay, well, like maybe it's not as much about roles as it is about sort of sensibilities or skills. Um, and you know, I, I had written the question, I was like, oh, how can high risk change management initiatives benefit from strong project management and how much is too much?

But I thought maybe we could flip it around and start like talking about like the role of a change manager versus the role of a project manager maybe as responsibilities more than individuals. Because I think there's an opportunity for both sides to like get a sense of what's the right level of understanding, like.

Either craft to be able to get things done. Um, and I'll just add that there's a load of people in my community, project management community, you know, they're all doing their ad car, you know, they're getting into like change management certifications because they're realizing that the projects that they are leading are change management initiatives and they ought to know something about [00:28:00] this.

Um, so I know that wasn't really a specific question, but I thought maybe I could throw like to Karen A. Little bit about, you know, you mentioned smaller organizations, you mentioned startups, you know, in a world where maybe these aren't two individual roles where it's like, Hey, you know, Batman is your turn and Robin's over here in the wings.

You know, how can we build these processes? Like what, what skills are involved?

Karen Weeks: I think one thing that you mentioned is it is less about titles and sort of what's written on paper and as you're going through a project, figuring out those roles and responsibilities within that project. Um, you know, I'm sure you can use a good old fashioned racy chart or whatever, you know, pick, pick the tool of your choice, but really figuring out who is doing what in the organiz in the project.

Not just literally, but the roles they're playing. And so if you don't have a specific PM versus change management person who is going to be thinking about the change piece, and maybe it isn't the project manager, maybe it [00:29:00] is, um, someone else on the team who's a influencer who's going to end up being your change champion.

So they're already sort of thinking about it. Maybe it is someone who is in more of a leadership role to at least be thinking about the broader impact. Because really when you think about change, there is a. So many human elements to it that a project manager may be owning in the sense of, okay, I've built out the Trello board, I've done the things, um, this task, this task, this system, this system.

And then you need those line items for communication impact, taking time to digest, you know, sort of those human pieces of it. And so maybe that's the project manager, maybe not. And it's looking at the project team and saying, who is the best person? Whether it's work styles and personalities and sort of that piece of the brain, whether it is, it's already sort of baked into their role.

So maybe they're already gonna be thinking that way. Maybe they just have a proclivity for that. So who is the right person to think through that? And to min to your point around like those skills, [00:30:00] it is gonna be able to think through. Who is, who is impacted, who's gonna have to think about not just the why of the change and what's literally changing, but how is it gonna happen?

Am I gonna be trained? You know, what concerns might people have, who needs to know what when? And so it's really putting that puzzle piece of the human piece behind it to sort of figure it out. And so I think that's the question to ask. And then you can figure out the right person if you don't have all the literal titles on a project team.

Galen Low: I love being a good racing matrix, but also I love that idea because like, you know, I've seen it on a plan to be like, okay, yeah, like, you know, this week we're gonna sort out whose impact, we're gonna do our impact matrix and then we'll be good. What I've never seen on a Gantt chart is like, let's let this sit so people can process.

Like, this is a two week window where people are just, you know, maybe asking questions. It's not like a task, it's a, it's a timeframe for change. Um, which I personally have never seen in a sort of project plan as a project manager. Uh, I love that [00:31:00] idea. L Liz, you're my, you're my crossover here because Liz Yeah.

Is my project manager who became a change manager, who became a project manager again. And now you're kind of both, um, I'm curious actually, I'm curious about your journey, like what, like took you in to sort of like from a project perspective into a change perspective, um, and also your thoughts on like, roles.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yeah. Um, well. You, you made me think of something. So I'm gonna start here.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Liz Lance: Project managers love to announce a change and then start training people on it immediately, assuming that that information's gonna stick and that people are into that, that is absolutely not the case. Uh, we like folks like to do training well in advance of when a change is gonna happen, but really that training should only be done when people have heard about the change.

They've worked through the Oh, sky's falling apart and have gotten to, okay, this is happening. What do I need to know? [00:32:00] Uh, only it's only then that you can start talking about how something's gonna work and what needs, what they need to physically do differently. And you talk a little bit about my transition from project management into change management.

And really Suzanne. Suzanne got to witness this and coach me through it as well. But project management, strong project management creates that predictability, right? You get the, I like to talk about it as that red phone rings, you're called to go fix a project. Okay, great. If people know what's coming from you, it reduces fear.

Clear timelines, defined roles, visible milestones. That is project good, project management, hygiene, great table stakes. But those are also psychological anchors that help people know what's coming and trust and that builds trust with your team. But what actually you need to be doing, like strong project manager.

Management plus change management is, everybody knows what's happening with the project management part. You have a playbook, you run it great. It's the change [00:33:00] management where that's the art part, and it's knowing here's what's happening, who it impacts, and spending the time on managing the change.

