Organizational Change Is Exhausting

Hi, folks. This is All Things Product with Petra Bille and Theresa Corks And we're so happy you are here! Teresa Everything Is changing all the time right now. So even org charts team topologies We all have to rethink our organizations.

Um...and it's so exhausting. Are you having any ideas? and tips how org change would be less exhausting.

Yeah, I want to go back to the talk i gave at The Inaugural Product at Heart Conference where everybody can do continuous discovery even you and they're like. mantra of the talk was organizational change starts with you and my goal in the talk focus on adopting the discovery habits individually, right? And like that is what gets the snowball rolling and starts to lead to organizational change. But I think some people misinterpreted it as they're individually responsible for changing their organization.

And this where things get dicey. so i'll share an email. recently somebody emailed me I'm on a design team. My product managers need training, can you help?

This is our initiative! Yeah like other people in my organization that i'm not responsible for need training. okay we're starting in the wrong place Right? When I say organizational change starts with you, literally what are YOU individually changing?

not what do you want to change about other people. And then i got curious and was like okay well let's talk about is being asked of your product managers where they're falling short... What came out in the conversation? as a ten step gated process.

Wherever all of their work goes through ten phases each phase has like criteria for Yeah, and my conclusion was like I can't. I can help you Like first of all You're not in the organization that you want to train. That doesn't-that's weird. Second of all you're not an executive that's gonna like lead this change.

So like you have no power to influence. You have power to influence, but you've no power. change that ten step process. And I basically had say like i can't help you and she was pretty frustrated by it.

She's like why? And I had explain Like...you need an executive sponsor! This is a company wide process That your not gonna change yourself By.

Like. what are you gonna do? Go to your head of product and say, Your team needs training. Talk to Teresa like where is this going go how's it gonna turn out?

I usually have these kind three quick things that i usually throw at people when i have conversations like that And always make sure they understand that organizational change Is only happening if there is pain urgency and the awareness of help being available. And what she already has, yeah not your pain it needs to be organizational pain that an executive would experience for example? Yes! Then still even if they experienced a pain...

If urgency is not given nothing will change because people in organization are so good at ignoring. Only when it comes with a cost and becomes more urgent, then they're more likely to react. And still... They need be aware of help being available because that is basically creating the fertile ground for change actually to flourish!

What she can influence is that right. people are aware that Theresa would be able to teach or train but still other two are super hard to figure out. Yeah, how can she help executives feel the same pain like? I really Like wanted to help her understand.

is that organizations don't want a change? No unless they have too. If you're an individual contributor Your organization doesn't want to change like what your organization is doing today Is exactly? What got them where they are today?

and there's a significant percentage of people in the Organization that thinks everything works great. Yep, so like That's the first thing. Like their reason why organizational change starts with you And not you changing your organization but you changing you It's because it nobody else in the organization wants to change And so you're not gonna be effective at trying to get them to change. Like the point of my product at Heart Talk was we can't change people, full stop!

We can't changed people. The only thing that we could changes ourselves right? and So I think this is really relevant Right now because i hear from People all the time Not even with the discovery habits. Now Im hearing it With AI like I wanna Be an internal AI Champion How do I Get more Of My colleagues To adopt AI?

No, you just frame that as how do I change other people? So... We're gonna title this episode Organizational Change is Exhausting. And i want to see the title and believe it like don't do it!

It's exhausting. Don't waste your time Don't Waste Your Life. The way we influence organizational changes by changing ourselves. so if im not UXer & my product team wants me to change then what am I doing?

That's contributing to the way that my product team is working. How do I change? The Way, that i work To support the way i want us to Work. and then don't think.

Don't Think about it at the organizational level. Think About It At the individual Level. i'm a ux Designer. i Probably have A Product Manager Peer.

how Do i start A conversation About how the two of Us Work Together And Would Be More Successful because of that. I think that is the important part." Well, that was the point of The Product at Heart talk - is when we start with ourselves and people around us... When we create these collaborative examples other people in our organization get curious - and this how we influence.

it's not how you change but how Exactly, but the only exception from what you're saying is if your talking about people in leadership roles oftentimes because they sometimes can aggregate a pain that they see each and every team. And make sure it's senior executives seed or experiences as well until often times have to data at hand to be able create a bit of urgency. so But that's for if you're in leadership position already, right? That is not the individual contributor working on a team.