Project management is a playbook. You can find many different playbooks. Some of them are this big, some of them are this big, but change management and leading change effectively defines your project success. You can be the best project manager on earth, have all your Gantt charts and all your checklists and all your dates, like great love that for you.

But. If you are not managing the change and the change is not adopted and people are not using what it is that your project then produced, then you have not achieved your goal. So that change management portion, and I unfortunately learned that, uh, through failure, right? This happens to us all. Why didn't this work?

Why did nobody read my emails? Mm-hmm. If you've ever, if you've ever thought that, why does nobody know about this? I saw something recently where somebody was working on a US federal holiday and [00:34:00] somebody's like, why are you calling me on this day? And his answer was, what do you mean today's not a work day?

It's a Monday. What's wrong? It's like, no. An email is not sufficient. So project management, table stakes. But then on top of that is that change management and being, being yourself very human and thinking about what do people need? What are they thinking about asking them? Very important, ask them. Uh, but then navigating that such that yes, the project team is handling the project great, but you are really focused on the change.

And one other tip I would give is your job as a project manager, change leader is to repeat yourself countless times. Do like, try not to get annoyed, repeating yourself because that is part of your job. People need seven different impressions of things to actually understand and have it remember and make it stick.

So your job throughout that is to talk to everyone about what's going on and [00:35:00] repeat yourself constantly. The project management part that's kind of mechanical, it's the change management. That's an art.

Galen Low: I like that framing that it's an art. Yes.

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Lemme build on that because I'm gonna take Dr. Liz and make a doctor analogy.

If you are good at change management and leading change management, think of yourself as that doctor that is looking where the patient is to know what to do next. And that's why it's so important to understand the process of change. 'cause you've got diagnosed. Where is your team? Where are we in this process?

Because you give different medicine at different times, and that's the art of change management. So if you are the change management professional, or you're the project manager who's in charge of change management. You're the doctor, you're looking and saying, oh, this is what you need. Now let's give you a little water.

It's time for aspirin. You need this. And so if you understand change management really well, what you are good at is diagnosing [00:36:00] because what people get wrong is they try to do things at the wrong point in change. Mm-hmm. Right. They try, as Liz said, they try to give you a seminar on how to use the new tool, and you're still way back there trying to understand why we have a new tool.

If you give the wrong medicine at the wrong time, you're gonna kill the patient. And so it's so important to understand how to look at the situation and understand the change you're pre change, stage you're in, and then what to prescribe next. And I, I, I am trying to plug my book, but this isn't a plug for the book.

We have four change stages and the most important thing is first, what stage are you in? And second, what do you do in that stage? And so it becomes pretty mechanical then. And you switch from art to science and that's what we want to get people to so it becomes more rote. A project management is, Liz said is, you know, you have a playbook.

You know what to do. You know your best tools. Now we can give you the same thing in change management. And [00:37:00] that's, you asked me in the beginning why we wrote this book, why we got the cheat code out. It was because of that. Let's get this from art to science.

Galen Low: I love that. And maybe we can go there actually, because I'm, I'm, I'm really interested in this notion that, you know, we're talking about this thing that's very high eq, very like sort of, uh, human, uh, more art than science because, you know, you have to be paying attention to what people need at any given moment.

Uh, and then the thing you mentioned, right, is like, actually we boiled it down to like four stages, so that's a little bit easier to grasp. Um, can you walk us through this like cheat code model, um, and maybe how it can like map to like the lifecycle of a project or a change initiative?

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Sure. Um, I think we have the model, right, Liz?

Yeah. Oh yeah. He's got it. Here we go. And so here we go. We boiled it down to four words that rhyme, that like, when you have a common vernacular and people can remember it, that's all you want, right? And so here's your [00:38:00] stages. Everybody hears about the change. Takes some longer to hear and understand than others.

They, in either a nanosecond or three months from now will go deep belly fear, like the world is falling. Then they get to, oh my gosh, we actually have to do this. How is it gonna work? And then they go, oh, that was easy. Why don't we do it again? Right? And so that's the cheer stage. And if you look at that, walking it through, imagine that people were just hearing about the stage about the change, and you jumped right to the near stage and started telling them how to do it.

You, they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You need need to let me go through fear before you take me there. I always like oversell this curve. So I'm gonna shut up and let Liz do the rest because I like could stay here for four hours.

Dr. Liz Lance: Well, the beauty of this. And so what we're talking about is turning something that feels like in our into a repeatable process.

And the difference [00:39:00] between this change cheat code model and many other models that you find are that it's not specific enough to say, go get this thing and do it this time. Right? We, there's a lot of very scientific models. This is about navigating the emotional part that will otherwise ruin your good change.

Um, so that's, that's how we take something that feels artful and make it a repeatable process, make it that, uh, change cheat code method model, right? Um, and what I love most about this and what Suzanne and I found in teaching this to what ended up being over a thousand people is folks would be in a conversation about a change and say, Hey, I'm in the fear stage.

I'm not there yet. Here's what I need. Mm-hmm. Because we, we established common language throughout groups. This is why I love doing group training on this model, because anytime you, you see somebody go, Hey, not there yet, here's what I need. You have achieved this kind of next level of [00:40:00] consciousness with your team, and you are acknowledging that change is hard, but that you can work through it together.

It's, it, I should also note it's possible to slide down this curve from near back into fear. And so it's, it's that roller coaster. It's, it's not smooth, it's bumpy. You can slide, but it's your job as a project leader and a change manager. Try and shorten that path. So think about what can you do to support others in the fear stage to help them get to near more easily.

And that's change. Champion networks. Running an experiment, doing a pilot. Um, there's so many things that can happen there to help people understand what's going on and to see that change for themselves before it happens. And then in near, near, my favorite thing to do in near is to go see, see it in action, go see a field trip, go experience it somewhere else and see it working so that you have a mental model.

I'm the type that likes to watch other people [00:41:00] do something before doing it myself. My mom even would say, you would not go down the water slide until you saw someone else do it first. Mm-hmm. And that's that same thing in near sometimes people wanna see something happen and wanna see it in action for others before they wanna do it for themselves.

And so there's tools that are presented in that near stage to help with that. Uh, if we were to get. Technical and map it to project stages. And really, I'm starting to think more about the project management portion as being internal and the change management portion as being very external, right? You have a small project team, but your change impacts a lot of folks.

I would maybe split it that way. Um, but of course initiation and planning you could think about as here, and this is for the project team. This has, this is not the change part. The project team is hearing about a change in initiation and planning, but the people and impacts probably aren't gonna hear about it until way later.

So you have to think about these two things as separate [00:42:00] but interdependent on each other. Uh, but very much thinking about that change portion as not change within your project team, but change for whom that project impacts. Mm-hmm. Um, Suzanne did something really clever at one point that I didn't understand at the time, which was.

I was leading a project management organization that was also a change leadership team eventually, 'cause we got good enough with the project management that we then got to focus on change. And we were very, very closely aligned with our training team, our internal training team. And I thought through this and finally got to the point of, oh, it's our job as a project team to plan.

And unfortunately, inflict change on this organization in the way that the leadership team wants to. And it's the training team's function to help people understand what's going on and to help them through these stages and to it to get into near and suddenly have systems training and job guides and webinars and all these things that you need.

And so while it doesn't seem [00:43:00] like a natural alignment, it was so critical to moving things along swiftly. And I'll loop this back to m and a integration. First thing you do when you're gonna combine a company is teach them common terms, teach 'em common language, facilitate change management training. And so that's what we would do.

And so we would acknowledge, yeah, this probably feels like it sucks. You didn't pick this, you got a new job overnight. You ain't just super hard, but we're here for you and we're gonna help everybody through this in the way that they need to be supported. Um, so that's how I think about it now, is internal project management and for anybody that it impacts, that's the change leadership part.

Galen Low: Boom. Let give, I like that notion of sliding around. Yeah. Go on. Lemme

Suzanne Rudnitzki: give you one tangible test. So everyone on this call, if we could just change the mental model that when you see everyone in front of you screaming, yelling, and resisting the change, I want you to say to yourself. Hey, we're already at stage two.

Fear. [00:44:00] This is good. Only two more to go like in. And what we always do is say, why is it so hard? Why are they resisting? And if we just open up to this is what's gonna happen, you don't get to skip this stage. So like, great, bring it on. Stage two, ready for three. Mm-hmm.

Galen Low: Love that silver lining. You know what's interesting about this whole thing?

And then I, I do wanna get to questions, uh, from the audience 'cause I see them coming in. Uh, but you know, from the beginning of this session, like the, the words we use around, like, speaking of common vernacular, the words we use around change management are actually quite violent, right? And as you said, inflict, and I was like, that is accurate.

We're inflicting change. Uh, we're talking about, you know, surviving change. We're talking about valleys of despair. We're talking about like, the language is so severe because the, the feeling is so severe as humans, we experience it as severe. And that's why, you know, Suzanne, you're like, Hey, if you don't give 'em the right medicine at the right time, you're gonna kill them.

Actually is quite apt and true, not like death and change management, but that's how severely we feel it. I think that's really, it's an [00:45:00] interesting, um, interesting lens to put on it. Um, I think

Karen Weeks: that's, just wanna jump in real quick. I think that's one reason why sometimes getting people out of that fear stage can also be reminding them what's not changing.