Sometimes pain just needs to be surfaced! I do think both individuals and executives can surface some of their urgency. so i see a lot teams they need change And if they advocate for the change instead of exposing. The pain requires that changed and this is a little bit I gave it talk called show your work at, i think one in mind products an idea like product teams make mistake advocating their conclusions instead of showing how they reach those conclusions.

The conclusions, yeah! And I think this is the same thing for organizational change whether we're talking about adopting the discovery habits or whether were talking new AI workflows whatever any changes right? You are always going to be more effective if you share knowledge that have helped draw your conclusion. Reach out to Theresa The pain that made you reach out to Theresa in this email.

Yeah, then by sharing the conclusion itself. right and This is the classic show don't tell Right? Show what you're doing. show the pain was exposed.

show a way To solve it. Don't tell people this is the right Way. like mm-hmm You know don't fall into the ideological war trap. That's just yeah everybody leaves.

Maybe there's one anecdote that I could add on the help available front, because we often underestimate how powerful it can be to bring in that information of hey others are struggling. In the same ways than we do and they're already books written about a topic or as a blog post their videos. their thought leaders their coaches their trainers is training them. YouTube videos available because I had quite a few clients that were having large product organizations, but they built them from within.

So without a lot of hiring from the outside rather traditional organizations not in the software development business in the past and exposing them for example to a conference like Product at Heart or mind-the-product back into days really opened up their eyes to, oh my God! There's so much more people out there that first of all do this as a professional job. So it's the thing... It is a profession.

you can level yourself up skill-wise and knowledge wise and competency-wise in that field. And they are already a lot frameworks out there A lot tools we could bring into practice and use. More often than not. organizations haven't even thought about that, which is crazy to me still.

But I saw it happening. so i still say kudos to the person reaching out to you because that's what she was trying to bring into saying like hey Teresa could help and dead ease beneficial but we need the other two. I want to be careful here. So, i do think...

I always wanna encourage anybody to share our work and introduce these new ideas and help people get exposed in. like product management is a thing there's some process around it And There are some skills and habits you can learn. But also make sure we're not encouraging people fall under the trap of if only knew what I knew You would agree with me Right? And then there's also this other piece to it.

So I want go back the person who emailed me, let say i'm a designer working at company and see that all my product managers are basically were being asked At beginning of each quarter to provide whole-quarter plan. The designers concern was like how do we do continuous discovery in model? She framed as my product manager need training. Okay, well actually it seems like the leaders need training because the leaders are asking for a whole quarter plan and That's not.

you can't really do a whole-quarter plan. And due continuous discovery those aren't very compatible Ideas. if the plan is here's to seventeen features. we're gonna build this quarter which is what they were being asked for in.

so Like let's just be real pragmatic about this situation like what can that designer? Actually do? She's probably not going to change quarterly planning. No, she's probably Not gonna convince her product manager not To provide a list of features.

that's what the product manager is being asked to do by his or Her boss right like. we're probably not gonna change those things What? We could do as we can say. Okay How did we in quarterly planning not just present this solution but also talk about The need were trying to address with this solution or the outcome we're trying to drive over the course of the quarter with these seventeen solutions.

Or, We could work with our product manager start doing some customer interviews take this seventeen solutions were being asked to deliver by that organization and start to frame them from point-of view. what learning for? my customers notice how I didn't focus on changing company process changing quarterly planning, I'm not changing the list of seventeen features. All those things feel really incompatible with continuous discovery.

they seem wrong and broken but I am recognizing what i can control on my own. What is likely to be successful doing? Adding more context adding customer knowledge Making those things better than they ever could have been without that customer knowledge. so I can still work all of the discovery habits with out changing my organization.

And positive things that may happen is for example people in the organization attending let's say a review meeting or something like that at the end of an iteration or quarter whatever their time frame. this, And then you talking about all these things that you were just mentioning and stakeholders sitting there in colleagues, think like this is actually the first time it adds up. It makes sense. I can see the same bright future than this team sees for a user or product.

That's way more fun! Next time people come attend your review meeting because of that they heard Interesting, informative inspiring maybe even and from there things can have a ripple effect. And then you may be influencing other teams and maybe Dan leaders start to realize things could be different here if we just wanted it to be different. I like that.

yeah i also see i mean i've seen this multiple times in many companies Rocket ship rising post. a child like this is good for your career And I think the challenge is we frame it wrong. The problem is always with other people Right? Yeah, so i think that key The mantra in my product at heart talk was organizational.

change starts With you But It Starts With You Changing You Not You changing Your Organization. and I Think That's Like maybe was missed by some people. Great that we got it out there again, Teresa! Thank you.