So when it feels like so much is happening around you, um, you know, I don't know if we're gonna get to it, but like the role of the manager or some of those change champions can talk about, yes, this is happening and I'm still your manager. We still have these KPIs. This is still your day to day and that helps ground people and that might help them get outta that valley or not slip back down into it.

Galen Low: Absolutely. I love that. I do wanna get into sort of like the role of the middle manager. Um, I think maybe we'll blend it into q and a. Uh, what I'll do is, uh, you know, I'm looking at the time. I'm like, we got like 11 minutes left. I promised a giveaway. Uh, we should definitely do that. Um, so, um, I'm just gonna give, uh, uh, maybe Michael's been giving heads up in, in the chat.

Um, I talk a lot, so that means if you haven't. Enter to win, yet you've got about 30 seconds, so go and do that now. Um, and, uh, well, yeah, we're gonna be closing that off for entries. Uh, Michael's gonna be drawing some winners. Um, also while you're doing that, uh, and if you've already done that, I should mention that, you know, we love doing these things.

We hope you love doing these things with us. Um, and we'd just love feedback. Like we'd love to see you, uh, either a giving feedback in that survey, we'll post it later, but also just like maybe having you at some of our other live events, uh, David and the team at People Managing People are hosting another event tomorrow actually, about how to perform reductions in force, uh, retain the right people and maintain trust with your team when facing executive pressure to reduce burn.

Um, it's designed to be like a playbook on how to be human throughout the process. Um, not just like operational. Again, kind of coming back to this sort of empathy and this, um, you know, the, the way that we, I. We feel the feels, actually, it's not all just like business. Um, it is actually, you know, quite an emotional thing.

Uh, Michael's gonna put a link, uh, to that event he has already. Um, so feel free to register for that. That's tomorrow. Um, also for the folks from the digital project manager, actually anyone really we'll be hosting, uh, the team that built Calendly on June the 10th, they're gonna be talking about how they are using AI to deliver major releases without a project manager, which is kind of Click Beatty.

They're a Scrum team. There was never a project manager, but we just wanted to lift the hood on. You know, how AI is helping some of these teams self-organize in a distributed environment. Uh, so we also popped that registration link in the, uh, chat. Uh, I did mention, you know, we'd love feedback on these sessions.

Um, not to like inundate you with links in the chat, but, uh, also we'll be posting just a, um, a link to a survey. Um, and yeah, just let us know what you thought of today's session, some ideas for things we can cover in the future. And, and, and. Okay. Now we are going to announce some winners for the sweepstakes.

Uh, if your name is selected, please send a DM to Michael in the chat to confirm your email address with him so that we can send you an email with the details about your prize. Um, at, you can message Michael in the chat window or you can send him an email after the fact, Michael at the digital project manager.com.

Uh, alright, so with the drum roll and drum roll help from my panelists. No, you don't have to. Gom. Just kidding. Uh, we've got winner number one. Winner number one is Nicholas Graham. Nicholas, if you're in the audience still, if you didn't have to run to your next meeting, uh, already, um, you have one. Uh, and Mike will be in touch.

Or if you could just confirm your email address with Michael in the dms, that would be great. Uh, winner number two, drum roll. Uh, I'm gonna, but your name, I'm so sorry, Jessica. Op, um, I hope I'm kind of pronounced that somewhat right. Um, but Jessica, if you're still in the audience today, uh, congratulations.

And also if you can get in touch with Michael, um, and winner number three, I've got as Aviv Casby. So Aviv, uh, again, congratulations. Um, and if you're in the audience, if you can kind of get in touch with Michael, uh, and that would be great. Congratulations to all those winners. Um, I'm just actually getting word from Michael.

I did that thing where I touched my earpiece, but he's not in my earpiece. Michael's let me know. We've also picked a few bonus winners because he just likes giving stuff away for free. Um, so, uh, bonus winner number one is sun or soya. Uh, and the other bonus winner is. La Evanson la I hope I pronounced that somewhat correctly.

Uh, and if you're on the audience, um, as well, then um, please get in touch with Michael. We'll get you hooked up, uh, with some of the prizes. Um, and if you are not one of the lucky winners today, but you're still interested in the book, you can find out more about it at the change cheat code.com. Michael, uh, is gonna post a link for that to you in, in the chat.

Um, and. I probably took too long to do that, but we've got seven minutes left and maybe we can sort of do like a lightning round on some of the questions from the audience. I know it's a deep topic, we'd love to do a follow up. Um, but let's, let's dive in. Uh, so

Dr. Liz Lance: can I plug one thing? Yeah, please. I'm just gonna interject and plug one thing.

If you grab a copy of the change sheet code and you go to the change sheet code.com, there is a space there. Suzanne and I have developed an AI [00:46:00] change coach. We have trained an AI to know everything about how to lead change and everything that's in that book. So if you buy a copy of the book, you go to our website, let us know, and it will give you access to that AI change Coach.

So if you wish that you could talk with me or Suzanne about how to lead your change, you can, it's in there. Go grab it. It'll walk you through checklists, examples, video scripts, email templates, the whole bit.

Galen Low: Boom. That's so cool. Robot Liz. Robot Suzanne, uh,

Suzanne Rudnitzki: it told me I'm in their head. Yeah.

Galen Low: Uh, I love that very much. Um, let's go to some of the questions from the audience. So, um, first one here, uh, uh, I've got as, is it helpful to quantify change that is being made? And if so, how do you quantify it? Like, do you have some kind of rubric for quantifying change? Yes. Opened up. Oh, why? Tell me [00:47:00] more.

Dr. Liz Lance: Okay. Uh, yes, we definitely do. So there's different sizes of change. Who does it impact, et cetera. And there in our book, uh, in section two, which is a playbook. The first part is about the model and the theory and the stories and the sec. The second part is a playbook. And in the playbook section, there's a table that talks about the size of the change, who it's gonna impact, gives an example, and then says, okay, here's what you should be considering in terms of communication and planning.

And this is in the here stage part of the playbook because it that quantify change that's being made. Do you have a rubric? Usually that's everything about the communication. Small change, small communication. Personal is better, big change. Tons of communication. Are people gonna hear you the first time?

No. So it's your job to help. Everybody get enough impressions of that information so that they understand. Um, so there is a rubric in our book, uh, in section two in the here stage.

Galen Low: I love that sizing because, you know, we've talked about big change and small change today, right? And it's [00:48:00] like small change is sometimes a thing that we screw up the most because we're like, ah, you know, to your point, we'll just send an email.

Didn't you get the memo? Um, yeah, it can actually cause a great deal of damage. Yeah. I would

Dr. Liz Lance: maybe also add one tip here, um, because if you're thinking about how to quantify and if there's a rubric, you're probably thinking about some specific things that you're concerned about. A little tip of advice I would give is if you know that there's somebody who would really benefit from receiving a message early and personally, such that they can react at you.

Suzanne gave me this. She, she gave me this honor many times. She'd call me and say, Hey, I need to tell you about something. And she let me hear, she let me ask questions. She worked through some of my fear, right? We're talking about how do you shorten that path and to let somebody hear from. You personally ask questions and react in a safe space if it's something that's big and impactful is a gift to that person.

So think about that as you're thinking about that. Who can I talk to that they'll make this like 25% [00:49:00] easier to talk to these four people?

Galen Low: I love that.

Karen Weeks: And not to give another plug to my manager or friends, but it doesn't have to be a manager of course. But that is a great place to leverage the management team.

They have those relationships with people on the teams and know them best. Hopefully they've created that safety to have those conversations. So they're often a great person to use as like a follow-up to say, okay, so the thing is out there now, what questions can I answer? How are you feeling? What are you thinking?

I don't necessarily have the answers, but let me at least hear 'em out. I can probably bring them to whoever's leading this. So they can be a great bridge in those moments, um, depending on how you're using them, uh, throughout the rest of the change.

Galen Low: I love that it's not like hierarchy, it's actually almost like this intuition, right?

Not because you are on the management team, but because maybe as part of the management team you kind of intuitively understand like who some of these champions could be, who you might need to loop in. Um, I do kinda like, uh, this other question as well, um, sort of building onto that, which is like, how [00:50:00] do you make, how do you allow change champions to have enough time to be change champions alongside their other work?

You know, it's kind of like a committee, but it seems like it's on top, right? It's like, it's not like I'm gonna do two hours less of work, uh, this week because change is happening. Um, so yeah. How do you, uh, manage to convince people to put in effort, uh, to champion change?

Karen Weeks: In my experience, the people who are the right people will want to be a part of it and they won't see, I mean, yes.

It's an extra hour. I'm not negating the fact that they have other work to do, but the right people won't see it as, oh my God, you're asking me to do something else? Because they'll want to help things be successful. They'll want the business to succeed. They'll want the team to succeed. And so that's actually one of the things you might be looking for as you're thinking about who those people are, is that maybe an honor is too strong of a word, but like they'll see it as an opportunity to help others, you know, sort of navigate that and look at the end of the day, I don't mean to sound like that HR person, but like doing [00:51:00] it over lunch and bringing in pizza makes a difference.

And so I know in a remote world that's harder, but finding ways to do it to support the fact that they are doing other things and building it into something can also be helpful too. At least in my experiences.

Suzanne Rudnitzki: Yeah. And I don't, I wouldn't wanna create, like, you give us this, we give you this with a quid pro quo, and you get into a slippery slope if you say, I need you for an hour here.

So you're relieved of an hour of that because you just get into like pez dispenser mentality. I, uh, I get this, I get this. And so the people to, to Karen's point, pizza, bring 'em in, honor them. People like to be asked their opinion. And you know, a t-shirt that says Change champions. So they're like.

Identified throughout the company. It, it's good for their career, it's good for their work life balance because they're part of the balancing of work. And so it's not about the hour, it's about you valuing the work they're doing there. And then don't be [00:52:00] jerks and schedule the meeting at 6:00 AM or something.

You know, just be kind. But I, I've never in, uh, loads of experience with these, these groups, we have never relieved them of work to do this, uh, in any situation. It's just not possible. It's in addition and it's okay to acknowledge that, hey, we realize this is in addition to your work. Thank you.

Galen Low: I like that acknowledgement and not the Pez dispenser model.

Dr. Liz Lance: And to comment on Suzanne's not scheduling it at 6:00 AM it's okay to hold multiple sessions with a global organization, hold multiple sessions. Totally fine.

Galen Low: Boom. Love that. Um, I did run the clock out entirely. We are out of time. I see a question that's a really good one about are you using AI in change management?

Maybe that's another session. Let us know when you fill out that feedback survey, if you'd like to dig into that. Lots of great questions here. Sorry that I didn't get to them all. Um, but I should be respectful of time and let y'all carry on with your day. So folks, there you have it, uh, to everyone in the audience who's still here and hasn't run to their, uh, meeting, uh.

Their next meeting. [00:53:00] Thank you for being here. Thanks for being a part of this. Um, please take a second to fill out that survey. Michael's gonna post in the chat one more time, let us know what you thought suggests another topic that we can cover in the future. Uh, and of course, uh, a huge thank you to our panelists for volunteering your time today.

It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of really good gems. There was so many like, like little nuggets of insights there that I think we can all take away with us. Um, so thank you again. Thank you David, for hanging out with us. Um, and I saw you in there in the chat and everything like that. Um, we'll see you all again real soon and have a great rest of your week.

Karen Weeks: Thank everyone. Thank you. Bye.

Galen Low: This is that awkward part of the session where we, we hang out and then we're like, wait a minute. Doing a debrief or not. I always hang out. Alright. Yep. Well, we'll give folks a moment here anyways. No secret sauce here. There's secret, we're not gonna secret sauce. Talk badly about any of these. The secret sauce

Dr. Liz Lance: is usually hoisting it.

Sure. Absolutely.

Galen Low: Not being an expert. So I, I have a, I have a friend who's got like an, an entire separate pantry cupboard of different soy sauces. Um, they're just for different purposes, different sort of, yeah. I have

Dr. Liz Lance: specialist soy sauce arriving today.

Galen Low: There you go. Is poison also like that? I should, uh, I, I'm like visually, I probably should know this.

Dr. Liz Lance: No, there's just some standards in hoisin. There's, there's like Asian food, um, staples Really. Um, and go to an Asian market and you'll find out, uh, that that is. That's what I do labeled Secret Sauce Vietnamese.

Michael Mordak: I just did some Vietnamese So Sauce recently. I think it was Vietnamese and it was, it was different, but like, in a good way.

In a really good way. It was delicious.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yeah. I've noticed that Kiku men seems a little bit watered down in this last batch that I've gotten.

Ooh.

Dr. Liz Lance: Because that's what, that's what's commercially available here. I can buy that at the restaurant store. It comes in a jug. Um, I cook for 15 people at least three times a month at our house.

Um, 15 plus often. Wow. We have two tables that seat 10 and they're full most of the time. Wow. Um, and so I go through, I go through a lot of soy sauce, um, but today I have some dark, like super dark soy sauce arriving because, um, even between, at least here, between Chinese and Japanese restaurants, the soy sauce, if they're the soy sauce packet you'll get especially, are different.

Um, and it's, it's just different watering down of the sauce.

Michael Mordak: This is, uh, like for the few folks that are still here. They're getting all the real insights from the call today. I know. Soy sauce. This is always meant to be about soy sauce. This is all separate chapter of the book about soy sauce, actually.

Mm-hmm. The addendum. Yeah.

Forward.

Michael Mordak: Um, okay. We've got almost everybody out. Um, that's okay. I mean, again, sometimes there's like one person who's very stubborn and their account won't get

Galen Low: No. Come hang out for the debrief. That's cool. Yeah. You know, that's what I mean by No, that's how we actually got to the no secret sauce thing, isn't it?

All I meant to say. If you want to hang out, we're gonna debrief. Um, this is something we do and this is us optimizing our product and making change and making plans for that as well.

Do I need to leave?

Galen Low: No.

Okay.

Michael Mordak: Well, it looks like Suzanne, I know, I think I know that Suzanne had somewhere to go. This

Dr. Liz Lance: Suzanne and Karen left.

Um, yeah,

Michael Mordak: it's all good.

Dr. Liz Lance: What do you think?

Michael Mordak: I mean, that was the, like, was amazing. Yeah, there was, it went like. It's, it's webinars, like sessions like this where I wish that we could just have like a a half day conversation where folks get, just get to go off and follow every tangent because I mean, obviously everyone, everybody here could have spoken about that for just hours and hours.

Um, and folks were absolutely loving it. Like there were so many people active in the chat, um, re who were like resonating with the messages. And, uh, yeah, I think this went really, really well. It was a good balance, like having the screen share up was good so folks could kind of put some of that, get the visual.

Um, and yeah, I liked the way that, like I, Liz, I know you were jumping into some of the, the messages as well to, to respond to people in the moment because we weren't gonna get to all the Q and a, so that was super helpful.

Dr. Liz Lance: Mm-hmm. Good. Was it.

I completely agree that we could have spent a half day, uh, we could have done four focused sessions. Um, very much so. Just so you know, uh, Finn and I have a AI and hr here's what actually to do, um, article in the works right now. Cool. Which is very cool. Nice. I've spoken on a number of different AI focused panels.

Mm-hmm. And I answered a couple of the questions in there. And really the answer is that AI is a tool and it does not replace the human component. And change is very much a human thing. So if you teach a ch an AI how to lead change effectively and give it like some steps, then that can be helpful. But it will never be, it will never be the change manager.

Galen Low: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Liz Lance: It just can't. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Love it.

Galen Low: Thank you for addressing the questions. That was the thing I felt the most badly about was that I, uh, from a timekeeping standpoint, I know there was a question we didn't get to about, like, the role of the middle manager. I was like, ah, I really wanna get there.

But we, we didn't have time, but I, I don't think it was, you know, like I wouldn't sacrifice anything that we had done before then to, to, to talk about it. And then the questions, I saw lots of them coming in and I was like, I don't know, like, you know, not all of them were like, questions that I think were, you know, just to be brutal about it.

I'm like, yeah, we can an there's an answer somewhere for that person. Yeah. Uh, even if we don't get to it. Um, but yeah, the fact that people were like submitting so many questions and I'm seeing the little red badge and I'm seeing you add it to the doc and I'm like, man, I feel bad that we're not gonna get there.

Michael Mordak: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I'm curious like, Liz, from, from a panelist's perspective, like would you be, like, would, would it be, um, much more of a lift to spend an extra like 30 minutes if we just had like a 30 minute q and a open, kind of open q and a period after the main discussion? Or would that be kinda getting too long?

Dr. Liz Lance: I think that's fine. I, I think it can lead to some really exciting questions and maybe even, um, could even do like an, I know Galen does open office mm-hmm. Or office hours, but you could even do a, like, Hey, for this one we're gonna talk for 15 minutes. Um, here's some material you can brush up on if you want to beforehand, but we'll give you enough to participate.

And then we're gonna spend the time on your questions. And that's what I really like about Lean Coffee, is that it's about the participants. It's not about the presenters and the, and that everybody gets to help each other.

David Rice: Yeah, that's a good point. Well pretty do like, you know, like if you kind of take the session and you boil it down into, let's say.

15 minutes podcast, right?

Mm-hmm.

David Rice: But then take 15 minutes and go, all right, it's the green room. Afterwards, Galen and Liz are gonna chat about the questions we didn't get to and you like do it like that. You kinda like followed up and you build on some of the key concepts that you had. Mm-hmm. You know, that we're in the podcast episode where that we're in the session.

I dunno if maybe that's a way to consider doing it too. And you could even do that live possibly. Uh, yeah.

Dr. Liz Lance: The after party.

David Rice: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yeah.

David Rice: Invite a few attendees to it, like a handful that we're really engaged or the people that ask the questions and say like, ah, if you have time, you know, we'd love to have you hop on and, and join in.

And,

Dr. Liz Lance: and that's much more like if you were doing something in person.

Yeah.

Dr. Liz Lance: People would linger afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. And they would talk to each other and they would ask a question. I wish there was a way to convert a webinar into a meeting.

Michael Mordak: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Liz Lance: Right. Like webinar panelists after meeting.

Michael Mordak: Well, one thing we could do, and we've, we've done with like the DTM community is we'll actually set up two different Zoom calls.

So one is the webinar and then the second one is the, um, the meeting. And so yeah, folks can, like, everybody can attend the first one, and then for the second half we just like send out a link to a few folks that we are inviting. And in the DPMs case, it's just members, right? That they get that one.

Dr. Liz Lance: Right.

Michael Mordak: Um,

Dr. Liz Lance: but yeah. And maybe that's a way to drive membership is when mm-hmm. Because the energy builds to the end of these calls, right? Yeah. And that drops. So you could say, okay, we're going into our member moment, and then just everybody that's a member gets to continue and participate. They join a meeting, they can be present, they can ask a verbal question.

Mm-hmm. Um, and it feels like you're giving them more access than non-members.

Michael Mordak: Yeah.

Dr. Liz Lance: Because that's what membership is about.

Michael Mordak: Yeah.

Dr. Liz Lance: Is access.

Michael Mordak: Yeah. Yeah. The exclusivity and that kind of, that being, you know, one of the only people that's in that room afterwards, so you can kind of be part of that moment.

Right.

Dr. Liz Lance: Maybe it's two members and they get all three panelists to answer their questions.

Michael Mordak: Well, I mean, I like two is probably a bit extreme, but like, like five, 10 people. I think you know it down and like having people like you. Could I, I mean in this case, because p like for people managing people that was involved in this one doesn't have like a, a membership per se, but you could do like applications for example, people could apply to be, to, to enter kind of the, the private q and a afterwards.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yeah, exactly.

Michael Mordak: Yeah. Cool. We will have the

Galen Low: notion of free account soon, which might get to your point, we could find highly engaged members within that. Um, but yeah, I do like that idea. I think it's super cool. Yeah. Okay. This was great.

Dr. Liz Lance: Thank you for doing this.

Galen Low: Thank you for doing this,

Michael Mordak: Liz. I mean, yeah, Liz.

Oh, sorry. Go for again.

Galen Low: No, no, no.

Michael Mordak: You're going. I was just gonna say final, uh, count, um, from the session. Uh. Well, just from the, from the giveaway, we had 78 people enter the giveaway of the like hundred. Oh, that's

great.

Michael Mordak: Yeah, of like 120. There's about 130 people that probably tuned in over the course of the entire call.

Just given that some people kind of come in and out. Um, but the final comment i's someone one say they

Galen Low: bought the

Michael Mordak: book. Yeah, someone bought the book during the call. I dunno if you saw that. Someone

Dr. Liz Lance: bought the book during the call. That's great. Is that a

Michael Mordak: plant, Liz? No. Yeah, it's funny, but we have 5 million people register so they'll all get a follow up as well.

Dr. Liz Lance: Good. Um, book sales don't actually show up on a dashboard until they've been fulfilled because Amazon does print on demand. Um, so I won't see a bump for a couple days, but we have had a few days of zero like book sales. We've sold 28 books this month. It's book sales are slow.

Yeah.

Dr. Liz Lance: Um, so I've sold 28 physical books.

I've also sold 20 audibles. Um, soon to be more so it's, it's just about the marketing and I have to do like 200 of these types of events. Yeah. Um, to sell 208 books. Uh, but, you know, you only have so many friends and family and colleagues that are gonna buy your book and then it's, it's to the public. Yeah.

Um, but it's hard to know like from the cover of it, what it's about and what's going on. And so to get the experts in the room is so much better. Yeah. So chop it up and podcast it and put links in there and, um, yeah. All sorts of

Michael Mordak: things for sure. Yeah. We'll keep making noise about it.

Dr. Liz Lance: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Michael Mordak: Yeah. One, one member that was, uh, on the call, Ryan Gilbert, you probably see all the time. Yeah. Um, I was like, I sent, because he was coming late and he messaged me in Slack and he was like, I'm gonna be there late. Um, so I sent him the link directly and I was like, by the way, we, we've all also had this giveaway, so you should enter it.

And he's like, oh, I already bought that book.

Dr. Liz Lance: Nice.

Michael Mordak: So there you go.

Dr. Liz Lance: Yay. We love that.

Michael Mordak: Yeah. Yeah. But that thanks again, Liz. Amazing. Thank you. And um, we'll, uh, we'll be touch actually one thing. Yeah. Um, I'll send you an email after. 'cause I wanna get like, make sure I have all the directions right for that, um, that, that giveaway.

Um, I know you gave me those codes, but, um,

Dr. Liz Lance: yeah, it's just go to that website and enter the code.

Michael Mordak: Oh, okay. Straightforward. Okay. Sweet. All, I'll send that, that email out to those few folks that want it and we'll be all set and if there's any issues, maybe I'll just connect you with them.

Dr. Liz Lance: Okay, cool. I have no d pm and PMP articles coming in the next couple weeks, so.

Michael Mordak: Sweet.

Dr. Liz Lance: Enjoy.

Michael Mordak: Right on. Okay. All right, talk soon. Thanks folks. Bye.